“What, and leave us here alone with no bloke to protect us?”

“Queenie, I’ve told you. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’m sure this whole mess will be sorted out today.”

“If you say so, miss.” She didn’t sound convinced. “And where am I going to have me breakfast? There ain’t no food in this place. I already looked.”

“You’d better come up to the main house with us and I’m sure there will be food for you in the kitchen. Then perhaps you can bring something back for Claudette.”

“What? Me wait on another maid?”

“Queenie,” Darcy said firmly, “I think you had better realize that Lady Georgiana is only taking you back out of the goodness of her heart, after you betrayed her and abandoned her. If you are going to continually whine and complain then you may find that she will leave you behind in America when she goes back to England.”

“Cor blimey, miss. You wouldn’t do that, would you?” Her mouth dropped open.

“I might, unless you put your best foot forward and act the way a lady’s maid should.”

She stared at the ground. “I don’t rightly know which is my best foot, miss,” she said.

“Hopeless. Utterly hopeless,” I muttered to Darcy as we started for the main house. There was no sign of Belinda. She was not the earliest of risers. I wondered how she had handled reporting for duty at Harrods. She wasn’t exactly used to waking in her own bed either.

“I suppose it’s all right to leave Belinda here alone.” I turned and looked back at the cottage.

“I think your friend Belinda can take care of herself,” Darcy said. “She invited herself here, didn’t she?”

He stood there, frowning. “God, what a hideous-looking monstrosity this is,” he said. “The man had no taste.”

“It was supposed to be an English country cottage,” I said. “And the one over there through the trees is even worse. At least this one would be all right in an impossibly adorable English village, whereas that one could only be inhabited by the Brothers Grimm.”

Darcy grinned as he took in the sloping roof, gingerbread trim and small-paned windows. “Who is staying there then?” he asked. “Frankenstein’s monster?”

“Nobody. We were given the English cottage to make us feel at home.”

As I went to follow Darcy I found myself staring at the other cottage. A thought that something was wrong came to me and departed again before I could latch on to it. I shook my head and followed Darcy up the path.