He yawned until his jaws cracked-a most unmannerly thing to do in a lady's presence-and at the same moment his stomach rumbled quite audibly.

"You look an absolute mess, Joshua," his grandmother observed bluntly. "When did you last eat?"

"Sometime last evening," he admitted rather sheepishly. "I was forced to abandon my purse too, you see." He had been forced to make a few intricate and time-consuming detours about tollgates on his way.

"It must have been a large spot of bother indeed," she said, getting to her feet and pulling on the bell rope beside the hearth. "I am almost tempted to ask if she was at least pretty, but it would be quite beneath my dignity to do so. I shall leave you to the ministrations of Gibbs. He will feed you and shave you and then you may wish to sleep. There will be little else for you to do until your valet arrives with a change of clothes. I have several calls to make."

"Food and a shave and a sleep, in that order, sound quite like heaven to me," he said agreeably.

Lady Holt-Barron reveled happily in the coup of having enticed Lady Freyja Bedwyn, sister of the Duke of Bewcastle, to Bath as her houseguest. Charlotte was more pleased just to have a friend of her own age there.

"Mama would insist upon coming to Bath again, Freyja," she explained as the two of them strolled in the Pump Room early on the morning following Freyja's arrival while Lady Holt-Barron, ensconced at the water table with a glass of the famous waters in her hand, beamed with pride as she conversed with a group of acquaintances similarly occupied. "She believes that a month of the waters puts her in good health for all the rest of the year. I suppose she may be right, but Papa and Frederick and the boys have gone shooting, as they always do at this time of the year, and I would far prefer to be with them. I am so thankful you agreed to come."

There was not much opportunity for such private exchanges.