Bliss drew a deep breath and let it out again. Obviously, the night visitor wasn’t going to go away just because she was ignoring him. “Who is it you want to see?” she asked in a clear, if tremulous, voice.

The man swore. Roundly. “Jamie McKenna, that’s who,” he answered angrily. “And when I do, I’ll teach him to treat a guest this way—”

A light went on in Peony’s eyes. She grasped Dog by the scruff of the neck, and before Bliss could stop her, she’d unlocked the door and swung it open.

Dog, that traitor, welcomed the man with a benevolent yap and then dashed out through the open doorway to chase something. It was clear that Bliss could depend on no one but herself to defend hearth and home.

She swallowed hard as she lifted the skillet high in the air. Peony had probably made the same rash mistake in Auckland, inviting those terrible men right inside her house.

“Bliss, no!” Peony cried, but it was too late.

The skillet crashed into the back of the man’s head—he was so big that Bliss had had to rise up on her toes to strike him—and he crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

“Oh lord,” Peony wailed, disappearing into the kitchen and returning almost immediately with a lamp. She knelt awkwardly beside the man and opened his coat and the collar of his shirt, revealing a medallion exactly like Jamie’s except that it hung from a golden chain instead of a string of rawhide.

“Don’t stand there like a ninny,” Peony hissed when it became apparent that Bliss had been rendered speechless. “Get a cold cloth. You’ve just beaned your own brother-in-law!”

Bliss dropped her skillet and scrambled into the kitchen, where she ladled water into a bowl. Then, after grabbing a clean tea towel, she hurried back to the parlor, where Jamie’s brother was stirring on the floor and murmuring ominous things in a brogue.

“Would you be sister to a Yank with a penchant for playactin’?” he asked cryptically, looking up at Bliss with bewilderment in his aquamarine eyes.

Baffled, Bliss simply shook her head and spread her hands.

“The lady who clouted you is your brother’s wife,” Peony said as he got to his feet, one hand lifted to his head. “Bliss, this—unless I’ve missed my guess—is Reeve McKenna.”

“Aye,” said Reeve, extending a hand toward Bliss with comical caution. “Named you Bliss, did they?” he muttered, as an aside. “Fancy that.”

Peony was still smiling. Either she thought it was funny that Bliss had brained her own kin by marriage, or she saw him as protection against the evils that might be lurking in the night. “I’m Peony Ryan,” she said, taking Mr. McKenna’s arm. “Your brother and I are great friends.”

“Your brother and I are great friends,” Bliss mimicked under her breath as she followed the two into her kitchen. Even with a brand in the middle of her back, that Peony had a way of taking over a situation.