Reeve laughed, laying a hand to his heart as if to still its thudding beat. “Tell me that you love me, Maggie McKenna, and I promise I won’t.”

Unable to sustain her snit any longer, Maggie chuckled and shook her head. “You know I do, you waster,” she answered. “Why else would I endure your overbearing and officious manner?”

Reeve was just about to kiss Maggie when Goodness and Mercy arrived with a tubful of fresh water. Maggie winced as she watched them slip and slide over the wet floor, and was much relieved when they set their burden down without incident.

“We bring mop?” Goodness asked.

“You bring mop,” Maggie confirmed with a sigh. “Later,” added Reeve with a warning waggle of his index finger.

Goodness and Mercy fled in a gale of giggles.

“I have no idea what they see in you,” Maggie observed.

Reeve took a step toward her, grinning devilishly, one eyebrow arched. “Don’t you?” he challenged.

Maggie flushed. “Get out of here,” she snapped.

To her surprise and relief, Reeve did leave the room. Maggie promptly locked the door behind him, then slipped out of her wrapper and stepped into the bathwater. It was tepid, but given the sweltering heat of an Australian summer, that was fine with Maggie.

As she bathed, Maggie thought of the last party she’d attended, at Government House, in Melbourne, and smiled at how much things had changed since then. She hoped that Duncan’s sons, Jeremy and Tad, would be at the party; it would be wonderful to see them again.

There was another knock at the door just as Maggie was drying herself. “Who is it?” she asked suspiciously.

“Kala, missus, come to help with your dress.”

For Kala, who could be silent for days on end, that was a virtual diatribe. Wrapping the towel around herself, Maggie went to the door, turned the key, and admitted the housekeeper.

Kala’s coffee-colored eyes took in the mussed bed. “You sick, missus?” she asked.

Embarrassed, Maggie shook her head. “I was just—just tired,” she answered.

Kala went to the giant armoire, one side of which was filled with Maggie’s clothes. “Baby inside make tired,” she said, looking back over one shoulder. Just the flicker of a smile moved on her lips. “Baby outside make even more tired.”

Maggie laughed and nodded, and she was, at that moment, completely happy. She loved her husband, he loved her, she was carrying his child within her, and tonight she would go to a party in a pretty silken dress. After all the years she’d spent alone, living from hand to mouth and wearing whatever she could afford to buy from the secondhand carts on the streets of London, she felt inestimably wealthy.

“The pink silk,” she said when Kala’s eyes questioned her.