Bliss tried to imagine Jamie in such a state and failed roundly. “I don’t believe you!”

“If you’ll only open the door, I’ll explain everything,” Walter called plaintively.

“I can’t open the door!” Bliss responded, arms folded in annoyance. “My devoted husband locked it when he left.”

“The blackguard!” Walter shouted. “That’s inhuman!”

“At least,” Bliss called back, “he can be trusted with a confidence! That’s more than I can say for you, Walter Davis!”

Walter said something, but it was plain enough from his tone that he wasn’t talking to Bliss. A possibility struck her, and remembering Jamie’s vow to “blister” her if she ever tried to run away again, she raced for the bedroom. She drew the drapes back into place and had just put the chair where it belonged when Jamie came in and tossed his hat onto the bed. He was shrugging out of his coat when he said, “Meetin’ men be’ind me back, are you, Duchess?”

Bliss knew he was teasing, but she was in no mood for one of Jamie’s mercurial mood changes. “If I was going to take up with another man,” she said in a stilted voice, “I wouldn’t pick Walter.”

“You’d be right not to,” Jamie agreed, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pulling off his boots. “Got no social graces, that one. Called me a name in the ’all just now—and me just mindin’ me own business.”

Bliss did a slow, simmering burn as Jamie stretched out on the bed, cupped his hands behind his head, and uttered a long sigh. “Did you strike poor Walter?” she demanded.

Jamie grinned but didn’t open his eyes. “Aye, Duchess. I did at that.”

Bliss decided to change the subject. Since Walter had betrayed her, she wasn’t quite so sympathetic as she might have been. She sat down in the same chair she had stood in only minutes before and said coolly, “I was certain you’d spend the whole day with Peony. And possibly the night, too.”

“Were you now?” Jamie responded with sleepy disinterest, settling deeper into the mattress.

Twiddling her thumbs and biting her lower lip, Bliss struggled to contain her impatience. It was during this inner tussle that something occurred to her: the key to the suite was probably in the pocket of Jamie’s coat. If she were to let herself out when he was sleeping, and lock the door behind her, then Mr. McKenna would have a generous dose of his own medicine. He would learn, with no harm done, how it felt to be held captive.

“Jamie?” she ventured softly when the meter of his breathing had fallen into a regular rhythm.

“Hmmmm?” he responded, in the way of the barely conscious.

Smiling to herself, Bliss took an extra blanket from the chest at the foot of the bed, shook it out, and gently covered her husband with it.

He muttered a few inaudible words and Bliss couldn’t resist placing a light kiss on his forehead, even though he was a scoundrel of the first water. Then, making every effort to behave normally—for if she’d learned one thing about Jamie it was that he was often most alert just when he appeared not to be paying attention at all—she collected his coat and hat from where he’d thrown them and strolled idly out of the bedroom.