There was no doubt in Bliss’s mind that Jamie meant what he said, at the moment at least. She scooted backward until she was inside the carriage, then hauled herself up onto one of the seats. Not once in all that time did her eyes stray from Jamie’s face; if he made any sudden moves, she wanted to be ready.

He rapped at the outside of the carriage with his knuckles and the rig bolted forward.

“How did you find me?” Bliss asked in a small voice, still watching Jamie.

He settled back in the seat, as though hauling women off ships over one shoulder were a normal morning’s work, sighing and tugging his hat down over his eyes. “I ’ave me sources,” he said.

Bliss ached to kick him, but there was such a thing as pressing one’s luck. Besides, even though she didn’t plan to admit it anytime in the next hundred years, she was relieved not to be going to America, even if it did mean that she might never see her mother again.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked, to distract herself.

Beneath the brim of his hat, Jamie grinned. “I don’t know—maybe I’ll ’ang you by your thumbs in one of the shearin’ sheds. Two or three days of that ought to teach you your place.”

“My what!” Bliss cried, scooting forward on the seat and forgetting all caution. She snatched the hat from his head to force him to look at her, but the advantage, as usual, was his.

More quickly than Bliss would have believed he could move, Jamie had pulled her out of her seat and onto his lap. She defended herself with both feet and both hands, but he subdued her by forcing her into a kiss. She squirmed for a moment, then went limp with a soft moan.

One kiss followed another, and Bliss was in a daze when the carriage came to a stop. It took her several seconds to recall what had gone on that morning, but when she did, she was furious.

She drew back one hand to slap Jamie, but the look in his eyes stopped her—it was an odd mingling of challenge and tenderness, that look.

Jamie set her off his lap and got down from the carriage, taking Bliss’s satchel with him. She waited for him to offer her a hand, but he didn’t, nor did the carriage driver.

Finally, red-faced, Bliss got out of the rig on her own and followed her husband inside the lobby of the Victoria Hotel. Since he took the lift, Bliss climbed the stairs.

It was a pitiful rebellion, and she knew it, but under the circumstances it was the best she could do.

When she let herself into the suite, Jamie was seated comfortably on one of the settees, reading a newspaper and looking for all the world as though he’d never gone to the wharf and carried his wife off the Queen Charlotte like a pair of saddlebags.