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certainly not entitled to the services of a maid. “But the idea of a rest sounds very inviting.”
    â€œThe roads hereabouts aren’t all they ought to be, are they?” Mrs. Parry said. “Though there are enough toll gates to pay for repairs, the good Lord knows. You are probably all bounced to pieces. I’ll leave you alone, then, mum. But if you should want to go down to the drawing room later, just pull on the bell rope here and someone will come to show you the way. I’ll have a maid come up before dinner to help you dress and tell you the way to the dining room. Will there be anything else?”
    â€œNothing.” Anne smiled at her again. “Thank you.”
    Go down to the drawing room? Take dinner in the dining room?
    What had Joshua
said
about her? He could not possibly be expecting her to mingle with the Bedwyn family—and to make her curtsy to the Duke and Duchess of Bewcastle.
Could he?
But one never knew with Joshua. He had some peculiar notions about her—and about David.
    She unpacked her modest trunk and put everything away—she even found that there was a dressing room attached to her bedchamber. She lay down on the bed when she was finished, more because she did not know what else to do than because she was weary.
    She would cheerfully cower right here in this room for the next month given half a chance, she thought. But—sadly—it was too late to wish yet again that she had remained in Bath.
    She fell asleep while she was in the middle of worrying.
    When she awoke an indeterminate amount of time later, she jumped hastily off the bed and washed her hands and face. If the promised maid should arrive, she would perhaps not be able to avoid going down to dinner. She could not
possibly
do that. She was ravenously hungry, she realized, not having eaten since luncheon at a wayside inn, but being hungry and alone seemed preferable to having to dine with the duke and his family.
    Good heavens, did Joshua really expect that she would be
welcomed
into their midst? As a social equal?
    She slipped on her outdoor shoes and wrapped a cloak about herself in case the sea air was chilly. She could not avoid mealtimes for a whole month, of course, but perhaps by tomorrow she would feel sufficiently rested and in command of herself to suggest to the housekeeper that other arrangements be made for her accommodation and meals.
    She slipped out down the back stairs and through the side door by which she had entered the house earlier. She hurried down the driveway, not sure where she was going exactly, but not really caring as long as it was far enough away to be out of sight of the house. Just past the thatched cottage, before she had to make the decision whether to leave the park entirely or turn back, she noticed a well-worn path to her right that must lead to the sea, which she had been able to see from the window of her bedchamber.
    She turned and walked along it and soon found that she was indeed on top of high cliffs with the sea below and coarse grass to either side of the path and some gorse bushes and other wildflowers.
    She was reminded again of Cornwall. Below the cliffs there was a wide, golden beach.
    She left the path and first stood and then sat in a sheltered hollow from which she could gaze down at the sea, which was calm and almost translucent in the light of early evening though there were ripples of waves close to the shore, a few of them breaking into foam before meeting the beach. The beach itself stretched in a wide golden arc. Just to her left the land curved outward toward the sea and then fell away into huge, jagged rocks to form an abrupt end to the beach. To the right the sands stretched for a few miles before being cut off by a craggy, grass-topped tongue of land that thrust out into the sea like a humpbacked dragon with lifted head roaring defiance to the deep.
    She still missed Cornwall, Anne realized. She had loved it even though there had been