“So he has sheep, does he?” he asked hoarsely. She looked at him with an expression of dread. “A great many, I suspect,” she said.

Given Maggie’s recent illness, Reeve found it easy to keep his voice calm and gentle. “You know something more about Jamie, don’t you, Maggie? Something you’re afraid to tell me?”

She swallowed, her eyes averted now. “It’s not me I’m afraid for, Reeve. It’s Jamie. He’s sure that if you know, you’ll never forgive him, and he’d rather you didn’t find him at all than to have you hate him—”

Reeve held up his hands in a bid for silence. “It’s all right, Maggie. I won’t ask you anymore. When you’re ready to tell me, you can.”

“I promised I wouldn’t,” she said sadly.

“Then I’ll have to accept that for the time being,” Reeve replied. “But I’m warning you, Yank: I won’t always be this charitable.”

A small smile quirked one corner of her mouth. “I know,” she answered. “Come here and kiss me, please.”

Reeve shook his head. “And catch your cold? Never!”

“If you don’t kiss me right now, I’ll be forced to do something truly decadent and even bawdy,” Maggie announced firmly.

Reeve cocked an eyebrow. “Such as?”

She tossed aside the covers with a gesture of daring, only to find that she was wearing a nightgown. “How did I get into this?” she asked. “I was naked—”

Reeve laughed and pulled the bedclothes back into place. “Eleanor put it on you when you fell sick. Decent sort, Eleanor.”

Maggie crossed her eyes.

Chapter 22

REEVE’S HOUSE, BUILT OF WHITE STONE, LAY AT THE END of a red dirt road lined on either side with banana trees. Beyond the structure were acres and acres of sugar cane, standing as tall as corn. Riding beside Reeve, in the box of a wagon borrowed from the innkeeper, Maggie drew in her breath at the sight of it. “You run a place like this with no servants?”

Reeve grinned at her and, with a swift motion of his hands, brought the reins down on the backs of the two-horse team, urging them to go faster. “No house servants to speak of. Field workers are another matter.”

“Aborigines?”

Reeve nodded, then frowned slightly. “They’re a migratory people, though. When the spirit moves them, they just put down their tools and leave.”

In the distance Maggie caught the shimmer of sunshine on blue-green water. She remembered that the ocean was near, and looked forward to walking on sandy beaches and searching for shells. “Does this place have a name?” she asked, spotting Elisabeth and Cora up ahead, waving from the porch of the house. Smiling, she waved back.

“Aye,” Reeve said quietly. “It’s called Seven Sisters, because of a story the Aborigines tell. A legend from the Dreamtime.”

“The Dreamtime?”