Where in the blazes was she?
The previous night crashed over her in a single, powerful wave. She was in Rosebud Cottage, in the bedroom she’d chosen at the farthest end of the corridor, next to Eva and Ariel’s room.
Tension released from her body by slow increments as she took in the coral and amber color palette encasing her in its warm, velvety glow. The furniture was rather ancient, but well-tended. This room looked, smelled, and felt exactly how she imagined the inside of a rosebud looked, smelled, and felt.
Across from her was a large three-paneled window composed of leaded diamond panes, a holdover from the era during which the cottage was built, likely hundreds of years ago. Beyond the window, the green canopy of the surrounding copse of oaks swayed gently in a light breeze, its only sounds a soft, leafy shoosh and the singing of birds. It was almost enough to seduce one into the fairy tale it presented, that the world outside was as inviting and lovely.
Almost.
Her eye fell on the chair she’d wedged beneath the door handle. Her reality was anything but idyllic.
The sequence of events that had landed her in this room ran through her mind. The card game. The wrong man. Her failure.
Now, she was wedded to that wrong man, who just so happened to be the son of a duke.
Apretendmarriage, she corrected herself. But the duke and his son were not pretend at all. They were, in fact, very real.Tooreal.
She swung her legs off the bed, still fully clothed, prepared for another hasty flight. On light feet, so as not to alert anyone to her wakefulness, she made her way to the washbasin in the corner. What she wouldn’t give for toothbrush and powder.
She found her reflection in the small mirror.Dios mío.She looked as bad as her mouth tasted. She splashed water onto her pale, drawn face and pulled the pins from her hair, which fell about her shoulders and down her back in a stringy mess.
A softtap-tapsounded on the door. “Izzy?” came a hiss through solid wood. “Milady?”
Milady?“Oh,” Isabel groaned aloud. She was “married” to a lord, which would make her a lady. If it were true.
“Just a moment,” she called out. She shimmied the chair out from beneath the door handle, and in walked the girl, her face bright with her usual smile.
“Tilly,” Isabel began on a stammer, “what are you wearing?”
“Ye like it?” The girl’s chest puffed out with pride. “Lord Percival—”
“Lord Percival?”
“Yer ’usband.” Tilly gave a broad wink.
“Oh.”
“Well, ’e told me to wearthis”—she swept her hands up and down her person, indicating the modest black dress with the high white collar—“and tell any’un ’oo asked that I’m yer lady’s maid.”
“Oh.” It struck Isabel that Tilly’s maid’s uniform was constructed of finer wool than that of the dress she was currently wearing. As a matter of fact, this was one of her two best dresses. And still not as good as that of a duke’s servant.
Tilly’s gaze clouded over in the dreamy way specific to her. “Yer ’usband, ’e’s a right ’andful o’ man, ain’t ’e?”
Although she agreed whole-heartedly that Lord Percival would be aright ’andfulfor any woman, Isabel couldn’t allow Tilly to persist in her current fantasy. “Tilly, you know he’s not my husband. And I’m not your mistress,” she added for good measure.
Tilly gave an indifferent shrug. “Well, that’s ’oo we are while we’re ’ere. Anyway, I ain’t told ye the best part.” The girl ambled over to the vanity, picked up a brush, and waved Isabel over. “Yer ’air is a right rat’s nest.” Once Isabel settled onto a low stool, Tilly continued. “I was goin’ to sleep in a servant’s room by the kitchen downstairs, but ye know ’oo beat me there?”
“Who?” Isabel knewwho, but had to ask.
“’Im.”
Tilly didn’t need to clarify.’Imcould only be one man.
“And ye know what ’e told me?”
“I can’t imagine. Truly.”
“’E told me to take me pick o’ rooms up ’ere and sleep there.”
