An hour before sunrise, Callie was already making her way along the lane to Dove House. The autumn air lay heavy with fog. They were still far from any snap of frost, but the coolness of nighttime had begun to promise a chill. She pulled her hood closer and assured herself that this early start was merely because she wished to avoid awkward questions from Lady Shelford, not for any reasons having to do with pining or being missed or anything of that nature.

She meant to prepare a breakfast, leave it set out on the parlor table under covers, and return to Shelford Hall before anyone would suppose she had done more than make an early visit to the farmyard. No one belowstairs at the Hall had questioned her need for bread and bacon and butter. They were accustomed to any odd request from Callie for her animals. But Dolly, Lady Shelford, was another matter. It would require some marvelous persuasion, Callie feared, for her cousin-in-law to approve of lending out the undercook. Callie wasn't hopeful about her prospects of success.

In the shadowy silence before dawn, she let herself into the scullery at Dove House and laid out her burden. The kitchen was empty, but the fire had been banked properly and took no great effort to revive. She envisioned a frigid wind blowing across the side of a mountain. Casting herself as the pretty daughter of an old shepherd, she built up the fire to a hot blaze in order to warm the rich and handsome traveler she and her faithful dog had just rescued from the Alpine snows.

After she had renounced his fervent offer of matri mony in favor of the handsome-but-poor blond moun tain guide who had loved her since she was a child in the f lower-strewn meadows, she slipped upstairs to look in on Madame de Monceaux. As she ascended, she could hear a ponderous snoring all the way from the attic and supposed that the massive Jacques had found himself a bed. When Callie peeked into Madame's chamber, the duchesse seemed to be resting quietly, her breathing shallow but regular. Barely visible in the shadows, Trev slept in the bedside chair, propped against the wall at an uncomfortable angle.