Bliss nodded, reddening a little and ducking her head. If Jamie happened to see her, all would be lost. However, since Mrs. Wilmington was about to leave the table, Bliss had to rise to her feet. Good manners compelled her.

“I’ll be looking for that letter of reference,” the old woman said, and her black sateen dress crackled and rustled as she walked imperiously away.

Bliss sank back into her chair and then risked a glance in Jamie’s direction. She instantly regretted the action, for her gaze locked with his. Without looking away, he spoke to his companions and rose from his chair.

In a few strides, he was standing beside Bliss’s chair. “Hello there, Duchess,” he said in a voice that gave no indication of what he might be thinking or feeling. “Climbing out windows again, are you?”

Bliss glared at him. “I am not a prisoner, Jamie McKenna, and I will not be treated as one. Mrs. Wilmington is a—a friend.”

Jamie’s eyes held a mischievous light as he bent toward her, one hand resting on the back of her chair, the other idly holding that scruffy hat against his thigh. “Aye,” he agreed, in tones of mockery, “I’m sure you and that good woman ’ave a great many things in common.”

Bliss folded her hands in her lap, her breakfast forgotten, and sat up very straight in her chair. Her chin was at a stubborn angle and she looked through Jamie rather than at him. “It just so happens that we do,” she lied. “I believe I’ll call on my Aunt Calandra this morning, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind,” Jamie said. He had not straightened up, and his breath ruffled Bliss’s hair. “I ’ave important business to see to today, and I don’t want to be worryin’ about what mischief you might be stirrin’ up.”

Bliss simmered with resentment, but there was little she could do. “I suppose you’re planning to shop for a suitable cage for me to live in,” she hissed.

Jamie chuckled and shook his head in wry wonder. “You’re a bristly bit o’ baggage, Duchess, that you are. What you need is a good tumble in a warm bed—and I’ll see to that when I get back from doin’ me business.”

Slowly, thoughtfully, Bliss refilled her teacup from the pot in the center of the table, and then she tossed the contents onto Jamie’s midsection. “Oh!” she cried in pretended horror as he leaped backward in shock, “do excuse me for being so clumsy!”

Bliss wanted to laugh at the fury she saw snapping in his azure eyes, but she didn’t quite dare do that, so she bit the inside of her lip and reached for a napkin. Jamie stepped out of reach when she would have dabbed at his wet shirt in reparation.

“You’d best be grateful,” he rasped in an outraged whisper, “that I’m not a man to do a lass violence!”

Bliss slapped one hand over her mouth in an effort to stifle a burst of amusement. She couldn’t think why she found Jamie’s anger so funny, but she did. Perhaps, she reflected, this compulsion to laugh was a form of hysteria.