So when Sarah awoke on her fourth day at Whipple Hill, she swore to herself that she would descend the grand staircase and join the rest of humanity or die trying.

She did, actually, swear this. And she must have done so with great conviction, because the housemaid paled and crossed herself.

But make it down she did, only to find that half the ladies had departed for the village. And the other half were about to.

The men planned to hunt.

It had been rather mortifying to arrive at breakfast in the arms of a footman (she had not specified how she would descend the grand staircase), so as soon as all of the other guests had departed, she rose to her feet and took a gingerly step. She could put a little weight on the ankle as long as she was careful.

And leaned against a wall.

Maybe she’d go to the library. She could find a book, sit down, read. No need to use her feet at all. The library wasn’t so far.

She took another step.

It wasn’t completely across the house.

She groaned. Who was she trying to fool? At this rate it was going to take her half the day to make it to the library.

What she needed was a cane.

She stopped. This made her think of Lord Hugh. She had not seen him in nearly a week. She supposed she shouldn’t have found this odd; they were only two of over a hundred people who’d made the journey from Fensmore to Whipple Hill. And it went without saying that he would not come to visit her while she convalesced in her bedroom.

Still, she’d been thinking of him. When she was lying in bed with her foot on the pillows, she wondered how long he’d had to do the same. When she’d got up in the middle of the night and crawled to the chamber pot, she’d started to wonder . . . and then she’d cursed the biological unfairness of it all. A man wouldn’t have needed to crawl to the chamber pot, now, would he? He could probably use the blasted thing in bed.

Not that she was imagining Lord Hugh in bed.

Or using a chamber pot, for that matter.

But still, how had he done it? How did he still do it? How did he manage the everyday tasks of life without wanting to tear his hair out and scream to the heavens? Sarah hated being so dependent on everyone else. Just this morning she’d had to ask a maid to find her mother, who’d then decided that a footman was the correct person to carry her down to breakfast.