Maggie’s cheeks were burning and she knew there was insurrection snapping in her eyes. She stood up slowly, planning to tell Mr. Kirk that she liked neither his arbitrary tone nor his manner, but once again he spoke before she could get a word out.

“You will find me to be a most generous and understanding employer, Miss Chamberlin,” Duncan Kirk said, “but if you disobey me, you will also discover that I can be ruthless. I will not tolerate any more trysts or rebellions, minor or otherwise.”

Maggie knew only too well the choices that would be left to her if Mr. Kirk should terminate her employment, leaving her without a signed certificate to serve as a reference. She would end up either on the streets or in some love nest provided by Reeve McKenna, and both prospects were patently unacceptable. As much as she’d flowered in that man’s bed, she had no intention of becoming his plaything, to be coddled and pampered for a time and then tossed away as Loretta had been tossed away. She wouldn’t be able to bear that.

“Your friend wouldn’t be Loretta Craig, by any chance?” Maggie asked coldly, her chin high as she rose out of her chair and stood facing Mr. Kirk.

He smiled a slow, obnoxious smile. “Loretta is only one of my friends. It’s Lady Rosalind Simmons who’ll be taking you shopping. I think you’ll like her.”

Maggie doubted that, but there didn’t seem to be any other choice than to let this Lady Simmons oversee the shopping expedition. She’d taken this position and now, since Mr. McKenna had reclaimed her emigration papers, she was going to have to make the best of things. “I’ll be ready when Lady Simmons arrives,” she said evenly.

“Excellent,” said Mr. Kirk with a slight nod of his head.

Maggie turned away without being excused and swept as far as the doorway before pausing to look back at her employer. She expected to see anger in his face; instead, she found amusement. And that made her furious. “I trust,” she said in bitingly polite tones, “that there will, at some point, be time for teaching your sons, Mr. Kirk?”

He laughed. “I promise you, Miss Chamberlin—you’ll have more time with the boys than you could possibly want.”

Having no way to respond to that outlandish statement, Maggie turned in a whirl and stormed out of the study and up the staircase to the third floor. In the nursery both Jeremy and Tad were sleeping soundly on their beds.

Mechanically, Maggie covered Tad as she had covered Jeremy earlier, then went into her tiny room. There, she flung herself down onto the narrow bed and pounded at the pillow with her fists.