Calandra looked positively stunned. Clearly, she numbered among those who saw no reason to leave a fine country like New Zealand. “Problem?” she echoed, and her voice came out as a little squeak.

Again, Bliss nodded. Then, after drawing a deep breath, she rushed into her story, explaining as best she could why she’d left home in the first place and how she’d met Jamie. She hadn’t even gotten to the shotgun wedding when tears sprang unexpectedly to her eyes and she couldn’t go on for the lump in her throat.

Jamie. She would never, ever see Jamie again, and the knowledge was too much to bear.

“Oh, my goodness, what is it?” Calandra fussed, reaching out awkwardly with one plump hand to pat Bliss’s slender, freckled one. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m married!” Bliss wailed. “And I’ve run away from my husband!”

Calandra withdrew her hand to fan herself with it. She truly did look as though she might suffer an attack of the vapors, and little sputters came from her lips.

Bliss forced herself to finish the shameful tale. “He didn’t want to marry me, but Papa forced him.”

Calandra had found her voice, and it showed remarkable control, given her near hysterics of moments before. “Do you love this man, Bliss?”

Wretchedly, Bliss nodded, using an embroidered tea napkin to dry her eyes. Hellfire and spit, she’d cried more tears since meeting Jamie McKenna than in all the rest of her life put together. “Yes, God help me!”

A stunned “My, my,” was the response to that.

“He meant to get rid of me,” Bliss said. At the look of alarm on her aunt’s face, she hastened to clarify the statement. “Oh, I mean by an annulment. Jamie wanted to wash his hands of me, but—”

“But,” prompted Calandra.

Bliss could feel the color of shame pounding in her cheeks. She might have lied, and saved herself a great deal of grief, but something inside her prevented that. “We were—intimate.”

Calandra gave a little cry and fanned herself again, this time with an air of desperation, and then she reached out for a small silver hand bell and began to ring it frantically.

Bliss was certain that she would be sent packing, satchel, sad story, and all, and she prepared to leave on her own with dignity. Her pride demanded that much of her.

An elderly maid wearing a threadbare uniform and a mobcap appeared, looking put out. “Yes, ma’am?” she demanded of Miss Pennyhope. “What is it now?”

“I want a boy sent round for my solicitor, Mr. Wilson. He is to come here immediately.”

The maid gave Bliss a skeptical assessment, at the same time addressing her employer. “He’ll be thrilled to hear it, mistress. And what, pray tell, has this little redheaded urchin to do with the matter?”

Calandra gave a long-suffering sigh. “Really, Bertha, I do grow weary of explaining my every decision to you. Just send the boy round and go on about your business, please!”