Philip’s mouth dropped open. He had never believed that Reeve really intended to marry Maggie, but now he was forced to face the truth. “That means that the man has virtually handed over everything he owns!”

“He trusts me,” Maggie said, glorying in the words. “He must think that I have a very practical nature.”

Philip made a rude snorting sound. “More likely, he’s so besotted that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And you haven’t got a ’practical nature,’ Maggie—if you had, you wouldn’t be throwing away a chance to set America on its ear!”

Maggie smiled, perched now on the edge of Reeve’s desk, her arms folded. “I’m sure there are lots of other actresses who would like to go,” she said cheerfully. “Loretta Craig, for instance.”

“The people involved want you, Maggie. If you don’t go, neither do Samuel and I.”

Maggie felt just the slightest guilt. “I’m pregnant, Philip,” she reminded him quietly. “Just how much are they going to want me when I have a stomach out to here?”

“You could have taken a short sabbatical and then left the child with a nanny somewhere and—”

“Leave my baby with a stranger?” Maggie was stiff with outrage. “You can’t be serious, Philip—I never intended to do that for a moment!”

Philip was now leaning forward in his chair, his head in his hands, his fingers entangled in his hair as though he might be planning to tear it out. He was making an odd groaning sound that made Maggie stoop to look into his face, concerned.

“Philip?”

“Why me?!” he wailed. “Why?”

Maggie patted the top of his head compassionately and swept out.

The rest of the week crept by. By day Maggie helped Cora in her work with Elisabeth, coaxing the child to add more and more words to her still-limited vocabulary. At night she threw herself into her performance in the play, and every evening at curtain time there were more flowers and more offers to travel to other parts of the world as an actress.

Maggie was pleased by this acclaim, of course, though she had no intention of leaving Australia. Though success was what she’d dreamed about all her life, Reeve was more important now.

On Friday afternoon, having missed another rehearsal, Maggie was pacing the sidewalk when the carriage drove up. To her surprise, Jamie got out first.

He patted her cheek and then muttered, “Oh, hell,” and kissed her forehead.

Maggie was craning her neck, trying to see inside the carriage. Jamie took her shoulders in his hands and made her look at him.

“Maggie, Reeve isn’t himself. You’re going to have to be very, very patient.”