Mindful of her promise, not to mention her own scruples, Maggie bought six serviceable summer dresses, four badly needed cotton nightgowns, and a new pair of shoes. She would ask Mr. Kirk to deduct the cost from her pay, week by week.

Maggie had boarded the trolley car in Pitt Street, as instructed by Susan, before it occurred to her that her employer might be angry with her for not purchasing all the items on the list. And then she smiled, for it didn’t really matter whether Mr. Kirk approved of her decision or not. Thanks to Reeve McKenna, she could once again call her soul her own.

Chapter 6

UPON RETURNING TO MR. KIRK’S TOWN HOUSE, TIRED, elated, and burdened with parcels, Maggie was secretly relieved to learn from Mrs. Lavendar that the master had been called away to a place known as Lightning Ridge, where the largest share of his opals were mined. He would not be back, according to the housekeeper, for some days.

Maggie was beginning to feel a keen dislike for some of the other women employed in that house. In an effort to show that she wasn’t uppity, she’d entered the house by way of the rear door, and Mrs. Lavendar, busy at the sink paring vegetables, had been pleased by the gesture, though she tried her best not to show it.

She frowned as she took in the parcels Maggie carried. “The rest being sent, is it?”

Maggie shook her head. “This is all of it, Mrs. Lavendar. I suppose Mr. Kirk will be angry, but I couldn’t see buying such fancy things—where would a governess wear evening gowns?”

“Where indeed?” huffed Mrs. Lavendar, but she looked kindly upon Maggie for just the briefest moment. “Well, you’ll have some free time, anyway. Mr. Kirk took the boys along with him, so there’s no need in your staying around here if you’ve other things to do.”

Maggie started toward the rear stairway, once again feeling rebuffed. As she made her way toward her room, she wondered why Mr. Kirk had not left his sons in her care, so that they might begin their lessons.

The moment she crossed the threshold of that improperly beautiful room, she noticed a letter propped against the base of the bureau’s glistening mirror. After unceremoniously dropping her parcels onto the bed with a sigh of relief, she opened the fine cream-colored vellum envelope and read the brief note enclosed. Inside the single sheet of monogrammed paper was a pound note.