Because these past moments out here with her had…unsettled Anthony. They’d left him dazed and his head confused over this sudden awareness of Little Lettie.

Little Lettie, who wasn’t so very little anymore. Nay, Lettie had become a woman, a beautiful one at that.

Rhys’ sister.

A Brookfield.

So why then, with her retreating down the terrace stairs toward the garden, did he find his feet rooted to the stone floor?

Because she is a young lady whom you once cared about as a sister, and she’s out here on her own, easy prey for any rakish lord who happens to stumble his way outside.

With a curse, Anthony set out after her.

Despite those long skirts that had hampered her movements earlier, she moved with the same impressive speed she’d always had to keep up with him and Rhys. She’d already made her descent into the marquess and marchioness’s gardens.

He bounded sideways down the steps. “Lettie,” he called brusquely.

The lady turned, and the same surprise as when she’d come upon him earlier now stamped her features and rounded her pretty blue eyes.

“Anthony!” she exclaimed, as if this were their first meeting and as if their reunion moments ago had never played out.

“What are you doing?” he gritted out.

She cocked her head. “I…?”

An unpleasant thought slid in. “Why are you in the gardens?” Before this instant, he’d not considered her sudden, and too-coincidental appearance outside.

Confusion glittered in her eyes. She held up her hands, revealing those cream white, bare palms.

His attempts at self-control failing him for a second time, he lingered his gaze upon her naked fingers, recalling them curled in the fabric over his chest, gripping him.

“I dropped my glove,” she said happily, and he came screeching back to the present, yanked from the mire of improper thoughts he’d decidedly had no place having about this woman.

She’d dropped a glove.

She’d not been meeting a man.

She narrowed her eyes and peered suspiciously up at him. “What did you think I was doing outside?”

He gave thanks for the cloud covering the moon at that precise moment, concealing the guilty flush of color on his cheeks.

Lettie scrutinized him closely. “You believe I came out here to meet a gentleman.”

Hers was a statement.

“You aren’t?” he asked, needing to hear that confirmation to reassure himself there wasn’t some bounder he’d have to beat.

Lettie stole a glance about, and when she looked back at him, she lowered her voice. “I did come out here to meet someone,” she whispered conspiratorially.

He stiffened. A visceral rage wound through him. “Who?” He clipped out that single syllable.

He’d kill the bounder.

He’d wait for the bastard to arrive and would tear his limbs from his person.

Lettie rolled her eyes. “You, silly.”