Having gone to bed rather worried about her future marriage, she felt renewed hope in the morning light. True, dinner had been a starched and stiff affair, during which Peter instructed her at length about members of the royal family. And he was absolutely right to point out that her education had been sadly neglected in this respect. Clearly, Prinny—as Peter called the Prince of Wales—was important to her future husband, and so she fully planned to cultivate an interest in royal doings. If she found the exploits of this Prinny a trifle…well, a trifle wearisome, that was beside the point.

The important thing was that Peter was so lovely. Gabby had watched him surreptitiously as he explicated the royal family’s connections to German aristocracy, and she found him fascinating. His skin was as white as ivory. She had never seen another man like him. Even the Englishmen who frequented her father’s palace were invariably tanned dark by the Indian sun. Peter’s hair was a soft nut-brown, and it fell in perfectly ordered curls over his brow.

Gabby hopped out of bed and went over to the window. It was the beginning of November, and the garden should, by all accounts, be withered and brown. She had heard of English winters, how the wind whistled down the steely plains, and how icy rain sliced across one’s face for months at a time. How people fell asleep in heaps of snow and never woke again, and how ice balls as big as mango fruit crushed the roofs of houses, without a moment’s warning. Indian servants were full of tales of the English winter, stories that accounted for the bloodthirsty, formal, and rapacious nature of Englishmen. It was the cold, they told her.

But here—the garden was lovely, thick with great golden- and ruby-colored leaves and ginger-cheeked apple trees. It didn’t look cold outside. Gabby pushed the heavy weight of her hair back over her shoulders and leaned close to the window. Dawn had only just come, and the house was absolutely still. It couldn’t be much later than five in the morning. She listened for a moment. There was no sound at all, no distant tinkle of voices, no rumble of footsteps.

She could run outside for a moment or two and no one would be the wiser.

Quickly Gabby pulled on her night-robe and tied her hair back with a ribbon. She hesitated for a moment and then splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth. The garden was calling to her, but she abhorred the feeling of a sleepy mouth.