“Run!”

—until her pen became a dagger slicing through several pages of the book.

Once Morvath was dead, the Wisteria Society would no longer whisper protectively or send her from the room so she wouldn’t be disturbed. They would give her the best seat at the tea table.

Besides, nothing ever really disturbed her . . . except that charming and handsome—er, which is to say cheeky and utterly deplorable—Captain Lightbourne.

And maybe Jane Fairweather’s smirk, which was presently being directed at her again. Cecilia drew herself out of contemplation to stare coldly back at the other woman.

“Why doesn’t Cecilia visit the village library?” Jane suggested.

“Oh no, dear,” the senior Miss Fairweather said. “She couldn’t go walking alone and”—her tone dropped into darkness—“unchaperoned.”

Miss Darlington waved a hand at this concern. “Cecilia is twenty-one, quite old enough to go out and about alone.”

Cecilia opened her mouth to remind her aunt she was nineteen, then closed it again in silence. She had been told Chanters House in Ottery St. Mary had a magnificent private library, from which perhaps she could procure a new copy of Wuthering Heights. The only defect in this plan was that she might come upon Constantinopla and Tom imitating Mary Shelley in the graveyard. A lady did not want her sensibilities ruffled whilst on her way to burgle a library.

“Only if you are certain,” she replied with all due hesitance, but her feet were already carrying her back toward the door.

“Absolutely certain,” Miss Darlington assured her. Jane nodded encouragement, despite Miss Fairweather’s frown. Cecilia noticed from the corner of her eye Anne Brown laying a sketch of Northangerland Abbey on the table among plates of tiny sandwiches and asparagus rolls. Someone embedded their dagger in it. Cecilia took another step back.

“You look very pale,” Jane said. “Do go out, get some sun.”

“But—” Miss Fairweather began.

“Excellent idea,” Miss Darlington interjected. “Only keep your hat on, and use your parasol, and don’t, whatever you do, remove your gloves. Remember the Great Peril, dear.”

At that phrase, half the company went silent—including Millie the Monster, who had a quizzing glass up to her unpatched eye, and Bloodhound Bess, whose grin seemed to extend almost to her left ear by reason of a scar obtained when she tried to steal a fur from a Russian tsarina. Cecilia felt like a child being tested on her lessons.

“Freckles,” she recited, and the ladies nodded with satisfaction.

Thus it was that Cecilia found herself entirely at liberty on a temperate afternoon within walking distance of a public library, a famed private library, two cake shops, and a museum. That she had Jane Fairweather to thank for this was the most extraordinary part. But Cecilia did not look a gift horse in the mouth (although she’d read enough history that she ought to have known better). Raising her parasol, she crossed the street—

And then paused, overcome with freedom. Where might she go first?