“Goodbye, Lettie,” he said coolly, with all the icy ducal tones he’d never once heard his father use, but that his tutors had insisted on schooling Anthony in.

He might as well have run her through. The blood leached from her cheeks, leaving them pale.

Who would have imagined he’d ever have a use for those tones?

Or that they would make him feel like this? Crushed and empty.

Lettie brought her shoulders back and tipped her chin up a fraction. “What you did to my brother was wrong,” she said quietly, and he winced. “But what was done to you by my mother and Rhys over the years was far worse. You were a young man, and you thought you were making the right decision.” She took a step toward him. “What you did wrong was not then, it is what you’ve done now.” With that, she turned on her heel.

Good, she was leaving.

At last.

Let her go. Let her go.

She made it no more than five steps.

“What I’ve done now?” he called after her. “Tell me, Lady Lettice, what exactly is it that I’ve done now?” It had been she who’d crashed into his life and upended all his intentions of keeping a distance between himself and the Brookfield family and their history.

Lettie turned back. “Your youth was the reason for your poor decisions then, Your Grace,” she said, infusing a steely formality into those words that made him open and close his mouth several times. “What is your reason now?”

Finding himself, Anthony took a purposeful step toward her so that they nearly touched. “And what poor judgment would you accuse me of exercising, my lady?” he rejoined. “My not wanting to be with you? This, when my declaring an end to our time together is the only wise decision I’ve made since I returned to London.”

As soon as the words left him, Anthony wanted to call them back.

She recoiled as if he’d struck her.

Her agonized reaction jolted him, jarred him, and he felt that recoil all the way to his soul.

“Lettie,” he said, his voice gravelly.

Lettie, however, proved as indomitable as she’d ever been. Like a princess among mere men, she angled her chin up again. “You have made yourself very clear. I was of the mistaken opinion that…” Her lower lip quavered, and she caught that flesh between her teeth, the slight hint of that break in her composure threatening to break him completely. “I will not bother you again, Your Grace.” Dropping a curtsy, Lettie collected her skirts and dashed off.

Anthony followed her retreat until she joined her brother and nephews.

At last, all was as it should be.

Why, then, did that leave him with a great, gaping hole in his chest?

Chapter 8

It had been a week.