Chapter SevenAlisa awoke early after spending most of the night lying awake and thinking about the Earl.
She realised that her love was hopeless for, if he had made up his mind that he would remain a bachelor, nothing and nobody would change it.
She could understand now why the women he had in his life were like Madame Vestris or occupied a position such as he had offered her.
At the parties she had seen him, he had never seemed to be interested in any particular woman and, although the sophisticated beauties who were married clustered round him, he continued to look bored and cynical in the way she had grown accustomed to.
‘I love him!’ she whispered to herself.
She knew that it would bring her no happiness to stay in London and go to parties and balls when all she wanted was to be a
