Neither Maggie nor Duncan had heard him approaching, and both were stricken to silence.

“Go back to the hotel,” Reeve said to Maggie, though his gaze was fixed on Duncan Kirk. “The preacher will be arriving at any minute.”

Maggie stayed where she was. “There won’t be any need for a preacher, Reeve.”

Duncan had recovered his aplomb by then; he was smiling at Reeve. “I should think you’d want the services of a priest, being who you are. But that kind of marriage wouldn’t be quite so easy to annul, would it?”

Reeve’s hand tightened on the handle of his cane, and for one awful moment Maggie thought he was going to club Duncan over the head with it. For her part, she was reasoning out what it might mean for a Catholic to be married by a preacher instead of a priest. In the eyes of the church the ceremony would not be valid.

Maggie looked covetously at the cane. Oh, to grab it and twist it around its owner’s neck!

“I’ll be damned, Kirk,” Reeve breathed, “if I’ll explain to you!”

“You can explain to me, then!” Maggie cried, planting herself directly in front of Reeve.

“Go back to the hotel and wait for the preacher, darling,” he said with an acid smile.

Where once Maggie had gloried in the idea of marriage to this man, now she felt trapped. She had no real choice but to do as he said; leaving with Duncan was unthinkable, and she’d missed her chance to go on tour as an actress. She lifted her skirts and stomped back toward the hotel, and Reeve followed, though at a much slower pace.

Inside her room, which adjoined Reeve’s, Maggie quickly locked the door to the hall and the one that linked her quarters to his. Then, steaming, she opened her trunk and riffled through it, passing up all her pretty new things for the tattered nightgown she’d brought from England. Quickly, she stripped off her clothes and put it on.

The key in the door between Maggie’s room and Reeve’s toppled to the floor with a warning clink, and then he was standing there in the opening, brandishing a key of his own.

His wonderful blue-green eyes narrowed at the sight of the nightgown she wore. “What the hell—”

“Bed is all you want me for, isn’t it?” Maggie snapped, taking down her hair and brushing it. “I thought I’d dress appropriately!”

“I prefer you naked, but if you insist on being married in your nightgown, I guess that’s your business. Explaining the wedding pictures to our children will be something of a problem, but I’m sure you’ll come up with a story or two.”