Bliss reached out and caught his hand in her own when he would have risen off the bed and walked away. “Jamie,” she insisted.

“I was in a fight,” he confessed, his tone grudging. “I tried to rob a man, and ’e got me knife away and near sliced off me arm.” Jamie paused, lowering his head for a moment. “’Twas an equal match, it was, but when I saw the beggar’s badge ’angin’ round ’is neck, the strength went out of me.”

Bliss touched the medallion Jamie wore. “The man was wearing one of these?”

Jamie nodded, his gaze still fixed on something long ago and far away. “Aye, Duchess—I’d jumped me own brother, Reeve.”

There was a short silence, then Bliss said gently, “I’m sure he’s forgiven you.”

“Aye,” Jamie said doubtfully, taking Bliss’s mug from her and rising from the bed. Even though he turned his back to her, he could not hide the depths of his emotions.

Bliss got up quickly and looked around for her satchel. Her shirtwaist and skirt were ruined, thanks to the bloody battle she’d fought the day before with Jamie’s knife, so she started to put on the only other garment she possessed—her black evening gown.

“The first thing we’re going to do in Auckland, Duchess,” Jamie said as he helped her with the fastenings at the back of the dress, “is get you some decent clothes to wear.”

Bliss felt her throat tighten. “Will that be before or after we have our marriage annulled, Mr. McKenna?”

His fingers hesitated in their husbandly work of hooking buttons. “Before,” he said, in a voice that revealed nothing of his feelings.

“I’ll send money to repay you as soon as I’m settled in America,” Bliss ventured, testing the emotional waters.

Jamie fastened the last button rather more forcibly than he needed to, giving Bliss an eloquent shake in the process. “I’ve told you ’ow I feel about that idea, Duchess. I don’t want to ’ear so much as the mention of that place again.”

Bliss whirled, raising angry eyes to meet Jamie’s. Blast that man, he didn’t want her for his wife, but he expected to dictate her every move all the same. “What place?” she challenged furiously. “America?”

His jawline hardened, but Jamie was too stubborn to rise to the bait. He turned his back on Bliss, struggled awkwardly into his buttonless coat, and stormed out of the cottage, slamming the door behind him.

Bliss muttered a few colorful words herself as she brushed her hair and went looking for something to eat. She was devouring a piece of bread when Cutter came in, nose red with the cold. His mild green eyes widened at the sight of her low-cut evening gown, and before he could stop himself, he’d given a low whistle. Dog, always at Cutter’s side, perked up his ears at the sound.

“No wonder the lad’s half out of his head,” the old man commented when he’d partially recovered from the shock.