Maggie was beyond caring what people said—for the moment at least. “Or you could give me back my papers,” she suggested lamely. Actually, she wanted the part in the play and she wanted the shelter of Reeve’s house as well, though it would have been scandalous, of course, to say so.

“Absolutely not,” Reeve said with good-natured firmness. “I paid a lot of money for your freedom, Maggie, and I want something back on my investment.”

Maggie’s eyes widened. “Not—”

Reeve laughed. “Not that. If you come to my bed, it has to be because you want to be there. I wouldn’t make love to you under any other circumstances, ever.”

The stipulation didn’t amount to much of a barrier between propriety and the passion Maggie felt for this man. She wanted him, even now, with her pride in tatters and her skin bruised and scratched from a tumble out of Duncan Kirk’s carriage. But she could work through all that later; for now she was just glad to be safely away from that house and its half-mad owner.

Reeve and Maggie left for Sydney by train late that night. Reeve had engaged two separate sleeping rooms, and Maggie was grateful, though a part of her would have preferred to share one.

Alone in her tiny compartment, the windows covered for the night, Maggie took off her dress. Her arms were badly bruised where Duncan had grabbed them, and her knees and elbows were both scraped. The pain had not bothered her much before, but now that she had a chance to think about all she’d been through, she was very uncomfortable.

Maggie heard the compartment door close behind her before she realized that it had been opened, and whirled, wearing only her camisole and drawers, to face Reeve. He was looking at the bruises on her arms.

“I’ll kill that bastard,” he said under his breath. Maggie relaxed a little, at least outwardly. Familiar emotions and needs and yearnings were churning within her. “You’d better go,” she said, wishing that he wouldn’t.

Reeve’s eyes dropped to her knees, scabbed and sore beneath the ruffled bottoms of her drawers. “My God.”

“Reeve, I’m all right,” Maggie insisted softly.

“I’ll get some disinfectant or something,” he said, and then he left the compartment. Maggie could have latched the door, but for a reason she wouldn’t have wanted to explain she failed to do so. She was sitting on her berth when Reeve came back carrying a brown medicine bottle and a clean white cloth.

“Take off your clothes,” he said clinically. “I want to see how badly you were hurt.”