A Risk Worth Taking Read Online Free PDF

someone so much you didn’t want to go on living when you realized he could never love you in return.
    The risk was just not worth taking.
    Anne pushed such thoughts away and gave her sister an open smile. She hugged her even tighter. “Why don’t you make a list of what we will take with us when we leave? I would like to go to my room for a while. I’ll be down in time for dinner.”
    “You rest, Annie. I know what little sleep you’ve gotten since…since they brought Freddie home.”
    Anne made her way to the door with Freddie’s letter clutched in her hand.
    “We’ll be just fine, Annie,” Becca said from behind her.
    Anne turned and forced herself to smile. She was thankful that Becca didn’t realize they would never be fine again.
    Anne took Freddie’s letter with her to her room and sank down on the edge of the bed as if the weight of theworld rested on her shoulders. With trembling fingers she opened the envelope and unfolded the papers. A river of hot tears filled her eyes and blurred the words she read.
    Annie,
    If you have cause to read this, then I regret that I have left you to face the future alone and without the financial security you deserve. As you probably know by now, everything you and Rebecca have always considered your own is entailed and belongs to someone else. Everything except the deed to the property you received along with this letter. I regret that I have not yet acquired enough wealth to adequately support you, Annie, but at the moment this parcel of land is all I have to leave you to preserve the Brentwood name. Know that there is no one else I would have possess it but you, and promise that you will never sell it.
    Tell Rebecca that I loved her dearly, even though you have always possessed the greatest part of my heart. Perhaps it was because of the unhappiness we endured growing up. That bound us to each other like nothing else could.
    If it is possible, I will watch out for you from above.
    Your loving brother,
    Freddie
    P.S. When all is said and done, all any of us have left are our honor and our good name. These are riches beyond what is seen by the human eye.
    When Anne finished, she folded the letter, then held it to her breast. She tried desperately not to feel any anger toward the brother who’d left them so desolate and alone, but pangs of vexation plagued her.
    She also tried not to think of the man who had been with Freddie when he died. The man she blamed for Freddie’s death.
    The man she wished had died instead of her brother.

Chapter 3

    G riff stopped to take a swallow from the flask he kept in his pocket, then continued his way down the deserted wharf.
    It had been over a month since Freddie’s death, and Griff hadn’t uncovered one clue that pointed him to whoever was responsible. He’d turned over every rock he thought might reveal something, but any information he found turned out to be nothing. He was here because there was one man who might have some answers, Colonel Rupert Fitzhugh, the man who’d issued the orders for every mission Griff had been a part of. The same man who might have been able to prevent Freddie’s death and hadn’t.
    Griff had chosen the docks of London to meet Colonel Fitzhugh for a reason. After dark, the docks were the closest place to hell he knew.
    Transformed under a cloak of darkness, London’s waterfront turned into a vile cesspit at night, overrun with thieves, hooligans, and deadly dangers hiding around every corner. Griff walked through the maze of hazards as if he owned the night. Safety was his last concern.
    Farther down the long stretch of docks, bawdy laughter and raucous music floated out from smoke-filled taverns, rising above the yelling and cursing associated with anoccasional drunken brawl. Griff was well acquainted with every filthy hovel along the wharf.
    But it was quiet here. The only sound that intruded on the haunting silence was the steady lapping of the water against the moored ships.
    The hollow