Eleanor—true to her word, she had become Duncan’s housekeeper immediately after leaving Seven Sisters—smiled and replied, “I’m part of the agreement between Mr. Kirk and Mr. McKenna. They’re sharing their workers until both their crops have been harvested, and I’m a worker.”

“We don’t need you,” Maggie said in somewhat haughty tones. She was already growing thick around the middle, and Reeve usually collapsed into bed at night, too exhausted to make love to her. Constant exposure to Eleanor, who was, of course, still as shapely as ever, was the last thing she wanted for him.

“Maybe you don’t,” Eleanor replied blithely, and then she began scraping carrots and there was nothing Maggie could do short of throwing the woman out bodily.

Maggie turned back to the mountain of potatoes before her, seething. She’d known that Reeve and Duncan had made some sort of gentleman’s agreement, but she’d never dreamed that it included Eleanor.

At noon Reeve appeared unexpectedly in the sweltering kitchen, something he had never done in all the time Maggie had been at Seven Sisters, and he was furious to find his wife there. Blackened from head to toe by the sugary-scented soot of burning cane, he caught Maggie by the elbow and dragged her out into the dooryard. Eleanor’s indulgent little smile added to her umbrage.

“Let me go!” she hissed, wrenching free of Reeve’s grasp. Somewhere nearby Goodness and Mercy giggled.

“Do I have to send you back to Sydney?” Reeve demanded in a rasp caused by the constant inhalation of smoke. “Is that what I have to do, woman, to keep you out of trouble?”

“I’m not in trouble!” Maggie cried. If Reeve sent her away, or even confined her to the house, she was going to die of boredom and frustration. “I’m only helping with the work!”

“Damn it, you’re carrying my child and I won’t have you lose it because of your stupid Yankee pride!”

“Reeve—”

“If I catch you out here again, Maggie, I’ll take you to Sydney myself, I swear it.”

Maggie’s eyes filled with tears. Surmounting this man’s towering will would be an impossible task, but she had to try. “Reeve, I feel just fine, I really do—”

Ominously silent, he raised one smoke-blackened arm and pointed toward the house just as he might have had he been dealing with Elisabeth. Maggie was furious.

Rooted to the spot, she crossed her arms over her chest and jutted out her chin. “I’m tired of being ordered around, Reeve McKenna. I’m a grown woman and if I want to peel potatoes, I’ll peel potatoes!”

He took a step toward her, glowering, and Maggie’s courage flagged slightly. She retreated a step, but insisted, “I won’t go in there and sit bandying a needle about while everyone else is doing real work!”