In contrast, Luanna always seemed very shy and hesitant in my presence. Her voice was usually quiet to a point I sometimes had to strain to hear her, and she had a habit of looking down, then peering up at me through her lashes ... as if she felt I could bully her physically or verbally, but trusted me not to. I can't speak for other men, but it always made me feel ten feet tall ... very powerful and with an overwhelming urge to use that strength to protect her from the hardships of the world.

Thinking of her while trying to appraise what I would want in a wife, I found myself dwelling on the image of finding her waiting for me at the close of each day ... and realized the image wasn't all that objectionable. In fact, once she surfaced in my memory, I found myself thinking of her quite a bit whenever I tried to sort out my current position, and more than occasionally wished I could see her again before I had to make my final decision.

As it turned out, I got my wish.

I was in my room, making another of my feeble attempts to make head or tail of the stack of spreadsheets that Bunny and Grimble kept passing me on an almost daily basis. As those of you who have been following these adventures from the beginning may recall, I can read ... or, at least, I had thought that I could. Since undertaking the task of sorting out the kingdom's finances, however, I had found out that reading text, which is to say, words, is a lot different than being able to read numbers.

I mean, we were all in agreement as to our goal, which was to eliminate or lessen the kingdom's debt load without either placing a staggering tax burden on the populace or cutting so much off the operating budget that the necessary administrative operations became non-functional. As I say, we were all in agreement ... verbally ... with words. Any time there was a disagreement between Grimble and Bunny on particulars, however, and they came to me to cast the deciding vote or make a decision, they would each invariably support their side of the argument by passing me one or more of those cryptic sheets covered with numbers and not much else, then wait expectantly as I scanned it, as if their case had just become self-explanatory.

Now, for those of you who have never been placed in this situation, let me offer a little clarification. When I say I can't read numbers, I don't mean that I can't decipher the symbols. I know what a two is and what it stands for and how it differs from, say, an eight. The problem I was confronted with in these arguments was trying to see them in relation to each other. To do a "word analogy," if the numbers were words, both Bunny and Grimble could look at a page full of numbers and see sentences and paragraphs, complete with subtleties and innuendos, whereas I would look at the same page and see a mass of unrelated, individual words. This was particularly uncomfortable when they would pass me two pages of what to them was a mystery novel, and ask my opinion on who the killer was.

Even though I knew they knew I was a numeric illiterate, I had gotten awfully tired of saying "Duh, I don't know" in varying forms, and, in an effort to salvage a few shreds of my self-respect, had taken to saying instead "Let me look these over and get back to you." Unfortunately, this meant that at any specific point in time, I had a batch of these "mystery sheets" on my desk that I felt obligated to at least try to make sense of.

Anyhoo, that's what I was doing when a knock came at my door. In short, I was feeling inept, frustrated, and desperately in need of diversion.

"Yes?" I called eagerly, hoping beyond hope that it was news of an earthquake or attacking army or something equally disastrous that would require my immediate attention. "Who is it?"

The door opened, and Massha's head appeared.

"You busy, Hot Stuff?" she said with the respect and deference she always shows me as my apprentice. "You've got a visitor."

"Nothing that can't wait," I replied, hastily stacking the offensive spreadsheets and replacing them in their customary spot on the corner of my desk. "Who's the visitor?"

"It's Luanna. You remember, the babe who almost got us killed over in Limbo."

In hindsight, I can see that Massha was both expressing her disapproval and trying to warn me with her description of Luanna, but at the time it didn't register at all.

"Luanna?" I said, beaming with delight. "Sure, bring her in. Better yet, send her in."

"Don't worry," Massha sniffed, disdainfully. "I wouldn't dream of intruding on your little tete-atete."

Again, her reaction escaped my notice. I was far to busy casting about the room quickly to be sure it was presentable ... which, of course, it was. If nothing else, the maid service in the castle was stellar.

And she was there ... standing in my room, as lovely and winsome as I remembered.

"Uh ... Hi, Luanna," I said, suddenly at a loss for words.

"Skeeve," she said in that soft, low voice that seemed to make the simplest statements an exercise in eloquence.

We looked at each other in silence for a few moments.

Then, suddenly, it occurred to me that the last time we saw each other, she had left in a huff under the misapprehension that I was married and had a kid.

"About the last ..." I began.

"I'm sorry about ..." she stated simultaneously.

We both broke off abruptly, then looked at each other and laughed.

"Okay. You first," I said finally, with a half bow.

"I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted the last time we were together. What I heard later from the rumor mill at the Bazaar convinced me that things weren't what they seemed at the time, and I felt terrible about not having given you a chance to explain. I should have looked you up sooner to say how sorry I was, but I wasn't sure you'd even want to talk to me again. I ... I only hope you can forgive me ... even though there's no real reason you should ..."

Her voice trailed off as she dropped her eyes.

Looking the way she did, so demure, so defenseless, I could have forgiven her for being a mass murderess, much less for any minor misunderstanding between us.

"Don't worry about it," I said, in what I hoped was an offhand manner. "Truth to tell, Luanna, I was about to apologize to you. It must have been terrible for you ... coming to me for help and walking into the ... ah ... situation you did. I've been thinking that I should have handled it a lot better than I did."

"That's so sweet of you, Skeeve," Luanna said, stepping forward to give me a quick hug and a peck of a kiss. "You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that."

Not surprisingly, her brief touch did strange things to my mind ... and metabolism. It was only the second time she had kissed me and the other time I had been in the middle of conning her out of a handkerchief so I could get Aahz out of jail. All of which is to say I was far from immune to her kisses, however casual.

"So ... ah ... What brings you to Possiltum?" I said, fighting to keep my reactions from showing.

"Why, you of course."

"Me?"

Despite my feigned surprise, I felt my pulse quicken. I mean, I could have assumed that she was here to see me, but it was nice to have it confirmed that I was the sole purpose of her visit rather than a polite afterthought.

"Sure. I heard about your new position here, and figured it was too good a chance to pass up."

That didn't sound quite so good.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, I'm getting it all turned around," she said, cutely annoyed with herself. "What I'm trying to say is that I have a proposal for you."

That was better. In fact, it was a little too good to be true. While I had been indulging my fantasies about Luanna as a possible wife, I never dared to think that she might be thinking the same thoughts about me ... as a husband, I mean, not a wife.