Good heavens, did Joshua really expect that she would be welcomed into their midst? As a social equal?

She slipped on her outdoor shoes and wrapped a cloak about herself in case the sea air was chilly. She could not avoid mealtimes for a whole month, of course, but perhaps by tomorrow she would feel sufficiently rested and in command of herself to suggest to the housekeeper that other arrangements be made for her accommodation and meals.

She slipped out down the back stairs and through the side door by which she had entered the house earlier. She hurried down the driveway, not sure where she was going exactly, but not really caring as long as it was far enough away to be out of sight of the house. Just past the thatched cottage, before she had to make the decision whether to leave the park entirely or turn back, she noticed a well-worn path to her right that must lead to the sea, which she had been able to see from the window of her bedchamber.

She turned and walked along it and soon found that she was indeed on top of high cliffs with the sea below and coarse grass to either side of the path and some gorse bushes and other wildflowers.

She was reminded again of Cornwall. Below the cliffs there was a wide, golden beach.

She left the path and first stood and then sat in a sheltered hollow from which she could gaze down at the sea, which was calm and almost translucent in the light of early evening though there were ripples of waves close to the shore, a few of them breaking into foam before meeting the beach. The beach itself stretched in a wide golden arc. Just to her left the land curved outward toward the sea and then fell away into huge, jagged rocks to form an abrupt end to the beach. To the right the sands stretched for a few miles before being cut off by a craggy, grass-topped tongue of land that thrust out into the sea like a humpbacked dragon with lifted head roaring defiance to the deep.

She still missed Cornwall, Anne realized. She had loved it even though there had been much pain to endure during her time there.

There was something about the sea that had always called to her spirit. Somehow it reminded her of her littleness in the grand scheme of things, and yet strangely that was a soothing rather than a belittling thought. It made her feel a part of something vast, her own little worries and concerns of no great moment after all. When she was close to the sea, she could believe that all was well-and somehow always would be.

She could have lived contentedly in Cornwall for the rest of her life if only…

Well, if only.

She would not have lived there all her life anyway. She had been going to marry Henry Arnold, and he lived in Gloucestershire, where she had grown up.

She sat where she was for a long time until she realized that the evening was now well advanced. She was suddenly glad of her cloak. The day had been warm, but dusk was approaching, and the breeze blowing off the sea was fresh and slightly moist. It smelled and tasted salty.

She got to her feet, scrambled back up to the cliff path, and strolled onward, her face lifted to the breeze, alternating her gaze between the beauty of the gradually darkening sky above and the corresponding loveliness of the sea below, which seemed to be absorbing the light from the sky so that it turned silver even as the gray overhead deepened-one of the universe’s little mysteries.

If she were a painter, she thought, pausing again in order to look about with half-closed eyes, she would capture with her brush just this effect of light before dark. But she had never been much of an artist. Somewhere between her brain and the end of her arm, she had always said, her artistic vision died. Besides, a canvas would not be able to capture the salt smell of the air or the light touch of the breeze or the sharp cry of the seagulls that clung to the cliff face and occasionally wheeled overhead.

It was as she walked onward that she became aware that she was not the only person out taking the evening air. There was a man standing out on a slight promontory ahead of her. He was gazing out to sea, unaware of her presence.

Anne stood quite still, undecided whether to turn back in the hope that he would not see her at all or to hurry past him with a brief greeting and a hope not to be detained.

She did not believe she had seen him before. He was not either Lord Aidan Bedwyn or Lord Alleyne. But he was probably one of the other Bedwyns or their spouses. This was, after all, the duke’s land, though it was possible he allowed strangers to wander here beyond the cultivated bounds of the park.

It was still only dusk. There was light by which to see the man. And as she looked Anne found it difficult either to retreat or to advance. She stood and stared instead.

He was not dressed for evening. He wore breeches and top boots, a tight-fitting coat and waistcoat, and a white shirt and cravat. He was hatless. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders and slender waist and hips and powerfully muscled legs. His dark, short hair was ruffled by the breeze.

But it was his face, seen in profile, that held Anne transfixed. With its finely chiseled features it was an extraordinarily handsome face. The word beautiful came to mind, inappropriate as it seemed to describe a man. He might have been a poet-or a god.

He might well be, she thought, the most beautiful man she had ever set eyes upon.

She felt a craving to see him full face, but he was obviously still quite unaware of her presence. He looked as if he were in a world of his own, one that held him quite motionless, the gathering gray of the evening sky sharpening his silhouette as she gazed at him.

Something stirred inside her, something that had lain dormant in her for years and years-and something that must remain dormant. Good heavens, he was a total stranger, and if her guess was correct he was someone’s husband. He was certainly not someone about whom to weave romantic fantasies.

She could not simply retreat, she decided. He would probably see her and think her behavior peculiar, even discourteous. She could only continue on her way and hope that a cheerful good evening would take her past him without the necessity of introductions or the embarrassment of having to walk back to the house with him, making labored conversation.

Was he perhaps Lady Morgan’s husband? Or Lord Rannulf Bedwyn? Or the Duke of Bewcastle himself? Oh, please, she thought, please do not be the duke. And yet he was said to be a handsome man.

She wished then that she had decided to go back. But it was too late to do that. As she approached closer to the man, keeping to the footpath that would pass behind the promontory on which he stood, he became aware of her and turned rather sharply toward her.

She stopped short, not more than twenty feet from him.

And she stood transfixed again-but with horror this time. The empty right sleeve of his coat was pinned against his side. But it was the right side of his face that caused the horror. Perhaps it was a trick of the evening light, but it seemed to her that there was nothing there, though afterward she did recall seeing a black eye patch.

He was a man with half a face, the extraordinarily beautiful left side all the more grotesque because there was no right side to balance it. He was beauty and beast all rolled into one. And all of a sudden his height and those powerful thighs and broad shoulders seemed menacing rather than enticing. And equally suddenly the beauty of the gathering darkness and the peaceful solitude of the scene were filled with danger and the threat of an unknown evil.

She thought he took one step toward her. She did not wait to see if he would take another. She turned and ran, leaving the path and the cliff top behind her, half stumbling over the uneven ground, tugging at her cloak as it snagged against gorse bushes, and feeling the sharp sting of their scratches on her legs. Her stockings would be torn to ribbons, a part of her mind told her.