Maggie had never been so suddenly, searingly angry in all her life. Her fear was displaced by a pounding sense of outrage and, without thinking first, she spit into Kirk’s face.

He went rigid and, in that awful moment, Maggie realized what a dreadful mistake she’d made. She squirmed to be free, but Duncan restrained her with only one hand, taking a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his coat with the other and slowly drying his face.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said lamely.

Duncan tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket. “I seriously doubt that, Maggie, but you will be sorry shortly. No question about it.”

A shiver went through Maggie. How on earth did she manage to get herself into these situations? First she’d traveled halfway around the world to marry a man who’d only been toying with her affections. Then she’d spent not one night but two in Reeve McKenna’s bed. And now she was trapped inside a darkened carriage with a brute whose sole aim in life seemed to be to make her sorry she’d ever been born.

“I’m willing to forget that this ever happened,” she said reasonably, “if you’ll just let me go.”

She felt the hoarse laughter ripple through Duncan Kirk’s powerful body before she heard it escape his throat in a grating burst that was quickly stilled. “That is very generous of you,” he said.

Maggie bit her lower lip. She’d exhausted all her bravado; now she was just plain scared. Not only that, but his grip on her wrists was making them hurt. “Why are you doing this?” she asked softly.

The question seemed to reach Kirk as none of her struggling or her impudence had. He let go of Maggie, even allowed her to leap back to her own seat, where she sat shivering despite the warmth of the night.

“McKenna was right,” he muttered, “passion becomes you.”

The man was insane. Maggie reached subtly for the handle of the carriage door, mentally calculating her chances of escaping a moving vehicle without breaking every bone in her body. They didn’t add up to a comforting figure. “P-passion?” she echoed, still groping for the little lever couched somewhere in the padded leather interior of the door.

Duncan gave a ragged sigh and Maggie saw him lift one hand to his face. The motion was almost despondent. “Never mind. Miss Chamberlin, will you forgive me?”

Not until the day I die, Maggie thought, but she wasn’t fool enough to say that out loud. It seemed wiser to go along with whatever Kirk might say, then leap to freedom and make a run for it if the carriage slowed at all. She couldn’t think of a single thing that would be safe to say, so she kept her peace, still fidgeting for the door handle.