“I don’t like that fellow’s looks,” Bliss confided. “Maybe I haven’t done much traveling, but I’ve got good instincts and I know a waster when I see one. Like as not, that bloke would have dumped us in the street and made off with your luggage and your pound note!”

Mrs. Wilmington looked impressed. “My goodness. I’ve always left such matters to Piedmont, and it didn’t even occur to me that the man might be unworthy of our trust.”

Bliss’s smile must have appeared a little fixed; it took all the self-control she possessed not to go scrambling back to the hotel and hurl herself at Jamie’s feet. “I don’t look for him to help us out of the carriage, either,” she went on. “So we’d just better see to ourselves.”

With that, she opened the carriage door and lowered herself to the street. Knowing that Mrs. Wilmington would not be so nimble, with her greater age and bulk, she caught the driver’s eye and glared at him until he brought a little step stool forward and set it with a thump on the road.

With Bliss’s assistance, Mrs. Wilmington descended.

Bliss was looking all around her as she and her employer walked down the pier and up a long, slanting ramp to the ship.

The craft had three smokestacks towering above its decks, and a man in a blue uniform came forward, even as Mrs. Wilmington was speaking to the purser about Bliss’s passage, to collect the younger woman’s tattered valise.

“Hello there,” he said, drawing out the first word in a jaunty fashion.

Bliss thought of Jamie, swallowed hard, and took back her valise with an eloquent jerk of her hand. Men. They were all alike—always trying to charm a lady. “Go away,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the young seaman with a crisp salute. His ears were red with embarrassment as he hurried off in another direction.

By that time, Bliss was feeling a little sorry for him. Since there was nothing for it, she sighed and turned her attention back to the arrangements at hand. Her passage to America was assured; she would share a stateroom with Mrs. Wilmington.

Between one instant and the next, some instinct made the small hairs on the back of Bliss’s neck stand up in alarm. She turned at the sound of a slight fracas on the boarding ramp to see Jamie striding around the insolent carriage driver, who had been struggling with Mrs. Wilmington’s baggage.

Bliss took a step backward, but even as she did so, she knew there was no place to run. A part of her rejoiced in that knowledge, but her pride demanded that she fight for her rights.

Jamie came to a stop directly in front of her, swept off his hat, and smiled winningly. “Well, ’ello, Duchess,” he said. “Exactly where did you think you were goin’?”

“Now, just one moment,” blustered Mrs. Wilmington, who looked uncertain. “Who are you, young man, and what do you mean by this affront?”