Let it be a maid.

Let it be his sister.

He’d take even his sister.

Just not a busybody gossip or—

Cries went up. Excited ones.

“Aunt Lettie!”

“Aunt Lettie!”

Those staggered greetings were called out in the eager tones of young children.

Aunt Lettie?

His stomach fell.

A pair of little boys came rushing past him, and Lettie managed to find herself while Anthony still floundered. Lifting her sodden, heavy-looking skirts, Lettie trudged out of the water.

“Boys,” she called, flinging her arms wide and folding the children close. At any other moment, Anthony would have been transfixed by the sight of her, by how very natural she looked holding those small boys as she did, imagining himself with her, the father of those imagined children.

At any other time.

A low growl emanated from the person standing beyond his shoulder, and even as Anthony turned slowly, he knew who would greet him.

Still, even when he saw him, he was unprepared for the sight of Rhys.

It had been years since he’d seen him. He was older, taller, more muscular. And angrier than Anthony ever recalled seeing him. A muscle jumped in the other man’s cheek, an erratic twitching that portended doom.

That hostility far surpassed that which had met Anthony almost twenty years ago to the date, when a feeling of dread and regret had carried him to Rhys’ bachelor’s residence and had followed him home when he’d been turned away.

He inclined his head. “Rhys,” he said quietly.

“Papa is angry,” one of the boys whispered.

Aye. Though enraged certainly better suited the palpable rage rolling off the other man’s tensed frame.

Anthony was entirely deserving of that rage, just as he’d been years ago.

“Nonsense!” Lettie scoffed. Holding the hands of both boys, she came over, joining Anthony and Rhys, inserting herself between them. “Your father used to be best friends with His Grace.”

Knowing intuitively what she sought to do, the role of peacekeeper she now played, Anthony said warningly, “Lettie.”

Rhys snapped a anger-filled gaze back over to him, and Anthony instantly wished to bite his damned tongue for having used her given name at this time.

“Really?” one of the boys said, eyeing Anthony with renewed interest. “I didn’t know Papa was friends with a duke.”

“I’m not,” Rhys gritted out.

Despite himself, despite being prepared for the other man’s ire and hatred, Anthony winced.

Lettie turned a frown on her elder brother before looking back to Rhys’ children. “What your father means is that he wasn’t a duke when they became best friends. He was an earl at the time. Isn’t that right, Rhys?”

Rhys met that pointedly warning question with only more stony silence.

“I should go,” Anthony murmured.

“Before we’ve had a chance to speak?” Rhys asked tauntingly.

Lettie glanced between the two men. “See?” she exclaimed happily.