Maggie bit her lower lip. Reeve was like a stranger; she couldn’t believe he was the same man who had loved her, who had tended her when she was sick. Tears burned in her eyes and Reeve’s hands closed over her shoulders and then fell away.

“Tell me,” he rasped.

Maggie’s knees felt weak; she went to the bed and sat down. “You’ve found Jamie again without even knowing it,” she said, dashing away her tears with the back of one hand. “He was the man who tried to rob you, right here in Brisbane a few years ago, and he has a nasty scar to show for it.”

Reeve’s muttered exclamation seemed to fill the room. A moment later, without a good-bye, much less an apology for his high-handed behavior, he was gone.

Maggie was crushed. She’d wallowed in abject misery for several minutes when there was a tap on the door and Cora came in at a dispirited invitation.

“Good heavens,” the older woman gasped, peering into Maggie’s pallid face. “What’s happened?”

Reeve has stopped loving me, Maggie wanted to answer, though of course she couldn’t bring herself to say the awful, poisonous words aloud. “Nothing,” she lied. “Nothing at all.” She paused, drawing a deep breath. “Has Elisabeth had her breakfast? I’ve an errand to attend to, and I’d like her to go with me.”

Cora’s concern still showed in her face. “She’s downstairs, Mrs. McKenna, with Eleanor.”

Maggie stiffened as a distinct feeling of danger rippled through her. “Eleanor is here? In Brisbane?”

“Yes,” Cora answered, looking surprised at Maggie’s reaction. “She’s on her way to Auckland this very morning. Says she has business there, with Mr. Jamie McKenna, mind you, though I can’t think what it could be—”

Maggie’s alarm deepened. Though she couldn’t have given a specific reason, her trepidation went far beyond the fact that she didn’t want Eleanor traveling in Reeve’s company. She began wrenching on her clothes while Cora watched in amazement.

“Don’t just stand there!” Maggie cried as she struggled with her shoes. They were never easy to put on, with all their buttons, but now that her ankles were swollen, they were impossible. “Go downstairs and make sure that Elisabeth is all right!”

But Maggie couldn’t wait for Cora to follow her orders. Hair flying free, shoes still unfastened, she dashed down the stairs ahead of the governess, through a lobby full of stunned wayfarers, and into the public dining room.

Elisabeth and Eleanor were nowhere in sight.

Maggie whirled, full of fury and fear, and collided hard with Duncan. Laughing a little, he steadied her by taking her shoulders into his strong hands.

“So it’s true,” he muttered. “There is a beautiful harridan scurrying about this hotel with her hair falling around her waist and her shoes untied.”