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. The Pump Room was the fashionable place to gather each morning for exercise and gossip-and for the drinking of the waters for those so inclined-but really, Freyja discovered, the amount of exercise one gained from walking about the high-ceilinged, elegantly appointed Georgian room was minimal. In fact, one took a few steps and then stopped to greet acquaintances and converse with them for a few minutes before taking a few more steps and stopping again. And because she was a new arrival, and a titled one at that, she found that everyone wished to speak with her, to greet her, and to quiz her for news from beyond the confines of Bath.
The day proceeded in no more energetic a fashion. They went shopping on Milsom Street after breakfast. Freyja had never delighted in that almost-universal feminine obsession. She shuffled from dress shops to milliners' shops to jewelers' shops in Lady Holt-Barron's wake, an enthusiastic Charlotte at her side, and wondered what the reaction of all around her would be if she were to stop in the middle of the pavement and open her mouth and scream-as lustily as she had done two nights ago. She found herself smiling at the memory. She had never been a screamer, but there had been an enormous exhilaration in letting loose with that one and seeing the grinning, overconfident stranger dive out the window.
God's gift to womanhood put to rout.
'Oh, you do like it, Freyja,' Charlotte said, noticing the smile. She was sporting a dashing hat with a startlingly bright scarlet plume in place of her own more modest bonnet. 'I do too, and I do not believe I can resist buying it even though I already have more hats than I will ever need. Shall I, Mama?'
'If Lady Freyja likes it,' Lady Holt-Barron said, 'then it must be all the crack, Charlotte. And indeed it looks very handsome indeed.'
During the afternoon they paid a few social calls and then took tea at the Upper Assembly Rooms, where there were more people to converse with. The Earl of Willett was there-he was staying in Bath with his uncle, from whom it was rumored he was like to inherit a hefty fortune. He had paid pointed attention to Freyja ever since Jerome's death, but she had never encouraged him. He was short and sandy-haired and sandy-eyebrowed and blond- eyelashed-though it was not his undistinguished looks that made him unattractive to her as much as his humorless, always rigidly proper demeanor. After all, she was no beauty herself. But she was never rigidly proper.
In the setting of Bath, though, where most of the inhabitants were elderly, she had to admit that the earl's youth was an attraction in itself. She greeted him more warmly that she would have done if they had met in London, and he seated himself at Lady Holt-Barron's table and made himself agreeable to all three ladies for well over half an hour.
'My dear Lady Freyja,' Lady Holt-Barron said after he had taken his leave of them, her eyebrows raised significantly, 'I do believe you have made a conquest.'
'Ah, but, ma'am,' Freyja said haughtily, 'he has not.'
Charlotte laughed. 'I believe it would be a waste of your time, Mama,' she said, 'to try playing matchmaker for Freyja.'
In the evening they returned to the Upper Rooms for a concert. Freyja was not averse to music. Indeed, there was much that had the power to enthrall her. Operatic sopranos did not. But, as luck would have it, the guest of honor was a soprano with an Italian name and a large bosom and a large voice, which she displayed at full volume throughout her recital. Perhaps she believed, Freyja thought, her eardrums contracting against the piercing high notes, that superior volume was to be equated with superior quality.
The Earl of Willett somehow contrived to sit beside her during the second half after conversing with her during the interval.
'One's hearing could be permanently affected by a performance such as this,' she commented.
Alleyne or Rannulf would have answered her in kind and they would have found themselves after a few such exchanges fighting to contain the laughter attempting to bellow forth.
'Yes, indeed,' the earl agreed solemnly. 'It is divine, is it not?'
And this was only the first day.
The second began the same way, the only difference being that yesterday morning the buzz of excitement had been over Freyja's arrival in Bath, whereas today it was over that of the Marquess of Hallmere. Everyone waited with eager anticipation for his appearance in the Pump Room with the Dowager Lady Potford, his maternal grandmother. Freyja knew Lady Potford but had no acquaintance with the marquess. When the lady arrived, though, she came alone. The air of disappointment in the room was really quite palpable.
'He is a young man,' Lady Holt-Barron explained, 'and is said to be very personable. He is, of course, one of the most eligible bachelors in England.' She looked archly at Freyja.
And so he would be deemed personable even if he looked like a gargoyle, Freyja supposed.
