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  Jamie was silent for a few moments, seeming to sense Bliss’s reluctance to speak of her childhood. His thumb continued its disconcerting work along the inside of her wrist.

  “I have a brother,” he told her, at length.

  “I know,” Bliss responded, possessed with sweet misery. “You’re in love with his wife.”

  Jamie let go of her wrist and sat straight up in bed. “What!” he demanded.

  “You told me so yourself.” She started to leave the bed, but Jamie pulled her back.

  “I said I loved her,” he admitted. “But I didn’t mean it the way you’re thinkin’,” he said, with that Irish lilt in his voice. “She’s a sister to me, is Maggie, and nothin’ more.”

  The importance Jamie attached to convincing her of this secretly pleased Bliss. “I see,” she said coolly.

  “Why am I explainin’ to you, anyway?” he muttered, folding his arms across his chest with such force that the whole bed shook.

  Even though Jamie was no longer holding her hand, Bliss made no move to climb off the mattress. “How should I know why you’re explaining, Jamie McKenna? As far as I can tell, you’re a maniac. Why, if my papa knew that you were forcing me to share your bed, like a common strumpet—”

  Jamie laughed and turned onto his side, facing Bliss. The light of the moon caught in his fair hair and glistened on his white teeth, and the odd, achy sensation in the depths of her, at once pleasant and frightening, grew worse.

  Or better. It did depend on how one chose to look at the situation.

  Ever so gently, Jamie McKenna touched Bliss’s lips with his own. A delicious tremor went through her; she used the only defense she had.

  “Is this what you do with your Maori woman when no one is around?” she asked ingenuously.

  His chuckle was a wholly masculine sound, rumbling up from deep inside his broad chest, vibrating against Bliss’s lips. Instead of answering, he kissed her.

  Bliss was deeply shaken by this gentle conquering. For the first time in her life, she felt utterly powerless. She trembled as the tip of his tongue touched her lips, prodding them, shaping them, demanding of them something Bliss couldn’t begin to anticipate.

  Her mouth opened of its own accord, trained by Jamie’s lips and tongue, and then he was exploring her. The sensation was uniquely pleasurable, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, absorbed in the kiss.

  It was Jamie who drew back. He was gasping, as though he’d had his head held underwater, and he spat a curse.

  Bliss was roundly insulted. “I didn’t start this, you will remember,” she said primly.

  Jamie sat up, turning his back to her, running one hand through his rumpled hair. “Shut up, Duchess, before you get us both into trouble.”

  “Where are you going?” Bliss wanted to know. She should have been relieved that Jamie had stopped holding her or kissing her, but she wasn’t.

  “Not far enough that you can hope to get away,” he replied, reaching for his boots. “Do us both a favor and go to sleep, will you? We’ll be off to Wellington first thing in the morning.”

  “Doesn’t it matter to you that I don’t want to go to Wellington?” Bliss cried, in a panic. Now that she knew how a kiss could make her feel, she was even less eager to marry Alexander Zate than before.

  “No,” came the clipped answer. He clumped over to a rocking chair in the corner of the moonlit room, wearing one boot and carrying the other. He was beyond a doubt the most cussed man Bliss had ever encountered, and he was certainly the first one she’d shared a bed with.

  “You’re wasting your time, traveling all the way to Wellington,” Bliss pointed out, sitting up and, after smoothing her hopelessly crumpled skirts, folding her arms. “I’ll only run away again, you know.”

  “Then that will be your husband’s problem, won’t it?” Jamie reasoned wearily, settling back into the chair after pulling on his other boot. Apparently, if he had to give chase, he meant to be ready.

  Bliss was frustrated to the point of tears. “All men are in league with each other,” she complained.

  “Don’t you ever shut up?” Jamie sighed.

  “No!”

  The rocking chair made a squeaky sound as he rocked back and forth. “Go to sleep, Duchess. It’ll be a long day tomorrow.”

  “You have no idea how long, Mr. McKenna.”

  He sounded stern. “Don’t be threatenin’ me, lass,” he warned, lapsing into the brogue again. He indicated an infinitesimal space between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s this far I am from takin’ you over me knee!”

  Bliss hoped that the shadows slashing through the moonlight would hide her heated face. “That was a perfectly reprehensible remark,” she protested.

  “Aye, but it’s true,” Jamie replied. He let his head fall back and Bliss was sure that his eyes were closed.

  She settled back on her pillows, sighing and giving a great yawn. And then she waited, with infinite patience, for the sound of snoring.

  It never came, although, after a while, Jamie’s breathing was deep and rhythmic. Still, Bliss waited.

  Finally, when at least an hour had passed, she sat up. “Jamie?” she whispered. “Are you awake?”

  There was no answer.

  She tried again. “Jamie?”

  Silence.

  Cautiously, Bliss slipped off the bed. Her coat and satchel were downstairs, in the kitchen. If she could just get past this one man, asleep in his rocking chair, she would get away. By sunset, at the latest, she would be in Auckland.

  She walked as silently as a ghost, afraid to breathe, and finally reached the door. Her hand was just curving around the knob when she felt two arms close around her middle.

  Jamie’s voice was a hoarse rush of warmth moving past her ear. “Duchess, for shame. What am I going to do with you?”

  It was not being caught in the act of escaping that made Bliss’s heart catch in her throat, but the way that Jamie was holding her. Her face ached with burning embarrassment.

  She drew a deep breath, entangled in her lie and determined to extricate herself gracefully. “I assure you that my errand was entirely innocent,” she lied. “As you are well aware, nature makes certain demands—”

  “I’ve thought of nothing else for most of the night,” Jamie pointed out, but he released her.

  Bliss’s knees had weakened, so that it was almost more than she could do to stand on her own. Her cheeks flamed. “I suppose you’re going to escort me to the outhouse,” she said stiffly, turning, with a regal tilt of her chin, to face her captor.

  He gestured grandly with one hand. “If you’d rather use the chamber pot, be my guest,” he said.

  Bliss was outraged. She moved to kick Mr. McKenna soundly in the shin, but he anticipated the attack and stepped aside. His body was as fluid as molten gold; Bliss had never seen anyone move so quickly and yet with such grace.

  “I’ll repay you for your—kindness, Mr. McKenna,” she promised him evenly, “if it takes the rest of my days.”

  He laughed. “You’re a feisty little thing. I’m going to miss you after I drop you off in Wellington. I am indeed.”

  Again, Bliss’s fury overtook her good sense. She stepped back, believing herself to be out of his reach, and lifted her foot to kick him. This time, she wasn’t aiming for his shin.

  Before her delicate little shoe could make lethal contact, however, Jamie had grasped her by the inside of her upraised knee, holding her off balance for an instant and then, in another of his lightning movements, thrusting her close to him. Not even their kiss had been as intimate as the way they were touching now.

  He bent his head and claimed her mouth again, at the same time releasing his hold on the inside of her knee. Bliss’s leg slid helplessly along the hard length of his until her foot reached the floor.

  Chapter 3

  THE AUGUST AIR WAS BITING COLD ON THAT EARLY MORNING, AND Bliss paced in front of the barn door, rubbing her hands together and stomping her feet in an eff
ort to keep warm. Her breath made wisps of fog as she huffed, “It would be simpler, it seems to me, if you just put me on a coach in Auckland and washed your hands of the whole matter.”

  Jamie, who was hitching a team of horses, one sorrel and one bay, to a wagon, looked back over his right shoulder and grinned. “That’s very tempting—the part about washing my hands of you, I mean—but I’m smarter than I look, Duchess. You’d be off that coach and on your way to the waterfront the moment I turned my back.”

  What Jamie had said was quite true, but Bliss was insulted, nonetheless, at having her character questioned. “Of course you’re smarter than you look, Mr. McKenna,” she observed, with a lift of her chin. “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be able to feed yourself.”

  Jamie gave a hoarse shout of laughter, causing the horses to snuffle nervously and toss their heads. At the same time, the front door of the house opened and closed again with a smart slam.

  Carra was standing on the porch, her beautiful black hair flowing in the brisk wind, her dark gaze fixed on Jamie. She set a large picnic hamper down at her feet, and there was something rebellious in the gesture, as ordinary as it was.

  Jamie grinned and shook his head. “So that’s the way it’s to be, is it?” he said, speaking more to himself than to anyone else, as was evidently his habit. Then, after only the merest hesitation, he strode off toward the house, leaving Bliss alone beside the wagon.

  She felt a twinge of jealousy as she climbed aboard the creaky vehicle and settled herself in the seat. Although Bliss did her best not to stare, her gaze did drift off in Jamie’s direction now and again.

  Toward the end, Carra was gesturing wildly with her arms and periodically stomping one foot while Jamie tore his ancient, battered leather hat from his head and slapped it hard against one thigh. Even though Bliss couldn’t hear the words they were exchanging, it was obvious that Jamie and his woman were not parting on amicable terms.

  Finally, Jamie shouted something that was unintelligible to Bliss and Carra whirled away, her hair flying like an ebony cloak behind her, and stormed into the house. Jamie gave the door a good hard kick, then, eyes blazing, turned and nearly stumbled over the picnic hamper.

  Bliss clapped one hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

  Apparently sensing that she’d found the near disaster amusing, Jamie glared at Bliss as he hoisted the large lidded basket into his arms and started toward her.

  “If you’d bothered to wait,” he remarked, hurling the basket into the back of the wagon with a total disregard for the delicacy of anything that might be inside it, “I’d have helped you into the wagon—just as if you were a lady.”

  Bliss’s cheeks flamed. It was bad enough that he’d kept her a virtual prisoner throughout the night; now he was implying that her manners were less than admirable. If they were, it was certainly none of his affair.

  He climbed up into the wagon box, sat down heavily, and took the reins into his gloved hands. His sea-blue eyes were snapping as he inclined his head formally and asked, “Did I strike too close to the truth, Duchess?”

  Bliss chose to ignore his question and present one of her own. If she was expected to be unladylike, then so be it. She would behave accordingly. “Was your lady love angry because you’re going away with me?”

  Jamie brought the reins down on the horses’ backs with a little more force than necessary, and the team bolted forward. Caught off guard, Bliss nearly lost her balance and tumbled backward into the wagon bed. Only her desperate grasp on the sleeve of Jamie’s rough woolen coat saved her.

  “You were saying?” he prompted, attempting to hide a smile, as Bliss struggled for composure. She drew a deep breath, smoothing her frightfully tangled hair with her hands and willing her heartbeat to slow to its normal pace.

  The wagon was moving, rolling and bumping over the rutted lane beyond Jamie’s gate, before he broke the thick silence. “Not that it’s any of your business, Duchess, but Carra cleans my house and cooks my meals—she does not share my bed.”

  “But—”

  Jamie cut Bliss off by saying, in a tone that did not encourage challenge, “Carra is young, and she has a few romantic ideas about me, but that’s as far as it goes. Her father is a powerful man among the Maori—if I dishonored Carra, I would also dishonor him, and that’s asking for more trouble than I care to have.”

  Subdued, Bliss lowered her eyes to her lap. She was relieved that he and Carra weren’t lovers, but she wasn’t about to let this hardheaded sheepherder know that straight out.

  “It’s a very long way to Wellington,” she said, fixing her eyes on the familiar hillsides, green even in the dead of winter, with their neat hedgerows.

  Jamie said nothing in response, and a surreptitious glance in his direction revealed that his jawline was clamped down tight. Probably, he resented taking time away from his work to run a fool’s errand like this.

  The lane dipped and then rose again, at an almost vertical angle, and Bliss grasped the wagon seat hard in both hands, fearing that she would go tumbling backward. She could hear the contents of the picnic hamper rattling dangerously.

  In the next moment, however, they had crested the hill, and there, a stunning surprise in shades ranging from deep blue to pale green, was the sea, quietly muttering an ancient promise to the shore. Although Bliss had seen the ocean a million times, having grown up in a lighthouse, she had never lost the feeling of wondrous awe it inspired in her.

  She drew in a deep breath of frigid salt air and smiled contentedly.

  It was immediately apparent that the sea had no such soothing affect on Jamie. He scowled at her and encouraged the horses to travel a bit faster now that the road was level.

  Disappointed in Jamie’s blunt lack of appreciation for a truly splendid sight, Bliss returned his glower tit for tat.

  He struggled to look sober and solemn but finally laughed. “That,” he said, “is a hate-filled mug if I’ve ever seen one.”

  Bliss was relieved at the chance to strike up a conversation—any kind of conversation. “I’ve never hated anyone in all my life,” she said magnanimously. “Not even Alexander, though I expect I’ll come to truly despise him once we’re wedded.”

  The mirth dancing in Jamie’s eyes was instantly gone. Somehow, it comforted Bliss to know that he didn’t like being reminded of her impending marriage to the man her father had chosen.

  Jamie fixed his gaze straight ahead, but his jawline was tight. “What kind of no-gooder is your father, anyway?” he demanded after several moments had passed.

  Bliss knew a sensation of gentle triumph, though she carefully hid the fact from Jamie. “Papa’s not a bad man, all things considered,” she replied with a tender and rather theatrical sigh. “He’s just tired of having me underfoot all the time, that’s all. And then, of course, there’s the money.”

  She had Mr. McKenna’s full attention, at long last. “Money?” he asked. “What money?”

  Bliss gazed out at the sea. Above the waves, a foggy mist shifted eerily in the icy daylight. “Alexander—Mr. Zate—plans to settle a rather large sum on my father after the wedding.”

  The silence from the man beside her was ominous. When Bliss dared glance at Jamie, she saw that his face had hardened with rage, and she knew a certain satisfaction. Perhaps she had finally made him understand her plight.

  “He’s sellin’ you, then,” he said, in a deceptively soft voice, after several moments had passed.

  Bliss bit her lower lip, hesitating for what she hoped was exactly the right length of time. Then she willed her eyes to brim with tears and answered in a small, quavering voice, “Yes.”

  Even though the horses were clearly doing the very best they could, Jamie brought the reins down hard on their backs, urging them to an even faster pace. It was a measure of his annoyance. “Blighter,” he muttered.

  Bliss sniffled delicately and dabbed at her eyes.

  “How do you do that?” Jamie asked, out of the blue, and Bliss
was so surprised that she fell to stammering.

  “D-do what?” she hedged.

  Jamie reached out, with one of his gloved hands, and smoothed a tear from her cheek with an agile motion of his thumb. “Cry that way,” he replied, frowning. “You made up your mind to do it, and then you did. And don’t bother denyin’ it, lass.”

  If it hadn’t been for the fact that she was headed toward Wellington and Mr. Alexander Zate instead of an outgoing ship and an exciting new life in America, where her mother awaited her most eagerly, Bliss would have been amused. It was rare to meet a man so perceptive.

  Still, being able to cry on order was a skill that came in handy on occasion, and Bliss, like a magician with his tricks, was quite jealous of the secret. She gazed at Jamie in stubborn silence and, to her utter amazement, he burst out laughing.

  She did wonder what it was about her that amused this man so thoroughly. Quite miffed, she stiffened on the hard wagon seat and hugged herself with both arms to keep from assaulting Mr. McKenna in the purest rage.

  Still grinning, he touched the tip of her nose with an index finger covered in soft, worn leather. “What a fiery little ’ellcat you are, Duchess. A man could spend all ’is life just learnin’ ’ow to read you.”

  Bliss felt a strange, warm shiver at his touch, and a series of forbidden pictures rose in her mind. Memories of the night before, when she’d lain beside Jamie McKenna in a dark bedroom, caused a tender and throbbing ache in the very depths of her femininity.

  I’m never going to feel this way about Alexander, she thought to herself, and she was filled with utter despair. If only her father were forcing her to marry Jamie—a girl could live with an ultimatum like that.

  They traveled in silence, beside the misty sea, for a considerable distance, and then Jamie drew the wagon to the side of the road in order to let the horses rest. Bliss, longing to stretch her cramped legs, scrambled down from the wagon seat before her companion could help her.