Bliss brought her notebook from her baggage and continued her letter to Jamie, her pen racing across the paper as she told him about the man she’d thought was Walter Davis’s grandfather. Shadows had fallen on the sea by the time a knock sounded at her door. With a weary sigh, Bliss laid down her pen and walked across the room to admit her caller.

It was a flushed, bright-eyed Maggie. Bliss was still a new bride, but she knew well enough what had made her sister-in-law glow like that, and her yearning for Jamie was as sharp as broken glass.

“It’s just occurred to Reeve and me,” Maggie confided with some embarrassment, “that you might be waiting on us—to go to supper, I mean. Here it is, so late—you must be starving.”

Bliss was hungry, but she hadn’t suffered for it because she’d just realized that her stomach was empty. “I’ll be all right, provided the dining room is still open,” she said.

Maggie laughed. “I wouldn’t have had the nerve to come here if I hadn’t checked first and found out that it was,” she admitted. “How is your friend, Mrs. Ryan? Have you looked in on her?”

Bliss felt a degree of shame. She’d been so involved in her letter to Jamie that for hours she hadn’t even thought of Peony, except to record an account of her swoon at the foot of the wharf. “I’ll go and see how she is right now,” she muttered, starting through the doorway.

Maggie stopped her with a gentle hold on her arm. “Bliss, who is that woman and what does she have to do with Jamie?” she asked. “Reeve wouldn’t tell me a thing, so I’m counting on you.”

Bliss wasn’t sure how to answer, and her face must have reflected this, for Maggie quickly spoke again.

“We’ll talk about it at supper,” she promised. “Reeve’s sound asleep, so he won’t be there to order me to mind my own business. And something tells me that your friend will want to eat in her room.”

Bliss smiled, even though she was exhausted and so lonesome for Jamie that she was likely to die of it. She closed her door and went across the hall to knock at Peony’s.

“Yes?” a voice called sleepily.

Bliss tried the door and found it unlocked. She went inside, approaching Peony’s bed. “How are you?” she asked softly.

“I just want to sleep,” Peony replied in rummy tones.

Bliss nodded and left the room to join Maggie in the hall, and then the two of them went downstairs to enter the dining room and place their orders. Both asked for venison pie, which was delivered promptly, and they ate with hearty appetites.

“Reeve tells me that you have two children,” Bliss ventured, wanting to put off talking about Peony’s relationship with Jamie for as long as she could.

Maggie nodded. “Elisabeth—but of course you know that she’s not really ours—and James. We named him for your husband, of course, but we call him J.J. to avoid confusion.”