Absolute Surrender Read online

  Hugh felt the sob like a vise in his chest before he heard the sound, and his hand clenched. He tried to steady himself as it tore through him, made its way from his gut through his chest then burst like an explosion in his head. It was all he could do to stifle the scream.

  He lurched toward his horse, which shifted uncomfortably with wide, nervous eyes, and he schooled his demeanor. Tried desperately to control his unhinged passion so as not to lose his mount when he took it from the boy. He breathed slowly, closing his eyes and thinking of their childhood together. The last time he was truly happy. The time before the guillotine was placed securely above their heads. He thought of her smile, then he vaulted to his mount and turned away from the ball, and this time, he didn’t stop. This entire situation was something that was beyond him.

  He rode like the beat of his heart depended on the sound of the hooves to continue its own rhythm. He bolted down the lane with no regard for those around him.

  Amelia was his closest friend. Truth be told, she was his only friend. They just managed with each other so well. Her father had always allowed Hugh’s presence because he’d lived nearby, and what would the harm have been? For whatever reason, she’d always trusted Hugh. Perhaps because he’d always been a steady influence in her life? He wasn’t sure, but he knew he was able to help her. Whenever she had an episode, whenever she’d come close to falling apart, whenever she lost control, he was there to help. And her mother had relied upon him after a time, because she couldn’t do anything to help her.

  Of course, if her mother had truly cared about Amelia, and not simply about her worth as a ducal asset, she may have been able to help her as well. Hugh knew that was part of the problem, that her mother saw only that her behavior was going to inhibit her ability to make a suitable match, to secure their future beyond Amelia’s father. It angered him that she was merely seen as a means to an end. Amelia’s mother should have been the one to care about her, the one to know her, the one to help her. But she wasn’t—he was. And what now? He wasn’t sure anyone else could take the place of him in her mind. He wasn’t sure he wanted anyone else to take his place.

  Sure, Jackson seemed like a decent man. What Hugh knew of him. But Jackson was far removed from Amelia, and because she was promised to him, Amelia’s mother had ensured that Jackson had never seen her behavior when they were younger. Jackson would then have had a reason to cry off. Whenever they’d visited during school breaks, her mother had made sure that Hugh had been there as a buffer. To help control her. But the animosity between Hugh and Jackson had only grown, because Jacks had seen that Hugh was allowed to spend time with her, while Jackson was sent away under the guise of propriety…or because she was not yet “out” in society…or a host of other excuses used to prevent Jackson seeing one of her episodes.

  Hugh knew, however, that Jackson was no simpleton. The man would be looking for answers now. Hugh knew that Jacks had the patience of a saint. He’d learned this when they were much younger, and Jacks had never called Hugh out for the tricks he’d played on him. Hugh should have been called out for them. He had wanted to be called out. But Jackson was bred to lead, trained up to control, and nothing Hugh could do had ever broken that.

  Hugh arrived at Endsleigh Hall within the hour, pushing past his stable man in favor of rubbing down the horse himself. He needed the methodical sweep across the horse’s flesh to calm his ragged nerves. He wasn’t entirely sure why the day had ended in such a shock to him. When Jacks had arrived at the ball, Hugh should have known it was the end of his bid for her hand. Truly, he should have accepted that fact long before then. If he were to be honest with himself, he would admit to knowing long ago that he was chasing an impossible dream.

  Stubborn? Perhaps. Stubborn…yes, all right, stubborn. But it was Amelia, and she was perfect. So incredibly perfect. It was terribly unfortunate, that.

  Hugh shook his head and stripped the saddle, throwing it across the stand heavy enough to startle his overwrought horse.

  He paused, his hands still on the stiff, polished leather. Calm, he thought. Calm yourself or call for the man to handle the steed.

  He turned back to Termagant and rose his hands in apology as he pulled the brush from the wall. The horse stepped back, his eyes bright and wary, but Hugh spoke gently, reassuring him. As Hugh calmed, Termagant followed suit.

  Hugh brushed his withers, unbraided his mane, and worked his way down the rich coppery legs, then moved on to his back. He smoothed and soothed and calmed himself with every stroke of the beast.

  Hugh’s sore muscles pulled and swayed as Termagant shifted into his movements, finally reassured. He pulled a fresh bale from the gateway and spread a thick mat of hay around the stable. He then vaulted to the bare back of the steed to brush and rebraid his mane. Braiding was a talent he had picked up from the daughter of one of the kitchen maids in his father’s house. He’d used it on Amelia’s long tresses and taught her to braid her horses’ manes as well. They’d had competitions, figuring out more and more intricate weaves, adding ribbons, wildflowers, and bells to the patterns.

  Hugh smiled at the quiet peace of sitting atop a great hunter in the small stable, braiding his thick mane. Such an odd thing for a baron, he thought suddenly. An odd thing for any peer, any man, really, not of a stable. Yet he knew he’d never felt part of the peerage as it was, living so far from London and not trained up like Jackson was. Hugh hadn’t been raised with such strict beliefs in the hand of God in who he was. His father simply hadn’t had enough interest in it, or him.

  Hugh left off the end of the braid and slid from the horse. He watched Termagant’s eyes blink slowly, and the drowsiness washed over him as well, his head clearer, the pulsing pain subsiding.

  Hugh shook his head and walked out of the stable toward the stable master’s quarters at the end.

  “I’m off, Duncan. Termagant is stabled. There’s no need to bother with him. I handled him.”

  Duncan shifted on the small crate he used as a stool and nodded stoutly.

  “Lucky ye didna get squashed in there the way ye had that steed worked up, sir,” Duncan said gruffly.

  Hugh nodded and looked away. Perhaps he was of a mind to get brained. He swept the back of his fist across his sweaty brow as he shifted.

  “Yes. To be sure, I was…terribly irresponsible.”

  Duncan grunted then looked back to his card game, and Hugh turned and strode to the town home, sufficiently chastised by a man he’d grown up worshiping for his mastery of animals. The only man in his life to ever show him much interest.

  He marched through the main hall and went straight to his study. The place was large and empty, lonely, abandoned. He supposed it was time to find a wife to fill the nursery. He would speak to Amelia in the morning. Tell her good-bye—as was best—and move on with his own life.

  Charles entered his carriage and directed the coachman to his town house before he settled against the squabs. He closed his eyes and thought back on his childhood. He remembered chasing after the other two children, drawn to her as a moth to flame, wishing for the burn.

  It was the summers he looked forward to the most through the long wait of winter. His mother often dragged him along to the house parties when she visited her lifelong friend, the Duchess of Pembroke-by-the-Sea. The closest estate was that of the Baron Endsleigh, and his son, Hugh Garrison, was often found at Pembroke-by-the-Sea as well, playing with the girl.

  It was that girl with whom he’d fallen irretrievably in love the moment he’d set eyes on her. For a young boy, perhaps love was a strong word. And he knew now that what he had for her was a far cry from love, if that could even exist in him. What he’d felt for her was a deep yearning, an undeniable want of her that he had no wish to quell, and what pulled at him now was the thread of that feeling that lingered still, the want of her. He wanted her so badly he’d asked his father to arrange for it, and his father had. The one thing Charles had ever asked from his sire and received.

  Amel
ia was sweet like sunshine and sugar on a lemon, so many flavors at once you wished to smile and pucker and lick your lips all at the same time. What struck Charles most was her laughter, so vivid, so pure and full of truth. Her laughter stopped his breath every time it rang through the countryside, and he waited, as a prisoner in a dank, dusty gaol, for that bit of joy to return—even for just a few stolen moments. It was something he’d never felt for himself. Something he wished to somehow capture by being in her presence.

  Amelia had been allowed to run the estate without a keeper, which he’d thought odd, as she was young, and female. But perhaps at that age a chaperone wasn’t as necessary. His father would have thought so, however.

  “Charles, hurry! You’ve no one here to do your running for you! You must keep up on your own.” She’d turn and smile at him over her shoulder, and he’d marvel that she never tripped and fell when she chased after him, with Charles in tow.

  So run the estate they had, the girl, the boy, and Charles.

  That boy, her boy, her best friend, had always been by her side, and this her father had taken no exception to either—which had been shocking to Charles as well.

  “Amelia! Amelia! Here, look.”

  “What is it now, Hugh?”

  “Look, Amelia, you’ll see. There in the thicket.” The boy pointed.

  “Hugh, I don’t have time for your trickery. If you—” The girl’s hand flew to her dropped-open lips, her eyes wide and searching. “Oh, Hugh, don’t disturb them—look! I can see three—no, four! But where’s the mother?”

  “I see nothing.” Charles strained on his toes to try to see over the two crouched in front of him.

  “Charles, look closer,” Hugh said as he shifted to the side. “Look, there...” He pointed deeper into the brambles.

  “I still see nothing. It’s too dark.” Charles frowned. He always felt left out of their fun, by nature of the third-wheel principle. Though he often wondered, that if a third wheel might actually help to balance the other two on a bicycle, why it would be considered so terribly inconvenient.

  Amelia took his hand, and he jumped—staring at the point of contact. “See the trunk of the tree just there to the left?” she asked, and he nodded, but his eyes were on her mouth as it moved. “Now follow the right side of the trunk down...down...down—”

  And his gaze did travel down, down and down, to the pulse in her neck.

  “Let your eyes adjust. Now, when you can see the base of the tree and the ground, look just beside it, just there.”

  As she released his hand, he was bereft of the warmth of it, and his eyes followed that hand to where she pointed.

  Charles sucked in a breath. Her finger, her lips, her throat all but forgotten in his sudden fear. “Will they bite us?”

  “No, silly! They’re just fox cubs. I imagine their mother is off looking for lunch,” Amelia said.

  Charles righted himself suddenly, his gaze darting around the shadows in the wood for the slightest movement. “Are we lunch? We should go...should we go? I think we should go. I think we should leave, in case—”

  A raucous peal of laughter cut him off.

  “Hugh, don’t! Damn you twice. He’s unused to the wild,” Amelia said softly.

  “Twice already? We’ll see about that. Besides, that’s ridiculous. He lives in the country, just as we do. Why wouldn’t he know about animals?” Hugh replied stiffly.

  “My father, he doesn’t let me run about the estate without a governess,” Charles said, annoyed that they played games around him, the secret messages he wasn’t privy to. Damn them both, he thought, knowing it made no difference, that it didn’t count in their game and never would matter.

  “A governess?” Hugh replied in haughty disbelief. “What on earth do you do with a governess? Take tea?”

  “Hugh! Damn you three times.” Amelia smacked his arm, and Hugh looked to her. “You will cease this instant. If Charles isn’t comfortable in the forest, we shall return to the manor. I’m sure there are plenty of adventures we can have in the attics. They’ve been storing things up there for centuries. We shall have a treasure hunt.” She turned to Charles with a grand smile, and he grimaced.

  “Dust,” he returned quietly.

  Her smile faded. “Well, then, we shall...we shall...find something to do on the way back to the manor house. Charles, would you lead the way?”

  Charles was all too happy to lead them from the forest, across the moors and back to some semblance of civilization. Even if it meant an afternoon of dust. He could feel his skin itching already.

  “Amelia,” Hugh whispered, but Charles heard anyway. He didn’t dare turn back, though, knowing that Hugh hadn’t wanted him to hear, so he wouldn’t be the one to give himself away.

  “Hugh, what are you going to do with those?” she replied in just as much of a whisper.

  Silence. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His heart sped. He knew there was to be a prank in his future.

  “I forbid it,” Amelia said vehemently.

  Charles turned at that, in time to see her eyes dart back to Hugh then he continued on.

  Then her voice became softer, more insistent. “You will leave them here on the moors where they belong, Hugh, or I’ll not speak with you again.”

  “Amelia, please? It’s merely for fun,” the boy replied.

  “No, absolutely not. Leave them now, or damn you forever.”

  Charles realized abruptly that their voices had dimmed more from distance than control and stopped to turn around. He saw Hugh pull several lumpy forms from his pockets, letting them drop to the soft earth, only to have them spring to life, scattering in all directions.

  Charles knew his mouth was gaping. He could feel the breeze on his tongue. He snapped his mouth shut.

  Frogs. Or toads. Did it matter which? Hugh had been planning yet another prank, this one involving those slimy creatures from the pond. And she—she—had saved him.

  In that moment, he knew that he cared for her for this, for if he’d stepped into a shoe to discover a wet snapping mouth and a long sticky tongue, he was quite sure the prank would have been his end.

  It was then that Hugh looked up at him and scowled. Damn him forever is right, Charles thought. Charles hoped it was merely the fact that Amelia had thwarted his recalcitrant efforts, but it was entirely possible that Charles had been looking on Amelia with rather a different sort of gleam in his eye, one that Hugh had not appreciated.

  Well, Amelia may have foiled Hugh this time, but Charles was rather certain it wouldn’t be the last. No matter what Charles hoped for...with that one look from Hugh, the game was afoot. Such as the game was, one-sided and all.

  It would be a long summer, he knew then, obsessing over his shoes and socks, the placement of things in his wardrobe, checking his sheets and his hats. It would be a tedious—but necessary—fact of it.

  Charles didn’t understand what Amelia saw in Hugh. Hugh was a mean-spirited trickster, always getting her into trouble with her family. But Charles knew, in the smile he saw her give Hugh as forgiveness, that she adored him. And in the quick wink Hugh returned, Charles understood that feeling to be mutual.

  The following summers had been more difficult for Charles as his mother changed. The tincture of laudanum had become her dearest companion, first fending off the night terrors she’d always had. Then once his father died, any hint of emotion and the laudanum was in her hand, ready to calm her nerves.

  Amelia and Hugh treated him carefully. He became the Castleberry, and Hugh became the Endsleigh, but Amelia was still, forever, Amelia. Strange that, that the young men grew into titles and presence, whilst the girls were commended for staying young…innocent.

  Amelia and Hugh spent their summers avoiding his mother and attempting to avoid him. Even as children, they seemed to know just how horrid it all was. Hugh…Ender played no pranks, and Amelia didn’t defend him. In truth, Charles was unsure which he preferred. At least the pranks had been normal
, the defense heartfelt. The care they took with him after—that was painful. A constant reminder that life had forever changed, that he was now something more. And possibly something less.

  There wasn’t anything to be done about it, and the pain of the fact had faded, even though the truth of it was still shrouded in shades of gray.

  Charles opened his eyes and leaned forward on his knees, considering the current predicament, which was…well, truth be told, he was the problem for Amelia and Ender. It didn’t have to be so. He didn’t have to pursue the marriage claim discussed over brandy by two men twenty years prior. But he knew he still wanted this. Charles wasn’t sure if his motivation was because of the frogs…or because of the frogs. That’s to say, he wasn’t sure if he wanted her or hated him.

  Charles also wondered if her acceptance of his pledge was more pity-laced with necessity than want. As well, he wasn’t sure he cared either way on that front, but there were certain things that bothered him still.

  Things he hoped to resolve.

  Charles had watched as Ender and Amelia, now Lord Endsleigh and Lady Amelia, returned to the ballroom from the balcony. He knew the ton talked about her. He knew they suppressed the rumors because her father was still a powerful duke—regardless of his illness—and he also knew the minute the duke wasn’t there to guard her she would be fodder for the masses. Unless Charles stepped into the fray.

  Whether the rumors were true, Charles knew not. He didn’t remember anything terribly odd or different about her, but that was many years ago. Any visits he’d had once he and Ender had gone off to school were often cut short, citing propriety or her need of rest. It bothered him that Endsleigh had often been allowed to stay while he had been turned out, but he’d believed it was because Endsleigh was a friend to the family, and Charles, the Castleberry…well, nobody needed a duke hanging about even if that duke was somewhat betrothed. Charles had been more like a mouse in duke’s clothing at that point, and simply had done their bidding, afraid to have all permissions revoked. Of course, that wasn’t who he was now, and if anyone came between them, between Charles and what he wanted…well, woe to them.