Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,249

to a sight that opened wide her shining green eyes.

The door made a tinkling sound as it closed, drawing her attention. There, on the inside knob, hung Oliver’s golden-brocade shoulder belt and baldric, lined with tiny bells. On the floor directly before the entrance was a green stocking, topped in silk. Further in lay a pair of green gauntlets, one on top of the halfling’s signature purple velvet cape. Beyond the cape were a pair of shiny black shoes, impeccably polished. The line of strewn clothing continued with a sleeveless blue doublet, the second stocking, and a white silken undertunic, crumpled against the foot of a huge, four-posted bed. Oliver’s wide-brimmed hat, one side pinned up tight and plumed with a huge orange feather, hung atop one of the corner posts—how the diminutive halfling ever got the thing up the seven feet to the top of it, Siobhan could only guess.

Siobhan let her eyes linger on the hat a moment, considering the feather, drooping as though it, too, had spent too many hours of the previous night in high partying.

With a sigh of resignation, Siobhan folded her dress carefully over her arm and crept closer. She covered her eyes and snickered when she spotted the halfling, facedown atop the oversized down comforter, arms and legs out wide to the sides and straddling a pillow that was larger than he. He was wearing his breeches (purple velvet, to match the cape), at least, but they were wrapped about his head and not where they belonged. The half-elf moved around the mounting stairs, a set of five for the little halfling, and right up to the side of the bed.

How might she wake the little one? she mused, and snickered again when Oliver let out a great snore.

Siobhan reached over and flicked a finger against Oliver’s shining, naked buttock.

Oliver snored again.

Siobhan tickled him under the arm. The halfling started to roll over, but Siobhan, with a frightened squeal, put a hand on his shoulder and held him in place.

“Ah, my little buttercup,” Oliver said, startling the half-elf. “Your bosom does so warm my body.”

Siobhan couldn’t tell for certain, but it sounded as if Oliver was kissing the pillow under the breeches-wrap.

Enough of that, Siobhan decided, and this time she reached over and gave the halfling a stinging slap.

Up popped his head, one pant leg flopping over his face. Oliver blew a couple of times, but the material was too heavy to be moved that way. Finally the halfling reached up and slowly pushed the obstacle out of his eyes.

How those brown and severely bloodshot eyes widened when he saw Siobhan standing beside his bed in her petticoats, her dress over her arm! Oliver slowly shifted his gaze, to consider his own naked form, then snapped his gaze back to Siobhan.

“Buttercup?” the dazed halfling asked, and a smile widened over his face, his dimples shining through.

“Do not even think it,” Siobhan replied evenly.

Oliver ran a hand over his neatly trimmed goatee, then through his long and curly brown locks, taking the pants off as he went, as he tried to piece together the events of the previous night. Most of it was a blur, but he remembered a certain maid-servant . . .

The halfling’s eyes nearly fell from their sockets when he realized then that Siobhan wasn’t in his room for any amorous reason, that she had come in to wake him and nothing more, and that he was . . .

“Oh!” Oliver wailed, spinning about to a sitting position. “Oh, you unabashed . . .” He stammered, choking with embarrassment. “Oh, where is my sword?” he howled.

Siobhan’s eyes roamed down the halfling’s chest and lower, and she gave a mischievous smile and a slight shrug of her shoulders.

“My rapier blade!” the flustered halfling corrected. “Oh, you . . .” Oliver fumed and leaped from the bed, fumbling with his breeches and nearly tripping over them as he struggled to put them over his moving feet. “In Gascony, we have a name for a woman such as you!” he said, spinning to face the half-elf.

Siobhan’s fair features tightened into a threatening scowl.

“Dangerous,” she said, a pointed reminder to the halfling.

Oliver froze, considering the word and considering this most beautiful of females. Finally, he gave up and shrugged. Dangerous was a good word for her, Oliver decided, in more ways than one.

“You could have knocked before entering my private room,” said the halfling, in controlled tones once more.

“I nearly beat your door down,” Siobhan