Bliss’s throat tightened painfully. Granted, she’d felt longing for this man hardly more than an hour before, but that had passed. Now, she was cornered, and more than a little afraid. If she didn’t submit to this stranger who was her husband, would he force her?

Jamie gave Bliss a lingering look and then went out. She was reminded of a fairy tale she’d loved as a child: Rumplestiltskin. She’d been left, in a manner of speaking, to spin straw into gold, but no temperamental elf was going to come along and help her. She was on her own.

A sudden rap at the door made her start. She was almost expecting that elf when she turned the knob and pulled.

Dorrie was standing on the threshold, her eyes puffy and red from crying, a stack of clean sheets in her arms. “I’ve come to make the bed ready,” she said, quite unnecessarily.

Bliss thought quickly as she stepped aside to admit the maid. Dorrie began stripping the blankets and sheets from the mattress, sniffling loudly as she worked.

“I never thought I’d be makin’ up a marriage bed for me own sweet Jamie boy,” the servant lamented. “Never.”

Cautiously, Bliss approached. A flicker of jealousy moved in her heart, but she quelled it with her considerable will. This was no time to be worrying about Jamie’s romantic history. He’d probably tumbled many a serving girl in his time, and if Bliss were to start fretting over the number, she’d get nothing done for counting.

“You’ve known my—my husband for a time?” she asked.

After making a truly disgusting sound to clear her clogged nose, Dorrie nodded. “Aye—I knew Jamie long before ’e became a man o’ property, I did. Things was better, I swear, when ’e wasn’t above pickin’ a pocket now and again. It’s ruined ’im, bein’ rich.”

Bliss suppressed a smile. In a little while, Jamie was going to come through that door planning to deflower her, in this very bed. She certainly had nothing to smile about. “Jamie was a pickpocket?” she asked, wondering at her own surprise. After all, he’d told her that he’d been transported for stealing.

“That he was, mum,” Dorrie answered, without pausing in her work. “And worse.”

Bliss couldn’t help remembering how those thugs had flown in every direction at the mere mention of Jamie’s name, abandoning her in their camp the night before. “What changed him?” she asked in a soft voice.

Dorrie gave a moist sigh. “Well, missus, it ’appened when ’E went to Australia, two, maybe three years ago. Somebody bested ’im in a fight, I think—’e ’as a nasty scar on ’is arm, you know. I wasn’t none too clear’eaded when Jamie was about, though, so I couldn’t tell you exactly what ’appened. ’E ain’t one for explainin’ such things, neither.”

Bliss drew a deep breath. Dorrie’s sympathies surely lay with Jamie, though she might be a sort of hostile ally, considering the circumstances. “I have to escape, Dorrie,” she confided, “and I need your help.”