“But—”
“Miss Chamberlin.” The words were spoken as a weary warning, and Duncan Kirk was already absorbed in his paperwork again.
Maggie went back to her room to change and found a maid waiting there, setting out a plate and silverware from a luncheon tray. She assessed Maggie’s dress with round eyes and muttered, “Coo, ain’t you the elegant one, miss!”
Suddenly lonely for Tansy, Maggie swept around behind the changing screen in the far corner of the room and began taking off the gown. The maid, the same young girl Maggie had encountered the day before in the nursery, came right behind her and insisted on helping.
Resigned to eating and then following Duncan Kirk’s order to rest, Maggie put on a wrapper instead of donning her shirtwaist and slim black skirt again, and she took down her hair as well. The young maid brushed the silvery-blond tresses while Maggie ate, then tucked her into bed as though she were a child.
Maggie had not expected to sleep, but she did, and soundly. When she awakened, her cheeks were pink from the erotic dreams she’d had, all of them featuring Reeve McKenna. She splashed cool water over her face until her flesh was once again its normal temperature, but there was nothing she could do about the tingling ache in her middle. She got out paper and a pen and started a letter to Tansy.
The task proved impossible, given that Maggie could think of nothing but that obnoxious Irishman and the way his hands had felt on her body those wondrous nights in Parramatta, so she put her governess clothes back on and went for a walk. By the time she’d circled the block three times at an industrious pace, she was calmer.
Returning to Duncan Kirk’s house by the rear entrance, of course, Maggie encountered his housekeeper for the first time. Unlike Mrs. Lavendar, this woman was voluptuous but not obese, and her heavy hair was a coppery color, her skin a flawless white. There was a lush, sensual quality about her, and one look from under her dense lashes convinced Maggie that she had no intention of becoming friendly with the new governess.
Nonetheless, Maggie tried, being a gregarious soul. “My name is Margaret Chamberlin,” she said.
“Bridget,” replied the housekeeper in a terse tone. “Bridget O’Malley.”
Maggie wanted to wring her hands, but she forced herself to keep them at her sides. “Have you worked here long?”
Bridget O’Malley’s look was enough to quell even the boldest. “Long enough,” she answered, her eyes moving over Maggie with undisguised contempt. “Don’t be using the back door in the future, miss,” she said. “You’re a little better than the rest of us, so Dune—Mr. Kirk will expect you to come in and out in front, like the gentry.”
Maggie felt as though she’d just been soundly slapped, but she was hurt rather than angry. Why was it that none of these people were willing to accept her as what she was, another domestic servant? “Mrs. O’Malley—”
“Miss O’Malley,” snapped the housekeeper, putting a curious emphasis on the “miss.”
Completely thwarted now, Maggie subsided, her cheeks flaring with color. She wished that Tansy were there, that she had a friend with whom she could talk and laugh. Her feeling of isolation was all but intolerable.
“The master was asking about you earlier,” Bridget said, concentrating on the dishes she was washing. “You’ll go and see what he wants, if you know what’s good for you.”
Maggie lifted her chin, recovering from the rebuff now. She’d gotten through nineteen years without Bridget O’Malley’s friendship, and she could get through a hundred and nineteen more. “Thank you,” she said coldly, and then she swept out of the kitchen in the same imperious way she’d seen Rosalind leave shops that had not carried suitable merchandise.
When she reached the second floor, she was nothing less than amazed to find Duncan Kirk there, with Tad clinging to his back and Jeremy to his middle. All three were laughing, and it was a moment before Maggie realized that she’d interrupted a sort of hallway wrestling match. Some of the sting of her encounter with Bridget ebbed away, and she found herself smiling.
Duncan’s face sobered when he caught sight of Maggie and, at an unspoken signal, both Jeremy and Tad stepped away from him, suddenly silent. “Well, Miss Chamberlin,” Mr. Kirk said in a low and curiously stricken voice, “you’ve returned.”
Maggie felt as though she’d been caught doing something underhanded. “I was only out walking,” she said.
Duncan laughed softly and then laid a hand to each of his sons’ shoulders. “Go and wash up for supper,” he told them, and they vanished immediately, leaving Maggie alone in the hallway with their father.
For a long and singularly uncomfortable moment, Duncan simply watched Maggie. It was as though he could see deep inside her and discern her most private thoughts. Maggie blushed because too many of those thoughts were of Reeve McKenna, and too many of them were scandalous.
“You know, don’t you,” Duncan finally said, “that you are very, very beautiful?”
Maggie knew nothing of the sort; she was pretty, she thought, but too young and unsophisticated to be really beautiful. “I’ve got absolutely no idea how to behave at dinner tonight!” she blurted out, partly to change the subject and partly because she really was afraid of making a fool of herself at Government House.
Duncan arched one eyebrow and folded his arms, letting one shoulder rest against the hallway wall. He was blocking Maggie’s way to her room and she suspected that he was doing it on purpose. “Nothing more is required of you, Miss Chamberlin, than that you conduct yourself as a lady.”
“But I’m not a lady!” Maggie cried desperately.
Duncan shrugged. “You were an actress in London; play the role of a lady, then.”
Maggie had not thought of that, but it seemed a good idea. She would watch Rosalind and the other female guests and do as they did. Brightening a little, she started around Duncan, only to be stopped by his hand gripping her arm. For a moment his fingers caressed the skin beneath the short puffy sleeve of her blouse, but then he let Maggie go so swiftly that she was left wondering if she hadn’t imagined the entire episode.
As many of these patently dull affairs as he’d attended. Reeve was jarred out of his cynical languor by the sight of Maggie, strolling into Government House on Duncan Kirk’s arm. She was wearing an indigo dress that sparkled in the soft lighting and her silver-honey hair was swept up, revealing her long, graceful neck. Reeve remembered running his lips along that neck, and something deep inside him tightened painfully. He set aside his wineglass and strode toward Maggie, completely forgetting the buxom young thing he’d been charming moments before.
The front of Maggie’s dress, Reeve decided, revealed far too much. Why, one good tug at that glittering bodice and …
“Hello, Maggie,” he said, coming to a stop directly in front of her.
The expression on her face as she looked up at him was one of utter surprise. “Reeve!” she gasped, then color flooded her cheeks and she tossed one glance at Duncan, who was glowering. “H-how have you been?”
Reeve was in no mood for small talk. He wanted to cover Maggie’s full bosom before any other man could look. More than that, he wanted to take her somewhere private and bare those delectable breasts, preferably in the moonlight, to taste their pink-confection tips, hear Maggie whimper in response, feel her fingers entangling themselves in his hair. He darted one look at Duncan—it conveyed a silent reiteration of their conversation at the club the day before—then demanded in a polite undertone, “What the hell do you think you’re doing, wearing a dress like that in public?”
Maggie’s color heightened again, moving up over the lush rounding of her breasts, flooding along her neck, seeping into her face. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
“Good God, Reeve,” Duncan hissed, “even for you, that was a plebeian thing to say!”
“I presume you bought it?” Reeve asked of Maggie’s escort. The last thing in the world he cared about was Duncan’s opinion of his manners.
Maggie finally found her voice. “This gown is the very height of fashion,” she whispered angrily, and there was a storm brewing in her thundercloud eyes. “It came all the way from Paris!”
“Just the thing for a governess to wear,” Reeve retorted dryly. “What are you teaching your students, Miss Chamberlin? Wild abandon?”
Duncan looked both pained and annoyed, while Maggie seemed ready to explode with fury. Reeve loved baiting her, and despite his feelings about her dress, he had to fight to keep himself from grinning.
“Passion becomes you,” he added.
Maggie’s reaction was anything but disappointing. Her beautiful breasts heaved up and down, threatening to burst free of the scant band of silk that restrained them, and her eyes flashed with pewter lightning. At her side, one hand flexed as though she’d like nothing better than to slap Reeve with all the power she possessed. Of course, she was pretending to be a lady, so she didn’t dare do anything rash, and Reeve enjoyed her helplessness, temporary and uncharacteristic though it was.
Duncan had apparently decided to pretend that Reeve wasn’t there. He pulled Maggie toward the reception line forming just inside the main parlor and said out of one side of his mouth, “Remember to address the governor as ’Your Lordship’ and curtsy.”
“I will not curtsy!” Maggie vowed in a scathing whisper, and Reeve smiled to himself as he stepped into the reception line behind the two of them. Usually he avoided such tedious exercises in formality, but this was going to be too good to miss.
True to her word, Maggie did not curtsy to either the governor or his wife, though she did incline her head slightly. Reeve held his breath for a moment, sure that she’d fall out of her dress in front of God and everybody, but the sparkly blue silk retained its tenuous grasp on her bosom.
At dinner, served in the largest of several dining rooms, Reeve contrived to be seated directly across from Maggie and her much annoyed partner, Duncan. If anything interesting happened, he wanted to be on hand.
Duncan scowled across the table as Reeve seated his own dinner partner, a saucy, dark-haired vixen who had once been his mistress, while Maggie ignored him studiously. He had to admire the way she fitted herself to her surroundings; even though Reeve was sure Maggie had never attended a social event of this magnitude, she took her cues from the other women at the table with a sublime subtlety, always using the right fork, the right gesture, the right word.
The sumptuous meal was nearly over before Maggie allowed Reeve to catch her eye, and she flushed deeply when he winked. If it wouldn’t have been the pinnacle of bad manners, Reeve would have laughed out loud.
There was dancing after dinner in the enormous mirrored ballroom upstairs, and Reeve watched Maggie whirl about with Duncan as long as he could bear it. Then, when Kirk slipped away to the terrace to converse with a few of his investors, Reeve made his way to Maggie’s side before any of several other men with the same idea could manage.
Without waiting for a yes or a no, Reeve swept her into the swirling stream of a waltz, delighting in the ire that flared in her eyes and the color glowing on her cheekbones.
“Your decision to follow Duncan to Melbourne must have been an impulsive one,” he said, his social smile fixed in place, his voice even, “since you didn’t bother to tell me about it.”
Snapping pewter eyes met his gaze squarely. “I don’t have to report my every move to you, Reeve McKenna,” she said with dignity. Behind her the room was a tangle of jewellike colors as other women danced in their splendid dresses.
Expressively, Reeve glanced down at the swell of alabaster bosom revealed by Maggie’s dress. He still wanted to tie a dinner napkin around her neck, but he wasn’t above enjoying the view. “That’s quite a gown,” he said. “Did Duncan choose it for you?”
“I’m quite capable of selecting my own clothing, thank you very much,” was the chilly reply.
Reeve maneuvered her toward the open doorway of one of the many terraces, and before she could grasp what was happening, he was pulling Maggie across the stone balcony and down the set of steps that led to the gardens.
They were moon-washed, those gardens, almost spooky in an ethereal sort of way. The shadows and strange forms made Maggie draw a little closer to Reeve instead of running away, as she would have at any other time.
“Mr. Kirk will be furious,” she said lamely, gazing up at Reeve, her skin glowing like white opal in the moonlight.
Reeve gave a gruff chuckle, barely able to keep his hands to himself. God in heaven, this woman was beautiful, and the fact that she didn’t seem to know it made her all the more attractive. “Duncan will be busy with his investors for at least an hour. He probably doesn’t even know you’re gone.”
Maggie sighed and sat down carefully on a stone bench drenched with the eerie light. She might have been a sprite or a spirit, sitting there, such an unearthly beauty she was, but Reeve knew only too well that she was made of flesh and blood.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to give back my emigration papers,” she said hopefully.
Reeve sat down on the bench beside her, straddling it. “Did I neglect to return them?” he asked innocently. The papers were locked in his office safe in Sydney.
Maggie’s temper flared again. “You know perfectly well that you took them from me at Parramatta!” she whispered furiously.
“You don’t need to whisper,” Reeve pointed out affably. “There’s no one to hear you.”
She swallowed, looking at once worried and intrigued. “No one?”
Reeve nodded. The night air was cool and fragrant with flowers, and the sounds of the governor’s party drifted over the grounds. “Are you going to marry me, Maggie?”
Maggie’s mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide. “Marry you?” she echoed.
“You do remember my proposal at Parramatta, don’t you?”
She recovered instantly from her surprise and again looked as though she would like to slap Reeve. Or worse. “I’m not pregnant,” she said stiffly.
Reeve was disappointed, though, of course, he hid that fact. Maggie was not the sort to be kept as a mistress; she would have to be taken as a wife. To his own surprise, Reeve was more than willing to do that. “That can be remedied easily enough,” he heard himself say.
Maggie was staring at him. “Why would you want to marry me if you didn’t have to?”
He almost laughed. Why, indeed. “Frankly, Maggie, I like the idea of being able to bed you where and when I want to.”
He’d shocked her again, but before Maggie could speak, he did what he’d been longing to do ever since she’d walked into Government House earlier that evening. He reached out and caught the fingers of one hand in her bodice, giving it a slight tug.
She gasped when her breasts bounced free of the dress, swelling proudly in the moonlight, their tips tightening under Reeve’s gaze. Maggie made no move to cover herself; her eyes were closed and her breathing was quick.
Enchanted beyond good sense and certainly beyond good manners, Reeve reached out and cupped her breasts in his hands, gently kneading her fullness and her warmth. She shivered against his palms, and her eyes rolled open slowly, as if from a deep and delicious sleep. “Reeve—”
He bent his head to one breast, lifting it with his hand, and drank deeply of her. She moaned and wound her fingers in his hair, pressing him close, reveling in her nurturing.
When the first spate of greed had been sated, Reeve relaxed a little, tonguing the peak of Maggie’s quivering breast instead of sucking hungrily as he’d done before. She made a sound that was part croon and part groan as he enjoyed her.
A sudden gust of laughter from the direction of the governor’s mansion restored Reeve’s good sense. He drew back from the sweet bounty that was Maggie and carefully put her bodice back in place.
“Marry me, Maggie,” he said hoarsely, “before I lose my mind completely.”
She was holding her chin high, though there was a touching vulnerability in h
er eyes. “Do you love me?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Reeve answered, wondering even as he spoke.
Maggie was trying to smooth her bodice, which looked as though it had been lowered and then raised again, and Reeve knew she was hoping to hide the expression on her face. “Well, I don’t love you either,” she said.
Reeve bit back a smile. “Fair enough. Lots of people marry without love, you know, and they’re perfectly happy.”
The gray eyes were hollow when they slid to Reeve’s face. “I could never be happy with a man who didn’t love me,” Maggie said candidly. “Never.”
Reeve wanted to draw Maggie close and hold her, but he didn’t dare. Damn it, why had he never learned to lie? “Maybe, after a time, we would come to love each other.”
“I’m not about to take the chance!” Maggie said spiritedly, and then she bolted off the bench and started walking back toward Government House.
Reeve considered stopping her, then decided against it. Since he couldn’t honestly offer Maggie what she wanted most, he had to learn to leave her alone. He left Government House without a word to anyone, including his host and hostess. In the morning, at first light, he intended to leave for Sydney.
Chapter 13
DUNCAN KIRK’S RAGE WAS WELL HIDDEN, BUT MAGGIE could sense it beneath his suave smile and elegant manner as they danced. She tried not to look for Reeve among the dozens of other guests, but she couldn’t help it.
By the end of the night Maggie’s feet were aching and so was her heart. Here she’d let Reeve take all those liberties in the garden, and he didn’t even love her. That was unfortunate indeed, for if there was one thing in the world Maggie was sure of, it was that she cared for him in a deep and lasting way. Perhaps, she reflected somberly, as Duncan spun her around and around Government House’s spectacular ballroom, she should have accepted Reeve’s proposal and worried about love later.
She shook her head as if answering a question only she could hear. No, she’d done the right thing by refusing. Marrying for any reason other than love would be a terrible mistake.
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