Maggie thought she saw his lips move, and she was quick to light the lamp on the bedside table. He looked exhausted, but stronger, too, and he was definitely trying to say something.
His struggle tore at Maggie’s heart. She touched his lips with her fingers and whispered, “It’s all right, darling. You’re home now, and you’re safe.”
The word was torn from him in a breathless rasp. “Yank,” he said.
Maggie’s tears threatened to overflow, but she battled them staunchly. Reeve’s doctor, who’d visited just before she left for the theater that evening, had said that there must be no emotional displays in the patient’s presence. She drew a very deep breath and said brightly, “We’ll be leaving for Queensland in a week’s time. Your doctor tells me that the sunshine and the sea are just what you need now.”
The change in his face, so long awaited, was terrible to see. Reeve paled, and there was a wild expression in his eyes. Maggie wondered what she’d said wrong, and then realized that the incident that had done injury to Reeve’s mind had happened at sea. She could have bitten off her tongue. “I’ll go now,” she said, standing up, “and let you rest.”
His left hand made an almost imperceptible movement, then groped for her, catching hold of her skirts. “Stay,” Reeve struggled to say.
Maggie couldn’t leave him, not now. She began removing her clothes and his eyes watched her hungrily as she shed each garment and laid it neatly over the back of a chair. Though she knew that Reeve couldn’t make love to her, there was something intimate and sensual in undressing before him that way, in the light.
She was naked when she turned out the lamp, rounded the bed, and crawled in beside him, cuddling close and running one hand idly up and down his broad chest. He made a low, throaty sound of pure pleasure, and as Maggie’s fingers moved over his abdomen, she felt him responding to her touch.
On impulse, she took him full into her hand and caressed him, heard the rumbling groan come from the depths of him to echo in the dark room. Giving Reeve pleasure became, at that moment, the whole reason for Maggie’s existence. She slipped beneath the covers to give him an impish nip with her teeth, and she felt a shiver run the length of his body.
“I—need you—” he said, and the words were like a gruff sob.
Maggie continued to pleasure him, accelerating her efforts as she felt his rigid muscles begin to lose their stonelike quality and come alive again. When she knew he was ready, she moved to sit astraddle of Reeve, slowly taking him inside her.
“Yank,” he pleaded.
Maggie had sheathed him in velvet, and every motion of her hips was exquisite delight for her. “I—love you—” she gasped, lifting his hands to her bare breasts and holding them there, letting him feel the nipples harden against his palms.
Reeve groaned and she sensed his struggle to move beneath her. “Relax,” Maggie whispered, rising and falling upon him gently, glorying in the way he filled her. “Let me do it all.”
Slowly, sweetly, she carried Reeve closer and closer to the sky, still holding his hands to her breasts, her head flung back as she climbed toward her own pinnacle. Just as her body buckled in fierce response to his, she felt Reeve shudder powerfully and then spill his own passion within her.
She sank to his chest, gasping for breath, and buried her face in the warmth of his neck. His hands went tentatively to Maggie’s back, made their way slowly from the curve of her waist to the round plumpness of her bottom.
Maggie slept that way, linked to Reeve, and awakened in the morning to find that he’d hardened within her. Startled, she sat up, and the motion caused her such pleasure that she moaned and rolled her head back.
She heard Reeve chuckle, felt his hands cup her breasts, this time without help. And coupled with the sweet sensations he was arousing in her body was the joyful knowledge that Reeve was truly getting well.
Staring down at him, Maggie saw an impish light in his eyes and a grin on his mouth. Her breasts blossomed against his palms, growing heavy, and, with him still inside her, she bent forward. His hand slid aside and Maggie felt his mouth close over her nipple, taking slow, hungry suckle.
She made a whimpering sound as he swelled to even greater magnificence inside her, and instinct caused her to rotate her hips. Reeve’s groan vibrated through her breast as he continued to draw at it.
“Oh,” Maggie whined as the sweet pressure built within her. “Reeve, Reeve—”
He grazed her nipple gently with his teeth and gave a hoarse cry as she began to move her hips faster and faster. She would have withdrawn her breast so that she could sit up, but Reeve would not allow that. Stubbornly, he held her with his mouth even as he drove her mad with his heat and his length.
Release was upon her in a moment of fiery fever that left her shuddering. She sagged against Reeve as he continued to suck her, his powerful body quivering ferociously as he, too, was satisfied.
When she had the strength to rise, Maggie levered herself upward with her hands. Reeve’s fingers immediately found her breasts, kneading the soft, warm flesh there, plucking at the pebble-hard peaks.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” she scolded good-naturedly, removing herself from Reeve and from the bed before he could have her again.
That mischievous light was shining in his eyes, and Maggie blushed from her toes to her hairline as she felt his gaze sweep over her, telling her without words that he knew he could have her at any time and under virtually any circumstances.
“You think you’re so smart,” Maggie threw out just as if he’d teased her aloud. “Well, we’ll see how you react to a thorough bath, Mr. Reeve McKenna.”
He grinned, and Maggie stomped into the bathroom and ran water for a bath of her own. When she’d finished, she put on a long wrapper of soft rose-colored flannel and brushed her hair. Then, with a joyful sort of spite, she filled a basin with warm water and carried it, with a sponge and soap, to the bedside table.
Reeve watched her impassively as she tossed back the comforter and sheet to reveal his nakedness.
“Can’t have the doctor knowing what you’ve been up to,” Maggie said cheerfully as she soaped the sponge.
He grinned, and the sight filled Maggie with happiness, even though she was still pretending to be outraged. Deliberately, she began washing his abdomen and inner thighs, and, to her delighted amusement, his manhood swelled to a splendid length, wanting a bath of its own.
Maggie bathed every part of Reeve, except for his back, before deigning to wash the straining evidence of his passion. That she did at her exquisite leisure, delighting in the way Reeve’s eyes rolled closed as he gave himself up to the sweet agony she was causing him.
She was quite unprepared for the strength in his arms when he suddenly caught her around the waist and propelled her toward him. She landed with her knees pressing into his pillow, one on either side of his head, and shivered when she realized what vengeance he was going to take. Maggie felt her wrapper being nuzzled aside and grasped the headboard of the bed in both hands to anchor herself.
“Reeve,” she pleaded, “don’t—”
The first glancing touch of his tongue silenced her. She tried to shift away, but his hands slid beneath her wrapper to close over her bare hips and hold her fast in the position he wanted.
Maggie knew that Reeve wasn’t going to release her. Her breath came in quick gasps as he began his gentle reprisal.
Maggie was dressed, with her hair up in a coronet at the back of her head, when the doctor arrived. There was nothing she could do about the high color in her cheeks or the sweet humming sensation in the very core of her that made her words come out with a squeaky breathlessness.
Dr. Claridge, an elderly man with a balding pate and dancing blue eyes, examined Reeve and said, smiling at Maggie, “Remarkable. What on earth did you do?”
Maggie went red as brick, and Reeve chuckled. “Love will work miracles,” said Dr. Claridge politely. “I’ve always said so.”
Maggie made a d
ash for the door and fled down the rear stairs, her skirts clasped in her hands. There was a strange woman sitting at the kitchen table with Cora, sipping tea.
Feeling like a bounding schoolgirl, Maggie came to an abrupt halt, staring at the woman and feeling an uneasy premonition. The visitor’s hair was dark, like Loretta’s, and her eyes were a crystalline blue. Though she wore a very sedate dress, there was no hiding the shapely lines of her body.
“Maggie, this is Miss Eleanor Kilgore. She’s going to be taking care of Mr. McKenna until he’s up and around again.”
Maggie nodded politely. Though it was completely frivolous, she felt an urge to drag Miss Kilgore to her feet and shuffle her out the back door. “I had meant to look after Mr. McKenna myself,” she said.
Eleanor smiled, revealing tiny, perfect white teeth. “Caring for an invalid is quite exhausting, miss. Not to mention that it requires a rather strong stomach. Have you ever emptied a bedpan?”
Maggie had just been challenged, though only she and Eleanor seemed to know it. “I—I could,” Maggie said uncertainly.
“But you haven’t,” Eleanor replied, her tone placid. “I imagine the servants have been taking care of that.”
Maggie was very conscious of her tenuous position in Reeve’s household. If she’d been his wife, she could have ordered Miss Kilgore out; as his fiancée—a slow blush crept up her face—and his mistress, she had no such right. “I’m taking Mr. McKenna to Queensland in just a few days. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to travel so far, when the assignment will surely be a short one.”
Eleanor was unmoved. “Dr. Claridge tells me that the recovery could take some considerable time, if it happens at all. Besides, I rather like the idea of living in a sunny, tropical setting. I’m told Mr. McKenna’s estate borders the ocean.”
That was more than Maggie had been told; she knew nothing at all about Reeve’s Queensland property, except that he raised sugar cane there. She bit her lower lip and then walked purposefully over to the stove to get the kettle. She brewed a cup of tea before forcing herself to join Cora and the nurse at the table.
“Mr. McKenna seems to be recovering nicely,” she said belatedly and in somewhat defensive tones.
“Physical responses,” drawled Eleanor complacently, “can be misleading.”
Maggie felt as though she’d been slapped, and her cheeks burned. “Dr. Claridge was quite pleased, actually,” she said when she’d taken a moment to compose herself.
Before Eleanor could answer, Cora betrayed Maggie by rising to her feet and announcing cheerfully, “Well, I’d better look into packing Miss Elisabeth’s things if we’re making a journey.”
Maggie tossed her a pleading look, which Cora missed completely, and then stared down into her teacup when she and Reeve’s nurse were alone.
“I saw one of your performances in The Taming of the Shrew,” Eleanor said when the interval of silence grew awkward. “You were really very good.”
“Thank you,” Maggie responded woodenly.
“I can’t help wondering why you would create such a stir and then turn your back on the theater entirely, Miss Chamberlin. According to the newspapers, you had quite a future in front of you—and in your native America too.”
The answers that came to Maggie’s mind all sounded childish and petulant. For the first time since Reeve’s return, she began to doubt her place in his affections. In retrospect, she realized that all the romantic gifts he’d sent had one thing in common: a note mentioning Jamie. He might only have given her the power to sign his name because he’d no reason to think she’d ever be called upon to use it and, as for the lovemaking, well, Reeve was a virile man, even in his illness. He might have responded to any other woman in just that way—Eleanor Kilgore, for instance.
Shaken, Maggie stood and carried her teacup to the sink. Eleanor was still waiting for a reply to her remark about Maggie’s career in the theater.
Maggie held out her left hand, the magnificent ring shimmering on her finger. Even that didn’t give her any peace; Philip had said that gems were easy for a rich man to acquire, and he was right. Nonetheless, as Eleanor inspected the ring, Maggie said, “I’m going to marry Mr. McKenna. So, of course, I’ll have no time for the theater and certainly no inclination to travel all the way to America.”
The light in Eleanor’s stunning blue eyes was smug; there was no other word for it. “Mr. McKenna, according to the doctor, is a long way from being well enough to undertake the—er—rigors of marriage, Miss Chamberlin.”
That’s what you think, Maggie wanted to say, remembering the events of the morning, but of course she couldn’t mention that. It was simply too personal. “Have you ever met Reeve before?” Maggie asked, following a hunch.
Eleanor sighed. “No. But of course I’ve seen him—he’s well-known in Sydney, after all. He’s a magnificent man.”
“Yes,” Maggie replied. “If you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.” She had nothing to do, if the truth were known, now that she’d given up her role as Kate, but she would have died before admitting that to Miss Eleanor Kilgore.
Eleanor smiled and rose from her chair. “I wonder if you could spare the time from your busy schedule—I do hate to impose—to show me the way to Reeve—er—Mr. McKenna’s room?”
Seething, Maggie nonetheless smiled her most fetching smile. “Of course,” she said, and she gritted her teeth as she led Reeve’s nurse up the stairs and along the second floor hallway. Why couldn’t Dr. Claridge have engaged someone different, someone matronly and plain, she wondered as she indicated the door of Reeve’s bedroom.
Eleanor knocked and then went in, at a summons from the doctor, and Maggie was left standing in the hall, wondering what to do.
She finally made her way down to the study, where the walls were lined with books. She chose a volume of fairy tales and went in search of Elisabeth, only to learn from a maid that Cora had put off packing the little girl’s clothes to take her to the park instead.
At a loss, Maggie returned the book to the proper shelf in the study and then went outside. She longed to visit Tansy and pour out all her doubts and fears to her friend, but of course she couldn’t. Tansy was working, and her duties would not be fulfilled until nightfall.
Jamie had apparently left for New Zealand already, and Maggie missed him. She would have been able to confide in Reeve’s brother, and she craved his reassurance.
Opening the gate, Maggie set out in the direction of the corner where the streetcar stopped. She had money in the pocket of her skirt; maybe this was a good day to shop or visit the menagerie.
She rode into downtown Sydney in something of a stupor. Was it possible that Reeve had made all those promises and given her all those presents just because he thought she knew something about Jamie? Had he changed his attitude so abruptly, after his first furious reaction on learning that she’d encountered his brother in Melbourne, only because he hoped to persuade her to confide some secret concerning Jamie that he thought she was hiding?
Maggie sighed as she followed one street sign and then another, finally finding the trolleycar connection that would carry her to the menagerie. The glint of her diamond ring blurred as she looked down at it.
“Maggie!” hailed a man’s voice as she stepped down from the car a short distance from the menagerie. “Is that you?”
Maggie looked around and saw Samuel Fairmont striding toward her, his face wreathed with smiles. She managed a faltering smile of her own, very glad to see her friend. “I came to see the animals,” she said witlessly.
The expression in Samuel’s eyes revealed that he’d guessed that she was upset, though his dazzling smile remained in place. “So did I. A happy coincidence—we’ll see them together.”
Maggie burst into unceremonious tears. She’d held them in check for so long that now they flowed uncontrollably. Samuel frowned, took her arm, and escorted her swiftly to a secluded bench, providing her with a fresh white handkerchief.
“What is
it, little one?” he asked ever so gently. And that very tenderness made Maggie wail with grief and confusion.
Haltingly, she told Samuel her deepest secrets: how she was carrying Reeve’s baby, how she wondered if he’d only pretended to want her because he thought she knew more about his missing brother than she was admitting, how threatened she was by Eleanor Kilgore, the nurse Dr. Claridge had engaged.
Samuel listened compassionately until the whole story had been told, and then he held Maggie close in an effort to comfort her. “Poor child—what a life you’ve had. Perhaps you should come to America with us after all.”
Maggie shook her head, sniffling, and drew back from Samuel’s comforting arms in an effort to compose herself. “I couldn’t go, Samuel—I think I knew all along that I couldn’t leave Elisabeth, let alone Reeve. Besides, such a journey would be too much to ask of a little baby.”
Samuel used his thumbs to dry Maggie’s face. “I have no idea who Elisabeth is, and Reeve clearly doesn’t deserve you. As for the baby—Maggie, infants have been making crossings like that for centuries. They’re really remarkably resilient, you know.”
“Elisabeth is Reeve’s niece—oh, it’s all too complicated! Samuel, I just can’t go—it would break my heart.”
“It seems to me that your heart is already broken.” Samuel sighed, but then he stood up and offered his hand. “Come. Let’s have a happy afternoon, shall we? We’ll see all of the animals and then we’ll have a nice supper somewhere and I won’t say another word about America or the theater.”
Maggie smiled, knowing that her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, that her face was mottled. “You really are so kind. I’ll miss you terribly when you go away.”
Samuel executed a sweeping, Petruchio-style bow. “We shall not speak of partings and other sadnesses, m’lady. This is a day for making merry.”
Laughing, Maggie slipped her arm through Samuel’s and allowed him to escort her inside the menagerie. She had a wonderful afternoon, seeing zebras and elephants, monkeys and wombats, koala bears and kangaroos.
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