“No, I don’t suppose that would be an acceptable thing to do, but I don’t have a robe I can lend you. Because you didn’t pack me one.” I opened my wardrobe. “Here, you’d better have my overcoat. Bring it back when you come up with my morning tea.”

She paused at my doorway. “This tea bit. What am I supposed to do?”

“Go to the kitchen, tell them you’ve come for Lady Georgiana’s tea tray and carry it up to my room. Now, is that too hard?”

She frowned. “Okay, bob’s yer uncle, miss.” And with that she sauntered out. That girl will have to go, I thought. Thank heavens I hadn’t taken her on for the long term.

I decided not to count on help with my morning toilet, so I was washed and dressed by the time she reappeared, red faced and panting, carrying my tea tray. “There ain’t half a lot of stairs in this place, miss,” she said. “Oh, and there was a bloke asking after you.”

“What kind of bloke?”

“Ever so handsome, miss. Dark hair and he spoke proper English too. Not like one of them wogs.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said it was about time you roused yourself and he was waiting for you in the breakfast room.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling my cheeks going pink. “Then I’d better get straight down there, hadn’t I?”

“ ’Ere, what about the tea what I just brought up for you?” Queenie demanded.

“You drink it,” I said. “Oh, and my shoes need polishing.”

With that I ran down the hallway. One of these days I’d better learn to be masterful with servants. Lady Middlesex was quite right. Not that I thought that Queenie would ever learn.

Darcy was alone, sitting with a cup of coffee in front of him as I came into the breakfast room. He rose to his feet as I entered.

“Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “What sort of time do you call this?”

“I don’t know. What time is it?”

“Almost ten.”

“Oh, crikey,” I exclaimed. “I had a disturbed night last night. I must have been making up for it.”

“And what disturbed you?” He was looking at me in that special way, half laughing, that made my insides go weak.

“My maid woke me up to say there was a man in her room.”

“Lucky maid. What did she want you to do about it? Give her your blessing or come and watch?”

“Darcy, it’s not funny,” I said. “She was terrified, poor thing. I went up to see, but of course he’d gone.”

“Was it a hot-blooded Romanian who fancied a prim English miss?”

“I told you it wasn’t funny, Darcy,” I snapped. “I know exactly how she felt because the same thing happened to me the night before.”