She passed a series of noisy pubs and began to feel uneasy when she noted that there were loose women beneath every lamppost. They looked at her fine dress and cloak with kohl-blackened, disdainful eyes.

Bliss had just turned to start back toward the hotel when she collided hard with a burly man who smelled of rank sweat, beer, and strong tobacco. The automatic “Excuse me,” froze on her lips when she looked up into that face.

Bert Dunnigan looked alarmed, until he’d ascertained that Bliss was alone. Then he smiled. “Well, if it isn’t McKenna’s pretty little bird. What’re you doin’ way down here, lass?”

Bliss took a step backward. Her throat felt as though she’d just swallowed a whole potato and her heart was hammering. Her mind was filled with fear and the knowledge that this man and his confederates had meant to kill Jamie that day on the road, and would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for Cutter and Dog.

Dunnigan reached out with a grimy hand to caress Bliss’s cheek. “What’s the matter, darlin’? Cat got your tongue?”

Bliss gathered enough presence of mind to slap the offending hand away. How she wished she hadn’t been so bent on teaching Jamie what it meant to be locked away in a hotel room!

She took another step backward and came up against a steely structure of muscle and bone that could belong to only one man. Relief swept over her.

At the same moment, Bert Dunnigan lost his expression of superiority and began retreating himself. Clearly, facing Jamie without his compatriots to back him up was not a prospect he favored.

Jamie took Bliss’s shoulders in his hands and moved her aside. There was an easy, companionable smile on his face as he looked Dunnigan over and said, “I’ve been ’opin’ to see you again, mate.”

Bliss swallowed and clasped a lamppost in both hands for support. Her eyes were wide as she watched Jamie back Dunnigan slowly into the street.

Dunnigan held his hands out. “No hard feelin’s now, McKenna,” he said quickly. “We was only doin’ what Pipher paid us to do.”

Jamie’s knife sprouted in his hand like a plant from fertile ground. “So it was me old friend that set you bleeders on me like a pack of dogs?”

Dunnigan nodded, sweat beading on his forehead, his eyes never leaving the glistening steel blade. “It was him, all right.” He came up hard against the back of a wagon just then, and the point of Jamie’s knife rested against his jugular vein.

“Tell me more,” Jamie said evenly.

“He wants you—you and the Ryan woman—”

“He’s ’ere, isn’t he?” Jamie broke in, his patience clearly waning. “In Auckland?”

Dunnigan swallowed and nodded again. “Yes, but I don’t know where, McKenna. I swear to God I don’t know where!”

Bliss had crept forward without realizing it, and a chill swept over her as she looked at Jamie’s taut profile. For an instant, at least, he had wanted to kill Dunnigan, then and there, and let his blood drain out in the street.