Текст книги "Until You"

Автор книги: Judith McNaught

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12

As he'd promised, Stephen went upstairs to see her later that evening. He'd made it a practice to visit her twice each day, and although he kept them very brief and impersonal, he found himself nevertheless looking forward to them. He knocked on her door, and when there was no response, he hesitated then knocked again. Still no reply. Evidently his instructions that a maid was to be with her at all times had not been followed. Either that or the servant had fallen asleep on duty. Both possibilities angered him, but his primary emotion was alarm for his houseguest. She'd wanted to leave her bed. If she'd decided to try it, despite his instructions, and then collapsed with no one there to help her or sound an alarm… Or if she'd lapsed back into unconsciousness…

He shoved the door open and strode into the chambers. The emptychambers. Baffled and annoyed, he looked at the bed, which had been neatly made up. Evidently the little idiot had not seen fit to follow his orders, and neither had the maid!

A soft sound made him swing around. And stop cold.

"I didn't hear you come in," his houseguest said, walking out of the dressing room. Clad in a white dressing gown that was too large for her, with a hairbrush in one hand and a blue towel loosely draped over her head, she stood before him barefoot, unselfconscious, and completely unrepentant for ignoring his instructions.

Having just been needlessly subjected to several awful moments of fear, Stephen reacted with a flash of annoyance, followed by relief, and then helpless amusement. She'd borrowed a gold cord from the draperies and tied it around her waist to hold the white dressing robe closed, and with her bare toes peeping out from beneath the long robe and that light blue towel over her head like a veil, she reminded him of the barefoot Madonna. Instead of the real Madonna's serenely sweet smile, however, this madonna was wearing an expression that looked bewildered, accusing, and distinctly unhappy, all at once. She did not make him wait to find out the cause.

"Either you're extremely unobservant, my lord, or else your eyesight is afflicted."

Caught completely off-guard, Stephen said cautiously, "I'm not certain what you mean."

"I mean my hair," she said miserably, pointing an accusing finger to whatever was concealed beneath the towel.

He remembered that her hair had been matted with blood, and assumed the wound to her scalp had bled even after Whitticomb had stitched it. "It will wash right out," he assured her.

"Oh, I don't think so," she said ominously. "I already tried that."

"I don't understand…" he began.

"My hair is notbrown-" she clarified as she swept the towel away and picked up a fistful of the offending tresses to illustrate the problem. "Look at it. It's red!"

She sounded revolted, but Stephen was speechless, completely transfixed by a heavy mass of shiny, flaming strands that tumbled in waves and curls over her shoulders and the bodice of her robe and down her back. She released the handful she was holding, and it ran through her fingers like liquid fire. " Jesus…" he breathed.

"It's so… so brazen!" she said unhappily.

Belatedly realizing that her real fiance wouldn't be standing there, staring at something he would have already seen, Stephen reluctantly withdrew his gaze from the most magnificent, and unusual, head of hair he had ever seen. "Brazen?" he repeated, wanting to laugh.

She nodded and then impatiently shoved aside a glossy panel of coppery locks that slid away from her center part and draped itself over her forehead and left eye.

"You don't like it," he summarized.

"Of course not. Is that why you didn't want to tell me its real color?"

Stephen seized the excuse she'd inadvertently handed him and nodded, his gaze shifting back to that exotic hair. It was a perfect frame to set off her delicate features and porcelain skin.

It began to register on Sheridan that the expression on his face wasn't revulsion at all. In fact, he looked almost… admiring? "Do youlike it?"

Stephen liked it. He liked every damn thing about her. "I like it," he said casually. "I gather that red hair isn't quite the thing in America?"

Sheridan opened her mouth to answer, and realized she didn't know the answer. "I… don't see how it could be. And I don't think it is in England."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because the maid who helped me admitted after I pressed her that she had never seen a head of hair this color in her entirelife. She looked perfectly appalled."

"Whose opinion matters most?" he countered smoothly.

"Well, when you put it that way…" Sheridan said, feeling shy and overheated beneath the warmth of his smile. He was so beautiful-in a dark, manly way-that it was difficult not to stare at him and even more difficult to believe he'd actually chosen her above all the women in his own country. She loved his company, his humor, and the gentle way he treated her. She counted the hours between his visits, looking forward eagerly to each one, but the visits had all been very brief and completely uninformative. As a result, she still knew nothing about herself, or about him, or about their past relationship. She was no longer willing to exist in limbo, waiting for her capricious memory to return at any moment and provide the answers.

She'd understood Lord Westmoreland's point of view, which was that she shouldn't jeopardize her health by overtaxing her mind, but her body was healed now. She'd gotten out of bed, bathed, and washed her hair, and then put on the dressing robe, in order to prove to him that she was well enough now to ask questions and hear answers. Her legs felt wobbly, but that might be due to a lingering weakness from her ordeal or, more likely, it was another symptom of the flustered nervousness she sometimes felt in his presence.

She nodded toward a pair of inviting gold-silk-covered sofas positioned near the fireplace. "Would you mind if we sat down? I'm afraid I've been in bed so long that my legs have grown weak from disuse."

"Why didn't you say something before?" Stephen said, already stepping aside so that she could precede him.

"I wasn't certain it was allowed."

She curled up on the sofa, tucked her bare feet beneath her, and arranged the dressing robe neatly around her. One of the things she'd obviously forgotten, Stephen noted, was that well-bred young ladies did not entertain gentlemen who were not their husbands in their boudoir. Stephen, on the other hand, was as aware of this as he was his own transgression in being there. He chose to ignore both issues in favor of his own desires. "Why did you say you weren't certain you were allowed to sit down?"

Her embarrassed gaze slid to the fireplace, and Stephen felt absurdly deprived of the delight of her face, and absurdly pleased when she looked back at him. "I understand from Constance-the maid-that you're an earl."

She looked at him as if she almost hoped he'd deny it, which made her the most unusual woman he'd ever met.

"And?" he said when she didn't continue.

"And that I ought properly to address you as 'my lord.' " When he merely lifted his brows, waiting, she admitted, "Among the things I do seem to know is that in the presence of a king, one does not sit unless invited to do so."

Stephen suppressed the urge to shout with laughter. "I am not a king, however, merely an earl."

"Yes, well, I wasn't certain if the same protocol applied."

"It doesn't, and speaking of the maid, where the devil is she? I specifically said you were not to be left alone at any time."

"I sent her away."

"Because of her reaction to your hair," he assumed aloud. "I'll see that-"

"No, because she'd been with me since dawn, and she looked exhausted. She'd already tidied the room, and I certainly didn't want to be bathed as if I were a child."

Stephen heard that with surprise, but then she was full of surprises, including her next announcement, which was stated with a great deal of resolve and only a tremor of uncertainty. "I've been making some decisions today."

"Have you now," he said, smiling at her fierce expression. She was not in any position to make decisions, but he saw no reason to point that out to her.

"Yes. I've decided that the best way to cope with the loss of my memory is to believe that it's merely a passing inconvenience, and for us to treat it that way."

"I think that's an excellent idea."

"There are a few things I'd like to ask you, however."

"What would you like to know?"

"Oh, the usual things," she said, choking on a laugh. "How old am I? Do I have a middle name?"

Stephen's defenses collapsed, leaving him torn between the wild urge to laugh at her wonderful, courageous sense of humor and the wilder urge to pull her off the sofa, shove his hands into that mass of gleaming hair and bury his lips in hers. She was as enticing as she was sweet, and more sexually provocative in that robe and curtain cord than any gorgeously dressed-or undressed-courtesan he'd ever known.

Burleton must have been in an agony to take her to bed, he thought. No wonder he intended to marry her the day after she arrived…

Guilt abruptly doused Stephen's pleasurable contemplation of her appealing assets, and shame ate at him like acid. Burleton, not he, should have been sitting across from her. It was Burleton who should have been the one to enjoy this cozy moment with her, to see her curled up on the sofa, barefoot; it was Burleton who had the right to be mentally undressing her and thinking of taking her to bed. No doubt he'd been thinking of little else while he waited for her ship to arrive.

Instead of all that, her ardent young lover was lying in a coffin, and his killerwas enjoying the evening with his bride. No, Stephen corrected himself with savage self-disgust, he wasn't merely enjoying a pleasant evening with her, he was lustingafter her.

His attraction to her was obscene! It was insane! If he wanted diversion of any kind, he could choose from among the most beautiful women in Europe. Sophisticated or naive, witty or serious, outgoing or shy, blondes, brunettes, and redheads-they were his for the asking. There was no reason on earth to feel a wild attraction to this woman, no reason to react to her like some randy adolescent or aging lecher.

Her quiet voice jerked him from his furious self-reproach, but his feelings of revulsion lingered. "Whatever it is," she said half-seriously, "I don't think it has very long to live."

Stephen's gaze snapped back to her face. "I beg your pardon?"

"Whatever it is that you've been glowering at over my left shoulder for the last minute-I hope it has legs and can run very quickly."

He gave her a brief, humorless smile. "My thoughts drifted. I apologize."

"Oh, please do not apologize!" she said with a nervous laugh. "I am vastly relievedto know you were thinking of something other than my questions with that black scowl on your face."

"I'm afraid I've forgotten the questions entirely."

"My age?" she provided helpfully, her delicate brows lifting. "Do I have a middle name?" Despite her lighthearted tone, Stephen realized she was watching him very, very closely. He was disconcerted by the way her eyes were searching his, and he hesitated for a second, still struggling to switch his attention to the topic at hand. She broke the silence before he could, by heaving a great, comical sigh of dismay and warning him in an exaggerated, dire voice, "Dr. Whitticomb told me this malady I have is called am-ne-si-a, and it is notcontagious. Therefore, I shall be very much aggrieved if you mean to pretend you have it too, and thus make me look quite ordinary. Now, shall we start with something a little easier? Would you care to tell me yourfull name? Yourage? Take your time, think about the answers."

Stephen would have laughed if he hadn't hated himself so much for wanting to. "I am three and thirty," he said. "My name is Stephen David Elliott Westmoreland."

"Well that explains it!" she joked. "With so many names, it's little wonder it took you awhile to recall them all!"

A grin tugged at his lips, and Stephen tried to negate it by chiding as sternly as he could, "You impertinent baggage, I'll thank you to show me a little more respect."

Unchastened and unrepentant, she tipped her head to the side and inquired curiously, "Because you're an earl?"

"No, because I'm biggerthan you are."

Her peal of laughter was as musical as bells and so infectious that Stephen's face hurt from the effort to keep his expression blank.

"Now that we've established that I am impertinent and you are larger than I," she said, giving him a laughing, innocent look from beneath her lashes, "would it be equally correct to assume that you are also older than I?"

Stephen nodded because he couldn't trust his voice.

She pounced instantly. "By how many years?"

"Persistent little chit, aren't you?" he said, caught between amusement and admiration at how neatly she'd twisted the subject back around to her questions.

She sobered, her gray eyes infinitely appealing. "Please tell me how old I am. Tell me if I have a middle name. Or don't you know?"

He didn't know. On the other hand, he didn't know the ages or middle names of many of the women who'd occupied his bed. Since she'd spent very little time with her fiance, the truth seemed safe and even reasonable. "Actually, neither of those issues ever came up."

"And my family-what are they like?"

"Your father is a widower," Stephen said, recalling what he'd learned from Burleton's butler, and feeling quite capable of handling the discussion, after all. "You are his only child."

She nodded, absorbing that, then she smiled at him. "How did we meet?"

"I imagine your mother introduced you to him shortly after you were born."

She laughed because she thought he was joking. He frowned because he hadn't anticipated questions like that, he didn't feel capable of either answering or evading them, and no matter what he did or said, he was still going to be a fraud.

"I mean, how did you and I meet?"

"The usual way," he said curtly.

"Which is?"

"We were introduced." He got up to avoid the puzzlement and scrutiny in those wide gray eyes of hers, and walked over to a sideboard, where he'd seen a crystal decanter earlier.

"My lord?"

He glanced over his shoulder as he pulled the stopper out of the decanter and raised it to the glass. "Yes?"

"Are we very much in love?"

Half the brandy sloshed over his thumb and ran down the side of the glass onto the gold tray. Swearing silently, he realized that no matter what he told her now, she was going to feel duped when she recovered her memory. Between that and the fact that he was also responsible for the death of the man she did care for, she was going to hate him thoroughly when this was over. But not as much as he hated himself for everything, including what he was about to do. Raising the glass, he tossed down what little brandy he'd actually managed to get into it, then he turned around and faced her. Left with no choice, he answered in a way that he knew would destroy any good opinion she had of him. "This is England, not America-" he began.

"Yes, I know. Dr. Whitticomb told me that."

Inwardly Stephen winced at the reminder that she'd had to be told what country she was in, which was also his fault. "This is England," he repeated curtly. "In England, in the upper classes, couples marry for a variety of reasons, nearly all of which are purely practical. Unlike some Americans, we do not expect or desire to wear our hearts on our sleeves, nor do we prose on and on about that tenuous emotion called 'love.' We leave that to the peasants and the poets."

She looked as if he'd slapped her, and Stephen put the glass down with more force than he'd intended. "I hope I haven't upset you with my bluntness," he said, feeling like a complete bastard. "It's getting late, and you need your rest."

He gave her a slight bow to indicate the conversation was over, and then waited for her to stand up, carefully looking away when the dressing robe parted to reveal a glimpse of shapely calf. He already had his hand on the door handle, when she finally spoke.

"My lord?"

"Yes?" he said without turning.

"You do have one, though, do you not?"

"One what?"

"A heart."

"Miss Lancaster," he began, furious with himself and with fate because he was in this untenable situation. He turned around and saw that she was standing at the foot of the bed, her hand resting on the poster in a pretty pose.

"My name is-" she hesitated, and he felt another stab of unbearable guilt as she had to think to remember her own name, "Charise. I wish you would call me that."

"Certainly," he said, intending to do nothing of the sort. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do."

Sheridan waited until the door closed behind him, then she grabbed the poster with the other hand as dizziness and nausea overwhelmed her. Carefully, she eased herself into a sitting position on the satin coverlet, her heart hammering from weakness and fear.

What sort of person was she, she wondered, to have wanted to wed a man who thought as he did? What sort of person was he? Her stomach churned when she remembered the cold way he'd looked at her and the callous way he'd spoken about love.

What could she have been thinking of to have pledged herself to such as he? Why would she have done that? Sheridan wondered bitterly.

But she already suspected the answer to that: it lay in the wondrous way she felt when he smiled at her.

Only he hadn't been smiling when he left. She'd given him a disgust of her with all her talk about love. When he came to see her in the morning, she'd apologize. Or leave the matter entirely alone and simply try to be lighthearted and amusing company.

Reaching for the edge of the coverlet, she climbed into bed and pulled it up to her chin. Wide awake, her throat aching with tears, she stared at the canopy above her. She would notcry, she told herself. Surely no irreparable damage had been done to their relationship tonight. They were betrothed, after all. He would surely overlook her small error in viewpoint. Then she remembered that she'd asked him if he had a heart, and the lump of tears in her throat felt the size of a fist.

Tomorrow, everything would look brighter, she told herself. She was still weak and tired right now from the exertion of bathing and dressing and washing her hair.

Tomorrow, he would come to see her and everything would be all right again.

13

Stephen was in the middle of dictating to his secretary when Whitticomb arrived three days later. He was smiling, Stephen noticed, as the butler showed him past the double doors that opened into the study. A half hour later, when he came downstairs after visiting his patient, he did not look nearly as pleased. "I'd like to talk to you privately, if you can spare me a few minutes," he said, waving off the appalled butler who was standing in the doorway, trying to announce him.

Stephen had an uneasy premonition of what he was going to hear, and with an irritated sigh, he dismissed his secretary, shoved his correspondence aside, and leaned back in his chair.

"I distinctly remember telling you," Hugh Whitticomb began, as soon as the doors closed behind the secretary, "that it is imperative to keep Miss Lancaster from becoming upset. The specialist I consulted on memory loss stressed that to me, and I stressed it to you. Do you remember that conversation?"

Stephen reined in a sharp retort at the physician's tone, but his voice turned curt. "I do."

"Then will you please explain to me," Dr. Whitticomb said, noting his adversary's warning tone and tempering his own accordingly, "why you have not gone up to see her in three days. I told you it was important that she have diversions to distract her thoughts from her troubles."

"You told me, and I made certain she has every conceivable sort of feminine diversion I could think of, from books and fashion plates to embroidery frames and watercolors."

"There's one 'feminine diversion' you have not offered, and one she has a right to expect."

"And that is?" Stephen said, but he already knew.

"You have not offered her even a modicum of conversation with her fiance."

"I am nother fiance!"

"No, but you areinadvertently responsible for the fact that she doesn't have one. I'm amazed you've forgotten that."

"I'll overlook that insult," Stephen warned icily, "as having been spoken by an aging, overwrought family friend."

Dr. Whitticomb realized that he had not only chosen the wrong tactic with his opponent, but also pushed him too far. He had forgotten that the cool, uncompromising nobleman seated behind the desk was no longer the mischievous little boy who'd sneaked to the stables in the middle of the night to ride a new stallion, then bravely refused to cry while Hugh set his broken arm and lectured him on the folly of inviting danger.

"You're quite right," he said mildly. "I am upset. May I sit down?"

His opponent accepted his apology with a tentative nod. "Certainly."

"We 'overwrought, aging' fellows tend to tire rather easily," he added with a grin, and was relieved to see a trace of amusement soften Stephen's features. Stalling for time, Hugh gestured toward the brass cigar box on the leather inlaid table beside his chair. "Every now and then I develop a sudden urge for an excellent cigar. May I?"

"Of course."

By the time Hugh had the cigar lit, he had decided on a better way to convince Stephen of the gravity of Charise Lancaster's situation, and he was satisfied that enough time had elapsed to dissipate any lingering hostility Stephen might have felt about Hugh's last ill-advised attempt. "When I went upstairs just now," he began, studying the thin trail of white smoke curling off the cigar in his hand, "I found our patient thrashing about in bed, moaning."

Alarm sent Stephen partway to his feet before the physician held up his hand and added, "She was sleeping, Stephen. Dreaming. But she felt a little feverish," he added, dishonestly, to help attain his goal. "I was also informed that she's not eating well, and that she's so lonely, and so desperate for answers, that she talks to the chambermaids, the footmen-anyone at all who might be able to tell her about this house, about herself, or about you, her own fiance."

Stephen's guilt tripled at this vividly drawn picture of Charise Lancaster's suffering, but that only made him more adamant. "I am nother fiance. I am the man who is responsible for his death! First I murder him, and then I take his place," he gritted caustically. "The whole notion is obscene!"

"You did not murder him," Hugh said, astonished by the true depth of Stephen's guilt. "He was foxed and he ran out in front of you. It was an accident. These things happen."

"You wouldn't be able to shrug it off as easily as that if you'd been there," he shot back savagely. "You weren't the one who pulled him out from under the horses. His neck was broken, and his eyes were open, and he was trying to whisper and trying to breathe. Christ, he was so young, he didn't look like he ought to be shaving yet! He kept trying to tell me to 'Get Mary.' I thought he was asking me to find someone named Mary. It didn't occur to me until the next day that, with his dying breath, he was talking about getting married. Had you been there and seen and heard all that, you wouldn't find it so goddamned easy to excuse me for running him down and thenlusting after his fiancee!"

Hugh had been waiting for Stephen to end his guilty tirade so he could point out that Burleton reportedly had a penchant for recklessness, drunkenness, and gambling, none of which would have made him a decent husband for Miss Lancaster had he lived, but Stephen's last revealing sentence banished everything else from his mind. It explained Stephen's uncharacteristic cruelty in leaving her alone upstairs.

The forgotten cigar clamped between his teeth, Hugh leaned back in his chair and regarded the angry earl with amused fascination. "So, she appeals to you in thatway, does she?"

"In exactly 'that way,' " Stephen bit out.

"Now I understand why you've been avoiding her." Narrowing his eyes against the smoke, Hugh considered the situation thoughtfully for a moment, then continued. "Actually, it's little wonder you find her irresistible, Stephen. I myself find her utterly refreshing and completely delightful."

"Excellent!" Stephen said caustically. "Then you tell her you'rereally Burleton, and then youwed her. That would set everything to rights."

That last sentence was so subtly revealing, and so interesting, that Hugh carefully withdrew his gaze from Stephen's face. He removed his cigar from his mouth, held it in his fingertips, and studied it with apparent absorption. "That is a very interesting line of thought, especially for you," he remarked. "I might even say a revealingline of thought."

"What are you talking about?"

"I am talking about your statement that if someone were to marry her, 'that would set everything to rights.' " Without waiting for a reply, he continued, "You feel responsible for Burleton's death and her memory loss, and you're physically attracted to her. Despite that-or because of all that-you're adamantly opposed to doing something as simple and therapeutic as pretending to be her fiance, is that right?"

"If you want to put it that way, yes."

"That's it then," Hugh said, slapping his knee and smiling with satisfaction. "That's the whole puzzle, all nicely put together." Without waiting for his annoyed adversary to demand an explanation, Hugh provided it: "Miss Lancaster has no fiance because of an accident for which you were unavoidably responsible, but responsible nonetheless. Now, if you were to pretend to be her affianced husband, and if she were to develop a deep affection for you while you were pretending to be that, then under those circumstances, she might expect-might even have a rightto expect-that you turn the deception into a reality.

"Based on your prior attitude toward the female set, which by the way has your mama in complete despair of ever seeing you married, there would be no chance of Miss Lancaster bringing you up to scratch. But Miss Lancaster is not as easy for you to dismiss as the others have been. You find her physically desirable, but you also fear that you might find her irresistibleon longer acquaintance, otherwise you wouldn't be letting her presence drive you into hiding in your own home. Nor would you be callously avoiding someone who clearly needs your company and attention.

"If you had nothing to fear, you wouldn't be avoiding her. It's as simple as that. But you dohave something to fear: For the first time in your life, you have reason to fear the loss of your cherished bachelorhood."

"Are you finished?" Stephen inquired blandly.

"Quite. What do you think of my summation of the situation?"

"I think it is the most impressive combination of unlikely possibilities and faulty logic I have ever heard in my life."

"If so, my lord," Dr. Whitticomb said with a congenial smile, peering at him over the tops of his spectacles, "then why are you denying her the comfort of your presence?"

"I can't answer that at the moment. Unlike you, I haven't stopped to analyze all my misgivings."

"Then let me provide you with an added motivation to overcome any misgivings you may have or invent," Hugh said, his tone turning brisk and firm. "I've been reading articles on the subject of memory loss, and consulting with those few colleagues who have some experience in it. It appears that it can be brought on, not only by an injury to the head, but by hysteria, or in the worst cases-a combination of both. According to what I've learned, the more desperate Miss Lancaster becomes to recover her memory, the more upset and depressed and hystericalshe will become when she cannot. As her agitation increases, the harder she'll find it to recall anything." With satisfaction, he watched the younger man frown with concern. "Conversely, ifshe is made to feel safe and happy, it stands to reason her memory will return much sooner. If it everreturns, that is."

Dark brows had drawn together over alarmed blue eyes. "What do you mean 'if it ever returns'?"

"Precisely what I said. There are cases of permanent memory loss. There was one in which the poor devil had to be taught to speak and read and feed himself all over again."

"My God."

Dr. Whitticomb nodded to reinforce his point, then he added, "If you have any lingering doubts about doing what I've suggested, consider this as an added incentive: The young lady is aware that she had not spent a great deal of time with her fiance before coming here, because I've told her that. And she's also aware that she's never been in this house, or even this country before, because I've assured her of that too. Because she knows she's among unfamiliar people in unfamiliar surroundings, she hasn't already made herself sick with anxiety over not recognizing everyone and everything. But, that's not going to be true if she hasn't recovered her memory before her family arrives. If she can't remember her own people when she sees them, she's going to start falling apart mentally and physically. Now, what are you willing to risk in order to save her from that fate?"

"Anything," Stephen said tightly.

"I knew you would feel just that way when you understood the true gravity of the situation. By the by, I told Miss Lancaster that she need not remain in bed any longer, provided she doesn't attempt anything strenuous for another week." Taking out his watch, Hugh Whitticomb flicked the cover open and stood up. "I must be off. I had a note from your lovely mother. She said she's planning to come up for the Season with your brother and sister-in-law in a sennight. I'm looking forward to seeing all of them."

"So am I," Stephen said absently. Whitticomb was on his way out when it occurred to Stephen that in addition to everything else, he was going to have to involve his family in the deception he was about to put into full force. And even that wouldn't suffice, he realized as he shoved papers into his desk drawer. In a week, when his family arrived in London for the Season, so would the rest of the ton, and invitations to balls and all the other entertainments would begin arriving at his house by the hundreds, along with a daily stream of callers.