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you must go up and rest,” Lady Penwyth said as she handed me a glass of watered wine. “The roads past Truro are horrifying, and travel in this heat must have been oppressive.”
    “It was hot, but not unbearable,” I answered, eager to set her mind at rest. “Mr. Penwyth was good enough to fetch me promptly.”
    “That is a mercy,” Lady Penwyth answered. “The posting-inn at St. Ives is a rude establishment, a gathering place for miners and all sorts of raffle. I am glad Damon did not leave you there for long.”
    “Damon?” I echoed, puzzled.
    “Damon did not fetch her,” Susannah said with a trace of malicious relish. “It was Roger. Hadn’t Papa told you?”
    Silence. Instantly I comprehended the situation. Damon Penwyth had been meant to bring me home, ostensibly to present a favorable impression on the visiting heiress and to have a few private moments together. But somehow the plan--cooked up well in advance by the two sisters--had not gone as Lady Penwyth had wished.
    I expected her to flush with mortification. Instead I was surprised to find her face white with shock . . . and anger.
    “Roger!” she repeated through stiff lips. “You were brought home by Roger?”
    “She was,” Susannah supplied.
    Lady Penwyth’s mouth worked soundlessly.
    “I was given to understand that Sir Grover interposed to Mr. Roger Penwyth, as he was already going into St. Ives on business. He was most kind and . . . and prompt,” I finished diplomatically.
    Lady Penwyth recovered swiftly. “Sir Grover asked him, is that so? Well, it is of little importance. You are here at last. Ah, Jenny, is Miss Eames’ room ready? Pray bring her some cool water too.” Lady Penwyth rose, and I followed her up. “You will wish to rest. Jenny will fetch you for supper at four o’clock--Sir Grover insists we keep country hours at the Hermitage. Until then.”
    Another kiss, and she gave me a little push towards an astonishingly pretty maidservant with feline features and thick, ugly hands who stood waiting by the doorway. I picked up my birdcage and thankfully made my way out of the room. My body ached to stretch out on a bed and the grit of exhaustion weighed my eyelids.
    As the door closed behind me, I could hear Lady Penwyth’s voice raised in a squawk of fury, and Susannah’s defensive answer. But I was too tired to tease out the import of that conflict. All in the world that mattered was the heavenly prospect of a nap.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    With a start, I awoke.
    I stared about me in puzzled fright, my surroundings unknown to me. The dim heat seemed to close about me, leaching the air from my lungs, and the dew of sweat soaked the pillow beneath my head. Then I saw Pretty Peter hopping about his cage, his flutters illuminated by the waning light of the sun, and I felt the world righted.
    The branches of an elm rattled against the window. I ignored the call as I pushed out of the comfortable bed. My shift clung to me, damp with the sweat of a good nap. Stretching stiff joints, I began to search the room for my trunk, did not find it, and began to panic. I could not go down to supper wearing my crumpled travel gown.
    Another turn about the room brought me to a wardrobe I did not notice before. There I found my brocaded silk mantua and beaded stomacher hanging pressed and freshened, the very thing I had thought to wear to my first supping with the Penwyth family; my embroidered shoes were stuffed with an herb sachet to keep the perfum’d leather sweet. Opening the drawer of the dressing table, I found that my ivory comb and hairbrush had already been put away next to the pocketbook I had carefully purled with a complicated web of ivy leaves. A pretty painted box held my tiny collection of jewelry.
    I giggled. It was something, then, to be treated as an honored guest instead of an afterthought. I had not thought I would like being fussed over by servants, for Sarah Eames considered the new fashion of excessive fawning to be poor