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next, unless Bonaparte gets loose again."
    Suppressing a shudder, Robert nodded. "Congratulations." He swung down from Tolley, reluctantly turning the reins over to a waiting stable boy. There were times when he preferred Carroway House the way it had been before Georgiana and her income had rescued them; back then he could tend Tolley himself, and he didn't have to wait until after midnight to slip out unnoticed.
    "Where did you go?" the youngest Carroway asked.
    "Errand," he answered, giving his usual reply.
    A useless errand, at that. He wasn't even certain why he'd gone now, except that he liked the way Lucinda Barrett simply talked to him. Not many people did that any longer, even when he provided them with the rare opportunity to do so. At some point, though, he'd meant to offer her his assistance. Ha. As if he could assist himself, much less anyone else.
    "Will you come riding with Shaw and me?" the Runt continued.
    "I have some correspondence," he said. Correspondence and a keen dislike of the huge crowds filling Hyde Park at this time of day. With another nod he turned on his heel, heading for the house.
    "Bit, hold up," Shaw said, handing the reins of Edward's pony back to the boy. "I'll be right back, Runt."
    "Well, hurry—I want to get a lemon ice."
    Robert slowed as Bradshaw drew even with him. Without either of them saying a thing, he could practically recite their conversation word for word; it was the same one he had with all of his family members every time one of them returned after an absence. "I'm fine," he said, trying to shorten the interrogation process.
    "I just wanted to mention that I'll have a post for a third mate open under my command," Shaw said, his gaze on the butler pulling open the front door for them. "There's no reason you couldn't—"
    "No," Robert interrupted, his voice sharp. He tried to stop the thought process, but Shaw had caught him by surprise. Already his mind was conjuring himself trapped in a crowded, minuscule cabin on a lone ship in the middle of the ocean, stranded for a year or more.
    "Just because you've left the army doesn't mean you can't do something else useful."
    Robert stopped short, facing his older brother. "As if floating around in a boat halfway across the globe is useful."
    Shaw's face closed down. "You have no—"
    "Leave me alone, Shaw. I don't want your life."
    "Why not? You don't have one of your own any longer."
    Shoving past Dawkins at the door, Robert limped for the stairs. "I know that, Bradshaw," he growled, striding for his bedchamber.
    "It doesn't have to be that way!" his brother yelled after him.
    "Yes, it does," he muttered, his breath shuddering deep in his chest. Quiet. He just needed quiet and solitude for a few minutes. Calm, and no more thinking about being trapped in a small, crowded space with no way out.
    Inside his bedchamber, though, behind the closed, latched door, the walls seemed to come closer and closer around him as he strode to the window and back, over and over. His hands began shaking, and he clenched them into hard fists. Now that it had begun, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop it—the black, blind panic at nothing and for no good reason. Damn Bradshaw.
    Eyes closed, he dropped onto the floor beneath the window. He'd overdone it, was all. Two trips into public in two days, trying to face those damned stares and whispers and at the same time carry on a civil conversation after three years of near solitude and silence.
    Calm. Be calm. He wasn't going anywhere. Nothing was going to happen to him. He was safe. Safe. Quiet. Calm. He repeated the words to himself over and over until they blurred together into an incoherent chant, low at the back of his mind.
    "Bit? Robert?"
    Tristan knocked at his door. When Robert opened his eyes, light no longer reflected from the window, and he sat huddled on the floor in darkness. Slowly he straightened his cramped fingers and climbed to his feet, wincing at the stiffness in his muscles.
    "Bit?