Anthony has risen from slumber late in the afternoon after he had enjoyed himself a glass too many of his aged whiskey the evening before. Thankfully, he wasn't suffering a blindingly stifling headache. He has come to appreciate the mild numbness that clouded his brain, momentarily giving him some peace as his valet affixed pristine clothing on his back.

He walked languidly towards the breakfast parlor, relishing the loud echoing footsteps within the silence of the halls. The advantage and disadvantage of rising late to break one's fast was this feeling of solitude and dining in isolation.

After taking a proper meal, he mused that he would have the energy to write an especially long letter to Mr. Collins to urge him to meet with him and relay whatever news he had already uncovered.

Anthony enjoyed his meal in silence, getting little of the sunlight that entered through the windows. He dabbed his mouth with a folded napkin, pausing with a distant look on his eyes as his hand moved on its own volition to stroke his chin, subtly assessing the clean shave given to him by his valet. Mr. Collins should have answers for him now. It's been a few weeks, or has it been months? Anthony wasn't sure how long he had been disconcerted, but it surely felt like an eternity.

Snapping out of his reverie, Anthony quickly stood and with wide purposeful strides moved to his study.

Just before reaching for the door jamb, Lady Killsworth intercepted him. She reminded him of tomorrow evenings' supper party, where unlike the other parties which he had snubbed, this required him of his presence, and necessitate him to be in especially good behavior.

He nodded and moved past her, surprised that she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Anthony, you must not take these things lightly." She warned him, blue orbs frozen as ice.

His mother was always determined to think the worst of him. "I assure you..."

"I know you kissed her." Her voice almost sounded like a threat. "I can see it in the way she moves around you. If you are the gentleman I raised you to be, you would cease your uncouth ministrations and leave her be." She swiftly withdrew her hand as Anthony tugged his arm away from her, feeling the burn of her words where her hand had been resting.

Anthony had never been moved to violence, especially in the presence of family. But he wanted to hit the wall next to his mother so damned much that his knuckles turned white on rolled fists. "I'm sure you don't know what you're talking about." Uncouth ministrations?

His mother rolled his eyes. "You may chase any tail you like, bed any willing woman, just allow Sarah Jane peace to evaluate her options in clarity. If she becomes a pariah, becomes shelved, what would become of her when the title is relinquished?"

Regret and resentment pooled in his belly, drowning his poor trembling heart. His mother was determination to make him to be the very worst of rakes. A rogue incapable of feeling, even when he had denied every accusation society has thrown at him. Would it kill his mother to save a little respect for him?

He was a scoundrel yes, but wasn't every gentleman in his youth eager for a wicked reputation if only to have legions of women to swoon over them?

"My lady," he drawled, emphasizing that his temper had reached his limit. "if her intention is to marry the dying Lord Holt, she would have been bloody engaged by now." Pausing for an indrawn breath, he continued, "I am not about to stay away unless she tells me herself."

Dismissively, he walked away from his mother, his anger dissolving into a cesspool of hurt and disappointment.

Anthony rounded a corner, forgetting that he was supposed to enter his study for today's agenda. His head hung low as thoughts of the past drifted in hazy images in his mind.

There was a muffled sound coming from the walls, and he spied the library door slightly ajar. His footsteps trotted the carpet in silence as he approached the sound. Through the crack, he heard a distinct female voice that hissed and whispered angrily, which alternated between hiccupping and sobbing.

"How could they be so cruel?" She sniffed and blew into a cloth. "Have they no idea that what they spread are lies? All lies?"

Even as the social events she was invited to became more and more frequent, reversibly, Sarah Jane looked less and less excited about them. Anthony had noticed this but avoided to make any comment lest he makes a big deal of a small matter such as exhaustion. However, this particular scene just confirmed his suspicions.

Anthony pushed the door slightly open and revealed two women seated across each other on the wide reading table. They looked up upon hearing his intrusion on their shared confidence.

"Pardon me, my lord." Anne started to make her way to the door.

"Anne, no! Please don't leave." Sarah Jane said, clutching the cloth to her face and delicately blew her nose. Anne sat back in her seat.

"What brings you here, my lord?" Sarah Jane inquired in between hiccups and decided to take a sip of her tepid tea.

"What is the matter?" He turned to Anne, "Why is she so upset? What happened?"

Anne stole a glance at Sarah Jane, eyes in askance as she sat motionless, tight-lipped and ever loyal.

"Sarah Jane?" He asked again, softly and tenderly as he crossed the room. "What has you upset?"

More tears trickled down her cheeks, lips tightly pursing from unspent emotions that rendered her unable to speak. She then nudged Anne to answer him.

"My lord, there are whispers of the legitimacy of her background. Many are saying that no one has ever heard of Rosenberg as a title and that she is a bastard of Lady Huntington's deceased husband."

Sarah Jane hiccupped.

"But I am no bastard. I am my father's child. I am not nameless." She cried helplessly and bid Anne to continue.

"The ton is looking for her father, the man with the title. Without it, more gossips surrounding her legitimacy keeps sprouting."

Anthony's lips pressed firmly into a thin line. The ton was really a force of nature not to be messed with. They tend to operate on their own terms, haughtily spinning lies and tales without a care which daggers hit where.

He didn't say anything, unsure of the extent of information that Anne has been privy to.

"We are uncertain of where the rumor started," Anne said bitterly. "Ladies would appear to be so sweet if only within the company of people of consequence. Recently, they have been openly giving her the cut direct as if she had done something to deserve it."

"I am such a disappointment." Sarah Jane concluded, her open palms stretched out on the table. "I am even beginning to disgrace your name." Her form stretched over her lap, head hung low in defeat.

Anthony digested this information for a minute. If this carried on, he was sure that Sarah Jane would not be able to finish the Season without becoming as disillusioned and cynical about society as he had become.

He took the seat next to her and gingerly took her shoulders in his arms. They sat in such an emotionally tender embrace that Anne was forced to look away. Murmuring her regrets, Anne quickly departed the room with much protests from Sarah Jane.

Seeing as they were alone, Anthony collected her hands and enclosed them in his, rubbing his thumb in soothing circles on its pale skin.

"You are not a disappointment." He comforted softly, whispering the words that echoed his heart.

She shook her head sullenly, quite unbelieving what he was telling her. "Please do not make false statements just to patronize. I know the truth."

Sarah Jane's breathing began to relax into slow and deep breaths.

He ignored her words, continuing, "You have given me more life and purpose in these few months than all of my lonely years living in illusions company." He stared at her then, as she forcefully wiped tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand.

"I am a disappointment to your mother, to Lady Huntington..." She hiccupped, unable to meet his eyes. "Most especially to you. I promised you that you wouldn't notice that I'd be here, that I wouldn't cause any problems for you if I were given a Season."

Turning serious, he responded quickly, "Sarah Jane, you are not a disappointment to me." He tipped her chin up to force her to meet his piercing, ardent stare, "If you were a disappointment, you wouldn't have made me eager to see you, to laugh with you, at you."

And then god help him but he laughed. "Your promise was never held in a tight regard from the beginning. It would be most impossible to ignore you if you were within miles of me, let alone living in my house."

Her lips settled on a wobbly smile. "You've avoided me."

He can't help but smile with her. "I have seen you cry too many times. I am beginning to think that I may be the cause of your tears. Don't you take pleasure in my avoidance?"

Her lashes dipped excruciatingly slow, her tears finally stopping after a waterfall of cathartic release. "Never. I could never." she whispered, almost making Anthony believed he imagined her words.

Please do not make himself vain enough to take pleasure in her wanting to see him. He pleaded with his mind to repel thoughts of them as a couple. They couldn't be together, it was simply not an option as he was his ward, and he would never be able to make her happy.

He had a very tainted past, a most notorious reputation, and she would want to be a married woman who had a good standing amongst the ton. She will be needing their respect to surround herself with plentiful friends, joining London excursions, invited to all social events and producing blushing babes.

Anthony will be robbing her of this future. It didn't matter if what the ton believed was true. The truth had no weight in society. There is no place in London for a man like him. He would have to retire in the country, be a recluse, live a simple, unadulterated life.

His thumbs settled on her cheek, stroking the skin tenderly. Sarah Jane is so pure, so full of passion and life that he longed to be sucked in it, allow himself get lost in her openness, and be able to finally have peace.

"I am always looking for you." She murmured through closed eyes as she concentrated on the feel of his fingers on her warm skin.

He had seen so many emotions on her, and yet something somewhere had propelled a massive change with how he saw her. Everything she did, and will do, imprints itself on the forefront of his mind. She haunted his thoughts when he awakes from slumber in the morning and when  he closes his eyes as sleep claims him. His dreams were electrifyingly colored in fire and passion and then was also filled with her chaste embraces and comforting words.

On nights when he was particularly longing for her, his dreams tumbled her in any expanse they could find, and the sounds that stirred him in his sleep were nothing less than animalistic, wild, and furiously wicked.

No, he thought wryly, any thoughts of having pure sisterly devotion to Sarah Jane was most impossible, especially when the images his mind conjured of her impaled on his member would put a hothouse to shame.

And yet, suspiciously, this was more than lust. He was her protector in every sense of the word. He wanted to lock her inside him, to keep her pure and as carefree as he found her. She will be his little secret, and no one else will know of what gold he carried within him.

Everything that hurt her in any way affected him with enough force to knock him to the ground. He would do anything to give her what she wanted. This Season, a good reputation, and a respectable and happy marriage.

Even if the marriage she deserved and wanted was not with him.

His reply came several moments after his tormented musings.

"I had to avoid you else I hurt your chances of a good match." His reputation, his constant wanting of her... everything about him should make her steer clear away from him. Why can't she see this?

Sarah Jane's lips pulled into a frown, instantly detesting the direction of their conversation. "I have changed my mind..."

London was not all it promised to be. She chased a dream, a mirage of a life that immediately turned into dust the moment she was found out. Didn't matter if it was true.

"You changed your opinion on what, precisely?"

Her eyes opened to reveal a new determination and strength that gutted him. "I don't want..." She breathed uneasily, unsure of how to tell him how much she wanted him, "I—I want..."

"What do you want, sweetheart?" His hands trembled as they settled on hers, his gaze waiting, comforting her, anything that would restore the sanity in their situation.

She breathed deeply, holding her breath as she looked up.

"I want you to take me away."

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A/N: Hey everyone!! I had wanted to upload this chapter since last week. Some readers are finding it hard to fully fall for Anthony, and judging the way his character is presented, I can't really blame you! I sincerely hope that this is the start of his character's redemption!

If you were in Sarah Jane's shoes, would you risk everything for a damaged man? (Maybe it depends on the situation, but hypothetically speaking...) how far would you go?

I'm usually the emotional type, but in relationships I tend to weigh and judge quite carefully, to the point that the logic fizzles out the romance in it. Lol not sure which is the better route. Maybe I wrote Sarah Jane this way wishing I could be as courageous as her!

Let me know in the comments below!

If you like this chapter, kindly consider giving it a vote! ❤️