Retreat From Love (2 page)

Anne was struggling into his jacket, the front just barely covering her mound and the shock of shining black curls he’d glimpsed there. Her legs were framed in the tails of his coat, long and sleek, with shapely calves and dimpled knees. Her skin was so white it was almost translucent in comparison to the curls on her head, which were so dark they were almost black. Bertie had been right, she was bloody gorgeous. And he’d almost fucked her in the grass like a goddamned whore.

She swiped at her cheeks with both hands and Brett realized she was crying. He’d made her cry. He’d spent five years denying himself because he didn’t want to make her cry and he’d done it anyway.

“Anne, my dear,” Freddy beseeched her, but she shook her head, cutting him off.

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“Freddy,” she gasped. “Oh Freddy.” She grabbed the lapels of the coat and pulled them closed tightly, not realizing that it shortened the coat until it revealed the thick curls dripping water between her legs. Brett saw Freddy’s gaze sharpen as he glanced down at her, and an answering coil in Brett’s insides made him angry at himself, at Freddy, at the world.

“I mean Your Grace,” Anne mumbled as she wiped her nose on his sleeve. The gesture was so heartbroken, so insecure that Brett tried to stand, needing to go to her.

But his leg gave out and he splashed down again.

“Brett!” Freddy rushed into the water to help him stand. By the time he was up and they both turned to shore, she was gone.

Freddy wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. He’d never expected to encounter Anne here. He’d thought they’d call on her at her mother’s house, make formal introductions, follow protocol. When he’d come through the woods and seen her walking naked and wet toward Brett, who was standing mesmerized in the water, Freddy’s heart had leapt with joy and a deep, crippling sense of loss. They didn’t need him to bring them together. And then she’d slapped Brett so hard Freddy had felt the sting.

It had been almost a year since Freddy found the bundle of letters hidden in Brett’s desk among his papers. Twenty of them addressed to Anne but never sent. Freddy had broken every code of honor he claimed to follow by reading them. They were dated erratically. It seemed that Brett wrote her when he was at his most melancholy. The letters broke his heart in so many ways. Brett had never shared those feelings with Freddy. It was what the letters represented, however, that had set Freddy on his present course. Brett was in love with Anne. Apparently since before Freddy’s brother Bertie died and Brett was injured. No wonder Brett had pushed him away all these years.

So Freddy had contrived to bring the two together. He hadn’t mentioned a word to Brett. He’d been dismayed several months ago to find Anne gone visiting distant cousins when he and Brett had come to Ashton Park for a very brief visit. Brett had no idea that Freddy knew his secret. And now the damn fool had managed to drive her away at their first meeting.

“What exactly just happened here?” Freddy finally asked as he helped Brett lower himself to the ground. Brett was soaking wet and winced as he gingerly rubbed his thigh.

“What happened?” Brett stopped rubbing his leg and looked up at Freddy

incredulously. Then he fell back in the grass and began to laugh. The sound was far from amusement and close to despair. Brett raised both hands and rubbed his eyes roughly.

Freddy had to force himself to stand there and watch dispassionately. He’d been trying to distance himself from Brett, admittedly with a lapse here and there, ever since he’d found the letters. But it was so hard, and Freddy didn’t like things that came hard.

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Retreat From Love

He was aware that he’d been spoiled most of his life and he liked it that way. Brett was the only thing he’d ever wanted this much, and the only thing he couldn’t have.

He made himself turn away and then he, too, lowered himself onto the grass beside Brett. “Yes, what happened? You must admit I came upon a rather startling scene. Miss Anne Goode stark naked and emerging from the pond like Venus from the shell into your waiting arms. Except she didn’t fall into them, she slapped the brains from your head.”

“My brains were nowhere near that far north by then, Freddy. If they had been I never would have gotten off my horse.”

Freddy was reluctantly amused. He turned and watched Brett for a moment as the other man lay in the sunlight against the green grass and stared at the sky. “Yes, well, this being the first time I’ve seen Anne naked I can certainly understand your lack of mental faculties.”

Brett choked out a laugh next to him. “She’s bloody beautiful, Freddy. Why didn’t you tell me how beautiful she was?”

“You never asked.” Freddy reached down and plucked a long, flowering grass stem and ran the feathery end through his fingers. “As a matter of fact, you’ve never asked about Anne at all.”

“Haven’t I?” Brett levered himself up to a sitting position and briskly ruffled his hands through his wet hair, spraying Freddy with cold drops. The move carried a subtle
don’t trespass here
message that Freddy ignored.

“No, you haven’t. I’d have remembered if you had. And you certainly would have remembered my response.”

Brett let his hands fall to his lap. He spread his fingers out against his thighs, as if examining the nails. “Would I? Why? What would your response have been?”

Freddy stood, ostensibly to brush the drops of water from his coat. But the truth was it was getting too hard not to touch Brett, to wrap his arms around him and confess all. To beg Brett to confide in him.

“I would have told you that I’d been in love with her since I was five. That she was beautiful with her laughing blue eyes and dark, gleaming curls. That she was intelligent, spirited and compassionate. That she never made an awkward thirteen-year-old boy in the throes of first love feel awkward.” Freddy looked down at Brett and didn’t try to hide the guilt and anguish he felt. “I would have told you that I was a selfish bastard who never bothered to come back and see her after Bertie died because all I could think about was myself, and all I cared about was you.”

For once Brett didn’t rush in with platitudes to soothe. Instead his eyes reflected Freddy’s guilt and anguish. “Then I guess we’re both selfish bastards.”

Brett held out a hand, and Freddy grasped it, tugging Brett up from the ground.

Brett’s leg wasn’t up to holding him yet, and he fell forward into Freddy. Freddy wrapped an arm around his waist and held him tightly to his chest. Brett smelled like linen doused in tepid pond water, which wasn’t that pleasant. But he also smelled like 9

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sandalwood and sunshine, which was. Freddy almost reached up to brush a wet lock of hair from Brett’s forehead, but he stayed the movement.

“Are you all right?” He spoke before he could temper his concern. Brett pushed away gently, refusing to look at him.

“I’ll be all right. It’s no less than I deserve.”

Freddy walked over and picked up the reins of his horse. “And why is that?” He heard Brett limping over to his horse, and turned his hunter to watch Brett mount. “Do you need any help?”

Brett shook his head. When he mounted, his movements were stiff with pain and pride. It took three tries before he was seated, and his expression told Freddy sitting on the horse was excruciating for him. Once he was up Freddy mounted his own horse.

They slowly made their way through the woods toward Ashton Park.

“I’m waiting,” Freddy finally said.

Brett answered without looking at him. “For what?”

“An explanation. Why don’t we start at the beginning?”

Brett sighed. “I rode to the pond. She was there. She indicated interest, which I more than reciprocated. No introductions were made. When I dismounted to give her my coat her demeanor changed noticeably. Then you arrived and she slapped me, or vice versa. As you said, my brain was no longer functioning. Then I made her cry.”

Brett stopped and it took Freddy a moment to realize that was the end of Brett’s story. He had no doubt there was a great deal Brett had left out in the telling. “I see. Or rather, I don’t see. You did nothing to warrant the slap? That doesn’t sound like the Anne I knew.”

Brett’s posture was as straight as pain and self-recrimination could make it. “I’m sure I did a great deal to warrant it. I hurt her, Freddy. As I said, I never came to see her after I returned.”

“Yes, well, neither did I and she didn’t slap me.”

“I guess she didn’t want to see you.”

Freddy felt a stab of unreasonable jealousy. “Yes, well now you’ve hurt me.”

Brett looked bleakly at him then. “By God, I’m having an exemplary day. I’ve hurt the two people in the world I’d least like to harm, it seems. Perhaps if I’m lucky I’ll find a puppy or two to kick on the way back to the Park.”

Freddy was again amused in spite of himself. “If I’m lucky we’ll find a puppy or two to kick
you
.”

* * * * *

Late that night in her bed Anne turned onto her right side again, the move jerky with frustration. She’d been tossing and turning for hours.

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Her mother had known something was wrong the minute she came in the door this afternoon, but said nothing. She could convey more with silence than others could with a thousand words. Anne skipped dinner and went to bed early. She added guilt over not confiding in her mother to the list of things keeping her awake.

He was here. At this moment he slept at Ashton Park. She could walk over to the Park and stand beneath his window right now. Well, if she knew in which of the many bedrooms he’d been housed. And what would she do there, she wondered with a self-deprecating snort as she lifted her head and punched her pillow down. Stand beneath his window and low like a lovesick calf? She fell onto her back with a thump against the mattress.
An ignorant cow, more likely.
Anne viciously yanked the pillow from under her head and covered her face with it. She
hit
him. With all her strength, meager though it was. And then she’d run, like a childish little ninny.

He was so unbelievably handsome. Even more so than she’d imagined, and she’d imagined him countless times. But in her dreams he’d never looked as he did today.

Thick, wavy dark hair, a devilish smile accented with a deep dimple in his chin, and dark, seductive eyes. And those shoulders! Even with the limp his legs had been long and well-muscled. Anne felt more than her face heating. She’d offered herself to him like the basest strumpet. What must he think of her? No more than she deserved certainly.

How could she have hit him? He had every right to enjoy the company of any woman who offered. She had no claim on him whatsoever. He’d made that plain five years ago when he hadn’t responded to her letter inviting him here. What a fool she’d been to even offer. As if he had nowhere else to go. He was with Freddy, after all.

The thought of Freddy made her uncomfortable. Her reaction to him made her uncomfortable. He was no longer that awkward boy who’d followed her and Bertie around like a stray pup when he managed to escape his tutor and his mama. He was every inch the duke now, a tall, handsome duke with a shock of dark red hair. And yet he was still Freddy, still Bertie’s sweet younger brother, and that connection pulled her to him.

She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of dear Bertie. How she missed him! He had been her best friend. Everyone assumed he was the love of her life—that she had never married because she still loved him. The truth was she had never loved him like that. He had been the best friend she ever had. They had shared everything, every secret. They had dared everything too, including sex. When she became curious about it, who better than her best friend to satisfy that curiosity? But then Bertie had insisted on marriage, and she’d only been able to put him off when it was apparent she was not with child. She’d always planned to tell him after he came back from the Peninsula. But she’d never had the chance.

And now here was young Freddy, all grown up into the powerful duke. Anne had heard stories around the neighborhood, of course. He and Brett had been in Ashton on the Green just a few months ago. But she’d believed the stories were a result of Freddy’s title and the power and influence that came with it. She saw now that they were not. He 11

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was as handsome and commanding as everyone claimed. Even her friend Leah

Westridge had been charmed by both men, and other than Leah’s husband and their friend Mr. Schillig, Leah did not like men in general.

The thought of Leah and her husband and Mr. Schillig, and what the three were to one another, had Anne getting warm all over again. She pulled the pillow from her face with a gasp as, unbidden, an image of herself and Brett and Freddy locked in an embrace flashed through her mind. Good Lord! What could she be thinking? Brett would never even speak to her now, she was sure. And Freddy? He was the duke now.

No matter how infatuated he’d been with her as a youth, he couldn’t afford a liaison with a woman like Anne, a woman with a less than sterling reputation. And she was several years older than him. He surely had beautiful girls in the flush of youth chasing after him, and not just for his title.

Anne sighed and rolled over again. She had to accept the truth of the situation. Both men were out of her reach because of the choices she’d made after Bertie’s death, after Brett never came. She’d been so lonely. She hardly remembered some of the men now, strangers visiting here or just passing through. Anne was honest enough to admit she had a certain charm and more than passable looks that made the gentlemen notice her.

She’d used it to her advantage on several occasions. And it had only taken one rumor about one of those encounters to ruin her reputation.

Anne yawned. Yes, she would let her fantasies of Brett and Freddy go. She had an actual offer of courtship from a gentleman new to the area, Mr. Gideon North. She’d be smart to focus on that. But first she would go to Ashton Park in the morning and apologize for her behavior. She would walk to the Park at an unfashionably early hour and leave a note of apology. She needn’t even see them, really. Then she would stay here near the cottage until they left Ashton Park. Surely they wouldn’t stay long.