“I’ve done nothin’ wrong, Duchess,” Jamie said. “Therefore, I’ll not be apologizin’.”

A matron across the aisle listened intently for Bliss’s response.

After tossing the woman a look meant to convey how she felt about snoops, Bliss folded her arms and said cynically, “Of course it’s not wrong. You’re a man, so everything you do is right.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Bliss saw that Jamie’s nostrils had flared slightly, and a thin white line edged his jaw. He muttered a string of curses and the woman across the aisle grew red in the face.

“You’re impossible to reason with,” Jamie accused.

Bliss sat up very straight and willed herself not to cry, wondering all the while what had happened to her. She’d always had a secret contempt for women who sniveled and mewled every time something displeased them, and now it seemed that she was battling back tears at every turn.

Aunt Calandra would probably say that there was no point in crying over a bird in the bush, she reflected, and that brought a tenuous smile to her lips.

“That’s better,” Jamie said softly, catching his hand under Bliss’s chin and making her look at him. “I’m not your enemy, Duchess,” he added.

Bliss was afraid to let her guard down. Whether or not Jamie McKenna was an enemy was certainly debatable; no one else on the face of the earth had the power to bring her this low. She blinked in an effort to clear her eyes and Jamie took one of her hands in his and examined it.

“One day in that place, and your ’and is red and sore—”

Bliss wrenched her fingers free of his and sat up very straight. “Don’t make so much of a little chafing, Jamie,” she warned. “I’m no stranger to hard work.”

To her utter surprise, Jamie kissed her fingers, and there was a sad, faraway look in his eyes. Bliss sensed that he was thinking about someone in the distant past, perhaps in Ireland, but she dared not allow her heart to soften.

After an excruciatingly long time, and many stops, the tram finally reached the center of Auckland. There was something proprietary in the way Jamie took Bliss’s elbow and helped her off the car. She suspected that he was really more concerned that she’d run away than lose her footing.

Instead of starting off for the hotel, he led her in the direction of a fancy retail establishment that towered four stories above the street. A man in an impressive uniform, with shimmering gold epaulets, stood outside, opening the door for those entering and departing, and Bliss thought he must surely be the proprietor, he looked so grand and important.

When she confided this to Jamie in an awed whisper, he laughed. “Whatever you say, Duchess,” he conceded, and the warmth in his eyes enabled Bliss to believe that he cared for her, at least a little.

Jamie was treated with the same respect here that he had been accorded at the hotel, and Bliss’s anger flared anew when a gentleman in a fancy suit came forward and asked, “Will we be dressing the lady today, Mr. McKenna?”