It would be better for Bliss, and much easier in the long run, if she went on thinking that he’d betrayed her. Jamie let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair. That hissing, spitting little hellcat probably wouldn’t appreciate the sacrifices he’d made over the past eight or ten hours, even if she knew about them.
On the far side of the dining room, Dorrie was flirting with Nils Stafford. Jamie smiled. He’d wondered what—or who—accounted for the girl’s bright mood that morning. Now he knew.
His smile faded to a scowl. It galled Jamie to know that Stafford had probably been in ecstasy all night while he’d tossed and turned in an agony of wanting. Lost in his various sufferings, he was unprepared for the sudden appearance of Alexander Zate on the bench opposite his own.
Zate looked haggard and rumpled, and there were deep shadows under his bulbous eyes. It was clear enough that he’d had no more sleep than Jamie, and probably for much the same reason.
A stubborn, hot-tempered, redheaded reason.
“I’ve often thought,” Zate began philosophically, “that whoever named that woman ought to have been shot for falsehood in the first degree.”
In spite of himself, and the hellish night he’d just passed, Jamie had to smile, though he said nothing.
Zate was clearly reading the signs of sleeplessness in Jamie’s face. “Perhaps, given the distinct pleasures of the marriage bed,” he said sadly, “the name ’Bliss’ is more suited to the lady than one might think.”
Jamie had been beginning to like Alexander Zate, at least a little. The presumptuous nature of the man’s remark forestalled that worthy emotion. “Is there a point to this conversation,” he asked coldly, “or are you just tired of livin’?”
With a bleak smile, Zate held up one pasty hand in a bid for peace. “Contrary to what you—and probably the young lady herself—might believe, I would have been a very good husband to Bliss. I am a wealthy man, and not disposed to the same unkindnesses as her father.”
Jamie’s interest was caught. Since his throat had opened again, he took a sip from his coffee, found it cold, and frowned in distaste. “What unkindnesses?” he demanded.
Zate shrugged, but there was compassion in his face. Jamie assessed him to be a weak man, but not a cruel one. “She hasn’t told you?”
Jamie shook his head and, for just a fraction of a second, his gaze strayed to the lighthouse keeper, who was laughing with Dorrie on the other side of the room. “We ’aven’t ’ad much time for talkin’,” he muttered.
The pain in Zate’s face made it clear that he’d misunderstood the remark, and Jamie did not correct him. There came a point when such mercies only made matters worse.
“Stafford’s long been anxious to be rid of the girl,” Zate confided, for God only knew what reason. “He’s made no bones about it, and I suspect that he’s beaten her on occasion.”
Jamie felt a surging, choking rage rise in his throat like bile. Not since he’d been forced to stand still for Increase Pipher’s lash had he known such hatred. He was possessed by it. “That’s not a charge that should be made lightly,” he said as Dorrie came swishing toward him to replace his cold coffee with a hot, fresh mugful.
His mood softened slightly. God bless her, Dorrie did know what a man liked.
Zate sighed as Jamie watched the serving girl walk away with a sort of weary appreciation in his eyes. “At least,” Bliss’s would-be husband pointed out, “I would have been faithful.”
Jamie was instantly angry. It was bad enough that he’d had to let Bliss believe she’d married a man without honor. He would not endure even the implication from anyone else.
He knotted his right hand into a fist and slammed it down onto the tabletop, causing cups, plates, and utensils to rattle. But before he could give voice to his ire, Bliss herself appeared at his side, carrying her satchel and groomed for traveling.
“I’m ready to leave now,” she said, in a clear voice.
Jamie was embarrassed at the interest displayed by everyone else in the dining room, as well as annoyed that Alexander Zate had remembered to stand up in the presence of a lady while he hadn’t. Belatedly, he rose to his feet.
“Sit down,” he told his wife, in a somewhat strangled undertone.
There was a defiant snap in Bliss’s blue, blue eyes, and a bright pink flush glowing behind her freckles. “Yes, Mr. McKenna,” she replied, making no effort to moderate her tone.
Jamie was painfully aware of the attention focused on this domestic tidbit. He supposed everyone in the place knew that he hadn’t spent the night with his bride, and that awareness galled him almost as much as Bliss’s scathing obedience.
He glared at her, and she sank to the bench, setting her satchel on the floor with a plunk.
“Did you sleep well, pet?” Alexander asked cordially, his bulging gaze fixed on Bliss.
She gave Jamie a sidelong look that could only have been described as hateful as he sat down again. “Yes,” she answered, in a voice designed to carry. “I slept very well, thank you.”
This statement elicited a variety of muttered comments from the populace of the dining room.
Jamie, who had just lifted his coffee mug, set it down again with a crash. Above all things, he hated to have his privacy breached and, after giving Bliss a look of undiluted fury, he stood, collected his coat and hat from the row of pegs on the wall behind him, and strode out of the inn to hitch up the team.
It was time he and his new wife started home.
“Do you love him?” Alexander asked gently.
Bliss had been watching Jamie’s abrupt exit with her soul in her eyes, but she turned her attention back to the man her father had wanted her to marry, surprised by his question. “Yes,” she answered miserably.
“He’s only getting the wagon ready, you know,” Mr. Zate assured her. Amazingly, he’d discerned her fear that Jamie was planning to leave the inn without her.
Bliss sighed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father approaching, and that made her eager to be away. She moved to stand up, but she was too late.
Nils Stafford put one of his huge, heavy hands on her shoulder and forced her back down. “Not so fast,” he said.
Alexander was flushed with indignation. “Now, see here—” he sputtered.
Nils’s fingers now held Bliss’s chin in a painful grasp. He paid no attention at all to his friend’s protests. “You be good to that husband of yours, lass,” he warned. “And you see that he’s good to your old papa.”
Bliss swallowed hard, longing to twist free of Nils’s grip but afraid to try. It was a sin to hate her own father, she knew, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “Jamie’s a stubborn man,” she said evenly. “And he’s not very fond of you.”
“If you’re smart,” Nils replied with a cold smile, “you’ll make sure he knows what a fine, generous father I was.”
“I must insist that you release this woman!” Alexander cried, shooting to his full and thoroughly unimpressive height.
To everyone’s surprise, Nils obeyed, though it was surely through no fear of his traveling companion. Perhaps he felt that he’d made his point.
Bliss hastened to her feet, took up her satchel, and fled the inn, hoping that she’d never see that place, or her father, again.
Yes, she assured herself as she hurried toward the stableyard, where Jamie was harnessing the team in the cool morning light, her life would be different from now on. She’d get this unfortunate marriage annulled as soon as she could get to Auckland—her Aunt Calandra would help her.
And once she was legally free again, she’d get that position she’d been dreaming of and work her way to America. She smiled to herself as she approached the man who had inadvertently become her husband.
Her mother was waiting in San Francisco, California. Come hell or high water, Bliss meant to join her there.
Jamie’s eyes were watchful, and he made no effort at conversation until they’d traveled a considerable distance
along the road that curved by the edge of the sea. The knife he was so adept at using was lying on the wagon seat instead of in its scabbard.
Bliss felt a shiver of fear roll down her spine. “A-are we in danger?” she dared to ask.
His lips curved into a smile, but his gaze was solemn. “Anything can happen, Duchess,” he said quietly. And then Jamie bent his head to look a little closer at her chin. “Is that a bruise?” he demanded.
A bruise was a bruise and Bliss didn’t see how she could deny what was plain for him to see. She sighed. “Papa thinks pain improves my hearing,” she answered, avoiding Jamie’s eyes.
He drew back hard on the reins, at the same time calling out to the horses, and the cumbersome wagon rattled to a stop beside the road. The salty scent of the sea was on the crisp morning wind, along with a gentle mist.
“Your father did that?” Jamie asked, and Bliss could no longer avoid his gaze, which was far colder than the wintry sea.
Bliss was stubbornly silent. She wanted no more trouble.
Jamie’s voice was a volcanic rumble. “Answer me!”
Bliss nodded, her own temper rising, and Jamie urged the team into a broad turn in the middle of the road. Laying one hand on his arm, Bliss cried out, “No!”
The word was not a plea, but a warning, and to Bliss’s unending surprise, Jamie heeded it. He let the reins go slack in his hands and gazed at her in undisguised bewilderment.
“Maybe Papa did hurt me,” Bliss said, now that she had her husband’s attention, “but it wasn’t half so bad as the pain you caused, Jamie McKenna. If you go back to that inn and take vengeance on my father, you’ll be the worst kind of hypocrite!”
Shame moved in Jamie’s handsome face. “Bliss, about last night—”
“Please,” Bliss interrupted, almost desperately, unable to bear being reminded of that particular humiliation. “I think we should just forget that.”
Jamie gazed at her in silence for a few moments, then turned the team and wagon around again. They’d rattled and jostled along for some time before he politely requested, “Tell me what your life was like before you woke up in my barn, Duchess.”
Bliss sighed. “It was uneventful, for the most part. I helped Papa with his duties, and I walked and read and dreamed.”
Jamie favored her with a soft grin. “Is that why you wanted to go to America? Because you read about it?”
A tentative happiness straightened Bliss’s shoulders and hoisted her chin a degree or two higher as she smiled. She wasn’t sure whether it was the mention of America or Jamie’s company that had cheered her, and in point of fact, it didn’t matter. She was full of joyous enthusiasm. “It was partly the reading. My mother lives there, and she’s written such wonderful letters—”
Jamie’s frown made her fall silent.
“Did I say something wrong?” she asked presently.
“Mother or no mother, Duchess, America’s a world away,” Jamie countered. “What makes you think I’m going to let you go traipsing off to some other country?”
Bliss’s backbone went stiff, and her smile faded completely away. “I don’t need your permission to do anything, Jamie McKenna,” she pointed out in very formal tones. “You’re not my husband—not in the true sense of the word.” Color throbbed in her face, for they both knew what that “true sense” was.
“You aren’t goin’ anywhere,” Jamie said flatly. “I’d never get another decent night’s sleep as long as I lived for wonderin’ what mischief you’d gotten yourself into when me back was turned.”
The resurgence of the brogue did not intimidate Bliss, not this time. “I’m quite certain that your nights won’t be a problem to you, Mr. McKenna,” she told him primly. “There’s sure to be a woman handy.”
“So we’re back to that, are we?” Jamie shouted. It was interesting to watch him; his eyes turned a shade darker and his nostrils flared slightly. “Dammit, Bliss, I’ve ’ad that thrown in me face one too many times! I slept alone last night! Do you ’ear me?” His voice had risen to a bellow now, and the horses were nickering and tossing their heads nervously. “Alone!”
Bliss was pleased, for she knew somehow that Jamie was telling the truth, but she was careful not to let this conviction show. “You’re scaring the horses,” she pointed out.
All the little muscles at the base of Jamie’s ear bunched together in a single knot. “I don’t care!” he hissed.
Bliss could no longer hide her amusement, and she burst out laughing. Jamie glared at her for a moment, and then, grudgingly, he grinned and shook his head.
It was in that unguarded moment that disaster struck. The band of men on horseback rode calmly out from behind an outcropping of rock to block the way.
Jamie’s jawline was like iron as he drew back on the reins and called out an easy command to the team, bringing the wagon to an unhurried stop.
Bliss’s heart sank. As far as she knew, none of these men were members of the band she’d encountered when she ran away from the inn, but they were up to no good all the same. The rifle the leader carried was proof enough of that.
Chapter 7
BLISS STOOD IN THE BOX OF THE WAGON AND SHOOK AN IMPERIOUS finger at the group of men barring the road, certain that she knew how to deal with a crisis of this nature.
“Do you realize,” she inquired, in a ringing voice, “that you are dealing with Jamie McKenna?” Dimly, she heard her husband mutter a curse.
The brigands remained where they were, some of them grinning.
“It’s not working, Jamie,” Bliss complained in a whisper. “They’re not running away—”
Jamie caught hold of the back of her skirt and wrenched her down onto the seat, hard. There was an easy smile on his face as he regarded the men, though Bliss could sense his wire-tight alertness. Inwardly, he was making ready for a fight.
The bushrangers parted as one man rode forward. He was dark-haired and handsome, in a smarmy sort of way, and the leisurely inspection he gave Bliss made her skin creep. Finally, he shifted his gaze to Jamie’s face.
“I’m not sure,” he said, addressing the seven men behind him. “It’s been a long time.”
The side of Jamie’s leg, touching Bliss’s, was rigid, though that same unruffled smile still curved his lips. His fingers were already caressing the handle of the knife he’d kept close at hand, and he didn’t speak.
The insolent ringleader’s eyes had strayed back to Bliss. “That’s a fine-lookin’ woman, mate,” he observed. He rode nearer, and that was when Bliss noticed that the man’s nose was grossly misshapen, as though he’d fallen upon it from a great height. “You are Jamie McKenna, aren’t you?” he asked, squinting. “Like the little lady said?”
Jamie didn’t reply, and Bliss wondered why he wasn’t speaking up for himself, telling these rounders to be on about their business. Although he was tense, it was apparent that Jamie wasn’t afraid.
He handed the reins to Bliss without looking at her and climbed down from the wagon to stand facing the villains square in the middle of the roadway. Bliss’s heart began slamming against her rib cage, and even though the morning was bitterly cold, perspiration moistened her skin.
The leader and several of his companions dismounted.
“I asked you if you be Jamie McKenna, mate,” the dark-haired man said. He was clearly losing his patience. “It’d be best if you answered.”
“Maybe he ain’t McKenna,” reasoned one of the men still on horseback.
At that moment Bliss felt something cold against the side of her hand and looked down. Unbelievably, Jamie had left his knife behind on the wagon seat—he was facing those men with no other weapons than his wits and his own two hands.
“I know how to find out,” the kingpin said, and again his gaze traveled over Bliss.
Suppressing a shudder, she closed her hand around the hilt of Jamie’s knife and readied herself for battle.
“Fetch that pretty thing down from the wagon,” ordered the leader, af
ter a sly glance at Jamie. “We’ll have a little fun with her, whether this bloke’s the one we want or not.”
For the first time, Jamie spoke. “You’ll be disappointed,” he said coolly. “She doesn’t know the first thing about pleasin’ a man.”
The calm amusement in Jamie’s voice was, for Bliss, as lethal as a blow. She felt the color drain from her face as his disdainful words echoed in her mind. Two men came at her, lust in their eyes, their breath making white plumes in the cold air.
Bliss raised the knife, prepared to defend herself, and there were curses and blood as she drove the scoundrels back. At the same time, a fight began on the ground.
“Get his shirt open,” one man called. “We’ll know soon enough if this be McKenna.”
Bliss was too busy wielding the blade to watch Jamie, but she knew there was no way he could prevail against so many men. Pure fear burned in her throat as she repeatedly brandished the knife.
When Jamie was, at last, overcome, the two thugs Bliss had been carving at lost interest in her. She jumped down from the wagon, without thinking, and hurried around to the front.
Jamie had been forced to his knees. His face was bruised and bleeding, and one of his eyes looked to be swollen shut, but there was a stubborn pride in his bearing that said he’d never be truly defeated, no matter what was done to him.
With a knife of his own, the ringleader sliced away the buttons of Jamie’s heavy woolen coat, then tore open the shirt beneath. The medallion—a beggar’s badge, Jamie had called it—appeared to be what the man was looking for.
He threw back his head and gave a gruff shout of triumphant laughter. “By God, it’s him!” he shouted. “It’s him!”
The men on either side of Jamie wrenched him to his feet. Bliss caught his eye once, but he looked through her, as though she’d never mattered to him at all.
“Take the woman,” he said evenly, “and leave me alone.”
There was a murmur of agreement all around; the evildoers obviously liked this idea.
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