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whispered. Let’s fly away. Just take a ring or two from Lady Ruby, hitch up the gig and we’ll be in the next county before anyone realizes you’re not coming back.
    Do not listen to her. That was Virtuous Angel. First of all, you are not going to add theft to your growing list of crimes. Second, they would catch you. Third, where would you go? You can’t go home without Daniel, and home is the only place you want to go. You have to find your brother, which means remaining at Haldon Manor. He has to be around here somewhere.
    But despite her constant searching, Kit still hadn’t found him.
    Was Daniel here? And if so, what were his exact plans? The snippet of discussion she had overheard between Arthur and Linwood had only fanned the flame of her worry. It was exactly the thing she feared.
    Secrets. Always secrets. She was so eternally weary of them.
    Kit just wanted her brother. She had practically raised him after their mother left and their father buried himself in grief and his books. Six years her junior, Daniel hadn’t understood or even seemed to care that he had no mother. And just like their mother, wanderlust gripped him. Daniel could never stay in the same place for more than a month or two.
    With their father’s death the previous year, Daniel was all the family she had left. Without Daniel, she would have no one. He would have no one. Who would bail him out of his scrapes, if not her?
    And if he continued down this path, she wouldn’t have a roof over her head to return to.
    They needed each other. Didn’t Daniel see that?
    Kit stepped out of the Old Boar Inn—the letter having been safely delivered into the hands of Mr. Millet—and tilted her head back, attempting to dispel her anxiety by basking in the warm sun.
    Well, warmish-for-February sun. It still felt lovely and helped banish some of the chill which seeped through her winter pelisse and wool cloak.
    With a sigh, she walked over to the gig. How long she could stall before returning to Haldon Manor? Lady Ruby would expect her back promptly. And then there was the matter of Jedediah Knight, who had become more aggressive, always appearing where least expected.
    “Miss Ashton, how surprising to find you here,” he’d said, cornering her in the still room off the scullery, blocking the door. “And all alone. If I didn’t know better, I would say you have been waiting for me.”
    She hadn’t. And she had seen how both scullery maids and the cook had ducked out of sight as soon as they heard his voice.
    “Mr. Knight,” she replied with a bobbed curtsy. “I was just fetching some dried lavender for your mother. If you will excuse me, I am sure she is waiting for it.”
    He crowded her into the small workspace, forcing her to shoulder her way past him to escape. He took full advantage of the proximity to press against her. Kit jabbed a seemingly accidental elbow sharply into his ribs, causing him to fall back with a grunt.
    “Have a care, Miss Ashton,” he had hissed. “You will not always be able to escape.”
    A shy, smaller, more retiring woman would have caved to his pressure by now or run off in fear.
    Fortunately, shy and retiring had never been words in her vocabulary. And at her age—thirty, last November, firmly on the shelf as Daniel kept reminding her—she had no patience with such men. Bullies always raised her hackles.
    So far, her sharp tongue and even sharper elbows and knees had kept him at bay. Men the likes of Jedediah Knight would never cow her. But without her place in society to protect her, she had few other resources beyond quick wits and even quicker reflexes. And, really, it was only a matter of time before she offended him enough to put her position in jeopardy.
    Lady Ruby would hardly side with Kit over her wayward son. And Kit could ill afford being tossed into the street.
    So she just bottled it all up. Swallowed the scathing retorts. The hissing comebacks. Crammed, stuffed and squeezed it back inside her