Reeve nodded somberly and lifted Maggie into his arms. “You’ll cut your feet,” he scolded, laying her gently on the bed and then turning away to pick up the pieces of broken crockery littering the floor. “We’re going to have to do something about your temper, Yank. It’s more than a hardworking man should have to bear up under.”

He could feel her curiosity, her impatience, and her fury. Since Maggie couldn’t see his face, he grinned.

“Never mind my temper. What did that trollop say to you?”

Reeve went right on picking up glass. “Spirited me off to a room, she did, saying that Duncan was sick and all. When we got there, no Duncan. She threw herself at me.”

Maggie made a growling sound. “I’ll strip off a layer of her skin, that vixen!”

Reeve set the pieces of crockery carefully on the bureau top and started toward the door. “I’m going downstairs for a broom. Stay in that bed, Maggie, unless you plan to put some shoes on. There might still be glass on the floor.”

Maggie was kneeling in the middle of the bed, looking winsome and flushed in her pink cotton nightgown. “I want you to take me to the inn so that I can tear that woman’s hair out. Right this minute!”

Reeve shook his head and laughed, and when he came back, minutes later, with the broom, Maggie was lying placidly in bed, staring up at the ceiling. “You made that whole story up, Reeve McKenna, just to get me jealous.”

Reeve shrugged. Maybe it was better for her to believe that. He didn’t want Maggie getting into a rough-and-tumble with Eleanor and hurting herself. “Whatever you say,” he answered.

“I suppose you’re too tired to make love to me,” Maggie ventured as Reeve swept up the tiny bits of glass. He carried them to the hearth in the corner of the room and disposed of them in a dustbin.

“Tonight, Yank, I’d sooner turn you across my knee than make love to you.”

Her lip jutted out. “Then tell me the legend of the Seven Sisters. You promised to the day we came here, but you never did.”

“I need a bath, Maggie. And Kala’s prepared one for me out in the kitchen.”

She was stubbornly silent.

Reeve sat down on the edge of the bed in his filthy clothes, and sighed. “Once there were seven emu sisters—”

“Emu?”

“Those big birds,” Reeve reminded Maggie patiently. “You probably saw them at the menagerie.”

“Oh,” nodded Maggie, waiting.