“Aye,” Reeve agreed as his wife tore her skirts from the rosebush and glared at Jamie.

“Welcome back!” Maggie snapped, and her words were so utterly at variance with her tone that Jamie chuckled.

Reeve was not amused, however. He grasped Maggie by one elbow and propelled her toward the house. Elisabeth and her dog continued to play in the near distance, undisturbed, and Jamie watched the child with such an injured expression in his eyes that Bliss nearly forgave him his deception.

Nearly, but not quite.

“I planned to tell you, Duchess,” he said after long moments had passed.

“When?” Bliss demanded, dashing at her tears with the back of one hand. “After our children were born?”

His jawline tightened at the challenge in her tone. “I never intended for us to ’ave children, Bliss,” he countered coldly. “I married you to keep from bein’ shot, in case you’ve forgotten.”

The words affected Bliss like a slap across the face. Oh, she’d never forgotten the circumstances of their wedding, not for a moment, but she had believed that Jamie had grown to love her just as she loved him.

He’d told her so.

The starch went out of her knees and she sank to the bench in horror as the realization struck her. Each time Jamie had said “I love you,” he’d been in the throes of passion. Had he ever truly meant the words?

He took a step nearer, and the edge was gone from his voice. “Bliss, listen to me,” he began, sitting down beside her on the bench and reaching for her hand.

She promptly wrenched it away.

Before Jamie could say anything more, Elisabeth caught sight of him and came running over to fling her arms around his neck. “Hello, Uncle Papa!” she crowed.

Jamie said something to the little girl that Bliss couldn’t make out, for she was suddenly overcome with pain. It was like a haze within and around her, pervading her very spirit, inescapable, torturous.

She bounded to her feet and ran toward the house, fleeing from her anguish, fleeing from her confusion.

Fleeing from Jamie.

After a short and innocuous conversation with Elisabeth, Jamie gave the child the trinkets he’d brought for her and entered Reeve’s house through the French doors opening onto the garden.

His brother was alone in the parlor, standing beside a teakwood liquor cabinet and pouring a drink for himself. Maggie’s touch was everywhere, giving the room a fragrant, bright spaciousness.

“I could use one of those,” Jamie said, nodding toward the drink in his brother’s hand.

Reeve glared at him. “Fix your own,” he replied.

Fine welcome he was getting around here, Jamie thought, but he suppressed his annoyance. After all, he wasn’t entirely without fault in this situation. He should have told Bliss about Eleanor and the child she’d borne him long before now, he wasn’t denying that. He poured a generous portion of brandy into a glass. “If you’ve got somethin’ you want to say, brother,” he began quietly, “say it.”