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collar straight. He did not have time to fold the newspaper before the door was opened by the maid.
    “Thank you, Jenny,” said Beatrice, coming into the room.
    “I’ll just bring some fresh tea for the pot and some hot toast,” said Jenny, whisking the large silver teapot from the sideboard. Hugh could not remember her ever offering to bring him a fresh pot of tea.
    “Good morning,” he said. “I do hope you don’t mind an informal breakfast? You are welcome to ask Jenny to bring you something else.” He was pleased at his own cheerful manner and wondered if his newly discovered affection for Lucy Ramsey was already making him easier in the company of all women.
    “I am very happy,” said Beatrice, looking at the fruit platter and lifting the lids of the chafing dishes to inspect scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon, warm raisin cakes, and kedgeree. The kedgeree was on its second visit from the kitchen, and Hugh wondered if he should mention that it had become more pungent since yesterday, a fact not disguised by Cook’s addition of generous amounts of chopped parsley. He decided it was not his place to notice.
    “Only we all like to keep our own schedules in the summer,” he added, aware that domestic arrangements did not qualify as scintillating conversation. “I’m afraid I haven’t seen any sign of my aunt yet.”
    Beatrice spooned a small mound of raspberries into a dish and added a large dollop of fresh cream from its pitcher. She placed a sausage on a second small plate and brought both to the table.
    “Your aunt has already given me a tour of the garden this morning,” she said. “After breakfast, we are to walk around the town, and then she has kindly offered to introduce me to my new landlady.”
    “I should warn you that my aunt knows everybody,” said Hugh. “She is not in the least stuffy about stopping in the street to talk to them, and so any walk with my aunt is more a series of energetic starts with much lingering about, trying not to shuffle one’s feet too much.”
    “Oh dear,” said Beatrice. “I shall have to summon my best attempt at patience.”
    “And with waiting to hear if my uncle is coming from London, I’m sure she won’t get away from the house until late,” added Hugh.
    “What am I to do?” asked Beatrice. She spoke in a lighthearted tone, but Hugh noticed that she stabbed her sausage quite emphatically with her fork. “The plan was your aunt’s, and yet my willing acceptance of her direction has made me a dreadful inconvenience.”
    “Oh, not at all,” said Hugh. “I was only thinking you must be impatient to see the town and…” He trailed off as his own vague plan became clearer in his mind and the enormity of suggesting it crushed his recent sense of ease.
    “Perhaps she can spare a maid or someone to show me the way,” said Beatrice. “Though the town seems small enough for me to do very well by myself.”
    “My aunt wouldn’t like that,” said Hugh. He took a deep breath and plunged in. “I don’t believe I have any definite plans this morning, or at least I could try to change them.”
    “Indefinite plans are the worst to rearrange,” she said, smiling over her teacup.
    “What I mean is that perhaps you would permit me to escort you on a small tour of the town and then deliver you to your lodgings to meet my aunt at some appropriate hour?” With the offer made, in such a stumbling manner, he could only wait and try not to blush.
    “I would be delighted,” said Beatrice. “It’s such a lovely day and I would enjoy a real walk. Can I rely on you to set a fast pace, Mr. Grange?”
    “Oh, do call me Hugh,” he said, his sense of ease returning. “You are a walker then, Miss Nash?”
    “My father and I enjoyed nothing better than a tramping holiday,” she said. She did not invite him to call her by her first name. “Have you walked in the Alps, Mr. Grange?”
    “I have had that pleasure,” said Hugh. “There is nothing finer than