Chapter Twelve
When dawn seeped in through the chintz curtains, Isabella gave up all pretense of trying to sleep. She had lain awake for what seemed like hours, listening to the clatter of hooves on Clarges Street, to voices raised in song as revelers made their way home, to the night watchman’s cry: Four of the clock, and all’s well.
Except that all wasn’t well.
In the space of a few minutes, everything had changed. Her life had turned upside down.
You’ve set your heart against marriage, Major Reynolds had said. Without knowing anything of the pleasures that may attend it.
And he’d been correct: she had set her heart against marriage. But now . . .
Isabella shifted position inside the twisted nest of bedding. Sleep was impossible; every time she closed her eyes she remembered the ma
