CHAPTER THREEWhen Gisela reached home, she realised, from seeing her father’s hunting cap and whip in the hall, that he had come in before her.
She glanced at the clock and saw that she had taken an unconscionable time to travel the few miles that lay between the Reynolds’s farm and her home.
It was unlike her to have ridden slowly, but she had so much to think about and she had deliberately taken a longer route, dawdling through the woods, pulling up her horse beside the winding stream to gaze across the parkland, thinking all the time of what lay ahead of her tonight.
Her whole being was in conflict. Should she go or should she stay at home? It was a Royal Command, the Empress had made that quite clear, and her father must obey the summons.
But for her she felt it was different. She
