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after all she’d experienced in her own life since becoming a Green Rider, but they’d never understand, even if she told them every detail of her exploits. No matter what she did with her life, they’d always see her as their little niece, not mature enough to deal with more adult matters, like her father’s past.
    “I suppose you are not,” said Aunt Stace, “but you are acting like one.”
    Karigan’s mouth dropped open.
    “Only a child would utter whatever came to her mind without thinking first. I should have thought you learned better in the king’s service.”
    Karigan sat there stunned that her aunts would take her father’s side in this. It wasn’t her fault he’d been a pirate.
    She pushed her chair back and stood. She grabbed her message satchel and left the kitchen, heading for the stairs. She took the steps two at a time, and when she reached her bedchamber, she slammed the door shut behind her.
    If her aunts couldn’t handle her asking about the pirate ship, just wait till she brought up the brothel.

ABOUT THE GOLD HUNTER

    K arigan couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned beneath her pile of blankets, listening to the wind slam into her window. She’d risen a time or two to stoke the fire, but the cold drove her back beneath the covers, despite the woolens she wore over her nightgown and her heavy stockings.
    It wasn’t so much the storm that kept her awake, but thoughts of her father and how the evening ended so badly before it had even begun. She chose to close herself in her room, with Elaine bringing up her supper. Her aunts did not even stop by to wish her a good night.
    They’re mad at me, she thought, even though it wasn’t her fault her father had served on that pirate ship. And still, as justified as she felt in her own judgments, she was assailed by a sense of guilt, as if she were the one in the wrong simply because she needed to know the truth of the matter.
    Her aunts were right on one point, she admitted after some reflection: her tendency to open her mouth without thinking. She could have approached the whole mess in a more circumspect manner that would have alleviated some of the hurt feelings. But her father had pushed her just a little too hard about her own life, and she had pushed right back.
    The thing was, she loved her father—loved him powerfully and had always admired him as the dashing, strong, and successful man he was; the man who loved her mother so much he never remarried. She wanted to be like him when she grew up, planned to follow in his footsteps. Until the Rider call changed everything. Still, she’d considered him a paradigm of what a father and merchant ought to be without question. Until she heard about the pirate ship. Until the brothel.
    She gathered from Elaine he hadn’t attended supper, either, and ate alone in his office. Karigan sighed. They were too much alike for their own good.
    Finally, when she couldn’t take the twisting and turning anymore, she braced herself against the cold, threw off her blankets, and dressed by the fire.
     
    Karigan trudged through drifts that were as high as her thighs, from the house toward the stable, her lantern providing a meager glow against the night, large snowflakes beating against it like moths. The wind sucked her breath away.
    When she reached the stable and stepped inside, she found stillness, and her restless mind calmed a notch. The glow of her lantern enlarged, providing golden warmth, and she released a breath she did not know she’d been holding.
    Her father’s horses occupied almost every stall; sleek hacks he rode for business and pleasure: his favorite, a fine-limbed white stallion named Southern Star; matching pairs of handsome carriage horses; and several drays who hauled cargo-laden wagons during the trading season. Standing among them was one that did not quite fit in, an ungainly chestnut messenger horse. All were blanketed and bedded with fresh straw and snoozed in contentment, some