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Chapter One

February 2nd, 1801—the Old North Road, Caeshire

The chaise rattled and lurched It was an alht and cheerful chatter Isobel’s maid had kept up ever since they left London ‘It isn’t exile really, now is it,to rusticate in the country for your health’

‘Dorothy, I know you mean to raise my spirits, but exile is precisely the word for it’ Lady Isobel Jervis regarded the plu woman with scarce-concealed exasperation ‘To call it rustication is to draw a polite veil over the truth Gentlemen rusticate when they have to escape from London to avoid their creditors

‘I have been banished, in disgrace, and that is exile If this was a sensation novel the fact that it is colow over the situation But this is not a novel’ She stared out through the drizzle at the gently undulating far past the post-chaiseIn reality the injustice only increased her anger and misery

She had taken refuge in the country once before, but that had been justified, essential and entirely her own doing This, on the other hand, was none of those things

‘That was the sign to Cahtly She had been this infuriatingly jolly ever since the scandal broke Isobel was convinced that she had not listened to a word she had said to her

‘In that case we cannot be far from Wimpole Hall’ Isobel re and took the carriage clock fro case on the hook ‘It is alht, spent an hour over luncheon and changing horses, so we have ood time’

‘And the rain has eased,’ Dorothy said, bent on finding yet another reason for joy

‘Indeed We will arrive in daylight and in the dry’ The chaise slowed, then swung in through iateposts Frolin ‘The Hardwicke Arht place, at least’

As they passed between the gateposts Isobel began to take more interest in the prospect from the : it would be her home for the next two months