Her eyes were riveted on Reeve’s shirt pocket, where he’d put the precious papers that meant the difference between freedom and slavery. “I would like my documents back, please,” she said evenly.

“Certainly,” Reeve replied with a slight bow of his head, but he made no move to hand over the papers.

Acting on sheer bravado, Maggie held out her hand. Reeve took it, snatching up her reticule with his free hand in the same motion, and dragged her toward the impatient stallion tethered to the hitching post. He untied the animal with one deft pull on the reins.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Maggie croaked as she was swung unceremoniously onto the beast’s back, with Reeve behind her only a moment later.

“Miss Chamberlin,” he said, his voice grating past her ear in a low rush, “I’m going to do the right thing in spite of you.”

The stallion danced and tossed its enormous head as Reeve reined it in the direction of the road, and Maggie, clutching the horse’s raven-black mane in both hands, was suddenly glad for the strong arm that at once encircled her waist and held her reticule.

“C-carrying me off against my will is not the right thing!” she pointed out, her voice unnaturally high because she’d never ridden any animal more spirited than an elderly circus horse, and she was afraid.

“Seeing you safely home is the least I can do,” Reeve argued, pausing to give her a brief nip on the earlobe that sent waves of delicious shivers flowing through her, “after having my way with you last night.”

Maggie held on tighter and squeezed her eyes shut again as the great horse bounded into a gallop.

“And then, of course,” Reeve went on as though they were sitting together in a rocking chair instead of on the back of that terrifyingly powerful stallion, “there was this morning.”

Both to Maggie’s relief and her alarm, Reeve’s house proved to be close by, though it wasn’t the one she had seen earlier. It was a sprawling building of red brick, with a glassed-in sunporch at one end and a fanlight over the door. There were flowers and well-tended shrubs growing in the yard and, if it hadn’t been for her circumstances, Maggie would have been charmed.

Reeve dismounted and lifted Maggie down after him, and just as she was shaking out her skirts in a disgruntled effort at gaining some dignity, two little black-skinned girls appeared, gazing adoringly at Reeve and smiling broad, toothy smiles.

“Goodness and Mercy,” Reeve confided in a whisper.

“Who?” Maggie asked.

Reeve did not bother to repeat the girls’ unforgettable names. “Their parents were afflicted by the teachings of certain English missionaries,” he added. “Every time I come to Parramatta, they glue themselves to my heels. Wherever I go, they go.”