“Did you or did you not spend the night with him?”

Maggie was insulted. After all she’d been through, Reeve should have been offering her comfort and understanding. Instead, he was questioning her morals. “I did. I slept in the same bed with him, in fact,” she answered coldly.

Reeve swore and Maggie saw his neck go red by stages. She realized that she couldn’t afford to antagonize this man under present circumstances, and she relented.

“Reeve, there has never been any other man besides you,” she said.

Reeve gave a long sigh. To Maggie’s relief, he believed her. “Did you really stab Duncan?”

“No. The man I was with did that.” Slowly, very carefully, Maggie explained how she and Jamie had met without mentioning his name or the beggar’s badge he’d worn around his neck. She told Reeve everything else, however, and by the time the story was out, he wanted to go back to Duncan’s house and tear his good arm out of its socket.

“We’ll be married as soon as we get back to Sydney,” he said when Maggie had talked him out of making the carriage turn around in the middle of the street.

Maggie felt hope leap in her tired heart. “Have you changed your mind, then, about—about loving me?” she dared to ask.

“No,” Reeve said distractedly, clearly thinking of other things. “But that shouldn’t matter—”

“It does matter!” Maggie spat out on the verge of tears. She drew herself into the corner of the carriage seat and huddled there, furious and weary and completely confused.

“Maggie.” Reeve spoke her name gently and cupped one hand beneath her chin.

She promptly slapped it away. “Don’t you touch me, Reeve McKenna.”

Reeve sighed. “If you’re not going to be my wife, Yank,” he asked softly, “what are you going to do?”

“I certainly won’t be your wife,” Maggie huffed, “and I won’t be your mistress either!”

“Then how will you justify living under my roof?” Reeve asked, smiling a little and arching one eyebrow. “You’ve got no place else to go, you know.”

That was true enough. She probably wouldn’t be able to get any sort of job, either, for Duncan would never sign her certificate now. Maggie gnawed at her lower lip for a few moments, and then inspiration struck. “I’ll be Elisabeth’s nanny!” she cried. “I’ll get her to talk!”

“Elisabeth already has a nanny,” Reeve pointed out reasonably, and though his lips were still, his eyes were laughing at Maggie. “But I guess you could have that part I offered you—Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.” He paused as Maggie’s eyes lit up, then went on. “Of course, everyone will say that you’re a kept woman.”