Mr. Hunt, I Presume (Playful Brides, #10.5)(18)

Three words. Each one ripped through her heart anew.

Let me go.





Chapter Eleven





Collin couldn’t recall the last time he’d been nervous. Bloody hell, a seasoned spy didn’t succumb to nerves. Ever. But as he sat next to Derek in his brother’s dining room, waiting for Lucy and Erienne to join them for dinner, he felt as unsettled as he had when he was a young man, the day he’d first kissed Erienne by the sycamore tree.

Erienne. He couldn’t believe he was about to see her again after all these years. The day he’d told her he couldn’t marry her had been the most excruciating of his entire life. But he’d known then—just as he knew now—it was the right thing to do. The best thing. Perhaps not for him, but certainly for her. He loved her enough to let her go. He always had.

In the months leading up to her debut, she’d written to him all about the fancy gowns her mother had bought her for her debutante ball to be held in London. Clearly, Erienne was meant for that life. Her father was a baron, and she was gorgeous and perfect. She shouldn’t waste herself on the likes of him, the boy from the bad family in town. It had been selfish of him to love her. He had to let her go.

He’d begun writing her less often, trying to wean himself from the joy of her regular correspondence, although he knew it would nearly kill him to stop receiving her letters. Those letters had been the only things to get him through some very dark days. He’d worked his arse off, doing his best to rise through the ranks as quickly as possible to be worthy of Erienne, to be someone her parents could accept, someone she could be proud of. But that summer, after her debut, he’d received a letter from Erienne’s father, dashing all of his hopes.

Baron Stone had begun the letter cordially enough. He asked after Collin’s health and indicated he’d heard Collin was doing quite well for himself in the army. But quickly, the baron made the purpose of the letter quite clear.



It seems Erienne has a schoolgirl infatuation with you. I think we would both agree that she should be with someone of her status. Quite simply, she has received multiple offers of marriage and refused them all because of you, Lieutenant Hunt. This is to her detriment. Her mother and I ask that you desist in your correspondence with her in order to allow her the space she needs to find a suitable husband.





The word suitable had sliced like a dagger through Collin’s heart. Of course he wasn’t suitable, and no matter how high he rose in the army, he never would be. To the Stones, he would always be the Hunt boy from the tiny, ramshackle cottage on the far side of town.

He’d written back, agreeing with Baron Stone that Erienne deserved the best husband in the world. He’d told the baron he would tell Erienne in person during his next leave, which was coming up. He refused to tell her in a letter like a coward. Baron Stone had agreed to that stipulation.

The afternoon Collin had written Let me go on that slip of paper and pressed it into Erienne’s hand was the worst day of his life.

He’d left the next morning, gone back to the army early because he couldn’t stand to be so near her and not see her. Worse, he didn’t trust himself in the same town with her. He might forget himself and go find her and tell her he’d been insane and hadn’t meant a word of it. He took a swallow of his drink. It burned a path through his insides as he stared out the dining room window at the night. He saw nothing in that dark glass but his own reflection, and for the first time, he recognized a hardness to his features he knew wasn’t put there by war with his fellow man, but by war with his own traitorous heart.

Erienne had been the only wonderful thing in his childhood. She’d been the promise he’d kept in his heart all these years, and he’d been forced to let her go. It was for her sake, however. That was the only thing that comforted him. He’d always believed that someday she would thank him for giving her the chance to live the life she truly deserved.

His mouth twisted in a humorless smile. He’d had a moment of insanity, however. After that day, he hadn’t received another letter from her, but he’d come home that Christmastide and rushed to her house, wanting to tell her he’d been a fool, wanting to ask her if she would forgive him and marry him after all.

He’d been shown into the Stones’ drawing room by their house steward and waited with his hat in his hands, his palms sweaty, before Lady Stone came marching into the room, her face tight. “Lieutenant Hunt,” she intoned, not sounding particularly pleased to see him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’ve come to see Erienne,” Collin replied.

“Erienne?” A brief look of surprise flashed across the woman’s face.

“Yes. Is she here?”

Lady Stone composed her features into a mask. “She is not.”

“May I wait?”

The lady lifted her chin. “I’m afraid you’d be waiting quite some time, Mr. Hunt. Erienne no longer lives here. She’s moved to Shropsbury.”

“Shropsbury?” A mixture of surprise and concern clutched at his throat.

“Yes.” The woman’s gaze dropped to the floor. “To live with her husband.”

The statement gutted him. Collin nearly doubled over in pain. “She’s married?” he asked to clarify the news to his own stumbling brain.