Defying the Duke by Christi Caldwell

Author:Christi Caldwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Regency
Publisher: Christi Caldwell
Published: 2022-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Anthony had always preferred to ride in the morning, particularly in London.

During the crush of the Season, riding paths in London were more crowded, and there were countless distractions.

At the break of dawn, however, he was free to ride and give his mount the right to roam. It also cleared his mind.

There’d never been a time when he’d not thought about his sins against Rhys Brookfield. It had been almost twenty years, but with each year that passed, the memory of that transgression had not left him.

That indiscretion had shaped him indelibly.

It had shown him how easily he’d let himself be manipulated, how his loyalty and friendship had been used against him.

It had also made it entirely too easy to cut himself off from people, to keep hefty walls up to hold everyone out, not just so that he couldn’t suffer that same hurt and betrayal again, but also because he’d not trusted himself.

In the immediate years following that treacherous act, he’d still come to London. He’d done so, however, as a man who’d had his eyes opened. If a family whom he’d been as close with as his own could use him so handily to manipulate their son… Well, what did that say about everyone else around him?

With every Season he’d attended, he’d observed the inauthenticity of the people who made up the peerage and come to the realization that he wanted no part of that.

So he’d left.

He’d chosen instead to travel and see the world, because any place was certainly preferable to the confining walls resurrected by the ton.

He’d been content to stay away and gladly would have continued to stay away had he not the obligation to see his sister secure. That absolutely required he be present, so he could protect her from hurt as he was able.

In the past, it had been all too easy to neatly lump all the lords and ladies into the same category, one filled with insincere people with jaded souls and ruthless intents.

That was, it had been all too easy until Lettie had come traipsing outside after him, filled with joyful exuberance and sincerity…at seeing him.

She’d been direct.

She’d challenged him. And even when he’d pushed her back, she’d shoved harder by arriving at his home to visit his mother.

And she’d smiled.

She’d always worn a smile. But he’d never noted her dimples before, and he’d never seen her as a woman.

Until he had.

Now, there was no unseeing that sight. There was no purging her or that discovery from his mind.

His inability to do so was yet another mark upon his black soul.

Because she was absolutely the last woman he’d any right to be thinking of. And imagining.

Anthony urged his mount, Pegasus, over a slight rise and then drew back slightly on the reins.

As if he’d conjured her, Lettie sat perched on the edge of the Serpentine. Her boots lay strewn about haphazardly, each article some several feet apart as if they’d been discarded in haste. A different hat than the one

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