Free Intimate 02 - Intimate Surrender by Laura Landon Page B

frowns on their faces deepened.
    “Not really,” Caroline continued, “but what we need to discuss concerns Hannah.”
    “What? Is she seriously ill?” Waves of concern rushed through him. “Have you sent for Doctor Blains?”
    Thomas held up his hand. “Miss Bartlett doesn’t need a doctor.”
    “Then what?”
    “Hannah has gone,” Caroline said. “She left. She returned to London.”
    Rafe didn’t move. He felt as if someone had knocked the air from his body.
    “Why?” he asked, but he already knew. She’d gone back to London because their attraction for each other frightened her, because he’d gone too fast. Because he’d taken liberties he never should have taken. Liberties a lady likeHannah wasn’t used to a man taking. “This is my fault. I have to go after her.”
    He rose to his feet, but his brother’s stern voice stopped him. “You can’t.”
    Rafe studied the dark expressions on the four people gathered with him and fought the dread that washed over him. He sat back down and waited.
    The Duchess of Raeborn took a deep breath and reached for Caroline’s hand before she spoke. “The attraction between Hannah and yourself has been obvious to both Caroline and me since the two of you arrived. I mentioned it to Hannah, but she assured me that although she realized that you felt a certain…fascination for her, I didn’t need to worry. She would do everything in her power to discourage you. Instead, it was obvious that every day that attraction only seemed to grow stronger.”
    “And you object?”
    The two sisters looked at each other.
    “To me?” Rafe asked. “You object to me? You don’t think I’m good enough to pursue Miss Bartlett?”
    “No.” Caroline answered. “It has nothing to do with you.”
    “Surely you can’t object to Hannah. She’s your friend. You invited her because you said that you consider her as close as one of your sisters.”
    “We do,” both the Duchess of Raeborn and Rafe’s sister-in-law said at the same time. “Each one of us considers Hannah a part of our family.”
    “Then what? What is it you object to?”
    “There are things about Hannah you don’t know,” the Duchess of Raeborn said. “Things no one knows.”
    “What things?”
    “First of all,” she continued, “what I am about to share with you I am saying in the strictest of confidence. Hannah would not approve of me telling you—of telling
anyone
. She does not want anyone’s pity.”
    “Pity? Why would anyone pity her?” Rafe took a swallow of the brandy Thomas had given him. From the looks on everyone’s faces, he thought he might need it.
    “Hannah’s father is the late Baron Fentington. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”
    Rafe thought. “I vaguely remember hearing the name. If it is the same man, he was known as a religious fanatic who wore only white and focused his efforts on condemning all women for Eve’s sin.”
    “That’s him,” Caroline said. “Baron Fentington’s estate neighbored ours, and Hannah was of an age with Grace and me. The baron was beyond strict when it came to raising his daughter. He forced Hannah to her knees in prayer for hours a day and severely punished her at the slightest provocation. It was nothing for her to sneak out of the house and come to us for comfort when her father went on one of his tirades. And she most often came with huge welts from the beatings he’d given her.”
    Rafe found it hard to breathe. What kind of father would do that to his child?
    “Unfortunately for Hannah,” Caroline continued, “she grew into a beautiful young lady. Her father became more irrational where she was concerned. He was harsh and inflexible, and made her suffer for being beautiful.”
    Caroline’s voice thickened with emotion, and the duchess continued for her. “Hannah tried to make herself as unbecoming as she could, but her beauty came through nomatter what she did. Instead of being proud of the woman she was growing into, her