*Olivia*
I stretch beneath the covers. I still have a headache, my throat has become raw, and my eyes feel gritty. The laudanum has helped me sleep, but it has failed to relieve me of the symptoms of mourning. I wonder how long they will linger.
Then the lethargy wears off, and I remember the horror of discovering the terms of my husband’s will. I sit up abruptly and hold my aching head. My hair tumbles around me. When had I loosened it? Had I gone to bed without braiding it? Then my gaze falls on my hairpins, lined up neatly on the bedside table.
Only, it isn’t my bedside table. The Goddess help me, it isn’t my bed.
With mounting horror, I glance around the room. My husband’s bedchamber.
Before last night, I have only ever come in here once, a silly attempt to seduce my husband when
