he risked Emily running away again on dry land. She had run away once in Sydney and twice in Melbourne. But Barney was as dogged as a bloodhound. He'd simply thrown her over his shoulder and carted her back.


Doreen sucked in an excited breath through her pinched nostrils. "Shall I go with you? Do you think

you can find him alone?"


"If this bloke is as fine and uppity as Miss Winters said 'e was, I'll march straight up to 'is fancy 'ouse

and fetch 'im. Then we'll be rid of the brat and rich to boot."


Emily waited until Barney had hoisted the little boat into the bucking waves before leaning over the side and waving her handkerchief at him. "Do take care, Barney. One of Mr. Connor's partners is dead. The other disappeared without a trace." She smiled sweetly. "I should so hate for the same thing to happen

to you."


Barney's complexion paled to green. Shooting her a nasty look, he steered around and began rowing for shore.


A gull circled the dingy steamer, then soared into the sky. Emily's gaze followed its flight toward the silvery rim of the island.


"Never forget," she whispered to herself. "Justin Connor is a very dangerous man."


* * *

"The devil take that blasted Winters woman!"


As his soft-spoken master exploded in a burst of temper, Penfeld jumped, rattling the teacups on his

tray. The sea gull marching across the windowsill cocked his head in curious reproach.


Justin Connor threw down the crumpled letter and paced the hut, ruffling his dark hair into wild disarray. "Am I never to be left in peace?"


Penfeld set the tray on the stained tablecloth, fearing for his precious china with Justin's long limbs at

such odds with his gait. "It must have been the gum digger, sir. I told you the man was asking too many questions."


Justin turned with a sweeping gesture that made Penfeld thankful he had eased his sturdy bulk in front

of the tea service. "What makes you think the tenacious Miss Winters would require a mere mortal for her endeavors? She probably spotted me in her crystal ball." He flapped his arms. "I'm only surprised

she posted a letter instead of flying straight over on her broom to fetch me."


Penfeld's lips twitched, but he hid it behind a somber cough.


Justin stabbed an accusing finger at the gull. "Are you one of her familiars, too? No black cats for our indomitable Miss Winters."


The gull tucked his head shyly beneath his wing.


Justin growled. "Ought to wring your scrawny little neck. Put you in the pot for supper." He started for the bird, hands outstretched.


Penfeld cleared his throat meaningfully.


Justin swept up the letter that had been posted from London over five months before and had arrived

per a native runner only that afternoon. "The sheer arrogance of the woman! She insists I retrieve the

girl immediately. She's concocted some fabulous hints about her being involved in a scandal. What could the child have done? Spilled her milk at supper? Pilfered the sugar bowl?"


Penfeld patted his rotund belly fondly. "I was once caned myself for a similar crime."


"The grasping creature. I've sent every halfpenny I could scrape together for the girl's education."


Penfeld already knew that. He had been the one to post the slim envelopes devoid of a return address.


Justin sank down on an upended rum barrel. His shoulders slumped. "She must want more money.

But I've nothing left to sell. What am I to do?"


Penfeld directed all of his attention to polishing the immaculate spout of the teapot with his sleeve. "The Winters woman might not be the only one to learn of your whereabouts. Perhaps your family, sir…"


Justin lifted his head and looked at him with amber eyes that were dusted with flecks of ruthless gold.

He spoke with the level enunciation that had been known to freeze the staunchest Maori warrior in his tracks. "I have no family."


For a moment the only sound was the clink of one cup against another. Justin's gaze slowly melted from furious to imploring. "I'm a bachelor. Doesn't that woman understand? I can't be responsible for a child. It's quite impossible. She's far better off staying in England, where she can get a proper education."


Penfeld blew an imaginary speck of dust from the cream pitcher. "And when she's of an age to marry?"


Justin's laughter had a wild edge to it. "We've years to worry about that. She was only three when David died. She can't be more than ten or eleven now." Fueled by purpose, he donned his gold-rimmed spectacles and began to scribble furiously on the back of the paper. "I'm sending a letter back with the runner. The girl stays in the school her father chose for her. It's in her best interest. I'll send more money when I'm able."


"Have you ever thought the child might want a home? A family?"


Justin's pen hung poised over the paper. As he lifted his naked gaze, Penfeld wished he could bite back the words.


His master's sweeping gesture encompassed the dusty hut, the crude dirt floor, the books heaped in

every inch of available space. "Does this look like a home?" He touched his stubbled chin, his shirtless chest, the jagged hole worn in the knee of his calico dungarees. "Do I look like a family?"


Penfeld stared at the floor. Justin folded the letter in a neat square, scrawled a new address on the envelope, and held it out. Penfeld took it.


He paused at the door, glancing back to find Justin still slumped on the barrel, his hand cupped around

the gold watch he wore on a chain around his neck. In their years together, Penfeld had rarely seen him without it. As Justin snapped open the cover, a distant mist haunted his amber eyes.


Sighing with regret, Penfeld turned away and plodded toward the native village.


He caressed the worn envelope between his fingers, fearing it was not the poor little girl who needed

his master, but his poor master who needed the girl.


* * *

Emily shifted her bustle with both hands, watching with amused interest the battle taking place at the

stern of the steamer. Three hours had passed with no sign of Barney's boat. Doreen alternated between searching the horizon with a rusty spyglass and threatening the half-deaf, and, Emily suspected, half-daft steamer captain into drifting for one more hour. The captain's little mail packet ran only once a month from Melbourne to Auckland, and he was determined to sail.


While Doreen squawked and the captain bellowed, Emily turned back to the water, preferring the soothing lap of the waves against the hull. The balmy wind tore at her curls. The sun drifted like a

golden feather into the sea. How ironic that after all those years of waiting, she had spent her last ounce of energy trying to abort this trip. They would never have gotten her aboard the ship from England if

they hadn't laced her coffee with a dose of belladonna that had almost killed her.


They were determined to deliver her to the one man in the world she loathed more than them-Justin Connor.


The roar of the steamer's engines shook the deck. Emily clutched the rail, feeling the pistons throb to

life like her hatred for her guardian.


Rumors had flown through London society when the only son of the wealthy duke had failed to return from his New Zealand expedition. Girls Emily had once called friends brought her the murmured tales from their parents' drawing rooms, their malice masked by well-meaning sighs of pity and pointed

glances at her shabby frocks and scuffed boots.


In the best London circles Justin Connor's very name came to embody danger and romance. At the school it was whispered in tones of naughty reverence. Emily wasn't the only girl who drifted into sleep with his image swashbuckling through her dreams.


Most believed him a dashing adventurer, a speculator who had made his fortune gambling in land and

gold and human lives. They swore he had cast aside his own family and had scoffed at their written

pleas to come home and take his rightful place as heir to the Winthrop shipping fortune.


Emily narrowed her eyes. She could well imagine him ensconced on the fertile New Zealand coast,

living in the handsome Victorian mansion he had built with her father's gold… and her father's blood. Perhaps he had his own daughter by now-a golden-haired little doll-child swathed in love and lace. In seven years he had sent her not one personal note, not one word of kindness. Miss Winters had taken great pains to show her the stilted messages, the pathetic handfuls of pound notes and shillings.


After a few weeks of such obvious neglect, they had given her spacious sitting room to Cecille du Pardieu, a china-faced brat who was rumored to be the illegitimate daughter of an Austrian prince. It

was only Miss Winters's fear of Emily's mysterious guardian that stopped her from casting her into the streets. It was decided she would earn her bread by teaching the younger girls who had once been her adoring equals.