Ever since the night at the Carrimores’ ball she’d been in a terrible state of upheaval. Half the time she didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. Despite Miranda’s warnings, all she wanted to do was think of the tall man who’d kissed her, and wrong as it was, she wanted to lie in bed and touch herself through her fine lawn nightdress and pretend they were his hands on her body. She didn’t want to think about Mr. Bothwell and his chaste, dry kisses, she didn’t want to think about her future life in the dreary north. She wanted to dream of pirates and smugglers and wicked licentiousness that nevertheless felt so good. Because the truth was, all her life, beneath her timid exterior, beat the heart of an adventuress. She wanted to travel to strange and distant places, she wanted wild adventures and passionate love. Instead she was marrying Mr. Bothwell because no one else had wanted her. She was tall and thin and plain and shy, doomed to an ordinary life with an ordinary man, and just once she wished she was brave enough to have even the mildest of adventures.
