Reeve reached for a towel to dry his dripping hair and gave Miss Chamberlin’s back a wry look. “No,” he drawled ironically, annoyed that she cared so much for Philip Briggs that she’d travel more than ten thousand miles and then have the gall to intrude on a man in the middle of a bath, “I was merely trying to convey my esteem for the gentleman.”

“There is no need to be rude, Mr. McKenna.”

“Don’t talk to me about rudeness, Miss Chamberlin. You’re the one trespassing here. Or do all American young ladies make a practice of walking in on naked men?”

Unexpectedly, the bundle of determination and gray woolen whirled. High color pulsed in Maggie’s cheekbones and her pewter-gray eyes flashed. “I have traveled many thousands of miles, Mr. McKenna, on the strength of a promise from the man I love. I have no money and no references, and if you’re telling me the truth about Philip, I shall have no choice but to serve out three years—three years, Mr. McKenna—as a household slave! It would have been better to stay in London—at least there I had a role in a revue—”

“So you have had experience as an actress,” Reeve replied quietly, settling back in the tub. Due to the soap film on the water, he needed to make no special concession to decency.

Her suspicious gray eyes were fixed on the brass charm Reeve wore around his neck. For some indefinable reason, he covered the talisman with one hand, not wanting Maggie to know what it was.

“I’ve spent the entire journey learning the part of Bianca, in The Taming of the Shrew,” she said, her eyes sliding miserably from Reeve’s hand to his face. “Philip promised me that I could play Bianca.”

Reeve felt a crushing sympathy for the girl and hid it behind a gruff, “You’re more suited, I think, for the part of Kate.”

A flicker of hope lit the wondrous gray eyes and then went out like a snuffed flame. “It is most unkind of you to insult me, Mr. McKenna, by calling me a shrew.”

Loretta is going to kill me for this, Reeve thought with a remarkable lack of emotion. Slowly, he let his hand fall away from the charm he wore around his neck and ran his fingers through his wet hair. “Quite the contrary, Miss Chamberlin; I was paying you a compliment. Few women have the spirit to play Kate credibly, but you do. The part is yours if you want it.”

She backed up to the door, her hands behind her, probably clasping the knob, her lovely eyes wide and suspicious and hopeful. “Please don’t tease me, Mr. McKenna—I’ve come a very long way only to be disappointed, and it would be most cruel of you to make matters worse.”