Jamie only gave her a wry look in response, then he sat down on the side of the bed and pulled off one of his boots with such a show of effort that Bliss volunteered to remove the other.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” he asked with an exaggerated yawn.

Bliss nodded, but her thoughts had already taken one of their quicksilver turns, and her expression was serious. “Jamie, did Peony tell you that—that Increase Pipher was on our ship when we came over from New Zealand?”

He looked at her incredulously. “What?”

Bliss nodded. “Do you remember Walter Davis? From—from the hotel in Auckland?”

“Aye,” he replied in an ominously low voice. “I remember, Duchess.”

Bliss dropped her eyes again. “Mr. Pipher was pretending to be his grandfather. They were staying in the suite across the hall from ours.”

Jamie was so still that Bliss had to relent and look at him. “I knew Pipher was at the Victoria when we were—it makes sense, lookin’ back. ’E’d enjoy that kind of irony.”

“You’re going to k-kill him, aren’t you?” The question had been tormenting Bliss ever since Jamie had sent her away on the train that day.

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “Now, come ’ere, wife. You ’aven’t given me so much as a kiss yet.”

Bliss stumbled toward him, let him pull her down on the bed, and trembled with anticipation and fear as he stretched out beside her—anticipation because she wanted him, needed him, so desperately, fear because she was beginning to have a glimmer of the risks Jamie would be running.

He left her long enough to lock the door and unbuttoned his shirt as he approached the bed again. When he was lying beside her once more, he drew her into a kiss that set her soul to spinning within her, one hand unfastening the buttons of her blouse at the same time.

Bliss gave a little crooning moan as he bared one of her breasts and took hungry suckle at the nipple; she’d ached for Jamie during their weeks apart, and to give herself to him was the purest joy.

Still, as the sweet, heated ritual began, Bliss could no more contain her questions than her responses to Jamie’s lovemaking.

“Are—are you a free man here in Australia?” she whispered in delicious misery as he moved from one breast to the other.

“No,” he answered, before teasing the nipple thoroughly with his tongue. “I’m wanted.”

Bliss whimpered, her hands entangled in Jamie’s hair. She wanted to push him away, but she couldn’t. “Oh God, Jamie—they could—arrest you?”

He seemed completely unconcerned by the possibility as he bared her stomach and began kissing his way down over it. “Aye, Duchess, I suppose they could—”

Bliss was writhing on the bed in an anguish of desire and despair. By the time Jamie had smoothed away the last of her clothes and attended to all the sensitive places that he alone had charted, there was no room in her mind for the past or the future.