“Thank you,” he said politely, tipping his hat to Calandra, and then he opened the door and all but thrust Bliss outside onto the steps.

A sleek carriage was waiting in the street, lamps glowing in the chilly darkness, matched gray horses nickering impatiently.

Jamie had taken Bliss’s satchel from her, and he tossed it into the boot at the back of the carriage, then opened the door for her. “The Victoria Hotel,” he said to the driver.

Bliss settled herself inside the carriage, wanting to stay as far from Jamie as possible, and he only chuckled at the maneuver, planted his feet on the cushioned seat opposite theirs and sighed contentedly.

“Again, Duchess,” he said comfortably, “where have you been?”

“Working,” Bliss answered, looking out at the night and despairing because somewhere in this big, confusing city, there was a woman who knew what it was to lie beneath Jamie McKenna, to run her hands down his naked back. A woman other than herself. “How did you find me?”

Jamie grinned beneath the slant of his disreputable hat, which he’d pulled down over his eyes in the way of a man about to doze off. “Workin’ at what?” he asked, completely ignoring her question.

“Waiting tables in a tearoom.”

He gave a hoarse burst of laughter. “Ah, Duchess, trust you to do the one damn thing I wouldn’t have expected. Why the hell did you want to bring a lot of bleeders their tea?”

Bliss felt very virtuous all of the sudden. “To earn wages, of course,” she said loftily. “So that I could repay you the money I borrowed.”

Quick as that he’d reached out, caught hold of her, and wrenched her across his lap, so that she was looking up into his shadowed face. Heaven help her, she hadn’t the spirit to fight.

“Borrowed, is it?” he drawled, his lips so close to hers that she could feel the heat of his breath. “Were you plannin’ to come back then, Duchess?”

She trembled as he worked the buttons of her coat and then settled one proprietary hand over her breast. “You know I wasn’t,” she managed to say. “You’d made it clear enough that you didn’t want a wife.”

His thumb moved over her nipple, slowly, causing it to tighten and then rise beneath her shirtwaist and camisole. “You and I,” he answered gruffly, “have a lot to talk about.” A moment later, he was kissing her.

Chapter 12

THE VICTORIA HOTEL WAS THE GRANDEST PLACE BLISS HAD EVER seen, even more splendid than Alexander’s house in Wellington. Furthermore, despite his rumpled clothes and that infernal leather hat, the staff deferred to Jamie as though he were Prince Albert himself.

Bliss was awed by the massive chandeliers that graced the ceilings, and the rugs beneath her feet were richly colored and so soft that she was certain her shoes must be leaving imprints.

Jamie strode confidently into the lift, but Bliss hung back. She’d read about these contraptions; sometimes they fell a story or two and somebody crawled out with broken ankles. Provided they’d been fortunate enough to survive, of course.