Free If He's Noble (Wherlocke Book 7) (Paranormal Historical Romance) by Hannah Howell

dragged Primrose out to where their horses waited. She did not know who she was most angry with, the lying woman in the shop or Sir Bened.
    “She knows. She saw him,” she protested even as she mounted her horse.
    “Yes, she does,” he agreed as he mounted Mercury and started to ride out of the village, pleased that Primrose followed him with no further protest. “She was also not going to tell you a thing.”
    “Why? I told her I was his sister, gave her my name, which she clearly recognized, and assured her that I meant him no harm. Simeon would not hide from me.”
    “But he is apparently hiding from someone, which I find very interesting.”
    “Oh.” She frowned and thought on the failed interrogation of the woman at the inn, as well as what Bened had said just before she had retired last night. “So you were right to think my aunt is actually following Simeon’s trail, not ours. And my brother has become aware of her pursuit.”
    Bened nodded as he thought over all the reluctant, even missing, witnesses they had sought out. They would find Simeon’s trail only to end up being told that no one had seen the man, a man whose own sister said was very noticeable. Or they could not locate a person, when everyone insisted they would know about any stranger coming through the village. He hoped they were just hiding and not been silenced.
    “I do think he has discovered someone, aside from you, is following him and that person is not looking to keep him safe until he can return to Willow Hill. He is the one trying to hide his own trail.”
    “So he must know he is in danger now. That is a relief. Yet, why has he not tried to reach me? If he knows the enemy is on his trail he must also know that I am.”
    “He may but who does he trust to give you a message? Much safer to just tell everyone not to let anyone know that he has passed their way. Then they cannot be tricked into revealing anything to the enemy instead of the friend.”
    “Silence is golden.”
    “Certainly safer.”
    “Do you think I now waste our time hunting for him?”
    “Oh, nay. He will discover that soon enough and will then try to safely meet with you. We stay on his trail to give him that chance. The fact that he now works to hide his trail tells me that your aunt and her hirelings have gotten too close from time to time. Your brother is in dire need of some ally, someone to watch his back.”
    Those words both pleased and frightened her. She had not wanted to stop looking for Simeon so was happy Sir Bened agreed that they should continue. If he had decided she should stop and go home or someplace he decided was safe, they could have come to a parting of the ways. Primrose knew that she could not stop now, she had to find Simeon and, if he already knew he was in danger, she had to stand with him. Although grateful beyond words for Sir Bened’s aid, this was a family matter and when Simeon faced the threat from within their own family, she had to be at his side.
    “This has turned out to be a very tangled web you have gotten tangled in,” she said.
    “Nay, I am not leaving.”
    She scowled at him. “That was not what I said.”
    “Aye, it was.”
    “Well, then, it is a reasonable thing to contemplate.”
    “It might be reasonable if and when we certainly find your brother. I untangle myself now and you return to riding about alone. Not a good plan. The theft of your horse was not the first attempt to stop you from continuing in your search, was it? Just why were you separated from your horse when I found you?”
    Primrose silently cursed. She had hoped he would not ask that question. Before it had been because she had not wished to drag him into the mire with her. Now it was because he would just use the information to strengthen his opinion that she could not continue alone, that even if Simeon was sitting right around the corner, it was not safe for her to turn that corner alone.
    “Some hunter shot at his game too close to me and