Duncan smiled to himself as he left the theater by a side door and leaned against a brick wall, striking a match and lighting a cheroot. Queensland, he thought as he drew deeply of the smoke. Queensland was just the place for the taming of a certain very fetching little shrew.

Of course, it would take days, maybe even weeks to make the necessary arrangements. Duncan threw down his cheroot and ground it out with his heel. There was no point in wasting time.

Maggie lived for just two things during those first difficult days following her acceptance of Reeve’s death: the child growing within her and the surcease of pain that was achieved each night when she walked onstage. The newspapers were calling her portrayal of Kate a triumph, but she only sighed when she read the articles.

One of the English sisters was letting out Maggie’s costumes, and she turned obediently in the direction indicated by the woman’s tug at her gown. There were flowers on the table in front of her dressing room mirror, beautiful hothouse orchids, fragrant and white as snow.

Maggie turned up her nose. If Duncan Kirk thought that a few fancy blossoms were going to change her mind, he could just think again. Wistfully, she looked down at the diamond ring she hadn’t had the heart to take off, and sighed. Soon enough, she supposed, she’d be asked to leave Reeve’s house, and she might need to pawn the ring at some point. She wouldn’t be able to play the role of Kate once she was noticeably pregnant, of course, and then how would she earn her living?

Maggie pushed the question aside. She would think about that later.

Philip burst through the door at exactly the moment she’d made that decision, his face alight with excitement. “Maggie, would you believe it? You’ve been invited on a tour!”

She drew in a breath, let it out again. “A tour?” she echoed blankly.

“Of the United States, Maggie!” Philip blurted out. “If you want to go home, this is your chance!”

For the first time in days Maggie was jarred out of her walking stupor. She stared at Philip, her eyes wide. “You mean my passage would be paid and everything?”

Philip nodded eagerly. “And I’ll go with you, as your manager and”—he glanced at the wardrobe woman, who was listening shamelessly—“your husband.”

Maggie paid no attention to Philip’s constant hints that they should be married, and she brushed this one aside as well. Would America really be home? She had no friends there, and no family.

On the other hand, she would not be a foreigner in the United States as she was in Australia. She sighed. “When do we leave?”

Chapter 18