Moonfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  Just then Bridget rushed into the room, her face flushed, her gaze slicing Maggie to the bone before fixing itself on Duncan. “Reeve McKenna is here, Duncan,” she said breathlessly, “and he’s spitting nails. I tried to get him to leave, but—”

  Duncan spread one hand in a generous motion and yawned. “By all means, send him in.”

  Bridget didn’t need to go in search of Duncan’s unexpected caller, for Reeve suddenly appeared in the doorway of the room. He glowered at Maggie and then at his wounded host. “I’ve got a message here that says you might be about to hurt the lady,” he announced. His sea-green eyes took in Duncan’s bandaged shoulder and went dark with an expression of puzzlement.

  “Who would send such a message?” Duncan asked sleepily. “Obviously, the situation is quite the reverse.”

  Reeve took a folded paper from his pocket and tossed it onto the bed. The look he gave Maggie was not encouraging.

  Laboriously, Duncan unfolded the message and frowned as he read it. “Hmmm. No signature.” His green eyes moved to Maggie’s face, filled with sleepy malice. “Must be from that sheepherder I found you in bed with,” he said. And while Maggie flushed, he shook his head regretfully. “Nasty business, that.”

  Reeve’s towering frame was rigid, and he didn’t look at Maggie again. “What happened to you?” he asked in a tone totally void of compassion.

  “Maggie stabbed me,” Duncan said, smiling at her fondly.

  Reeve glanced back at her over his shoulder. “She must have had reason,” he said.

  Maggie opened her mouth to protest her innocence where both the “sheepherder” and Duncan’s stab wound were concerned, but Reeve interrupted before she could speak.

  “Get your things,” he ordered in a voice that brooked no argument. “You’re leaving right now.”

  Maggie tossed Duncan a quietly triumphant look and left the room in a rush of gray wool. By the time she’d said tearful good-byes to both Jeremy and Tad and brought her reticule downstairs, Reeve was waiting.

  His jawline tight, his eyes hard and oddly evasive of Maggie’s face, he took her arm and ushered her outside, down the front walk, and into his own carriage.

  “What’s this about a sheepherder?” he demanded as the vehicle rolled away.

  Maggie would have given anything to be able to tell Reeve about Jamie, but she couldn’t: She’d given her word. Too, Jamie had implied that there might be tragic consequences if the secret was revealed. “He was just a nice man who tried to help me.”

  “Did you or did you not spend the night with him?”

  Maggie was insulted. After all she’d been through, Reeve should have been offering her comfort and understanding. Instead, he was questioning her morals. “I did. I slept in the same bed with him, in fact,” she answered coldly.

  Reeve swore and Maggie saw his neck go red by stages. She realized that she couldn’t afford to antagonize this man under present circumstances, and she relented.

  “Reeve, there has never been any other man besides you,” she said.

  Reeve gave a long sigh. To Maggie’s relief, he believed her. “Did you really stab Duncan?”

  “No. The man I was with did that.” Slowly, very carefully, Maggie explained how she and Jamie had met without mentioning his name or the beggar’s badge he’d worn around his neck. She told Reeve everything else, however, and by the time the story was out, he wanted to go back to Duncan’s house and tear his good arm out of its socket.

  “We’ll be married as soon as we get back to Sydney,” he said when Maggie had talked him out of making the carriage turn around in the middle of the street.

  Maggie felt hope leap in her tired heart. “Have you changed your mind, then, about—about loving me?” she dared to ask.

  “No,” Reeve said distractedly, clearly thinking of other things. “But that shouldn’t matter—”

  “It does matter!” Maggie spat out on the verge of tears. She drew herself into the corner of the carriage seat and huddled there, furious and weary and completely confused.

  “Maggie.” Reeve spoke her name gently and cupped one hand beneath her chin.

  She promptly slapped it away. “Don’t you touch me, Reeve McKenna.”

  Reeve sighed. “If you’re not going to be my wife, Yank,” he asked softly, “what are you going to do?”

  “I certainly won’t be your wife,” Maggie huffed, “and I won’t be your mistress either!”

  “Then how will you justify living under my roof?” Reeve asked, smiling a little and arching one eyebrow. “You’ve got no place else to go, you know.”

  That was true enough. She probably wouldn’t be able to get any sort of job, either, for Duncan would never sign her certificate now. Maggie gnawed at her lower lip for a few moments, and then inspiration struck. “I’ll be Elisabeth’s nanny!” she cried. “I’ll get her to talk!”

  “Elisabeth already has a nanny,” Reeve pointed out reasonably, and though his lips were still, his eyes were laughing at Maggie. “But I guess you could have that part I offered you—Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.” He paused as Maggie’s eyes lit up, then went on. “Of course, everyone will say that you’re a kept woman.”

  Maggie was beyond caring what people said—for the moment at least. “Or you could give me back my papers,” she suggested lamely. Actually, she wanted the part in the play and she wanted the shelter of Reeve’s house as well, though it would have been scandalous, of course, to say so.

  “Absolutely not,” Reeve said with good-natured firmness. “I paid a lot of money for your freedom, Maggie, and I want something back on my investment.”

  Maggie’s eyes widened. “Not—”

  Reeve laughed. “Not that. If you come to my bed, it has to be because you want to be there. I wouldn’t make love to you under any other circumstances, ever.”

  The stipulation didn’t amount to much of a barrier between propriety and the passion Maggie felt for this man. She wanted him, even now, with her pride in tatters and her skin bruised and scratched from a tumble out of Duncan Kirk’s carriage. But she could work through all that later; for now she was just glad to be safely away from that house and its half-mad owner.

  Reeve and Maggie left for Sydney by train late that night. Reeve had engaged two separate sleeping rooms, and Maggie was grateful, though a part of her would have preferred to share one.

  Alone in her tiny compartment, the windows covered for the night, Maggie took off her dress. Her arms were badly bruised where Duncan had grabbed them, and her knees and elbows were both scraped. The pain had not bothered her much before, but now that she had a chance to think about all she’d been through, she was very uncomfortable.

  Maggie heard the compartment door close behind her before she realized that it had been opened, and whirled, wearing only her camisole and drawers, to face Reeve. He was looking at the bruises on her arms.

  “I’ll kill that bastard,” he said under his breath. Maggie relaxed a little, at least outwardly. Familiar emotions and needs and yearnings were churning within her. “You’d better go,” she said, wishing that he wouldn’t.

  Reeve’s eyes dropped to her knees, scabbed and sore beneath the ruffled bottoms of her drawers. “My God.”

  “Reeve, I’m all right,” Maggie insisted softly.

  “I’ll get some disinfectant or something,” he said, and then he left the compartment. Maggie could have latched the door, but for a reason she wouldn’t have wanted to explain she failed to do so. She was sitting on her berth when Reeve came back carrying a brown medicine bottle and a clean white cloth.

  “Take off your clothes,” he said clinically. “I want to see how badly you were hurt.”

  Maggie’s mind was screaming a warning, but her hands went to the laces of her camisole and untied them. Her brain might have wanted propriety, but her body yearned for comforting. She took off her drawers, once she’d tossed away her camisole, and lay down on the berth.

  Reeve knelt beside her and, his br
ow creased with concern, dabbed at all her injuries with the cloth and the medicine. “My God,” he breathed once as Maggie flinched at the sting, “you look like you’ve been dragged behind a runaway horse.”

  Maggie hadn’t felt particularly sorry for herself before Reeve began fussing over her, but now her eyes filled with tears and every scrape seemed to be a gaping wound, every bruise a fracture.

  “Roll over onto your stomach,” Reeve said, not appearing to notice her tears or her bare breasts reaching toward him so openly and so eagerly.

  Obediently, Maggie rolled over, expecting more gentle attention. Instead, she got a smacking swat on her naked bottom and a jovial, “No damage here!”

  She turned over again, more vulnerable than she’d ever been. “Stay with me,” she whispered.

  Reeve shook his head and got to his feet. “Not tonight, Yank—you’ve been through enough as it is. Time you got some rest.” With that he opened Maggie’s reticule and pulled out the first nightgown he found. “Here,” he said, tossing it, as something made of metal clattered to the floor. “Put this on.”

  Maggie sat frozen on the berth, clutching the nightgown in front of her and watching helplessly as Reeve stooped to pick up what had fallen to the floor: a beggar’s badge identical to his own.

  The expression on his face was horrible when he looked up from the medallion lying, still splattered with Duncan’s blood, in his palm. His aquamarine eyes scored Maggie, and a white line of fury edged his jaw.

  “Jamie,” he breathed. “Your sheepherder—was he Jamie?”

  Maggie shifted so that she was kneeling on the narrow berth, her nightgown still in her hands. Her heart was hammering against her rib cage and her breath burned its way in and out of her lungs. Slowly, she nodded her head.

  “And you weren’t going to tell me?” The low words were not spoken so much as flung at Maggie, like a hissing snake.

  Maggie felt tears of frustration bloom in her eyes. Her scrapes and scratches were forgotten. “He made me promise—”

  Suddenly, Reeve strode toward Maggie and grasped her chin hard in his hand. “He did what?”

  A tear streaked down Maggie’s cheek. “He made me promise that I wouldn’t tell you that I’d seen him.”

  Reeve held up the bloody beggar’s badge. “Did he give you this, Maggie? Or did you take it off his body after Kirk was through with him?”

  He saw her as an accomplice to Duncan, and that wounded Maggie more deeply than anything he could have said or done. “You don’t understand,” she whispered, trying to shake free of Reeve’s grasp on her chin and failing miserably. “Jamie isn’t dead—that blood is Duncan’s, not his—”

  There was a flicker of relief in the aquamarine eyes, but no compassion and no forgiveness. “You would have gone to your grave without telling me that you’d seen my brother,” he marveled, “when you knew how hard and how long I’ve looked for him!”

  Maggie had no defense. What could she say beyond telling Reeve that Jamie had made her promise to keep their encounter a secret? “H-he said you would be in d-danger if you knew—”

  Reeve set Maggie free with a force that terrified her. Then, after giving her one scalding look of utter contempt, he left the compartment, the door crashing shut behind him.

  Chapter 15

  MAGGIE HAD HALF EXPECTED TO BE LEFT TO HER OWN devices at Sydney Station, so cold had Reeve’s manner been since his accidental discovery of Jamie’s medallion the night before in that tiny train compartment. Instead, she was shuffled into a carriage and whisked off to his town house overlooking Rushcutter’s Bay.

  In the entryway of that grand house, Reeve spoke to Maggie for the very first time since he’d stormed out of her compartment. “The housekeeper will see that you’re properly settled,” he said, his eyes avoiding hers, his voice tense. “Report to the Victoria Theatre tomorrow morning and Philip Briggs will tell you what to do.”

  Maggie sucked in her breath. “I—I have to work with Philip? But I thought you’d given him the sack—”

  Now the aquamarine gaze was fixed on Maggie, Seeming to pin her to the elegantly papered wall. “Hired him back,” was the succinct answer. “As for working with Briggs: beggars, as they say, cannot be choosers, Miss Chamberlin.”

  It hurt terribly to be spoken to in such a way, as intimate as Maggie had been with Reeve. But she had pride, if nothing else, and she returned his glare with one of her own. “Very well, Mr. McKenna,” she said icily, turning to start up the broad stairway, her pitiful reticule in hand.

  Reeve stopped her by grasping her elbow. She flinched, the skin was so tender there, and he loosened his hold slightly, though he did not release her. “The servants’ quarters are reached by the rear stairway,” he said.

  The servants’ quarters. Maggie felt as though she’d been slapped, and the high color of humiliation throbbed in her cheeks. Things certainly had a way of turning about, she thought to herself. Not more than forty-eight hours before, Reeve had asked her to be mistress of this house. Now she was being relegated to the servants’ quarters, doubtlessly a cramped, unventilated place on the uppermost floor. “Of course,” she replied airily, determined not to cry. There would be plenty of time for that later.

  She made to move past Reeve, but he was still holding on to her arm. “I know you must have had finer accommodations at Duncan’s,” he told her in an angry whisper.

  Inside, Maggie was seething, though she kept her outward appearance cool. “What are you implying?” she asked loftily.

  “I’m implying nothing,” Reeve replied, thrusting her elbow free of his hand in one savage motion. “I’ll be at sea for a while,” he said. “If you need anything, ask Philip.”

  Unconsciously, Maggie was rubbing her sore elbow. She was very near tears, though she prayed she could hold them off just long enough to get out of this man’s sight. “I shall,” she promised with a lift of her chin.

  This time Reeve let her pass. She got as far as the kitchen before she cried.

  * * *

  Maggie’s room in the attic was hot and small, with ceilings that followed the slant of the roof. There was one tiny window, which overlooked the rear garden, but it was sealed shut.

  The floor was bare, splintery wood, and there was no armoire here—only a series of pegs hanging on the back of the door. Maggie hadn’t the spirit to unpack her reticule, instead, she collapsed on the narrow cot tucked under the harsh line of the roof and buried her face in the coverless pillow.

  Past weeping now—she had never been able to sustain a crying jag for more than a few tumultuous minutes—Maggie simply lay still, wishing that she’d never left England for this godforsaken place where beautiful birds had no song to sing and lush flowers no fragrance. She had been lost in her singular misery for some minutes when she heard the door of the garret open with a squeak.

  Maggie stiffened, afraid to look. But the hope was there in her heart, the hope that Reeve had relented and decided to forgive her. It was dashed when she felt a tiny hand come to rest on her back.

  Slowly, Maggie rolled over. Elisabeth was standing beside the cot, her lovely little face full of concern. Her dark hair glistened in the dusty attic light, and her blue-green eyes were wide.

  Smiling despite everything that had happened to her in the past few days, Maggie took the child’s hand. “Hello, Elisabeth,” she said.

  Elisabeth smiled and nodded. Though she seemed shy as a doe, she made no effort to pull free of Maggie’s hand.

  “I was hoping that you and I could talk together,” Maggie ventured. Her throat felt raw, her eyes puffy and swollen.

  The little girl shook her head.

  “You do know how to talk, though, don’t you, Elisabeth? You’re just pretending that you can’t.”

  With no sign of rancor Elisabeth drew her hand from Maggie’s and retreated a step. She looked as though she might actually speak, and Maggie was waiting, holding her breath, when a gray-haired woman in a navy-blue bombazine dress sudde
nly filled the open doorway.

  “There you are, you little scamp!” the woman cried good-naturedly, and the moment was spoiled. Elisabeth gave Maggie a long, searching look and then turned to face her nanny.

  The governess smiled at Maggie. “Hello, there, miss,” she said in an accent that might have been American or Canadian. “I’m Miss Cora Fielding. Who are you?”

  Maggie rose to her feet, smoothing her skirts, very conscious of her mussed-up hair. “Maggie Chamberlin,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Merciful heavens,” Cora breathed, putting one hand to her sizable breast. “We hail from the same part of the world, you and I.”

  Maggie nodded, just as pleased as Cora to find someone from home.

  Cora was flushed, and her bright blue eyes shone with delight. “I was born and raised in Chicago, myself. What about you?”

  “I’ve lived all over,” Maggie said, a little self-conscious about her early life. “My family traveled with a—with a circus.”

  At this Elisabeth’s eyes widened. Maggie knew that it was all the child could do to keep from asking about the animals, the performers, the big tents. She saw the little girl bite down on her lower lip.

  “A circus!” Cora crowed, giving Elisabeth a gentle nudge. “Did you hear that, Miss McKenna?”

  Elisabeth turned and scampered out, and Cora, of course, was obliged to follow. She did linger in the doorway for moment, though, her fleshy hand gripping the knob, her expression sad.

  “Poor little mite,” she observed distractedly. “What do you suppose could have happened to her that she’d freeze up her tongue like that?”

  Maggie didn’t have an answer, of course, but it seemed that none was expected of her anyway. She opened her reticule and began unpacking, and Cora closed the door softly and went after her charge.

  It took very little time to hang up her spare dress and tuck her nightgowns into the trunk at the foot of her cot—Maggie had brought along none of the things Mr. Kirk had bought for her, of course—so when the task was done, she got out her much-read copy of The Taming of the Shrew and quietly let herself out of the stifling attic. Three steps led down to the rooms where the servants stayed, and then there was another stairway, long and steep, that brought her to the kitchen.