Jamie reached out unexpectedly, caught Bliss by the cloth of her skirt, and wrenched her backward to his side. “Shrill little bugger, isn’t she?” he asked companionably, assuming an expression of long suffering.

Her face hot and probably red, Bliss whirled on Jamie, one hand raised to administer the sound slap he deserved. Instead of submitting, however, he grasped her wrist before she could strike him and hauled her against his torso. It was like hitting a rock wall at a dead run; Bliss was rendered breathless.

“Time you learned who’ll be wearin’ the pants in this family, little lady,” Jamie informed her, in a deliberately obnoxious drawl. “Time and past, in fact.”

Bliss was dizzy with fury. Who the devil did this rounder think he was, anyway? “Let me go,” she hissed, for Jamie’s benefit alone, “or I swear I’ll sew your left knee to your chin!”

His mouth moved suspiciously; Bliss caught the hint of a grin before his lips descended to hers and appropriated a fierce kiss. At once humiliated and consumed with her own inexplicable passion for this man, Bliss struggled at first and then submitted, having no choice in the matter.

She was still gasping for breath when Dorrie arrived with a dour-looking clergyman in tow. He was a skinny fellow with a cold-reddened nose, and his spectacles were steamed over.

Jamie looked skyward. “At any other time,” he muttered, the brogue upon him, “there wouldn’t ’ave been a preacher within screamin’ distance.”

The minister glanced suspiciously from Jamie to Bliss, his mouth drawn into a tight, hard line. It was clear that he suspected them of the grossest wrongdoing.

“If you please,” he said, in crisp, no-nonsense tones, shooing the small congregation toward the front room of the inn.

Jamie and Bliss were positioned before the fireplace, where a homey blaze was crackling, and the sacred words were spoken. Only Dorrie, the housemaid, seemed profoundly moved by the ceremony; she twisted her apron into a handkerchief of sorts and sobbed with loud sentiment throughout.

The moment the wedding was over, Bliss turned to Jamie and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He gave her a look chilly as a winter wind at midnight and turned away as if to leave. Instead, he all but collided with Nils.

“I’ll just have a word with you, if I might,” Nils said, his tone laced with the kind of friendliness that lacerates. He was trying to maneuver his son-in-law aside, out of Bliss’s hearing. “You don’t mind, do you, mate—since we’re family and all?”

Jamie’s gaze sliced to Bliss and then returned disdainfully to her father’s face. “Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of my—dear wife.”

Bliss felt color rise in her face. Jamie had spoken with a cruel sort of gentleness, and his words had left her wounded. She was anxious to be alone with her “husband” and explain to him that his life didn’t need to change and neither did hers. Since there was no question of consummating the marriage, they could obtain an annulment in Auckland and then go their separate ways.