It took very little time to hang up her spare dress and tuck her nightgowns into the trunk at the foot of her cot—Maggie had brought along none of the things Mr. Kirk had bought for her, of course—so when the task was done, she got out her much-read copy of The Taming of the Shrew and quietly let herself out of the stifling attic. Three steps led down to the rooms where the servants stayed, and then there was another stairway, long and steep, that brought her to the kitchen.

The room was empty, and Maggie was hungry. After a quick look around she helped herself to a biscuit and jam and slipped out the rear door into the garden. Arranging her skirts carefully around her, she sat on the ground beneath an acacia tree in full leaf and opened the book to read.

She studied the dialogue carefully, even though she knew the entire play almost by heart, and then nodded off into a fitful sleep. She hadn’t rested well the night before, of course, or the night before that, and she was exhausted.

A tickling sensation along Maggie’s cheekbone awakened her. She focused on the frame of a man, crouching in front of her in the grass, and again knew the hope that Reeve had forgiven her.

It was a fleeting fancy, for the man who had tickled her with a blade of grass was much smaller than Reeve, and of fair coloring. Maggie came wide-awake with a wrench. “Philip!”

Her erstwhile suitor smiled at her. “Hello, Magpie,” he said softly.

Flushed, Maggie fussed a moment with her skirts and her tumbledown hair. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

Philip chuckled at her uneasiness, as if to reassure her. “We’re going to be working together. Given that, I decided that it would be a good idea to make amends for what I did. Or didn’t do.”

Maggie composed herself while she watched Philip consider the question, and when it appeared he’d decided, she said, “I’m glad we didn’t marry, Philip. We both would have been unhappy.”

Philip nodded, and the expression in his amber eyes was gentle. “You’re in love with Reeve McKenna, unless I miss my guess. But things aren’t going too well, are they, Mag-pie?”

Dropping her eyes and biting down on her lower lip, Maggie shook her head. “Not well at all,” she confirmed in a whisper.

Philip curved an index finger under her chin and lifted it. “I’d box his ears for you if I dared,” he said. “Since I don’t, I’ll set myself to making things as easy for you in the production as I can.”