Maggie’s mind was screaming a warning, but her hands went to the laces of her camisole and untied them. Her brain might have wanted propriety, but her body yearned for comforting. She took off her drawers, once she’d tossed away her camisole, and lay down on the berth.

Reeve knelt beside her and, his brow creased with concern, dabbed at all her injuries with the cloth and the medicine. “My God,” he breathed once as Maggie flinched at the sting, “you look like you’ve been dragged behind a runaway horse.”

Maggie hadn’t felt particularly sorry for herself before Reeve began fussing over her, but now her eyes filled with tears and every scrape seemed to be a gaping wound, every bruise a fracture.

“Roll over onto your stomach,” Reeve said, not appearing to notice her tears or her bare breasts reaching toward him so openly and so eagerly.

Obediently, Maggie rolled over, expecting more gentle attention. Instead, she got a smacking swat on her naked bottom and a jovial, “No damage here!”

She turned over again, more vulnerable than she’d ever been. “Stay with me,” she whispered.

Reeve shook his head and got to his feet. “Not tonight, Yank—you’ve been through enough as it is. Time you got some rest.” With that he opened Maggie’s reticule and pulled out the first nightgown he found. “Here,” he said, tossing it, as something made of metal clattered to the floor. “Put this on.”

Maggie sat frozen on the berth, clutching the nightgown in front of her and watching helplessly as Reeve stooped to pick up what had fallen to the floor: a beggar’s badge identical to his own.

The expression on his face was horrible when he looked up from the medallion lying, still splattered with Duncan’s blood, in his palm. His aquamarine eyes scored Maggie, and a white line of fury edged his jaw.

“Jamie,” he breathed. “Your sheepherder—was he Jamie?”

Maggie shifted so that she was kneeling on the narrow berth, her nightgown still in her hands. Her heart was hammering against her rib cage and her breath burned its way in and out of her lungs. Slowly, she nodded her head.

“And you weren’t going to tell me?” The low words were not spoken so much as flung at Maggie, like a hissing snake.

Maggie felt tears of frustration bloom in her eyes. Her scrapes and scratches were forgotten. “He made me promise—”

Suddenly, Reeve strode toward Maggie and grasped her chin hard in his hand. “He did what?”

A tear streaked down Maggie’s cheek. “He made me promise that I wouldn’t tell you that I’d seen him.”

Reeve held up the bloody beggar’s badge. “Did he give you this, Maggie? Or did you take it off his body after Kirk was through with him?”