“If this is about Mr. McKenna’s death,” she said abruptly, “please be very brief.” Maggie raised her chin. “I must get to the theater.”
The young man was gazing at her in amazement. “Mr. McKenna’s—death?” he said, marveling.
Maggie felt an odd, wiggling sensation deep inside her, as though her frozen spirit might be thawing. She dreaded the pain that would result. “Yes,” she answered stiffly. “Surely you know that he was killed at sea.”
“Miss Chamberlin,” the visitor breathed, aghast, “Mr. McKenna is very much alive. He’s being brought home from New Zealand within the week!”
The entryway swayed and undulated around Maggie, and wild hope leapt within her. “Alive?” she choked. “Reeve is alive? Why didn’t someone—”
The clerk took Maggie’s arm and supported her until he’d led her to a sofa in the nearby parlor and helped her to sit down. “Dear God in heaven, madam—don’t tell me that this household has believed Mr. McKenna dead these past few days!”
Maggie nodded, her throat too thick with tangled emotions for her to speak.
The bearer of glad tidings offered his hand in an agitated and very belated introduction. “Simon Coates, at your service, madam. Good heavens, I cannot understand how such an error could have been made.”
Maggie’s spirit was rejoicing wildly, though outwardly she was quite calm. After some struggle with her constricted vocal cords, she managed to say, “You said that Mr. McKenna is being brought from New Zealand. Was he injured?”
Sadly, Mr. Coates shook his head. “He wasn’t injured, miss. But apparently the sight of his crewmen dying in such a horrible way did something to his mind. My reports say that Mr. McKenna doesn’t speak, and he’s confined to an invalid’s chair.”
Maggie stood up slowly, her heart pounding. If she’d thought it would get her to his side faster, she would have swum out to meet his ship. “When will Mr. McKenna be arriving?” she asked.
“Probably on Friday, though ships’ schedules are sometimes quite difficult to predict—”
Friday. Maggie’s life would begin again on Friday. “I must tell Elisabeth,” she muttered, starting to leave the parlor without so much as a fare-thee-well for Mr. Coates.
He stopped her with an anxious, “Miss Chamberlin, there are some matters that need immediate attention, and since Mr. McKenna is unavailable—”
Maggie turned slowly to face her caller. “I don’t see how I can be of help, Mr. Coates.”
For the first time, Maggie noticed that the man was carrying a case of some sort. “There are papers that need signing, Miss Chamberlin, and Mr. McKenna did leave word that in case of extreme emergency, your signature was to be accepted in place of his own.”
Maggie’s mouth dropped open. Few men allowed their wives any say at all in their business affairs, and yet Reeve had trusted his fiancée with the sweeping power of his own name. Staggered, Maggie reached out for the newel post on the banister and held on until her knees felt steady again.
“V-very well,” she said shakily, “take the papers into the study, please, and I’ll look at them in a moment. Before I do anything else, I have to tell a little girl some very good news.”
Simon Coates smiled and nodded his head, and Maggie went carefully up the stairs to the room where Elisabeth slept so fitfully, her thumb still in her mouth.
Gently, Maggie pulled the little thumb free and whispered, “Elisabeth?”
Dark, thick lashes fluttered open. “Mama,” Elisabeth said firmly.
Maggie gathered the child close, her eyes brimming with tears again. But this time they were tears of joy. “Elisabeth, your papa isn’t dead at all—it was a mistake. He’s coming home to us this very Friday!”
Elisabeth gave a gleeful shout and hurled her arms around Maggie’s neck. “Papa!” She laughed.
Drawn by the uproar, Cora dashed into the room, wringing her hands. “What on earth—”
“Reeve is alive!” Maggie cried, spinning around once, clutching Elisabeth, for the sheer, miraculous rapture of it. “He’s alive and he’s coming home!”
“Oh, miss,” Cora breathed, her plump cheeks flushed, “that’s wonderful.”
Maggie gave Elisabeth another hug and then set her on her feet. “I’ve got papers to sign,” she said brightly. “Cora, will you do me an enormous favor and call Philip Briggs for me? Tell him, please, that I won’t be going to America after all, and I won’t be coming in for rehearsals today. He’ll argue with you about the rehearsals; just tell him that I know my lines well enough and I’ll be there in plenty of time for the performance.”
Cora nodded and she and Elisabeth left the room hand in hand. Maggie took a moment to say a prayer of thanks, then went to stand in front of the mirror over Reeve’s bureau.
Pale and peaked only minutes before, she was now glowing with happiness. There was the matter of Reeve’s illness, but that would heal in time; plenty of love and care would hurry the process.
After a short interval had passed, Maggie felt composed and businesslike. She went downstairs to the study to meet with Mr. Coates. Cora was just turning away from the telephone, and she was flushed again, though this time with annoyance.
“He says you’d better be in that theater within the next twenty minutes,” she confided tightly in passing, Elisabeth trotting along at her heels. “If you’re not, he’s going to come here and fetch you himself.”
“If Philip tries anything like that,” Maggie answered blithely, “it will cost him a layer of skin and at least one eye.” She swept past the frazzled nanny to the desk, where Mr. Coates waited politely.
Maggie took Reeve’s chair. “Now, then,” she said. “I’ll have a look at those papers.”
To Mr. Coates’s suppressed annoyance, Maggie insisted upon reading every word of every document before signing, and what she didn’t understand, she asked to have explained.
Philip arrived, unannounced, just as Mr. Coates was leaving.
“What the devil do you mean by holding up the entire cast this way?!” he shouted.
Maggie smiled warmly. “Yes, Philip, it is good news that Reeve is alive after all. Thank you for saying so.”
Philip had the good grace to look chagrined. “Of course it’s wonderful news, Maggie. I’m very happy for you. But—”
“But nothing. I’m not going to rehearse today, and if you press me, I won’t perform either.”
Philip’s amber eyes narrowed. “Maggie Chamberlin—”
“Soon to be McKenna.”
“You’d like to think so,” Philip challenged her as he sank into the chair Reeve’s secretary had just vacated.
Maggie took a moment to admire her ring. “It seems that Reeve left word at his offices that my signature was to be as good as his when it came to matters of business.”
Philip’s mouth dropped open. He had never believed that Reeve really intended to marry Maggie, but now he was forced to face the truth. “That means that the man has virtually handed over everything he owns!”
“He trusts me,” Maggie said, glorying in the words. “He must think that I have a very practical nature.”
Philip made a rude snorting sound. “More likely, he’s so besotted that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And you haven’t got a ’practical nature,’ Maggie—if you had, you wouldn’t be throwing away a chance to set America on its ear!”
Maggie smiled, perched now on the edge of Reeve’s desk, her arms folded. “I’m sure there are lots of other actresses who would like to go,” she said cheerfully. “Loretta Craig, for instance.”
“The people involved want you, Maggie. If you don’t go, neither do Samuel and I.”
Maggie felt just the slightest guilt. “I’m pregnant, Philip,” she reminded him quietly. “Just how much are they going to want me when I have a stomach out to here?”
“You could have taken a short sabbatical and then left the child with a nanny somewhere and—”
“Leave my baby with a strange
r?” Maggie was stiff with outrage. “You can’t be serious, Philip—I never intended to do that for a moment!”
Philip was now leaning forward in his chair, his head in his hands, his fingers entangled in his hair as though he might be planning to tear it out. He was making an odd groaning sound that made Maggie stoop to look into his face, concerned.
“Philip?”
“Why me?!” he wailed. “Why?”
Maggie patted the top of his head compassionately and swept out.
The rest of the week crept by. By day Maggie helped Cora in her work with Elisabeth, coaxing the child to add more and more words to her still-limited vocabulary. At night she threw herself into her performance in the play, and every evening at curtain time there were more flowers and more offers to travel to other parts of the world as an actress.
Maggie was pleased by this acclaim, of course, though she had no intention of leaving Australia. Though success was what she’d dreamed about all her life, Reeve was more important now.
On Friday afternoon, having missed another rehearsal, Maggie was pacing the sidewalk when the carriage drove up. To her surprise, Jamie got out first.
He patted her cheek and then muttered, “Oh, hell,” and kissed her forehead.
Maggie was craning her neck, trying to see inside the carriage. Jamie took her shoulders in his hands and made her look at him.
“Maggie, Reeve isn’t himself. You’re going to have to be very, very patient.”
By then the waiting had become unbearable. Maggie shrugged free of Jamie and hurried to the door of the coach, which stood open. One seat had been removed, and Reeve was there, sitting rigidly upright in an invalid’s chair. There wasn’t a flicker of recognition in his face, and Maggie felt her heart sink.
She would have climbed into the carriage, but Jamie and the driver shuffled her aside to lift Reeve’s chair out. He didn’t react to the jostling motion at all, he just stared vacantly into space.
“Reeve?” Maggie whispered.
There was no response at all, not even a look or a twitch of a muscle. Reeve looked like one of the wax figures Maggie had once seen in a London museum.
Jamie gave her a gentle look and then he wheeled Reeve toward the house. On Maggie’s instructions he and the driver took him upstairs to his room.
“Leave us alone, please,” Maggie requested hoarsely, and both men obediently went out.
“Reeve.”
He was staring not at Maggie, but through her, as though she were invisible. Her heart twisted painfully, and she stepped up to him and took his hand gently into her own, laying it to her stomach.
“There’s a child growing inside me, Reeve,” she said. “Your child.”
She saw a muscle beneath his ear move almost imperceptibly, and once again joy swelled within her. She bent to kiss Reeve’s forehead. “I love you,” she said. “I love you now and I’ll love you always.”
One tear pooled in Reeve’s eye and slipped down his granite cheek. Maggie then knew for certain that he was going to get well.
It was her farewell performance, and by the time it was over, the audience was on its feet, shouting and clapping. With the others, Maggie took her bows.
In the wings, Samuel lifted her off her feet and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek. “You were sensational!” he said.
Maggie laughed with happiness. She was going to miss Samuel very much; he’d been a true friend, helping her with her performances and never making the kinds of demands that other men might have. “So were you,” she answered somewhat breathlessly once her feet were back on the floor again. People were pressing all around, but she lingered, looking up into Samuel’s face. “You’re not angry with me? About—about the tour, I mean?”
Samuel smiled and took her upper arms into his hands. “How could I be angry with you when your eyes shine like that? Your tragic little face was breaking my heart.”
Maggie reached up to touch his smooth-shaven cheek. “Be happy always, Samuel,” she said softly, and then she turned to leave.
Her carriage was waiting in the alleyway behind the theater, but so, alas, was Duncan Kirk. He was leaning against the brick wall of the building, smoking a cheroot, and when he saw Maggie, he tossed it to the ground.
He looked so tormented that Maggie couldn’t find it in her heart to be angry with him. She settled her shawl around her shoulders and said, “Hello, Duncan.”
Duncan’s throat worked for a moment, and his lips moved, but no sound came out.
Maggie, feeling generous, smiled and started past him. She wanted to get into that carriage and go home to Reeve, and the sooner the better.
But Duncan stopped her with a rasped, “Maggie, don’t go.”
She paused, then turned to face him. In the light of the moon he looked haggard and upset. “I must,” she said gently. “Reeve is waiting.”
“Damn Reeve!” Duncan exploded suddenly. “The man is a cripple! What can he give you?”
Behind her Maggie heard the carriage door squeak open, and the sound made her braver. “He can give me love, Duncan,” she answered.
Duncan’s face went gray. “No,” he breathed. “You and I were meant to be together—you’ve got to believe me.”
Maggie only shook her head.
Duncan started toward her then, blindly, furiously, and Maggie was afraid. Suddenly, she found herself looking at the broad expanse of Jamie McKenna’s back as he made a barrier between Duncan and herself.
“Is there a problem, mate?” he asked cordially.
“You again!” Duncan spat.
The powerful shoulders moved in a shrug. “I’m likely to turn up in the damnedest places. How’s your shoulder, then?”
Duncan cursed and spun on one heel to stride back into the theater, and Jamie turned to look down into Maggie’s face with a reprimand in his azure eyes. “Can’t you go anywhere without getting into trouble?” he demanded.
Maggie lifted her chin and was about to come back with a snappy retort when she realized that Jamie was teasing. She gave a nervous giggle and let her forehead rest against his strong shoulder for a moment. “So far, I haven’t managed that,” she said.
Jamie chuckled and helped her into the carriage, then climbed in after her. He gave the wall behind him a firm rap with his knuckles, and the vehicle was in motion.
“I have something of yours,” Maggie said, opening her handbag and rummaging through it. A moment later she held out the beggar’s badge, still suspended from its rawhide string but washed clean of Duncan Kirk’s blood.
Jamie took the medallion and slipped it on over his head, touching it fondly before dropping it inside his rough-spun shirt. “Thanks, Maggie. I didn’t feel right without it.”
“How is Reeve?”
Jamie shrugged, though there was a shadow of misery in his eyes. “Just the same. You’ll have to be more careful once I leave, snippet, because my brother is in no shape to be pulling you out of fixes.”
Maggie leaned forward. “Once you leave? Jamie, you’re not going, are you?”
Jamie gazed out at the lights of Sydney for a few moments before answering. His voice was hoarse. “I have to, Maggie-girl. I have a property of my own—I told you that.”
“In New Zealand,” Maggie confirmed despondently.
Jamie nodded.
A despairing sort of curiosity overtook Maggie. “Why have you been hiding from Reeve all these years when you must have known how badly he wanted to find you?”
Jamie sighed. “You’re not going to leave me alone until I answer, I suppose?”
“That’s right,” Maggie replied.
Unexpectedly, Jamie unbuttoned the cuff of his right shirt-sleeve and began rolling it up. Even in the dim light from the streetlamps, Maggie could see the jagged scar that covered his forearm.
Maggie gasped, touching the mark with tentative fingers. “What happened?”
“Reeve.”
Maggie’s heart stopped beating and then started again. “Are you
saying that your own brother did that to you?”
Jamie nodded, rolling the sleeve back down, buttoning the cuff in a methodical way that made Maggie want to scream with impatience. Finally, his answer came. “He had his reasons, love. And he didn’t know that the man who jumped him in a back street in Brisbane was me. He was only defending himself, and he did a right proper job of it.”
“Why would you attack Reeve, of all people?” “Didn’t know it was him at the time. I meant to rob him, Maggie. I wasn’t the same man I am today.”
Maggie reached across the carriage seat to take one of Jamie’s hands in her own. “Reeve probably doesn’t even remember the incident, Jamie—and even if he did, I know he would forgive you.”
“You may think that, but I’m not so sure,” Jamie answered distractedly. “Reeve can be a hard man, Maggie. And I’d rather have him looking for me than hating me for what I used to be.”
Maggie lowered her eyes. “Jamie, he’s been searching for you for twenty years. He almost didn’t forgive me when he found out I’d seen you and told him nothing about it.”
“Like I said, Reeve can be hard.” There was a finality in his tone, a stubbornness as ungiving as Reeve’s.
“He loves you!”
“And I’d like to keep it that way.”
Maggie sighed. “Jamie,” she began again reasonably. “He’s been with you in New Zealand. He’ll know where to find you.”
“He’ll never remember,” Jamie said, and Maggie had a terrible feeling that he was right.
“You told me that Reeve’s life would be in danger if I told him I’d seen you,” she accused him, thinking of all she’d gone through in an effort to keep that secret.
“I lied,” Jamie answered flatly.
Chapter 19
THE BED WHERE REEVE LAY WAS AWASH IN MOONLIGHT. Maggie planned to sleep upstairs, in the attic room she’d originally been given, but she needed to touch Reeve, to assure herself that he was indeed back, safe, if not sound.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, wondering whether he was asleep or awake, and tentatively touched his forehead. She saw his eyes open, and she smiled. “Hello, Reeve,” she said softly.
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