“Don’t take me back, Jamie,” she pleaded, without thinking first. “Please—I couldn’t bear being married to Alexander—”

Jamie regarded her in thoughtful silence for a long time. Then he said, unwillingly, as though the words were torn from him, “You are so beautiful.”

No one had ever said that to Bliss before. With her fiery red hair and her freckles, she’d felt conspicuous, but never beautiful. She stood motionless, unable to speak, until Jamie held out his hand to her.

Like a sleepwalker, she went to him, and he drew her down to sit on his lap. Bending his head slightly, he nipped at the peak of one of her breasts with his teeth, and Bliss moaned. The sensation was exquisitely pleasurable, even though she was fully dressed.

A sharp rap at the door sent Bliss scrambling off Jamie’s lap. Flushing with embarrassment, she found her brush in the depths of the battered satchel and began grooming her hair.

Jamie crossed the room and opened the door, and Dorrie came in, carrying yet another tray. “I’ve brought your supper, gov’nor,” she said, simpering and batting her eyelashes at him. “Just like I said I would.”

“There’s a love,” Jamie replied easily, taking the tray and sort of herding Dorrie back toward the door.

Dorrie wasn’t about to be shepherded out—not, at least, before she’d said her piece. “There’s some men out front,” she confided, lowering her voice to a loud whisper, “askin’ after you and ’er majesty ’ere.”

Jamie’s face went solemn, and Bliss stopped brushing her hair.

“What do they look like?” Bliss demanded to know. “And how many of them are there?”

Clearly, Dorrie preferred to deal directly with Jamie and ignore Bliss. “There’s two of them,” she told him earnestly. “One’s tall, with ’air as red as this one’s.” She gestured distractedly toward Bliss before going on. “The other’s a little bit of a man, with a paunch and bulgin’ eyes and ’ardly no ’air at all.”

Bliss’s brush clattered to the floor as Jamie turned to give her a quizzical look. Before she could utter any kind of a warning, her father stepped into the room, followed by Alexander, who was as short and fat and old as ever.

“So,” boomed the tall, redheaded lighthouse keeper. “It’s true what I’m hearin’!”

Bliss’s heart was thudding against the inside of her rib cage. She didn’t dare look at Jamie, though her every instinct told her that he was braced for a fight. She lifted her chin, sent a silent prayer winging toward heaven, and asked, “How did you find me, Papa?”

Nils Stafford stared at his daughter with mingled grief and contempt in his eyes. Bliss had long since accepted the fact that he didn’t love her, but that didn’t stop the knowledge from hurting. “Never mind how I found you. What are you doin’, sharin’ a room with this blighter?” He gestured toward Jamie, who stood completely still and kept his peace.

Bliss swallowed hard. This was her chance to escape Alexander, once and for all, and she meant to grab it. With her right hand painfully clasping her left, she lied, “I thought Jamie loved me, Papa. I gave myself to him and now—now he won’t do right by me.”