“May I come in, Sam?”

Candace gave Isabelle a friendly look. She was particularly fond of my cousin as they both shared a weakness for astrology.

“Come in, dear. I was just putting Samantha to bed again, the poor thing. She seems to have contracted Lady Huxtable’s cold.”

Isabelle shut the door quietly behind her and rushed towards me, her skirts making a whispering sound against the floor as she moved. She carried a straw bonnet in her hands, pink ribbons trailing down from it.

“Oh, my poor coz! I didn’t know you were sick! I wouldn’t have gone with Vincent and Lady H. to the library if I would’ve known!”

“I’m fine, Izzie. Really.”

“I should have realized last night when you came home from the ball with that awful headache. But I thought you were just upset because Lord Windham never returned to claim his dance.”

I shot my cousin a dirty look but she just stared back at me with innocent eyes. It was very easy to forget sometimes that Isabelle’s pretty golden curls concealed such a quick thinking brain.