Absolute Surrender Read Online Free PDF

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.
    Amelia 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,