Maggie wanted to be left alone to think, to rest, to freshen up, and to try to prepare some kind of curriculum for the boys. “Please don’t be too harsh with Tad on my account, Mr. Kirk. He’ll need time to accept me.”

“I suppose so.” The man sighed, adding with a slight bow of his head, “Good evening, Miss Chamberlin. Make yourself at home, and please don’t plan lessons for the boys for tomorrow. You’ll be busy shopping for new clothes. At my expense, of course.”

Shopping. As the door closed behind Mr. Kirk, Maggie sat down in one of the chintz-covered chairs. Shopping?

There was something quite improper about all this: the fancy room, the clothes Mr. Kirk was going to buy for her, all of it, but Maggie had had a long and most trying day and she was in no mood to work out what that something was.

Chapter 5

THE HEAT WAS SWELTERING, AND MAGGIE OPENED ONE OF her bedroom windows in the hope of catching a breeze. “February!” she marveled to herself, looking down on the gaslit cobbled street below. A carriage was waiting at the gate and, as Maggie watched, she saw a second vehicle draw up behind it.

Mr. Kirk got out of the first carriage, which had apparently been about to pull away, and walked back to the second. Maggie was just turning from the window, having no wish to eavesdrop, when her employer’s startled “Loretta!” made her whirl around again. Where had she heard that name and why did it clutch at her spirit like unseen fingers?

The door of the second coach opened and a woman stepped down, unaided. Even in the poor light of the gas-powered streetlamps, Maggie recognized this dramatically beautiful dark-haired creature as the lady who had met Reeve McKenna at the wharf the night before, when the Victoria had docked in Sydney Harbor.

“Good God,” Mr. Kirk exclaimed, and the very harshness of his tone made Maggie step back behind the draperies, hopefully out of sight, yet not quite out of hearing. “Loretta, what are you doing here?”

The woman’s voice floated on the heavy summer air like notes of music, soft and gossamer. “You look very handsome tonight, Duncan. Dinner at the club?”

“Yes,” Mr. Kirk replied stiffly. “Once again, Loretta, what do you want?”

Maggie must have misunderstood Loretta’s reply—it did sound as though she answered, “Revenge.”

Mr. Kirk laughed at whatever the woman had said, and there was a note of sheer hatred in the sound. Whether that bitter emotion was directed toward the lovely Loretta or not, Maggie couldn’t tell, but she was oddly shaken by the depth and ugliness of it and she closed the window just as a tapping sounded at her door.