Now, the door stood open a crack.

Abandoning her task, she glanced out into the narrow corridor. There was no sign of Leo. The aromas of baking bread and frying onions drifted from somewhere downstairs, making her wonder if he had gone down to breakfast without her. It would be just like the little rascal to do so. He had an independent streak that alternately amused and frustrated her.

Natalie went back into the room to fetch a warm shawl. She scolded herself for not keeping a closer watch on him. He was her charge, the sole reason she had made the six-week journey across the ocean. She oughtn’t have let herself dwell upon a stranger whose name she did not even know.

Ever since encountering that gentleman the previous evening, she had been preoccupied with the memory of his intent gray eyes and the firm clasp of his fingers. It was ludicrous, really, for he was too polished and proud for her taste, like the haughty British aristocrats that she’d heard tales about in her youth. Regardless, his masculine presence had caused a melting sensation deep in her bones. She’d scarcely been able to draw a breath while the warmth of his skin had been pressed to hers.

Why, oh why, had she unthinkingly offered him her hand?

His raised eyebrow had made it clear that she’d broken some silly rule of etiquette. She must keep in mind that things here were different than in America. Her late father as well as her friend Audrey often had decried the caste system in England, where a person’s station in life was determined by his or her birth.

Who was the man, anyway?

Someone of consequence, no doubt, judging by his exquisitely tailored attire and superior manner. He likely had expected her to curtsy to him. Well, even if the proper decorum had been known to her, she still wouldn’t have complied. She was not his inferior. A genteel handshake was perfectly proper in Pennsylvania, and that was that!

A rumble of laughter from downstairs yanked Natalie back to the present. She was doing it again, letting herself forget that her primary duty was Leo. It wasn’t like her to be so distracted.

She closed the door and hurried down the narrow stairwell that led to the front of the inn. The taproom teemed with guests eating breakfast at planked wooden tables. A harried maidservant, her mobcap askew, rushed hither and yon delivering plates of food and refilling cups. The previous day’s storm had filled the inn to the rafters, and Natalie counted herself lucky to have secured even an attic chamber.

She glanced around, but Leo’s towheaded form was nowhere in sight. Could he have wandered into the private parlor for a second time? The possibility unsettled her. Though the opinion of a stranger oughtn’t matter, she cringed nonetheless at the notion of being judged a slipshod guardian by those intense granite-gray eyes.

A few steps past the front desk took her to the private room. The door stood open, and the sight inside was measurably more serene than the noisy taproom. And glory be, her aristocratic nemesis wasn’t present, after all. She saw only an elderly manservant in a neat black suit laying out gleaming silver on the white tablecloth.