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lookin’ like thunderclouds? And no hat on neither.”
    “I’m getting out of here, that’s all,” she threw back over her shoulder as she led her mare out. “No hat, no saddle, and I don’t need you to accompany me either.” She mounted herself from a railing, hiking her skirts to straddle the horse and showing a deal of leg above the boot “Don’t worry,” he heard on the wind, “I’ll be back. Unfortunately.”
    Jake shook his head, knowing he’d never catch up, not when missy was on her mare Coco, not in that mood. Not that he could blame her, knowing the master was back. Jake spat tobacco juice at a passing beetle. Some master, hah! How this place was going to ruin, and young miss wasting away like some faded rose, all on account of that loose screw.
    “I should of been drivin’ the coach that day,” Jake told himself, not for the first time. He shook his head and spat again. “Damn, I should of. There be none of this nipfarthin’, nor branglin’, and missy’d be all set up like the little princess her father intended. No jumped-up caper-merchant actin’ like king o’ the hill, neither.” But he hadn’t been driving and things had been going to hell in a handcart ever since, and hanged if he could think of a way out.
    Emilyann rode and rode—and hanged if she could think of a way out. She did not notice the sweat, the twigs caught in her hair from low branches, the growing shadows, not even the early crocuses lining the hedgerows. She saw nothing except the passing miles until the mare’s heaving flanks finally brought her back to reality. So she got off and walked, no destination in mind, no haven in sight, nothing but the need to put still more miles between her and her horrible relations.
    Marry Bobo? Old Toby’s plowhorses would dance at Almacks first, wearing white gloves and pearls. Her dear stepcousin had grown from a repulsive boy to an even less attractive man, only slightly better dressed. Now he stuffed his extra tonnage into the latest fads, like the yellow pantaloons he wore to dinner the previous evening, his legs like two giant sausages dipped in egg yolk. With an aqua jacket and puce waistcoat—all this in a house of mourning—the cocklehead resembled nothing so much as a silk balloon half inflated for launching.
    “I only wish he would fly off somewhere,” Emilyann told the horse as they tramped on. “But he’s so stupid he couldn’t find the sky if he had wings.”
    As nasty and light-fingered as ever, Bobo had added leering to his list of charms. “Just what the world needs, another bacon-brained lecher.” Coco pricked her ears but made no comment. “How could any woman think of marrying him?” Emilyann couldn’t stand being in the same room with the slug. The thought of him touching her with his bloated fingers, kissing her with his damp mouth— “Ugh!” she exclaimed. The horse snorted in alarm so Emilyann stopped her marching to reassure the beast with a nose rub. “It will never happen. My father’s heirs will not be slimy little mushrooms who paw at housemaids and have gravy spots on their shirtfronts. Never.”
    So she would not marry Bobo; that was the easy part. But how? “Think, Emilyann,” she told herself, hiking on, dragging her skirts in the dust. Mr. Baxley might listen, but he was in London, a long, expensive way away. Too, he was growing old, and might agree she would be better off wed. He would certainly never countenance her showing up on his doorstep like an infant in a basket—if she could afford the stagecoach ride. It best be a letter. There had to be somewhere she could go meantime, somewhere she could be safe. Nanny’s little cottage was inviting, but Uncle Morgan was sure to just fetch Emilyann back, despite his threats to let her rot there in poverty.
    No, he would ride down like a marauding Hun to reclaim his missing meal ticket, then he would make the old woman’s life hell. Emilyann could not chance his petty vengeance