Maggie was so relieved, her knees wavered beneath her. She clasped the footrail of the bed to keep from sinking to the floor. “That is good news,” she said coldly.

Duncan was still pale as death, and his chuckle sounded hoarse. “I wonder if it will be good news to Reeve—that you spent the night with a strange man.”

The words struck Maggie with the impact of a blow, and she felt the color drain from her face. Within the space of an instant, however, she had drawn herself to her full height and jutted out her chin. “Reeve will understand, once I explain.”

“So you’re going to him?”

“I don’t see any other option.”

“There is a choice, Margaret. You can stay here and we can pretend that none of this ever happened.”

Maggie’s grip on the bed rail tightened until her hands ached. “That’s madness,” she breathed. “I won’t spend another night under this roof.”

“I think you will.”

Maggie felt a quiver of fear in the pit of her stomach. “What are you trying to say?”

Duncan gave a dramatic sigh. “I would truly hate to have you arrested for stabbing me in the back, Maggie, but I’ll do it if I have to.”

“You know that’s a lie!”

“Yes, I know it, and you know it. But my witnesses will testify as I instruct them. Prisons are unpleasant places, Maggie—especially for women. But they might put you in an asylum, of course, assuming that only an insane woman would have the strength, let alone the desire, to plunge a knife into the back of a man twice her size.”

“I have a witness too,” Maggie reminded him, but some instinct kept her from revealing Jamie’s name. “You said yourself that he survived.”

Duncan nodded, and his eyes burned into Maggie’s face like green fire. “He did. But will you be able to find him? My guess is that your sheepherder is long gone by now.”

Maggie thought of Jamie’s determination to avoid Reeve and the promise he had extracted from her that she never mention his presence in Melbourne to his brother. Duncan was probably right, though she would have done almost anything rather than admit that. “I won’t stay here,” she said. “No matter what you threaten me with. I can tell Reeve all that’s happened and he’ll take my side.”

“Are you so very sure of that?” Duncan asked, tiring now. He sagged back against his pillows and his eyes were hooded and strangely blank.

Maggie wasn’t sure of anything except that she had to find Reeve and accept his proposal before he changed his mind. She would work on getting him to love her later. “I’m sure,” she lied.

Duncan yawned. “Why act hastily, Maggie? I’m quite harmless in this condition, aren’t I?”