By the time she and Rosalind returned to the Kirk residence, which was within a stone’s throw of Government House, Maggie was exhausted. Burdened with as many packages as she could carry, she hurried to her small room off the nursery, only to find a maid there, stripping the blankets and sheets from the bed.

Her mind spinning with the implications of that, Maggie let her parcels fall to the floor with a series of loud clumps. The only thing worse than having to stay under Duncan Kirk’s roof for a full year would be having to leave it, that very day, in disgrace.

“What are you doing?” Maggie croaked.

The maid was already kneeling on the floor, reaching for the boxes Maggie had dropped. “Why, I’m pickin’ up your things, miss. Anyone could see that!”

If it hadn’t been for the rigors of the day, Maggie would have laughed. “I meant, why were you stripping the bed?”

The young maid looked up, her eyes bright. One work-roughened hand caressed a silver dress box in a gesture of wonder. “The master wants you to sleep on the second floor, miss,” she said, cocking her head to one side. She had a mop of tightly curled brown hair that seemed determined to swallow up her mobcap, and her nose turned up at the end. “You just go on down there now—Cook’s sending up your supper—and I’ll bring your things along later.”

Maggie opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. She’d no strength left for doing battle with “the master” and his arbitrary decisions. For now, for tonight, he’d won.

“Which room is mine?” Maggie asked in a defeated tone.

“The one at the far end of the hallway, miss. Away from the stairs.”

Maggie left the small room that had been good enough for other governesses and distractedly smoothed the beds Jeremy and Tad had left rumpled from their naps. She wondered where they were and if she’d ever get a chance to teach them. Or were they simply an excuse, as the title “hostess” might be, for Duncan to keep Maggie under his roof, ordering her about and dressing her up like an expensive doll.

Maggie cursed Philip Briggs for bringing her to this place so far from the rest of the world, and there were tears of anger, weariness, and frustration in her eyes when she made her way down the stairs and along the second floor hallway.

This room, like its counterpart in Sydney, was entirely too sumptuous for a governess; at the windows it had soft blue velvet draperies trimmed with gold tassels. The spread on the massive mahogany bed was of some gauzy white fabric, and plush pillows of all shapes and sizes and colors gave it the dissolutely luxurious look of a harem couch.