Maggie clung to the last shreds of her pride, even as her body leapt to obey his every command. “You’ll exhaust—yourself—as well—” she gasped.
Reeve laughed. “Not so,” he replied, and then he sucked at Maggie’s breast until she was half wild with the need of him. Then, and only then, he moved to kneel on the floor and shifted Maggie’s hips so that they were resting on the very edge of the bed. She was totally vulnerable to him.
“Your first lesson in being an obedient wife,” he grated out, and then he nuzzled through her softness to catch her in his mouth.
An electrical jolt went through Maggie as he nibbled at her, and her back arched as if in spasm. Groaning, she grabbed at the bedding with her fingers, sure that she would float away if she didn’t hold on. “Oh, Reeve,” she choked, “my—God—Reeve—”
He enjoyed her at his leisure until she reached a slow, scalding release, and then he pleasured her again, with the same infinite patience. She was still quivering from that, and praying that he would take her now, when he shifted positions so that she was kneeling over him, and he partook of her yet again. In his own time, and his own way, he drove her over the edge of madness for the third time.
Maggie began to plead softly for quarter, but Reeve granted none. Her body was his playground, and he had no qualms about taking what he wanted. And what he wanted, it soon became evident, was to love Maggie until she was totally beyond rebellion. He made her reach climax after climax, until she had lost count, until she couldn’t think or do anything but respond to him, and then, at last, he took her.
Like the lappings of his tongue, the strokes of his manhood were slow, leisurely ones. The pinnacle Maggie reached that time, as Reeve stiffened upon her and groaned at his own gentle pleasure, was the most violent of them all.
He slipped from her with seemingly renewed vigor, climbing back into his filthy clothes and humming an impudent little tune as he put on his boots. Maggie lay still on the bed, too sated and too spent to move, let alone speak.
Just before he left the room, Reeve gave Maggie’s perspiring bottom a little pat and kissed her forehead. “I hope you’ll stage another rebellion soon, Yank. I do enjoy taming my own personal shrew.”
If she’d had the strength, Maggie would have hurled something against the door. As it was, she could only lie there, trying to regain her breath and plotting revenge. She fell asleep in the middle of that, and when she awakened, it was dark outside and she could hear the strange chanting songs of the Aboriginal workers floating on the warm night wind.
She sat up, yawning, and her eyes widened. Reeve was sitting in a tin washtub at the foot of the bed, happily washing away the day’s soot and grime.
Kneeling on the mattress, Maggie wrestled her way out of her tangled dress. Her drawers and camisole had disappeared entirely. With a flouncing motion she got off the bed and wrenched on a white eyelet wrapper. It was scant covering, but it took the arrogant glint from Reeve’s eyes.
“Pity,” he said, soaping a sponge and proceeding to scrub his underarms. “You’ve smudged that lovely thing with soot.”
Maggie looked at herself in the mirror and was appalled to see that much of the blacking had rubbed off Reeve’s body and onto hers while he was making love to her that morning. The pristine white wrapper was now splotched with black, especially in the areas of her breasts and thighs. Embarrassed, she plunked down on the bed and glowered.
“I hate you.”
“Alas,” Reeve sighed philosophically, “you lie with your lips, but your body tells the truth.”
Maggie turned crimson. “You had no right!”
“I had every right, love; I’m your husband. And don’t play the wronged maiden; you weren’t carrying on the way you were because you didn’t like what I was doing.”
Caught with no way to deny that she’d responded to Reeve’s loving with her entire body and soul, Maggie lowered her eyes. “I wasn’t carrying on,” she protested weakly.
“You were howling like a dingo,” was the blithe response, and then Reeve was rising out of the water with an inordinate amount of splashing. Maggie watched warily, seething, as he dried his superbly muscled body and began to dress in clothes too elegant for a quiet evening at home.
“Where are you going?” Maggie asked suspiciously.
There was a most inopportune tap at the door, and Reeve only grinned at his wife before opening it. Goodness and Mercy came in, giggling, and carried out the bathtub full of sooty water.
“You need bath too, missus,” Mercy said. “We bring back new water.”
Maggie longed for a bath, but she wasn’t about to take one in front of Reeve McKenna. Not after the sweet, endless ordeal he’d put her through that morning. “Thank you,” she said briskly, and the little girls went out, lugging the tub between them and slopping half the water on the floor.
Reeve, heedless of the small lake on the costly Persian rug, was standing in front of a mirror, frowning as he grappled with his fashionable string tie. “You ought to wear the pink silk, my love,” he said offhandedly.
The pink silk was the best gown Maggie owned. Trimmed at the hem and bodice with tiny diamond-like beads, it was very formal. “To dinner?” she asked, examining her fingernails idly. “It’s hardly the thing. Cambric is more suited.”
“Not to a party at Duncan’s house, it’s not,” Reeve replied, and his marvelous aquamarine eyes were sparkling as Maggie leapt off the bed, unable to hide her excitement.
“A party?” She beamed.
Reeve laughed. “A party,” he confirmed. “We’re celebrating the harvest.”
Maggie was pacing the floor. “Where are those girls with my bathwater?” she fretted.
Reeve stopped her, taking her shoulders gently into his hands, and kissed her. “I love you,” he said.
Maggie stiffened, remembering how he’d taken over her soul so easily, shamed by her own surrender. “Because I’m such an obedient little wife?” she drawled, glaring up at him.
“Because you’re such a hellcat,” he replied, his eyes laughing at her. Then he shrugged. “Of course, if you don’t want to dance with me tonight, I’m sure Eleanor will be more than happy to—”
“Don’t you dare dance with that woman!” Maggie interrupted, stomping one foot.
Reeve laughed, laying a hand to his heart as if to still its thudding beat. “Tell me that you love me, Maggie McKenna, and I promise I won’t.”
Unable to sustain her snit any longer, Maggie chuckled and shook her head. “You know I do, you waster,” she answered. “Why else would I endure your overbearing and officious manner?”
Reeve was just about to kiss Maggie when Goodness and Mercy arrived with a tubful of fresh water. Maggie winced as she watched them slip and slide over the wet floor, and was much relieved when they set their burden down without incident.
“We bring mop?” Goodness asked.
“You bring mop,” Maggie confirmed with a sigh. “Later,” added Reeve with a warning waggle of his index finger.
Goodness and Mercy fled in a gale of giggles.
“I have no idea what they see in you,” Maggie observed.
Reeve took a step toward her, grinning devilishly, one eyebrow arched. “Don’t you?” he challenged.
Maggie flushed. “Get out of here,” she snapped.
To her surprise and relief, Reeve did leave the room. Maggie promptly locked the door behind him, then slipped out of her wrapper and stepped into the bathwater. It was tepid, but given the sweltering heat of an Australian summer, that was fine with Maggie.
As she bathed, Maggie thought of the last party she’d attended, at Government House, in Melbourne, and smiled at how much things had changed since then. She hoped that Duncan’s sons, Jeremy and Tad, would be at the party; it would be wonderful to see them again.
There was another knock at the door just as Maggie was drying herself. “Who is it?” she asked suspiciously.
“Kala, missus, come to help with your dress
.”
For Kala, who could be silent for days on end, that was a virtual diatribe. Wrapping the towel around herself, Maggie went to the door, turned the key, and admitted the housekeeper.
Kala’s coffee-colored eyes took in the mussed bed. “You sick, missus?” she asked.
Embarrassed, Maggie shook her head. “I was just—just tired,” she answered.
Kala went to the giant armoire, one side of which was filled with Maggie’s clothes. “Baby inside make tired,” she said, looking back over one shoulder. Just the flicker of a smile moved on her lips. “Baby outside make even more tired.”
Maggie laughed and nodded, and she was, at that moment, completely happy. She loved her husband, he loved her, she was carrying his child within her, and tonight she would go to a party in a pretty silken dress. After all the years she’d spent alone, living from hand to mouth and wearing whatever she could afford to buy from the secondhand carts on the streets of London, she felt inestimably wealthy.
“The pink silk,” she said when Kala’s eyes questioned her.
The lovely gown rustled as Kala took it carefully from the armoire and laid it on the bed. Its pretty crystal beads glimmered in the dim light of the lamps Reeve had lit before Maggie awakened from her stuporous sleep.
Behind a lovely changing screen of polished acacia wood, Maggie replaced her towel with taffeta drawers, a camisole, and petticoats. She would have worn a corset, too, but Reeve forbade that, considering them silly at best and harmful at worst.
“Are you coming to the party, Kala?” she asked as the servant came around the screen and held out the magical pink dress. Maggie stepped into it.
“No, missus,” Kala said in a tone that was almost indulgent. “No dark peoples at white party.”
Maggie felt sad. After all, Kala had worked as hard as anyone. She deserved to dance and wear pretty things too. “Oh,” she said.
Kala chuckled as she did up the tiny crystal buttons at the back of Maggie’s dress. “We have party of our own, missus,” she said by way of reassuring her mistress.
Maggie was heartened as she sat down at the dressing table to do her hair, which had been flowing free ever since Reeve had taken it upon himself to “tame” her. Before she could lay a hand on the brush, however, her husband came through the open door.
“Thank you, Kala,” he said, and though the words were said kindly, they were a dismissal nonetheless.
Kala went out on soundless feet and Maggie sat at the dressing table, stricken to stillness by the impact of this man’s presence. Not since the first day she’d seen him, aboard the Victoria at Brisbane, had that impact lessened. Each time she encountered Reeve McKenna, it was as though she were meeting him for the first time.
“Do you know,” he began in a smoky whisper, closing the door, “how incredibly beautiful you are?”
Maggie recovered herself and made a face. “You needn’t think that compliments will make me show you mercy, Mr. McKenna. I intend to have my revenge.”
Reeve laughed and, when she reached for her hair-brush, he was there to take it from her. He began brushing her hair as he had done that morning in his wagon, during the camp meeting at Parramatta, and Maggie closed her eyes for a moment, remembering.
“What sort of revenge will this be?” Reeve asked softly, a hint of laughter causing a corner of his mouth to twitch slightly.
“The unexpected kind,” Maggie answered, watching his reflection in the mirror and wondering how she could possibly have lived nineteen years without this man to love her, to enrage her, to pamper her.
Reeve chuckled. “That sounds ominous,” he said.
Maggie was as aroused by Reeve’s brushing her hair as she would have been by his hand caressing her breast or his lips nibbling at her earlobe. She took the brush from him and made short work of braiding her hair into a single shining plait and then winding it into a coronet. “I mean to catch you unawares,” she answered belatedly.
Reeve drew her to her feet and gave her a lingering kiss that stole her breath away. “How about now?”
Maggie pushed herself away from him by pressing her palms to his chest. “That would be much too convenient for you,” she answered airily, and then she swept to the door and out into the hallway, and Reeve had no choice but to follow her.
Duncan’s house might have been merely a mile away if one was on foot, but by carriage the trip involved a much longer distance. Maggie sat primly in the seat beside Reeve, smiling at his obvious agitation. It was clear that Mr. McKenna didn’t like the idea of being taken unawares.
The Kirk house, a rustic structure much like Reeve’s place, was alight at every window when they arrived. There were a lot of buggies and wagons in the dooryard, but no other carriages.
Reeve was scowling as he helped Maggie down and tucked her arm through his, and she laughed. “Are you very worried, Mr. McKenna? How lovely, if you are!”
“You little—” Before Reeve could finish whatever it was he had been planning to say, two boys came running down the walk, fairly hurling themselves at Maggie and shouting for joy.
Smiling, Maggie kissed Jeremy’s forehead, and then Tad’s. “I was hoping to see you here tonight,” she said, resisting an urge to ruffle their carefully combed red hair.
“Maybe you can teach us, instead of Miss Kilgore,” Jeremy suggested.
“I hate her,” Tad put in.
“You once said that you hated me,” Maggie reminded him wryly. “Have I changed so much?”
“Not that I can tell,” Reeve added, sounding sour.
Maggie elbowed her husband subtly and smiled at the boys. “You both look so very handsome that I probably won’t be able to resist teaching you. Since I’m not allowed to help with the harvest in any way”—she paused, looking up at Reeve for an angry moment—“why don’t you ask your father to bring you to our house in the morning? We’ll have our lessons just as we used to in Melbourne.”
Jeremy and Tad were so delighted by this prospect that they ran off immediately in search of their father.
Reeve gave Maggie a look and escorted her up the porch steps. “Teaching is work,” he pointed out.
“You’ll have to settle for it,” Maggie replied. “You can’t spend every morning of your life loving me senseless just to keep me from helping out in the kitchen.”
“Pity,” Reeve agreed pensively.
Duncan met them at the door, looking handsome in his white suit, and immediately claimed a dance with Maggie. Arching an eyebrow at Reeve, who was still irritable, he said, “It’s my prerogative as host.”
Reeve subsided and somewhere in the crowd of laughing, chattering people, fiddles began to play. “So it’s come to this, has it,” Duncan teased as he and Maggie began to turn in a slow waltz through a parlor that appeared to run the length of the house. “We’re only friends and neighbors, allowed to dance once or twice a year.” He sighed pragmatically.
Maggie laughed. “There was a time, Mr. Kirk, when I thought we could never be friends.”
“You’re right,” Duncan conceded, frowning. “What’s the matter with Reeve anyway? He looks as though he could bite a railroad tie in half.”
Maggie pretended she hadn’t heard the question, and when that dance ended, she was immediately pulled into her husband’s arms for the next.
“Jealous, darling?” she teased.
“Don’t push your luck,” Reeve replied.
Throughout the evening he stayed close to Maggie, claiming her every dance and ignoring wistful glances from Eleanor, who had obviously had plans of her own for the night. Maggie gave the woman a winning smile every chance she got, and when the hour was late and the McKennas were back in their darkened carriage beginning the drive home, she took the promised revenge. It was to be hoped that the driver couldn’t hear Reeve’s moans of helpless pleasure.
Chapter 25
THE WHITE-CAPPED WATER WAS A JADE-GREEN COLOR under a sky of the fiercest blue. Jamie McKenna stood at the railing of the small
, fleet steamer, scanning the horizon for any sign of land.
“Suppose he isn’t there, Jamie?” Peony asked, moving to stand beside him. The wind blew her golden hair back from her face. “Suppose he’s in Sydney?”
Jamie didn’t feel like talking; he merely shook his head, expecting Peony to understand because she was the oldest and dearest friend he had. Instinct had prompted him to look for Reeve in Brisbane instead of Sydney.
Peony, a beautiful woman of forty, stared wistfully out to sea. Jamie saw her give an involuntary little shudder and then hug herself.
“Cold?” he asked, ready to take off his suit jacket, a garment he despised, and lay it over her shoulders.
Peony shook her head, but she lifted her lacy shawl into place. “I was just—remembering.”
Jamie had his own memories of Queensland, and all of them were painful. He smiled and slipped a reassuring arm around her. “We agreed there’d be no looking back, didn’t we?”
Her expression was pensive as she gazed upon some horrific sight that Jamie couldn’t see. “Increase is still alive,” she reflected, in a near whisper, “and if he gets wind that you’re in Australia, he’ll have you killed.”
“Not before he’d had a good bit of vengeance, I suspect,” Jamie answered. He wasn’t afraid of Increase Pipher or of any other man—except possibly Reeve.
Peony shivered and squeezed her eyes shut in response to whatever pictures were looming in her fertile mind, then turned, placing one hand on Jamie’s back. Though the scars from Increase’s whip were hidden beneath his coat and shirt, Peony had never forgotten them. “Nothing and no one is worth the chance you’re taking, Jamie McKenna,” she whispered, and her bright green eyes brimmed with tears.
The brogue began to creep back into Jamie’s voice, as it often did when he was irritated or upset. “I’ll not ’ave the blighter dictatin’ where I can go and where I can’t, then!” he flared.
Peony subsided and turned her face resolutely toward the sea. The rocky shores of Queensland were now visible in the distance.
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