by Anne Stuart
“Lord Rohan,” she murmured, making her voice a little more raspy than normal. She didn’t want to do anything to jog his memory, to look at her closely. He’d probably thought she was a figment of his imagination, the so-called Harpy who’d bullied him into taking his medicine, who’d dressed his wounds, and teased him back to life.
The woman who had saved his life the night he decided to hang himself.
“If we may continue with the baptism.. .” the vicar was saying in a disapproving voice.
“Stand with Emma,” Melisande said helpfully. “She’s Alexandra’s other godparent.”
Without a word Brandon took his place by her side, and she cast a covert glance at him from beneath lowered lids. He was much taller than she remembered, but then, she’d never stood beside him. His injuries had kept him bedridden for the short period she’d taken care of him. One look told her he was wearing his dark hair in a long, unfashionable queue, a second was that he was very much bigger than she was. Scotland had been good to him. Despite the ruin of his face and leg, the ruin of his life, he’d managed to pull himself back from the brink of utter disaster and become the man he should be. That knowledge filled her with joy, something she would celebrate more fully when she was safely alone. He was going to be fine. She’d always known it, but having the proof standing beside her almost banished her complicated emotions.
Keeping her eyes down, she observed what she could see of his body. His legs were impossibly long, and he didn’t use a cane. That in itself was astonishing when she remembered the wounds she’d bandaged, but in that quiet time in the hospital she had learned one thing—he was as stubborn as she was. She wouldn’t put anything past his abilities.
She could see his ungloved hand resting lightly at his side. He had beautiful hands—she’d always loved them. Long fingers, elegant and strong, and suddenly she remembered something else.
Brandon Rohan had made her feel things she’d thought she was incapable of feeling. After years in the trade, servicing men for their pleasure, she had been sure she could never bear to have a man’s hands on her again.
But he had touched her, and she’d wanted more.
Now fate had thrown them together once more, and her normal courage failed her. She wouldn’t panic—she simply had to get through the christening and the festivities afterwards and hope he didn’t pay any attention to her. Tomorrow morning she’d come up with some excuse to head back to London rather than spend the next five days avoiding him. In truth, she had good reason to go. The sudden rise in attacks on what people thought of as “the poor unfortunates” meant she had more work, given that Mr. Fenrush and his coterie refused to waste their time with undesirables. She’d already spent two days at the large Dower House that served as the rural Dovecote, the term some wag had come up with for Melisande’s home for women wishing to change their lives, and for the time being there was nothing else to do. The newcomers to Rippington, the London Gaggle, had settled in nicely, though Mollie Biscuits and Long Polly still complained loudly. Emma would have been worried if they hadn’t.
It was ridiculous to think that Brandon might recognize her. When he’d come back from the Afghan War he’d been concussed, his memory hazy, all his energy concentrated on staying alive. That time in the charity hospital would hardly have lingered, particularly once he got his memory back. Touching her would have meant nothing to him.
She managed to stand very still—her time in the operating room had taught her that particular skill, and when the moment came to pledge herself to her tiny goddaughter she stepped forward and spoke in a low voice, ignoring him.
He did the same, treating her with the courtesy of a stranger, and when Alexandra awoke screaming with the first drops of baptismal water on her tiny face he laughed, and Emma couldn’t resist stealing a glance as she accepted the squalling baby from the priest.
She hadn’t remembered his smile. He was a handsome man even when he was tormented, darkly brooding, lost in the hell of the Heavenly Host’s domain. He was breathtaking when he smiled.
He must have caught her staring at him, for he glanced down at her, but she quickly ducked her head, turning her attention to the baby. Alexandra wasn’t fond of strangers, but for some reason she seemed to like this tall, strange man who held out one strong finger for her to grasp, and her blue eyes focused on him, her tears drying up as quickly as they had come.
The service ended shortly thereafter, and Emma took a deep breath. She would have to bear the close presence of Brandon Rohan for less than a day, and she’d endured far worse. Tomorrow she would be back in the city, she reminded herself, back in her crowded rooms and her work at the hospital. Tomorrow all this would be over and if she were very careful she need never see him again.
Alexandra’s nurse stepped forward to take the baby from her, and Emma had no choice but to release her, reluctantly. It was then she made the dire mistake of lifting her head, only to stare directly into Brandon Rohan’s cool blue eyes, his half-ruined, half-beautiful face, and it felt as if her stomach dropped to the cold slate floor of the chapel.
She kept her own expression carefully blank, and there wasn’t a spot of recognition on his face. Brandon Rohan’s Harpy had disappeared into the mists of his memory, and she was nothing but a stranger to him.
It was relief that swept over her, she told herself. She would still need to be careful, but over the last three years he’d forgotten her face, her very existence, and little wonder, given the shape he’d been in. Any connection she might have had with him had vanished into the air, and she need never worry about it again. This was relief, she told herself firmly.
“Brandon, you accompany Mrs. Cadbury back to the house,” Benedick said. “You don’t mind, do you, Emma?”
Of course, she minded, but she couldn’t think of a viable excuse. Fortunately, Brandon was equally unwilling. “Much as it would honor me, brother mine, I’m afraid I’ve brought my horse. Unless you’ve brought an extra groom, I’ll have no choice but to ride.”
“We’ll send someone back for the horse.”
“I’m a dusty mess,” Brandon said.
“Emma won’t mind. She’s a surgeon—she spends her days in far more disgusting conditions than even you could provide.”
Emma froze, afraid Benedick’s casual words might jog Brandon’s memory, but the man beside her didn’t blink. “Well, in that case I promise not to bleed on her unless I find it absolutely necessary.”
It was a joke, Emma realized belatedly, and she was supposed to laugh at it. Today of all days she didn’t feel like laughing, but she forced her mouth into a polite smile. He’d forgotten her well and truly—even the reminder of her connection with hospitals hadn’t jarred his memory. Surely, she could survive a ten-minute drive back to the country house without incident.
Except when he put his hand on her arm to help her up into the carriage. She’d flinched, as she always did when a man put his hands on her, but his hands were different, far worse. They were familiar. Wickedly, heartbreakingly familiar.
She had touched him, bathing the fever from his wasted body, changing his bandages, reading to him, even singing to him in her soft alto, the old Welsh lullaby her granny used to sing to her, “All through the night.” She’d kissed his sweating forehead when he was suffering from delirium. She’d held his hand when he grew restless, and impossible as it seemed, she’d almost fallen in love with him. She’d kissed his mouth …
Looking back, it was nothing more than a dream, a dream he’d already forgotten, a dream she’d best let go of, and fast.
She only had to survive an uncomfortable five minutes of polite conversation during the short drive and she would be free. She eyed him covertly as he dropped into the seat opposite her, keeping her head lowered.
The carriage started smoothly enough, and she waited for him to begin the required social dialogue. He said nothing, and the silence grew long and labored until she finally looked up, almost defiantly.
He was
watching her with lazy curiosity, seemingly unmoved by the social gaffe. “They’re gray,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” The most obvious topic of discussion was, of course, the weather, but it was a clear, beautiful day with a bright blue sky, not a cloud in sight.
“Your eyes, Mrs. Cadbury. They’re gray.”
Oh, God help her, he wasn’t going to flirt with her! That would finish her entirely. She put on her coolest look, one that managed to frighten some of the younger surgeons who tried to lord it over her. “How observant,” she said in a flat voice that sounded just the slightest bit more hostile than was necessary. It appeared that she hadn’t taken his forgetfulness as well as she’d hoped.
“Well, considering that you seem to find my dusty boots to be of alarming fascination it required a real effort. Have you known my sister-in-law a long time?”
“Years,” she said shortly, then realized she was compounding her rudeness. “We work together on her projects.”
“Ah, yes, Sweet Charity. I gather that was her ‘nom de guerre.’ And what do they call you?”
“Mrs. Cadbury,” she said repressively.
He was singularly unmoved by her attempts to thwart him. “I somehow get the feeling you disapprove of me, Mrs. Cadbury. Have tales of my sordid past reached your delicate ears?”
If anyone had a sordid past she did, and she wasn’t about to pass judgment on anyone, particularly someone in Brandon’s position, broken by war, victim of the depredations of the Heavenly Host. She lowered her eyes again. “I make it a practice not judge other people.”
“Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone?” Brandon said softly. “May I assume you are not without sin?”
This was worse than she’d imagined in her most devilish daydreams. He was playing with her, a woman who was a complete stranger to him. In another man she might have almost called it flirting, but there was no light in his blue eyes, in his ruined face. “No one is without sin, Lord Brandon.”
The right side of his mouth quirked in amusement, the left side, the damaged side, was still. He looked so different and yet exactly the same—she would have known those brilliant blue eyes anywhere. The left side of his face had improved with the years. One eye still drooped, his mouth was frozen in a saturnine smirk, but the skin was no longer raw looking, fading instead to a textured patchwork of scars. The right side of his face was. . . beautiful. “You strike me as the exception, Mrs. Cadbury. If temptation ever came your way I’m certain you would scare it off with that forbidding expression of yours.”
Forbidding expression? Never in her life had anyone told her she had such a thing. She wasn’t sure whether to be offended or pleased. “In truth, Lord Brandon, I am particularly impervious to temptation.”
“Never given in? Even once?”
That was one thing she could answer truthfully. It hadn’t been temptation that had sent her into men’s beds, it had been desperation. “Never.”
He leaned back against the squabs while she sat ramrod straight. “Well, it’s a rare soul that can claim that distinction. You quite put me to shame.”
It was her own shame she felt. What would he think if he knew she’d once been London’s youngest madam? “I don’t. . .” she began, but the carriage had drawn up in front of the sprawling manor house Benedick Rohan had bought for his wife.
“You don’t what?” he said, but she was already free, the door opening, and escape was at hand.
“I don’t wish to keep you away from your family, Lord Brandon,” she said politely, taking the groomsman’s hand to step down onto the wide, curving drive. “Enjoy your visit.”
Brandon watched her move away from him with dignified but impressive speed, and he frowned. His social graces were sadly rusty, but Melisande’s friend seemed to have taken him in dislike. She must have heard rumors of the way he’d ruined his life three years ago – it was hardly a secret. It was no less than he deserved, but he’d worked hard to put the guilt behind him. He truly didn’t want to wallow in it again.
He could simply avoid the woman. That, or see if he could change her mind about him, but that would be a very bad idea. Back before the war he’d been a charmer – he could get any pretty girl to smile, and Mrs. Cadbury was a very pretty girl, but he was much better off keeping his distance. There was no room in his life for a casual liaison, a mistress or a wife. He was still doing penance, and probably would for the rest of his life. He had been a drugged wreck of a man, participating in acts that appalled him, when he remembered. At the time he’d derived no pleasure, he’d simply gone along with it, and he wasn’t through paying for all those sins.
No, Mrs. Emma Cadbury of the beautiful gray eyes and the stern expression was decidedly none of his concern. He would mend fences with his brothers and then head back to Scotland, where life was far simpler, and forget all about the woman.
Except that she wasn’t forgettable. There was something about her that would haunt his dreams, a timeless feel to her, as if he’d known her before and would know her forever.
And then he laughed out loud as he climbed out of the carriage, managing the feat without favoring his aching leg. Had the sight of a beautiful woman suddenly turned him into an adolescent? The very idea of a stranger touching his non-existent heart was absurd. He was a practical man – there was no room for mooning over what he had chosen not to have. He glanced at the front entrance as he made his way carefully up the broad stairs. There was no trace of her, like some fairytale princess she’d disappeared. In a few days, he would do the same.
Two hours later the reception was in full force, a crush of people that Brandon endured with a grim smile. He’d known his time as a hermit was coming to an end, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Where is my esteemed brother Charles?” he murmured to his sister-in-law as she cooed over the baby in her arms. In truth, he had expected to find anything to do with children boring, but this little scrap of a thing was oddly appealing, with her red face and fierce blue eyes. “I expected to see his disapproving face glowering at me wherever I went.”
“Charles has been delayed,” Melisande said glumly, making no effort to defend her pompous brother-in-law. “He’ll be here tomorrow.”
“Excellent,” he said, equally glum. Charles could make any comfortable time an exercise in gloom. That gave him a second reason to make an early escape. He glanced around the room, then gave in to temptation. After all, he’d be gone soon enough – he could indulge himself. “And where is the fascinating Mrs. Cadbury?”
Melisande didn’t bother looking up from her cooing infant. “She should be here, though she tends to end up in a corner somewhere more often than not. You didn’t say anything to offend her, did you?”
Brandon raised an eyebrow. “Why should I do that? She’s a perfectly amiable female, if somewhat shy.”
Melisande made a derisive sound and Brandon’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you find that amusing?”
“The thought of Emma being shy or even particularly amiable. She simply doesn’t have much use for social conventions, or men, for that matter.”
He was getting drawn in, and he cursed himself for even bringing up the subject. Teasing Charity Carstairs Rohan would fix things. “Indeed?” he said in a fop-like drawl. “Is she one of those extraordinary women who prefer their own sex? And since you’re her dearest friend does that mean. . .?”
“Behave yourself, Brandon!” she snapped. “I would have thought three years in Scotland would make you think before you spoke.”
He laughed. “On the contrary, like Mrs. Cadbury I have a similar disregard for social conveniences. And I also prefer women. We have a great deal in common.”
“She does not prefer women!” Melisande said. “At least, not in the manner you’re suggesting. She simply doesn’t care for men. I expect it comes from her studies. She is a surgeon, which is extraordinary, but I know the other surgeons treat her with a fair amount of disdain.”
“Perhaps. A surgeon? How extraordinary. And what made her decide she wanted to cut into human flesh? Part of her dislike of the male gender, perhaps?” he said lightly.
“I have no idea. Why don’t you ask her?” His sister-in-law was sounding irritated with him, and he couldn’t blame her. He was irritated with himself. What happened to his plan to keep away from temptation?
“I would like to,” he said, “if I could find her. That’s what started our conversation, if you remember.” He gave Melisande his most beguiling smile, one he seldom bothered to use. “I don’t suppose you have anything other than claret punch to drink.”
Melisande’s gaze darkened. “You’ll find a bottle of brandy in Benedick’s study, if you must.”
“No, my dear sister-in-law, I’m looking for something with less alcohol, rather than more.” He despised having to admit it, but there was no choice. He hadn’t had a drop of wine, beer, or spirits since he’d left for Scotland, and he wasn’t about to start now.
Her obvious relief annoyed him, but he said nothing. “There’s lemonade on the children’s table.”
“I’d rather not haunt the children, thank you very much. This face can be a bit daunting. Is there anything that looks less like a child’s drink?”
Sweet Charity sprang into action. “I’ll have Richmond bring you something immediately. It’s a warm day for March.”
“Could he bring me Mrs. Cadbury as well?” he said dryly.
“If you look hard enough you’ll doubtless find her, unless she’s trying to avoid you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why should she?”
Melisande shrugged. “No reason I can think of. Go rescue your brother from the vicar, would you? Benedick despises him, but he’s forced to be polite.”
“Certainly, my dear. I have no great fondness for the clergy myself. But if you see your friend you must promise to hold onto her for me.” Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
