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tried not to wince. She had often wondered why a lady’s garments must hurt. Corsets strangled, shoes pinched, ornamental combs dug into delicate scalps and society said “Ahh,” and made admiring noises. It had always been a puzzle to her.

    “Thankful,” she said, “I think the stays are as tight as they need be.”

    “One more twist, there we are,” the maid said. “I declare, you should follow the example of your mother and sisters, miss. They never seem to mind sacrificing a bit of comfort for fashion.”

    Isadora didn’t argue. The maid, like everyone else in the world, simply could not understand what had happened with the middle daughter of Boston’s leading couple. She was the product of the same careful breeding that had given Beacon Hill her gorgeous sisters and gallant brothers. Yet Isadora was nothing like them. Not even close.

    “There you are,” Thankful pronounced, stepping back and wiping the sweat from her brow. “Will there be anything else, miss?”

    “No, thank you.” Isadora smoothed her hands down over the skirt, feeling better already. A pretty gown was the thing to win Chad’s attention.

    She picked up a small hand mirror on a side table. By holding it out in front of her, she could admire the dress in individual pieces—high, puffy sleeves, ribbed panel, taut bodice, full skirts.

    Setting aside the mirror, she noticed Thankful had left behind her feather duster. Rather than ring for the maid again, Isadora decided to take it to her. Hurrying along to the servants’ back stairway, she didn’t realize until it was almost too late that Thankful and the kitchen maid, Tilly, were gossiping in the stair.

    “…thought I was going to have to call you to help truss her up,” Thankful was saying, a chuckle in her voice.

    “I’m glad you didn’t summon me,” Tilly replied. “I would have been consumed by the giggles.”

    “And that dress. Wait ’til you see. She looks like a mishap in a sail-making factory.”

    Isadora froze. Ordinarily she was quite awkward and given to noisy retreats, but not this time. This time, she felt as small as a mouse as she gripped the smooth-turned railing and made her way up the stairs. This time, her feet—as mortified as the rest of her—made not a sound.

    Not a sound as she climbed up the stairs, walking slowly though she wanted to run to escape the hissing laughter wafting up from the landing. Not a sound as she moved along the carpeted hallway, not a sound as she pushed open the door to Arabella’s chamber, not a sound as she stood on the looped round rug in front of the cheval glass.

    And then, looking at herself in the tall mirror, she made a sound. A sob.

    The cut of the dress widened her figure to epic proportions. The pale linen washed her of all color save for the hot flags of shame that burned in her cheeks. Hanks of hair slipped from her Psyche knot, and the sausage curls on either side of her face grew wet and droopy as her tears soaked into them.

    What had she been thinking, dressing this way? Who would ever want such a creature as this abomination in the mirror?

    She returned to her own room and opened the French doors, walking out onto the balcony into the middle of an autumn day so glorious that its beauty mocked her.

    She looked over the edge of the balustrade. It was a long way down. If she should happen to trip, if she should happen to fall, who would miss her?

    She stood teetering on the brink, feeling a peculiar darkness close around her. How seductive it was, the idea that her misery could end so swiftly. So permanently. And so dramatically, with Chad Easterbrook’s note tucked close to her heart.

    But in the end, she turned away, as cowardly of her own impulses as she was of everything else that required a backbone.

    How long, she wondered, had she despised herself? She knew she hadn’t come to her unhappy state of self-loathing quickly or without deliberation. It had taken all of her endlessly long