She didn’t bother to turn up the lights but simply delved into bed, pulling the smooth linen sheets up over her head. She lay there, half smothering, until she could bear it no longer, and then she bounded up again, pulling open a window, stripping the satin cover from her bed, and finally divesting herself of the nightgown. It was highly improper to sleep naked, but Maggie didn’t care. She was not going to lie there roasting.

After several fitful minutes of tossing and turning, Maggie went to sleep and had scandalous dreams about a man with dark hair and blue-green eyes and a charm worn around his neck.

He had been drawn to her room by the force of his imagination; moving as quietly as a ghost, he drew close to the bed, where she lay on her side, the covers disarrayed. One smooth thigh glowed alabaster in the moonlight, though the rest of her was in shadow.

Duncan Kirk swallowed hard. The urge to awaken Maggie, to have her, was almost beyond his power to ignore. He longed to caress those full, rounded breasts, to taste their peaks and feel them harden against his tongue.

Maggie made a whimpering sound and turned restlessly onto her back. The light of the summer moon shimmered over her, fully revealing the breasts Duncan craved, the flat, silken belly, the soft hips that would cradle his. Duncan retreated a step and his right hand trembled, so badly did he want to touch her, to plunder that golden nest of curls and teach her a virgin’s pleasure before taking her.

He’d grown painfully hard, but at the memory of what Loretta Craig had confided, Duncan smiled. Reeve McKenna wanted Maggie, just as he himself had wanted her from the moment she’d walked into his office that morning. And knowing that McKenna hungered for her made the prospect of having the little vixen all the sweeter.

But he would not indulge tonight; he didn’t dare. The little imp would surely be remorseful in the morning, and she would leave. No, he would wait until it was time to go to the country.

With a lump of raw need lodged tight in his throat, Duncan turned and left the room as quietly as he’d entered it. In the hallway he encountered Mrs. Lavendar, who didn’t bother to hide her disapproval.

Duncan met her beady glare steadily and then crossed to his own room, where he was a long time going to sleep.

As she walked to the corner where the trolley car made its regular stop, Maggie was still boggled by the list Mr. Kirk had left for her. The little maid, Susan, hurried along at her side. Susan carried a basket nearly as big as she herself was, for she was going to market, and she pretended that Maggie didn’t exist until they’d gotten out of sight of the Kirk house.