Bliss’s tired mind had snagged on Maggie’s odd remark about the little girl. “What did you mean when you said that Elisabeth isn’t really yours? Is she adopted?”

Maggie’s lovely skin blanched a little beneath her light suntan and the glow that a man’s loving leaves behind it. “Adopted?” she echoed.

Bliss felt uneasy, as though she were expected to play a game without knowing all the rules. “I guess if Jamie were here,” she said, “he’d tell me that I’m sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

“If Jamie were here,” Maggie muttered, “I’d wring his neck!”

“What?” Bliss asked, still uneasy and puzzled as well.

“Never mind,” Maggie answered with grim resolution. “Tell me about Mrs. Peony Ryan.”

Bliss dropped her eyes. “Both of them deny it—and I’ve got to admit that they’re pretty convincing,” she confided in a small voice, “but I can’t help thinking she’s Jamie’s mistress.”

“Thunderation!” cried Maggie, with such spirit that several of the other diners turned to stare. “You can’t be serious! Does Reeve know this?”

Bliss swallowed, a little awed by Maggie’s fury. Of course, one looked for brashness and a temper in a Yank. “I would imagine he knows,” she said. “He and Jamie spent hours talking—mostly in private.”

Maggie shoved back her chair and shot to her feet. “Great Zeus!” she exclaimed. “I’ll murder that Irishman with my own hands if he’s been a party to something like that!”

Heat climbed Bliss’s face and her eyes went so wide that they hurt. She couldn’t speak for the life of her.

“And wait until I see Jamie McKenna again!” Maggie fumed on. Then, without warning, she stormed out of the dining room, leaving Bliss to endure the resultant attention alone.

She smiled at the men and women who were staring at her in stupefaction. “It’s just that she’s an American,” she said bravely, and everyone went back to eating their dinner.

It took more than an embarrassing scene to ruin Bliss’s appetite. She finished her venison pie, and when Maggie didn’t return after a reasonable time, she ate her sister-in-law’s portion as well. It seemed probable that she’d need to keep her strength up if she was going to be a part of this McKenna mob.

Chapter 23

THE CHILD WAS BEAUTIFUL, WITH LONG, DARK HAIR AND AQUAMA-rine eyes that should have marked her as Reeve’s. As Bliss watched the little girl scamper happily after a dog in the garden at Seven Sisters, she felt an odd uneasiness that had been plaguing her intermittently since her arrival two weeks before.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” she asked as Reeve sat down beside her on the stone bench facing the place where Elisabeth played.

Her dark-haired, handsome brother-in-law nodded. His coloring was very different from Jamie’s, and yet there was a distinct resemblance between the two men, something of the soul rather than the body. “I think so,” he said, and his voice sounded hoarse.