Read Online Josie Dennis by Return to Norrington Abbey - Free Book Online

you ever keep her from the general?”
    That very question had plagued him since his disastrous discussion with his father the other evening. His father had no respect for marriage, not when he was with his and Henry’s mother and not now as he urged Frederick to take Isabella to wife. Marriage was required for legal heirs and generous dowries. Faithfulness did not enter into the union, let alone love.
    “I would never let him touch her.”
    “How could you prevent it?” James took a breath, evidently choosing his words. “I know of your liaisons with him. He would expect you to share your wife with him as if she was any other woman.”
    “She is not,” Frederick snapped. When James raised his brows, he held up a hand. “Forgive me. I would never share her with anyone she didn’t love.”
    James pulled back. “You mean me?”
    “She loves you, James. She might not be aware of it yet, but I’ve seen the tender expression on her face after her release.”
    “I’ve never seen such openness in her before, that’s true.”
    “It’s because in that moment of physical bliss she lets go of her blasted control.”
    James sipped his drink, that contemplative expression on his face again. Frederick found himself eager to hear what he would say. He’d never listened to any of his contemporaries, never taken advice from his brother or any of his friends at school. He’d taken orders well, rose through the ranks to Captain. This, however, was outside his realm of experience.
    “She loves you, Frederick,” James said at last. “She wanted you last year, or so you’ve said. I have no reason to doubt you. When I met her at Thorne Manor I could tell there was more to her behavior than games and flirts and holding on to control. Her heart was already engaged.”
    Shame washed over Frederick. “I used her horribly. I took her up on her taunts until she succumbed.”
    “But you didn’t take her.”
    “No. For the first time in memory, I thought with my head instead of my cock.”
    James nodded. “I snapped under her tender teases, I admit. Then I’d had the balls to insist she keep away from you.”
    Frederick laughed, a big sound that loosened him up. “We are fools, the both of us.”
    James joined him in laughter for several moments then sobered. “I would think long and hard about offering her forever, Frederick.”
    “Why? I told you I would keep my father from her.”
    “What of other women?”
    Frederick opened his mouth to object then let out a breath. “I won’t deny I’ve been a randy bastard the whole of my adult life. Believe me when I tell you, I have never encountered the feelings Isabella arouses. Sexual or otherwise. I would wager there isn’t another woman in the world to tempt me from her.”
    “And if one attempted to take you from her?”
    Something shifted within him, a certainty of what he wanted so badly he would do anything to hold on to it.
    “My God, I love her,” he said in a rush.
    James grinned, a bright smile that made his eyes dance. “That is all the answer I need, friend.”
    Frederick rubbed a hand over his face, groaning. “What am I to do, James? I’ve never been in love.”
    “Nor have I.”
    “But you went willingly. You have nothing to dissuade her from accepting you.”
    “Except her feelings for you.”
    The statement was given as fact, with no animosity. Frederick realized that their affair was yielding more than sexual satisfaction. He was coming to care for James, to take his counsel as he’d never taken poor Henry’s. Well, his brother’s threesome worked, for he wouldn’t let anyone convince him that Henry and John did not both sleep with Catherine. Perhaps he should talk to Henry. Get his advice and perhaps begin to heal the rift between them.
    “I believe we should pay court to our girl, though discreetly,” he told James. “I can be quite charming.”
    “You have that over me, then. I shall simply let her see my regard. I have no father watching