Free The Beloved One by Danelle Harmon Page A

accidentally into Amy Leighton's breast . . . but this time her gasp was not one of surprise, but of desire.  This time, she had responded by wantonly pressing herself into his hand, her nipple going pebble-hard against his stroking fingers, her flesh filling his palm, even as she'd slid her hand down his belly, her fingers touching, stroking, rubbing him until —
    Zounds, he was hard.  Hard!  Horrified at his body's betrayal, he shook his head, trying to clear it.  What the devil was wrong with him?
    Disgusted by the dream, his reaction to it, and yes, his disloyalty to Juliet for even having it, Charles stirred in the chair, trying to ease the heaviness in his loins.  It was only when he forced himself to contemplate the bleakness of his situation — and his future — that the unfulfilled ache finally eased, succumbing to the mental pain that annihilated everything else in its path.
    He rested his cheek against the back of the chair, thinking.
    Thinking, perhaps, too much.
    You've really gone and done it now, haven't you?
    He had always prided himself on the fact that he was a man who did not make mistakes, but in the last three months — starting with what he had done to Lady Katharine Farnsley — he had made a lifetime's worth of them.
    All his life he'd tried to be the best that he could be.  He had won his mother's love and his father's admiration by constantly doing good, doing well, just plain doing .  In his own mind, failure had not been allowed.  After a while, failure was not expected.  And he had known then, as he knew now, that failure was the one sure way to lose the respect and affection that others had for you.
    And you've failed splendidly, man.
    What would become of him now?
    His life as he'd known it was over.  From now on, he'd be dependent upon others for his very existence.  What would he do, where would he go?
    They were frightening thoughts, but Charles met them with complete calm.  It would be difficult, maybe even impossible, but he had to accept what had happened to him and get on with things.  It wouldn't be easy, but he knew that if he looked toward the future, and found and focused upon a goal to get himself past this sudden calamity that had been visited upon him, he might survive.  He would never be "Major" de Montforte, but he could work on making himself as independent as possible with the least burden to others.  That alone would be a challenge — and a worthy accomplishment.
    I will beat this thing, he vowed savagely.  And he had plenty of people in his life to help him do it.  He had Amy Leighton.  He had Juliet.
    And he had his family.
    They would be there for him.  They would help him get through this, to rebuild his life, to make him whole again.
    He couldn't help but wonder how each of his brothers would react if this had happened to them.  It was hard to imagine Lucien as blind; Charles wryly doubted that neither God nor the devil would dare saddle the duke with such an infirmity.  What about Andrew, his youngest brother?  Andrew aspired to be an inventor.  Andrew had a clever mind and a wonderfully active imagination — no doubt he would invent some contraption to help him get through life with the minimum of discomfort.
    And then Charles thought of Gareth, and a fond smile came over his face.  Where Charles was serious and guided by ambition, Gareth, only a year his junior, had always shunned responsibility of any kind.  He had run wild through childhood, through university, and now, through early adulthood, raising havoc from Lambourn to London as the leader of a group of equally dissolute friends calling themselves the Den of Debauchery.  Gareth's carefree nature, his delight in daredevil pranks and reckless tomfoolery was something that Lucien railed about in every letter Charles received from him, but despite that, he was the brother that Charles loved most — and the one whose nature he wished he could emulate in this, his hour of darkest