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Disrespectful chit. Lavinia spun on her heel, stalking in the opposite direction. It didn’t matter one whit whether or not she got off on the right foot with the staff. Not when her relationship with the master of the house was already doomed.

A railway worker was moving down the train, smearing something that looked like butter on the wheels. Soon the train would pull away, her last connection to London, to her old life, disappearing. Her stomach lurched. She intercepted the gaze of another farmer—Cornwall was experiencing an epidemic of smocks—and tossed her head. Nan might flirt with laborers, but she did not stoop.

As she swept past, the farmer’s jaw dropped. In London, the men didn’t let their chins hang so low. Couldn’t. All those chins were propped by collars. Another benefit of civilization.

“Do you intend to address me? Or does your mouth always hang open?” She paused, fisted hands on her hips. She’d already yelled at a maid to the general amusement of henwives. Why not set down a bacon brains?

The farmer looked behind him doubtfully as he straightened.

“Yes,” she said icily. “You.”

She waited for abashed stammering. Chagrin. Amazement at her condescension. The farmer, however, did not seem overawed. And, like any shallow-pate given a chance to act on the stage of life with his betters, he botched his lines. What emerged was not a stuttered paean to her beauty.

“I’ve never seen ’em that bad before.” He peered at her more closely, then whistled through his teeth. “And ’ee came from Lunnon, did ’ee?”

He turned to a stout, travel-stained woman approaching with a basket and jerked his thumb at Lavinia.

“What do I always say about Lunnon?” He shook his head. The woman stared at Lavinia, eyes widening.

Lavinia’s hand flew to her cheek. Of course. She must look a monster. The blood rushing to her face renewed the itching. Mortified, she whirled.

The farmer’s eager voice pursued her. “I hear as they’ve got ’em in Buckingham Palace.”

She clambered gracelessly up the steps of the footbridge, bunching her skirts. The farmer was still spouting.

“Cook the mattresses!”

She reached the far platform, heart pounding. That farmer thought she’d been chewed up by bedbugs. She’d been terrified of bugs at the Rossell Hotel, but thank heavens she’d never been bitten. If she had been, she certainly wouldn’t speak about it. The Cornish were dreadful people. And Cornwall was a dismal, backward, common sort of place. Good for boors, dullards, and invalids. Small wonder Cranbrook retreated here whenever he could. Nothing for an aged widower to do but lie out on the patio in flannels taking the sea air. Fondling the maidservants. Only a Bluebeard would dream of bringing a wife to such a place for their honeymoon.

She eyed the station house, an unprepossessing building. No water closet indeed. Probably still lit with oil lamps, and the agents nailed up charms to guard against the pixies. Sighing, she paced past the station house to the platform’s edge. Trees started up low and gnarled, their crowns the dense wet green of mashed peas. A gust of wind disarranged the branches and cold droplets scattered down. Nan had her bonnet. Blast the girl. Butterfingered Florence Nightingale. Belle of Bodmin Station. Out of habit, she raised her arms, shielding her curls, then she let them drop. A little late to worry about her coiffure. Lank hair befitted a ghoulish countenance.

Let the rain pelt.

She glared at the countryside. Which was the “brown oak”? The trees were all brown. They were trees. What made one oak browner than another? You had to solve a riddle to use the blasted privy. Not to mention soak your shoes wading out into the mud.

Although . . . She pressed her middle experimentally. Perhaps she wasn’t going to vomit after all. Simply crossing the tracks—putting the train between her and Cranbrook—had soothed her stomach. Stopped its shivering.

“Oh!” She sucked her breath, jolted by an impact. The biggest dog she’d ever seen knocked her sideways so that her foot splashed in a puddle. A sharp bark accompanied the splash.

“Alfie! Alfie!”

At the sound of his name, the shaggy, filthy creature bounded off. Farmers were bad enough on their own, but they all seemed to travel with retinues of sheepdogs and poultry.

She daubed ferociously at the pawprints on the pink silk. Habit again. She gave the skirt a final shake. Her eyes wandered to the wagonettes and station flies parked on the grass, doors open. In one fly, a small child curled on his mother’s lap, head on her breast. The father was standing in a wagonette, helping the porters load boxes, suitcases, umbrellas, rugs, and handbags. She’d like to sleep as that child slept, secure in the knowledge that his parents were close, that everything had an appointed place, that long journeys ended in joyous reunions and soft beds.

She’d scarcely closed her eyes in days. The night before the wedding, she’d sat up in a chair listening to her mother’s even breathing, wrestling with her bitterness. How could she rest so easily? Last night, she’d retched and scratched, moon-faced and wheezing.

The wedding ceremony had unfolded like a bad dream. Four hundred bejeweled guests packed into the church. Bustles overspilling the pews. Fans fluttering. Cora, Agnes, and Elise had buzzed around her in the antechamber, plucking at her veil, effusing sweetly on the joys of second attachments. She understood them perfectly. Once tarnished, she’d never be welcomed back into their set. Marriage to Cranbrook wouldn’t restore her shine.

Mercifully, the reception was small. Cranbrook’s friends and family circulated through a pair of flower-decked rooms at Harcott House. Her mother murmured ceaselessly with Lady Chatwick and Lady Sambourn about God knew what. As for herself, she had remained motionless in the corner of the salon, refusing to be drawn into conversation. Ignoring the snickers of Cranbrook’s half-grown sons. Each passing second weighed on her. Finally, she’d broken from her trance and stumbled out onto the balcony for air.

Cranbrook and fat Lord Browning had been leaning on the railing, their backs to the room.

“. . . damiana, phosphide of zinc, cocaine, and syrup of ginger. That’s the tonic I take for a cockstand. So, old boy, shall I send a crate?” Browning was clapping Cranbrook’s shoulder.

“No need.” She could hear the smile in Cranbrook’s voice. “I married the best tonic I could find. Do you want to know the secret?”

She’d watched, horrified, as Cranbrook drilled his index finger into Browning’s chest.