“Tis a silver tongue you ’ave, lass,” he teased, his eyes twinkling. “Now that you mention it, I could use a wink of sleep.” Following that, he yawned with such emphasis that Cutter laughed out loud.

Bliss was furiously embarrassed, and she might have kicked Jamie McKenna square in the shin if she hadn’t been so bent on being the best wife any man ever had. “You’ll have a decent breakfast if I have to cram it down your throat, Mr. McKenna,” she said firmly.

Jamie arched his eyebrows as he took off his hat. “You cook, do you?” he asked, sounding damnably skeptical.

Bliss glared at him as he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a peg with his hat. Cutter followed suit, taking care not to notice anything that might be going on around him.

“I do,” she said with a lift of her chin. “Who did you think prepared the meals at the lighthouse after Mama went away? My father?”

“To tell you the truth, Duchess,” Jamie answered, kissing the tip of her nose, “I never gave that much thought.”

“Well,” Bliss went on, after taking an audible breath, “I did all the work of that nature.” Never mind, she added to herself, that Papa always said a man could starve to death on cooking like mine. Papa was impossible to please anyway.

Without so much as a by-your-leave, Cutter went to the stove and helped himself to the hot water Bliss had been reserving to wash up the mountain of dirty dishes and kettles. He proceeded to pour that water into a basin and lather his face and hands with pungent yellow soap.

Jamie must have read Bliss’s expression, for he touched her cheek with gentle, wind-chilled fingers, running the pad of his thumb over her lips, stirring a sweet shiver in the depths of her. “No worries, Duchess,” he said. And then he took up two buckets and went outside, returning only a short time later with a generous supply of water.

Cutter was so pleased to have a woman in the house that Bliss could not sustain her annoyance. She made up a meal of what was on hand—a few eggs and some salt pork—and both men ate heartily even though the meat was black around the edges and the egg yolks were hard clear through.

At least the coffee was perfect, Bliss thought, looking down into her cup and listening with half an ear to the conversation going on between Jamie and Cutter. They’d talked of nothing but sheep throughout the meal.

With a yawning sigh, Bliss got out of her chair and went back to the heap of soiled dishes. Now that breakfast was out of the way, she’d just tidy up the kitchen.

When Cutter took the scraps out to Dog, Jamie came to stand close behind Bliss, his hands coming around to gently caress her breasts. “Go upstairs and rest,” he said, his voice moving warm and low past her ear. “All this work will still be ’ere when you wake up, Duchess.”