Anna didn't linger long at the mansion. She left quickly, her shoulders squared, though her departure left Roseline deeply unsettled.
Something about her daughter wasn't right.
Roseline had always known her bond with Kathrine was stronger—Kathrine, the golden child, polished and perfect, everything a Bennett was meant to be. Anna had always been the opposite: too soft, too slow, too weak to manage anything of substance.
Yet now, all of a sudden, Anna had found the strength not only to speak up but to defy them. She had stood her ground, eyes blazing, as if the chains her parents had kept around her all her life had somehow snapped.
"If Daniel truly permitted her, then…" Roseline muttered under her breath, her expression grim. "Then we shouldn't meddle." She knew better than anyone that they could not afford to provoke the man who now held the reins to their lives.
…
