“I’m sorry,” she squeaked.

Jamie smiled at her—actually smiled—as he took hold of her elbow and brought her to her feet, but his eyes were still glittering like bits of blue topaz. “Come along, dear,” he said, forcing the polite words past his teeth. “You and I are going to ’ave a little talk.”

Bliss was not afraid, for she couldn’t imagine Jamie hurting her physically, but she was embarrassed. The dining room was utterly silent as everyone there watched her being marched away like a public drunk, and Bliss’s cheeks flamed bright pink. “It isn’t like the tea was hot or anything,” she pointed out under her breath.

Bliss sniffled once, knotted one hand into a fist, and pounded at her pillow. The scathing lecture Jamie had delivered earlier was still ringing in her ears.

She thrust herself onto her back, suppressing an urge to kick both her feet in unrestrained rage. The worst part was that Peony had heard everything, and been there to see Jamie order Bliss off to their room like a naughty child.

Seething at the memory, Bliss got off the bed, stormed to the door, and peered out. There was no sign of either Peony or Jamie, to her relief.

She crept to the desk near the door and took out a good supply of hotel stationery and a pen and ink, then sneaked back to the bedroom again. Seated in the window seat, where she could look down on carriages and people passing by in the street, Bliss began composing a letter of recommendation. She would sign it “Mrs. James McKenna,” which was both the truth and a lie.

Hours had passed by the time the letter suited Bliss. She could only hope that Mrs. Wilmington would not have occasion to compare the identical handwriting of the real Mrs. James McKenna and the mythical one until after their ship was far out to sea.

In the distance, Bliss heard a door open, and here were all those discarded, crumpled pieces of paper on the floor, evidence of forgery. She leaped out of the window seat, hid the letter of recommendation under a cushion, and frantically gathered up the wadded pages.

“Bliss?” The voice was Jamie’s. She scurried behind the screen that hid the facilities and heaped the papers in the commode. Then, with one of the matches Jamie used to light those infernal cheroots of his, she lit the pyramid of paper on fire.

It was going up with a whoosh when Jamie came around the screen. He swore and covered his eyes with one hand when the blaze licked at the wall behind the commode and then ebbed away to nothing, leaving bits of black ash everywhere.

“What were you tryin’ to do, Duchess?” he asked, after regarding her in disbelieving silence for several long moments. “Burn down the place, or signal the rest of your tribe?”

Bliss wrinkled her nose in puzzlement. “Who?”

“All those other redheaded gremlins who ’elp you think up crazy ideas.”