Wherefore Art Thou. Read online

  Until he shook her, with enough force to cause her vision to blacken around the corners as the pain radiated through her. “Stop screaming!” he bellowed over her.

  His voice was so strong, spoken with such force, that she could feel the words like a wall hitting her face. A slap, a punch. It made her freeze. She was his prisoner, at his mercy, and there was nothing that she could do about it. And she was afraid. Mortally so.

  For a moment she thought, as her eyes rounded and bugged, that maybe her heart would freeze too, maybe she would die of the fright. It certainly would be a better fate than whatever he had planned for her.

  But she didn’t die. And she didn’t stay frozen forever.

  Instead, she melted.

  She deflated under the man’s grip, hands that were nearly the size of each shoulder, all of her fight and her hope that she would be rescued vomiting out of her in a whimper as trails of tears flowed heavily down her cheeks.

  She was lost in the sea of her own tears. For how long, she did not know.

  Suddenly his grip was gone and she was surprised by how much the loss of him affected her, how she missed the pressure. It was almost as though he had been forcing it all out of her, squeezing out her tears and the fear, and then he was gone. No longer were her emotions being squeezed out, but trapped inside.

  She lost track of him, then found him across the room, his back pressed up against the wall of a shadowed corner where the light from the window did not quite reach. His arms were crossed firmly over his chest and his eyes seemed of hollow sockets in the shadow. He looked something evil, sinister, but handsome all the same. Which was ridiculous.

  How could she be fantasizing over a man she knew nothing of?

  Unless she did.

  Her head quirked queerly to the side as she considered him.

  She began to relax, slowly, and completely against her will. She had every inclination to remain strident until answers to the questions she hadn’t vocalized were obtained, but she felt comforted by his presence. And she soon understood why.

  Soothing sounds were fluttering through the air and she traced them back to the dark corner where he stood, a statue slumped against the wall. “Shhhh,” he was saying softly, so softly that she wasn’t sure the sound was meant for her at all. “Shhhh. It’s all right. You’re all right. It will all be all right.”

  She watched him from her place on the bed, her eyes adjusting quickly to the darkness he was swathed in. She examined the hooded lids covering his far-away eyes, his large fingers biting into his unbelievably built biceps, his face wrinkled with concentration.

  And she waited. Waited for him to come out of whatever trance he was in, waited for him to come back from wherever it was he had gone to. As she waited, she stared.

  He was dressed as a gentleman should be, but he didn’t look like a gentleman. He wasn’t soft or beautiful. His hair was a bit too long, his nose had clearly been broken one too many times, his face had seen too much sun, his person had seen too much trouble as was told by the weary lines etched into his face, and his calloused hands had seen too much work. He was too tall and large to be fashionable, and built like a bear of a man. But a bear who had been starved. A bear hungry, ready to kill.

  He was handsome, but not in the traditional sense. He looked the sort to tend the land, not own it, even as the clothes he wore said otherwise. Nothing about him quite added up.

  She shivered.

  Who was he?

  She was absurdly intrigued by this puzzle of a man, and felt suddenly determined to put him together, to explore the stranger’s secrets.

  But she hadn’t the chance.

  As her tears faded into the background, into the past, he lurched, startling himself back into awareness. He snapped up so that he was standing straight, assisted by the wall no longer, and looked directly at her, which of course startled her to be caught so blatantly inspecting him.

  “Do you remember what happened?” he asked abruptly, his tone a mixture of formal inquiry and male asperity.

  Her head buzzed at the sound of his voice. Had he no ability to speak at any other volume less than that of a bark?

  She shook her head in reply, too nervous to trust her own voice.

  After instructing the maid, who she instantly recognized to be the figure that had been sleeping in the chair, to fetch the doctor, he explained, “You were in a carriage accident.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “How?” he mimicked, his brows drawing down over his dark sockets. “You ran right out in front of our carriage. You dislocated the shoulder and hip on your right side, but both have been set.”

  “I remember that,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

  But… She ran out in front of their carriage? How had he so breezily drifted past such an essential bit of information?

  The man leapt into her mind, interrupting the course of her thoughts with, “The doctor says you will need to remain abed for at least a week, possibly longer, but otherwise he thinks that you will make an excellent recovery.”

  His words sparked a memory. Though, it was less of a memory and more of a glimpse. There was pain, and a doctor, and a man who had been named her husband, but there was nothing else.

  She looked at the man that was still mostly obscured from her view. She didn’t recognize his face, not what she could make out of his shadow, but she did recognize his voice.

  It was him. The man from that almost-memory.

  The doctor had called her his wife, had he not? How come she didn’t remember him?

  He was her husband.

  She ran out in front of her husband’s carriage?

  “It makes no sense,” she said, inspecting him in the hopes that it would evoke some sort of memory.

  Shouldn’t she remember him?

  “What doesn’t?” the man asked.

  “Why I wasn’t in the carriage.”

  “I beg your pardon?” he asked, noticeably stiffening and his voice constricting.

  “You’re my husband. Shouldn’t I have been in the carriage with you?”

  The man eyed her queerly for several seconds, and she got the distinct impression that he was deeply confused. Then he asked, carefully, his voice the same depth of a bear’s growl, “Do you remember your name?”

  And what a silly question it was, because of course she knew her name. How could she not, after all?

  However, when she opened her mouth to answer, sure that her name was right on the tip of her tongue, she found that she had no answer there. She stopped, and thought. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought harder. Still there was nothing. There was nothing, not even the black of sleep, or the memory of the back of her eyes. There was this moment, and there was that other, painful memory in the red room, but there was nothing else. There were no memories, no names. Nothing.

  “I—I don’t know,” she answered, her mouth forming a small “O” of shock as she came to the realization that she didn’t have a clue as to who she was.

  *****

  Well, that was an unexpected turn of events.

  He should be in London right now. If he were, he would be the shabbily dressed guest of honor at a party thrown in his name—the Major in the King’s army, the former French prisoner, the gentleman of marriageable age who had shirked Society in favor of travel in the years since his release, finally reunited with his homeland, and Society. Shopping for a bride to save his estate. Instead, he was the fool who’d run away from the limelight and ran a lady down in the middle of nowhere.

  What had he done? What was he going to do?

  When Desmond had found her lying in the road, he had known immediately that she was a lady. A young lady. Barely over sixteen if he had to guess, and probably not yet out in Society. And for some reason she had been alone, without a chaperone, running like mad through a forest in Derby.

  He hadn’t thought twice about what had to be done.

  She’d needed a doctor.

  His ears
were still ringing and he was struggling to stay present, so when the doctor had referred to her as his wife, he hadn’t had the wits to correct him. And his chewed nails were biting into his palms as he fought for control when the innkeeper followed suit, so it didn’t fully register then, either. Desmond realized the reality of the situation when he stormed into her room amidst her screaming, holding her against the mattress, just wanting to make her shut up, staring into her terrified blue eyes that held almost no color.

  That was when he became aware. When his fractured mind, that had seemed to be somewhere else entirely, settled upon the truth of the moment.

  He had arrived here with an injured woman and they’d been declared man and wife by two individuals, and he hadn’t corrected them. Of course the entire village would follow suit in thinking them married.

  It had all spun out of hand so quickly, Desmond didn’t know how to reel it back in. This woman wasn’t his wife—he didn’t even know who she was! And it appeared that no one else did either.

  She was clearly a young lady, defined by the fine clothes she was wearing and her clean and polished nails and, as such, she had a lady’s reputation to protect. Desmond may not have known who she was or why she was alone in a village where no one seemed to recognize her, but he was certain there must be a reason.

  He’d given her the benefit of the doubt. He’d waited until she woke to look for answers—the simple things, like her name and her reason for being alone—so that he could restore her to her home, and they could both continue on their merry way.

  Except that, when she awoke, she wasn’t quite herself.

  Or perhaps she was.

  Either way, Desmond didn’t know who she was.

  And so, it seemed, neither did she.

  Chapter 7

  For three days she was bedbound.

  For three days she did not remember who she was.

  Three days!

  It was driving her mad.

  She was trapped. Left alone in her room, unable to move, unable to do anything for herself other than dwell on the fact that she had no idea who herself even was.

  She should know who she was. It might have been conceivable to forget a few details, but to forget her entire life? It wasn’t normal.

  The doctor did not seem to agree. She had suffered a severe blow when she ran out in front of the carriage—something she could not remember doing or even imagine that she would do. Had it not been for the dark bruises that covered her, she would not have believed it.

  Amnesia, he called it.

  She could remember that. She could remember what the doctor said to her three days ago. She could remember his name—Doctor Timothy Hart. She remembered every time he came to check on her in the days since. She could remember how he smelled faintly musty, like the back of an old closet.

  How was it that she could remember all that, but couldn’t remember who she was?

  How?

  She needed answers. She needed to get out of this bed. She was certain that, if she could just look out the window, a memory would spark.

  She’d had to have been in this town for a reason, and she needed to know what it was. Until then, until she knew why she was here, and who she was, she wasn’t leaving. There was nowhere for her to go.

  Of course, none of this changed the fact that she felt like a prisoner.

  Yes, this had been her plan, but she wasn’t thinking rationally. Clearly. If the events of the past few days were any indication at all, it was that. Her judgement could not be trusted. Of course, what other choice did she have?

  True, she had been alarmed at the outset that this man, Lord Thornton, had allowed the small village to think them married, but she quickly came to recognize it as a small blessing. It provided her the opportunity to recover her memory in her own time. And though Lord Thornton had insisted he send immediately to London to put notice in the paper, an alert to her family who were no doubt searching for her, she had persuaded him otherwise. Even she could see the lack of wisdom in advertising her current state. If she could not remember her family, anyone could potentially kidnap her without either of them being the wiser. And even she knew that a lady’s reputation would never recover from such public exposure.

  And so, Lord Thornton had agreed. Reluctantly.

  In return, he had granted her one week to restore her memory, to remember who she was and where she was from.

  One week.

  It didn’t appear one week would be nearly enough time.

  Doctor Hart hadn’t been very specific on a time when her memory would reset, but she could only assume that the longer it took, the less likely it was to ever return. Already it had been three days and still nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  She stared up, unblinking, at the cracked ceiling above her bed. The same ceiling she’d been staring at for days, bored nearly out of her mind, resorting to memorizing the pattern of the fractures in the plaster.

  She needed to figure out who she was and why she had left her home, before it was too late and Lord Thornton grew tired of their charade. He wouldn’t wait forever. It was quite clear that he didn’t want to wait right now, as it was. She had to find her answers before he found them for her. She had to find the answers before she was bored literally out of her mind, and what semblance of a brain she had left turned to gelatin.

  She certainly wasn’t finding them lying in this bed with nothing to stare at other than the ceiling and the drapes in the sparsely decorated room.

  She needed to see, to smell, to experience, in order to remember.

  With a deep breath, she resolved to do just that.

  With her left hand, she clawed her way to the side of the bed, wincing with each movement as her slowly healing joints whined in retaliation. When she stood, she made certain to put all her weight on her left side, steadying herself by hugging one of the four shaky posts of the bed.

  She stood there, clinging on to the support, for a full minute, breathing heavy and hard through her nose. Every breath, every moment, washed her in a new layer of pain. She could feel the blood draining down to her toes, leaving her body feeling chilled. She clenched her jaw, knit her brow, attempting to overcome the pain using her mind alone.

  She needed to move. She needed to get to that window and see outside.

  She needed to remember who she was.

  The window was freedom, victory, recognition. She was certain of it.

  She had to get there.

  Without pain, there was no gain, so the saying went.

  She must have heard that phrase somewhere, because she knew it like it was in her blood.

  And then she knew that her self-prescribed treatment was working. She was remembering already. Now, all she had to do was make it to the window and her memory would be fully restored.

  It had to be.

  The room wasn’t large and though there was but five paces between the corner of the bed and the window, the short distance seemed insurmountable.

  But it had to be done.

  Clinging to the bedpost, she hopped forward on her left foot. Though it was barely a hop at all. She moved hardly six inches and even that caused a shockwave of pain to flood her senses, her cry muffled only by the gritted teeth from which the sound had passed through.

  She had to get to that window.

  No pain, no gain, she repeated in her mind.

  No pain, no gain.

  Beads of cold sweat squeezed out of her pores as the pain filled her veins in anticipation of the next movement. Then she did it again, and this time the small leap put her far enough away that she could no longer use the post for balance. She had set herself adrift in the middle of the room, and she might as well have been in the ocean. She tried to reach for a nearby chair, but it too was out of reach.

  She closed her eyes and tipped her chin up into the air, taking a deep breath through her nose. When she let it back out, she once again attempted to scoot forward with a little jump, this time with nothing to steady her
. And this time, when she landed, she was unable to keep her right foot from making contact with the floor.

  She shrieked as she fell, her loaned nightgown pooling around her like the too-big sack that it was.

  “No!” she cried out bitterly as the door connecting her room to the one beside it, snapped open.

  “What has happened?” she heard Lord Thornton ask in his always-brisk voice, coming once again to her unrequested rescue. Damn him.

  He was more beast than man, with a voice more like a growl, and a distant presence that left her wishing he wouldn’t visit at all. Lord Thornton was an angry man, with a temper he kept just barely in check under the surface of his façade.

  She slammed her fist once into the floor and then covered her face with her hand.

  He would make her return to bed now. Doctor’s orders and all that.

  She would get nowhere with him. She had used logic to persuade him against notifying all of England of her situation and whereabouts. But logic did not stretch her legs beyond the foot of the bed. She was to remain bedbound until the doctor deemed otherwise and, on that, Lord Thornton would not compromise.

  It was like she knew him.

  They had met only just three days ago and they’d barely spoken since, but she somehow felt that she knew this man, knew what his reaction would be. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would insist that she return to bed and stay there for the duration of the mandatory bed rest, which was proving to be impossible, because lying in bed all day was not nearly as enjoyable as it sounded.

  She sighed exaggeratedly, and in a mocking tone said, “Oh, I don’t know, just thought I’d pop outside for a bit of fresh air.”

  “You need your rest,” came his gruff response, directly on top of hers.

  “No, I need to remember who I am,” she snapped, her temper slowly rising. It was as though his bad attitude was contagious.

  And then his rough hands were tight around her torso and, without warning, he was pulling her up to a sitting position, leaning her against the lone chair in the small room. “Get your hands off of me!” she shrieked, slapping him away.