She stepped back from the fence and from the sweet warmth that seemed to radiate from this man’s person. “If you’ll just direct me to Victoria Street, please,” she said.

“How are you getting on with Duncan?” Reeve asked as though he hadn’t heard Maggie’s request at all.

She began to feel angry as well as deliciously miserable. “Quite well, since Mr. Kirk’s away at the moment,” she replied in stiff tones. “He’s taken the boys along with him.”

“You must be at loose ends,” Mr. McKenna ventured to say, and there was no discerning whether he meant the words as a polite comment or an insinuation.

Suddenly, it was very important to Maggie that this man not think of her for a moment as a retiring sort with nothing to do to amuse herself. “On the contrary,” she answered evenly, “I’m off to Parramatta, Saturday noon, to have a magnificent time.”

Reeve’s eyes were steady on her face, or was it expressly her lips that he was looking at? They swelled under his gaze and grew tingly and warm.

“Ummm,” he said. And then he seemed to collect himself and turned to point with one hand. “Victoria Street is that way. About six blocks over.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said, feeling slightly dizzy at the abrupt release from the spell he’d seemed to cast over her. “I am sorry I troubled you.”

He grinned. “And I’m sorry for troubling you,” he responded.

His meaning was clear as a slap in the face, and Maggie turned away on one heel, fleeing at a brisk walk. She was grateful for the breeze flowing up from the glistening blue waters of Rushcutter’s Bay, for it cooled her burning face.

He knew, he knew, he knew. The horrifying thought clattered rhythmically in Maggie’s brain like the wheels of a train on their track. Reeve McKenna knew about the peculiar yearning he had aroused in Maggie, and she was mortified.

Maggie walked faster, and Reeve’s quiet laughter followed after her like a pesky puppy nipping at her skirts.

Upon reaching the Kirk house, Maggie went upstairs, found the offending book of drawings, and resolutely carried it back to its place in the library. As penance for studying the volume, let alone enjoying it so much, she forced herself to endure ten full pages of the wisdom of Socrates.

Saturday came none too soon, and when Tansy and her chums arrived at midday, Maggie was waiting for them at the garden gate, reticule in hand. In the past three days and nights she’d thought of nothing but Reeve McKenna and the ferocious wanting he’d stirred in her, and she was desperate for distraction.

Tansy quickly introduced all her friends and Maggie remembered none of their names. They set off for the same corner where Maggie and Susan Crockett had boarded a streetcar that eventful day of Maggie’s shopping expedition.