Desmond knew the emotion well.
He wanted to back up, away from it, but the wall was preventing him from pushing backwards any further.
He should leave now. Walk out the door. She was fine. She didn’t need him.
But his feet were firmly affixed to the floor beneath him. His understanding of the emotion he heard in her voice caused him to bite down—not literally, but it felt like his brain was biting itself, trying to stop the memories before they formed.
He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to know why she sounded like that, what emotion was lurking behind it. He could hardly manage his own turmoil, he couldn’t be burdened with that of another’s pain.
His ears began to ring. Or perhaps they were already ringing and he merely hadn’t taken notice until that moment.
“Beg your pardon?” He kept still and stiff waiting for her reply, hoping that it would never come.
“I’ve been trapped in this bed for three days. When morning comes it will become the fourth. I can’t do anything. I’m injured. And I have no idea of who I am. I am not okay.”
It all came out in a mad rush that Desmond could not quite comprehend at full speed. It was like the words toppled out of her mouth and down onto the floor at his feet, requiring that he pick them up one by one. Several seconds passed in which he simply stood there, staring blankly, his brow knit with concentration, replaying the syllables in his mind, connecting them so that they formed coherent sentences. And then, at the end of it all, he heard the sniffle.
His eyes, which had been firmly affixed on the wall opposite him, trailed over to meet her eyes, which were hard and focused on his.
Perhaps she wasn’t crying. Or maybe she was merely trying to hide the fact that she was. Either way, she was clearly miserable.
And who wouldn’t be?
He certainly would be if he was confined to a bed for any extended period of time against his will. However, he couldn’t say that forgetting who he was would be the worst thing in the world.
Though, she wasn’t him. She was a young lady and she couldn’t survive alone, without her memories.
But what was he supposed to do about it?
He hadn’t much experience with women. Not in this manner. Not with her sort.
He had never—not once!—been trapped in a situation where he was pretending to be married to a lady, but he rather suspected that it was his responsibility to lift her spirits in a moment such as this.
But how?
How was he to do that? How was he to tell her that all would be well when he didn’t know that it would be? In fact, it was his experience that the more you wanted things to turn out right, the more likely they were to do the exact opposite.
But beyond all that, what was one to do in the presence of a lady that might or might not be crying?
Desmond certainly hadn’t any idea.
So he stood, frozen. For precisely ten awkward seconds that he counted out in his mind as his eyes skittered about the room.
Then he took one hesitant step toward the door. Followed by another.
He didn’t say anything. It was enough to handle the internal dialogue he had going on with himself, much less converse with the subject of his thoughts.
Perhaps if he could continue moving slowly, he could leave the room and she wouldn’t say anything. There would be a door between them and it would be like she wasn’t there at all. He could pretend that there wasn’t a lady in the next room who may or may not be crying.
Then he looked to her face.
She definitely did not look as though she were crying, though she did look awfully wounded.
He had always pictured ladies as being reduced to fits of tears when their feelings were hurt, all their emotions broken upon their faces. But this young lady was nothing like that. She looked broken, yes, but like the way a stone looks when you take a pickaxe to it. Her lips were pinched as though she were trying to keep them from trembling, her eyebrows were drawn up over her nose, her forehead and nose both wrinkled. And yet, she did not cry. Instead, there was a strength in her sadness.
The picture stopped him short.
Damn.
Damn the damsel.
He couldn’t just forget that she was here. He would have to deal with her.
Desmond rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling that was blocking his view of Heaven. He wanted to sigh. It was late and, while he might not be able to sleep, he didn’t particularly have the energy to solve problems at this hour. Not problems that were unclear and clearly not easy to fix. Though, to his credit, he did contain the sigh of frustration he desperately wanted to release. And against his better judgement—and every cell in his body screaming for him to do otherwise—he heard himself uttering, “Would you like me to keep you company?” At which the lady’s demeanor brightened considerably.
“Would you?” came out on a sigh. Unlike the wearisome sigh that Desmond was holding back, hers was a sigh of barely contained excitement. Or, at least, relief.
“I offered,” he muttered, though he wasn’t quite sure why he had. Offered, that is. He definitely shouldn’t have offered. Shouldn’t have even thought about offering. Not that he had thought about it. The words had merely burst forth from between his lips, completely unbidden; he certainly hadn’t wanted to utter them, but he had, the words spoken of their own volition.
What was done was done, so to speak.
The lady sat up, or as much as she could, pulling an extra pillow behind her back. She just sat there, staring at him expectantly. And Desmond stood, staring back at her. Or, rather, trying hard not to stare at her. She was wearing a nightgown after all, and while it was not the most attractive of garments—having been procured from the innkeeper’s wife who was by no means fashionable—it also wasn’t particularly thick.
Moving to sit up had shifted the blankets to pool in her lap so that Desmond could now make out a very clear outline of her…
No, he would not look.
All his muscles clenched. Not because he wanted her, of course. Merely because he was a man and, when a woman’s bosom was so readily obvious, it was difficult to look elsewhere, difficult to even attempt to look elsewhere.
Which meant that he couldn’t look at her at all. Because if his eyes slipped just a few inches, he would catch a glimpse and it was similar to a Venus flytrap: once you were sucked in, it was impossible to get out.
“You can pull up a chair,” rang her light voice above the din of his thoughts.
“Hm?” he queried.
She looked amused when he finally tore his eyes off of the clock positioned on the mantle above the small, unlit fireplace, and focused his attention back on her. One corner of her lips were twisted up wryly, her brows arched delicately, as her soft, innocent voice—surely much too innocent for all the trouble this young lady seemed to be—said, “Or would you prefer to remain standing?”
Desmond didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t the sort to joke. He liked order, organization. He liked rules and he followed them. He didn’t laugh—perhaps he had at one point in time, but not anymore—and he certainly didn’t know how to respond to someone who did. Not to mention the sudden changes in her emotional state were dizzying and difficult to follow.
He blinked. Once. Twice. Deliberately.
When all else fails, he told himself, act the part of the stiff, arrogant aristocrat he was supposed to be. Lie or not, at least it was believable and saved him from having to make a response.
Which left the unnamed lady on the bed to swallow and attempt to fill the awkward silence she would now, no doubt, believe she had created.
“There’s a chair beside the window, if you would like to sit, my lord.” Her voice now more serious to match his demeanor.
Desmond looked to the chair in question.
If being in this situation wasn’t bad enough, and being in her bedchamber was even worse, than sitting in a chair would really be tipping the scale of propriety in the entirely wrong direct
ion. It was only a matter of time before his reckless actions caused the world to teeter off balance.
But he’d said he would stay and keep her company, so he needed to at least try.
He lit a single candle before he pulled up the chair beside the bed. Or what could be defined as beside the bed. After all, he did make certain to keep a respectable three-foot gap between his knees and the edge of her bed.
As though any of this could be termed respectable.
As though there were any rules that applied to this situation.
“So, Lord Thornton, are you from around here?” Her tone seemed so normal.
“No,” he forced out from between his teeth, bared by his locked jaw.
She paused, presumably waiting for him to expand on his answer, but quickly gave up and asked the question that had been implied in the last. “Where are you from?”
His next answer was no easier to force out than the last. “Cumbria.”
“That’s quite far north,” she remarked with exaggerated enthusiasm. Or at least, what could be considered exaggeration in comparison to Desmond’s level of enthusiasm on the subject.
“Indeed it is,” he answered dryly. Desmond hadn’t thought he had the ability to be dry. A man came to know himself by the time that he reached two and thirty years of age, and Desmond knew that he was a lot of things, but dry was not one of them.
“What is it like?” She sounded like a child, which shouldn’t have been so surprising given her apparent age. Still, it was off-putting. She might seem to be a strong, resilient girl, but she was still that.
A girl.
Young.
Too young.
Innocence wasn’t something that he was accustomed to seeing. Innocence was a cherished dream that was long ago forgotten. There was no innocence left in Desmond’s world. Except for, apparently, this girl.
But she wasn’t a part of his world. She was only a guest in it for a little while.
An unwanted guest.
Soon she would be gone and no longer of his concern, so he really ought not to concern himself with her so much as he was now.
He should return to his room.
He closed his eyes.
Damn, it was hard to look at her.
It was hard to think about her.
Desmond didn’t know her and he didn’t want to know her.
Except, maybe, he did.
And that was frightening, because not only had he resolved to not know anyone ever again, but he was fairly certain that this was one person he could never know because she would never know herself.
When he opened his eyes and looked back at her, he kept every muscle tense in an effort to dissuade his body from having any feelings at all toward her. Which had the entirely opposite effect, of course. “There are a lot of hills,” he said, entirely without any feeling at all.
It was best to put emotions aside.
“Have you any family?” she inquired.
“No.”
Chased on the heels by, “So, no children?”
Desmond ground his teeth together. “None.”
“Kids are wonderful; don’t you think? They must be so much fun to dress.”
“I wouldn’t know,” came out in clipped tones, as though he hadn’t already given her every indication that this conversation was entirely intolerable.
The lady didn’t seem to notice. And if she did, she certainly didn’t appear to care. “No, I guess I wouldn’t either,” she said on a quiet, pretty, sad little sigh. Then, a little brighter and with an air of forced fortitude, “They’re probably miserable little wretches, the lot of them.”
To which Desmond grunted in response.
It wasn’t that he disliked children. He hadn’t been around enough of them to form an opinion either way, as most parents were of the mind to keep them blessedly put away when company was present.
What he disliked was the conversation.
Talking about himself wasn’t exactly his strong suit. He avoided it, just as he avoided people who would insist on talking about it. He preferred to steer conversations in other directions. Any other direction. Or to steer them into oblivion. There was no greater improvement upon a conversation one didn’t particularly want to have than having no conversation at all. He was used to the silence. Being held prisoner did that to a man; the silence was far preferred over the alternative.
This young lady, whoever she was, was uncommonly more persistent than any he had ever known.
“Do you want to have children?” she asked.
“Why are you asking me this?” It wasn’t that he shouted, per say, but his voice did take on a granite edge that had the same effect.
She tilted her head to the side and he felt her examine him.
It was her eyes. They were pale, even by the light of the candle he’d lit on the table beside the bed. They were neither blue nor grey. Well, perhaps they were one or the other, but he couldn’t tell. In this light, they seemed nearly entirely washed of color.
But while he could not discern their exact color, Desmond could tell one thing about them.
They were eyes that saw everything. They were eyes that roamed and gathered. They were not simply eyes. They were not merely the orbs through which a person viewed the world. Her eyes were two in a set of gears, a whole network laying behind them, feeding everything back to their source.
She was a person who saw.
She might have forgotten who she was, but what she was hadn’t forgotten her. She was intelligent, and that was dangerous. For Desmond, at least.
Finally, after what felt like literally an eternity, she spoke, all sincerity in her tone. “I apologize if I’m being too inquisitive. It’s merely that I know nothing about myself, as you are aware, so it is not as though we can talk about me.”
Her dainty and self-deprecating apology only served to make Desmond feel one hundred times the ass. He was sure she hadn’t meant it to have such an effect, but it was quite effective at doing just that.
Really, she was just a girl. Even though her eyes bore a wisdom he couldn’t fathom, there was not a worry line or wrinkle on her face. Her hands were clean and smooth. She was so young. And she had found herself dependent on him, a monster of a man, a man wrapped up in the disguise of a beast.
He should try to be kinder to her—if he could even fathom to understand the meaning of the word.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his self-loathing pushing its way into his tone.
“Why? It is not your fault that I do not remember who I am,” she said. Her voice was crystal, it was clear, it was his cool spring in Cumbria. One didn’t merely dip their toe into the water, they undressed down to their skin and jumped into the liquid depths without reserve.
In another life, Desmond would have done so, would have jumped in gladly. But he had never been that man, and that boy no longer existed.
He watched the corner of her mouth twitch as she added, her voice the same purity but now mixed with a fair bit of amusement, and her eyes rolling flippantly, “Well, if we’re being technical, it technically is your fault. But I don’t hold you responsible.”
“I am relieved, I’m sure,” Desmond murmured.
To which she responded with a giggle that made something inside of him jump, or at least quiver. Just what it was, was beyond him.
He hadn’t meant to be funny, and he was sure that he hadn’t been. He was quite certain that he had not a humorous cell in his body. But she had laughed anyway, and that made him smile.
Just a little.
A barely-there crack in the stone that the years had carved and chiseled and chopped away at to create the man.
It was completely against his will.
Desmond wasn’t sure when the last time he’d smiled was. He hadn’t realized that he even still knew how, the expression was so foreign to him. So foreign that it made him stare off into oblivion for a period, considering.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled and he didn�
��t want to remember. Remembering was difficult. What was even more difficult was the thought that he might be making more memories that he would wish to forget. Making memories with her.
If she could get him to smile so easily in just a few short days, what would she do to him in a week?
Desmond didn’t want to find out.
“Can I have some?”
Desmond’s head snapped up, out of the reverie he had disappeared into. He needed to stay on his guard against her. The alternative was dangerous.
His gaze followed cautiously to where she motioned, to the drink he still held in his hand, somehow, and which now rested on his knee.
“It’s scotch,” he said, as though no other explanation was necessary.
“And so it is,” she answered wryly.
Apparently, more explanation was necessary. Though, she wasn’t going to get it from him.
Desmond hardened his expression. He wasn’t sure what she was playing at, but she was up to something, that much was clear. Ladies did not drink such spirits. And if they did, it was only ever to lower their inhibitions or make them bolder. Neither of which would be appropriate, given the circumstances.
“You would like some scotch,” Desmond drawled, his tone equally dubious and wary.
“That is to what I was referring,” she quipped.
She was trouble, Desmond warned himself.
Trouble. As in, all capital letters.
And triple underlined.
Trouble.
He thought of offering her his glass, of calling her bluff.
What would she do if he gave it to her?
She had spent the past three days asking for things she could not have. To go to the window, to go outside. They weren’t exorbitant requests, but they were against the rules, against the terms of the arrangement they had entered into. She was to stay in bed for one week. Period. So, at every turn, Desmond had been forced to answer her no.
The lady was determined; he would give her that. But so was he. He should stay firm, keep cozy with the word “no.” That word kept people out of trouble. More specifically, that word would keep him out of trouble by keeping her out of trouble.
Wherefore Art Thou. Page 6
