When a Stranger Loves Me (Love at Pembroke Palace Book 3)

by Julianne MacLean

  It was a palace to rival any other. That much he understood, even without the benefit of his memories. It was a testament to what Rebecca had said to him—that he was a very privileged member of a powerful and renowned English family. He should be thankful.

  He reached into his pocket for the watch Chelsea had found on the beach. He checked the time, but still did not recognize the damn thing. He slipped it back into his pocket.

  When at last they rolled up to the wide steps at the front entrance, he climbed out of the coach and, without a word to encourage Chelsea or make her feel welcome, offered his arm to her.

  He glanced at the clock tower overhead as he escorted her up the steps behind Devon and Rebecca and felt a strange rush of dread in his core, which he did not fully understand. Was it simply because he knew his father was losing his mind, and because of that, Blake must marry before Christmas? It didn’t feel like that was the source of it. Perhaps somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind he did remember other things, and now that he was home again, it would all come back to him, as Chelsea had suggested...

  They passed through the front door and entered the great marble hall, adorned with portraits, clean white columns, and impressive statues and busts. He looked up at a high frescoed ceiling—a scene of warrior angels battling their enemies against a vivid blue sky, dotted with white clouds. It had been painted by a gifted artist. The colors were subdued, yet vibrant, and the details were well-thought-out. All the noise and action was there for an appreciative art lover to admire. He was, in a word, mesmerized.

  When at last he tore his gaze away from the fresco, he noted that his brother was watching him intently.

  “It was painted in 1612 by Ramon Junius,” Devon said. “And there is another of his great works in the chapel.”

  “It’s very impressive.” Blake looked up again, but his attention quickly darted to a woman standing under the keystone arch to a gallery beyond the main hall. She stopped and placed a hand over her heart, then picked up her skirts and dashed toward him.

  Devon leaned in and whispered, “Your mother, the duchess.”

  Blake was grateful for the clarification, for he would never have guessed this beautiful, golden-haired woman was a day over thirty-five. She was slender and lovely, with youthful blue eyes and an ivory complexion.

  But how could any man not recognize his own mother?

  “Blake, my son.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and wept into his shoulder. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I’m perfectly fine,” he assured her, even though it was not entirely true.

  Drawing away from him, still half weeping with joy, the duchess acknowledged Chelsea at his side.

  “Mother,” Devon said, stepping forward—and again Blake was grateful for his brother’s helpful interruption—“this is Lady Chelsea Campion. She found Blake in a sea cave in Jersey and saved his life.”

  The duchess’s eyes warmed instantly. “Oh, my dear. How can we ever thank you?”

  “That is completely unnecessary, Your Grace,” Chelsea replied. “I only did what any person would have done in such circumstances.”

  Hardly, Blake thought.

  “I will want to hear everything,” his mother said. “I must know what happened to you. Every detail.”

  Just then a lanky, elderly gentleman marched out of nowhere, startling all of them with his harried gait and panicked expression. His frizzy white hair flew about in all directions, and he wore nothing on his feet—no shoes, no stockings, nothing.

  “This is your father,” Devon quickly said. “Say not a word about your memory loss. Pretend you know him.”

  “Where the devil have you been?” the duke demanded as he came to a halt in front of Blake. “Did you find Garrett?”

  “No, I did not.”

  The man’s wild eyes darted to Chelsea. “Is this your wife?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” His gaze traveled from her face to the hem of her skirts. “She’s pretty enough.”

  To his surprise, Chelsea smiled and inclined her head. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  Blake was not charmed, however. Turning to her, at his side, he spoke in a cool tone. “She is just a guest.”

  The duke examined her with a critical eye. He circled around her, looked down at her hips and backside, and squinted closely at the back of her head.

  Blake took an assertive step forward to intercede, for he did not like any man’s eyes on Chelsea that way, but Devon stopped him with a hand and discreetly shook his head.

  “She would make a good wife,” the duke said, coming around to her front again. “Why won’t you have her? What’s wrong with you? Are you blind? Or too fussy?”

  Blake wasn’t sure if he should laugh or hit something. This was completely absurd.

  “We are just acquaintances, Your Grace,” Chelsea said. “We met only recently.”

  “Ah,” the duke said, winking playfully at her. “Well, perhaps you will win his heart yet, my young beauty. Stranger things have happened when lovers meet at Pembroke.” He lowered his voice and leaned in closer. “We have secret passages, you know, from room to room. That’s why our shooting parties are always so popular. The gentlemen go out with the guns during the day, and bring them out fully loaded again at night, if you grasp my meaning.”

  The duchess cleared her throat and took her husband by the arm. “Come Theodore, it’s almost time for dinner. You must go and get ready. We’re having beef tonight.”

  “Beef you say?” He seemed to forget what they had been discussing, as well as the fact that his son had just returned after being missing for a month.

  “What an interesting man your father is,” Chelsea said to Blake after the duke was gone. “He has a sense of humor.”

  Rebecca smiled. “He certainly has his moments. We do love him.”

  “No doubt,” Chelsea replied.

  Blake could only shake his head. “Where are my rooms?” he asked, because he needed some time to himself—and time away from all these people he did not know.

  That night, Blake sat up in bed and shouted into the darkness. His gaze darted from the unlit fireplace to the window, then back and forth between the various pieces of heavy furniture adorning the room. Where was he?

  It took him a moment to remember that this was Pembroke Palace and he had returned to his home that very day, and this was his own private bedchamber. He had slept here since he was a boy.

  The dream flashed again in his mind.

  Tossing the covers aside, he leaped out of bed and strode to the table in the far corner of the room, where all his sketches were strewn about in a disorganized pile. Moonlight shone in through the paned window. It provided sufficient light to see the papers, which he sorted through with frantic hands, searching feverishly for the one he wanted.

  At last he found it—the sketch he had done of Chelsea that first day, when she took him down to the beach to sit on the rocks.

  He held it up to the moonlight and focused on the first thing he had drawn when a pencil found its way into his hand—the emblem in the corner. The octagonal shape he somehow knew but could not explain.

  A sudden, violent rage erupted in his gut, and he clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to roar like an animal and throw this bloody table out the window.

  But why was he so angry? Why did he want to grab someone by the throat and squeeze? If only he could remember...

  Or had he already strangled someone?

  Blake dropped the sketch as if it had caught fire and turned his hands over to look at his palms. Terror gripped his mind, and he backed away from the table and bumped into the bedpost. He put a fist to his forehead and shut his eyes, straining to remember something. Anything. But all he could think of was Chelsea. He wanted her there, close to him, even after all that had passed between them.

&nb
sp; Blake turned and started for the door. He had no idea what room she was in, but he had to find her. He needed her calm presence. He needed to talk to her about the dream and see her familiar face, smell her hair and hold her.

  Then he stopped himself.

  Looking back at his disheveled bed, he rummaged around inside his mind for composure, and cursed this wretched yearning. It was like some sort of addiction! She was the only person in the world he knew intimately, the only one who was familiar to him, especially now that he was in a strange place again.

  That alone was why he wanted her, he told himself. There was no other reason.

  Blake shut his eyes and remembered that he had a life of his own now, which included a great home with three brothers and a sister, and a duke and duchess for parents. He did not need a scheming vixen he could not trust, except for the fact that she might be carrying his child. If not for that, he would have left her behind in Jersey without a single glance over his shoulder.

  Breathing slowly, he tried again to calm the unexplainable wrath he still felt from the dream and tried instead to focus on what it meant. He returned to the sketch on the table, picked it up and looked at it in the silvery moonlight. All he saw, however, was the portrait of Chelsea, which he had drawn while sitting on the rocks, the day after they had made love for the first time. He could almost feel the sea breezes of Jersey blowing through the room. He could smell the salt in the air, hear the eternal hiss and roar of the ocean, and the seabirds calling out to one another.

  Still fighting his stubborn desire to see her, Blake picked up his pencil and began sharpening it, then settled down on the bed to put the images he saw in his mind onto paper. He hoped it would be enough to satisfy him.

  Chapter 20

  The following morning dawned with a thick and heavy humidity, and a fine mist blotted out the horizon. After staying up all night to sketch a number of portraits of Chelsea, Blake felt both dispirited and restless. He put the sketches into a box on the table, rose from the bed, dressed and ventured outside to the stables, looking for a horse to ride.

  The groom informed him which one was his favorite—a black gelding by the name of Thatcher—and in short order he was trotting out of the stable courtyard on Thatcher’s able back and heading in the direction of the lake.

  It would do him good, he decided, to explore the estate and see if he recognized anything. Perhaps an image from his childhood would materialize in his mind. Or something from more recent times.

  He rode down the lane and crossed the stone bridge. Thatcher’s hooves clopped steadily as he cantered along the west side of the lake. Blake could not help but admire the lush green landscape and revel in the peaceful sounds of nature—the ducks quacking on the still lake waters, the birds chirping in the treetops.

  It was nothing like the wild ruggedness of Jersey, with the constant thunder of the surf as it pounded against the steep cliffs, and the amazing force of the wind, blowing through the shrubs and trees and grasses. It was a very different world.

  He came to the far end of the lake, where it narrowed to a river, and followed a gravel path into the woods. He soon reached a whitewater cascade, where the noise of the rushing river drowned out the tranquility of the forest. He stopped for a moment to listen to its impressive roar—which to his great annoyance reminded him again of Jersey—then urged his horse onward, only to pull Thatcher to a halt when he encountered another early morning explorer making her way gingerly along the path on foot.

  It was Chelsea. She, too, stopped in her tracks.

  Blake’s horse skittered sideways at the unexpected presence of another person. “Whoa, now,” he said, to ease the animal’s agitation.

  He had not wanted to see or talk to Chelsea this morning, or even think about her, so he simply tipped his hat.

  She curtsied. “Good morning.”

  He promptly turned Thatcher around to head back in the other direction.

  “Wait, please!” Chelsea called after him with a hint of desperation, which made him stop again. Blake closed his eyes. When he turned around, she was walking toward him. “Please don’t go. I’ve lost my way.”

  He took in her appearance. She carried her notebook at her side, and her skirt was smeared with mud.

  “Did you lose your footing somewhere?” he asked.

  She glanced down at her dress. “Yes. I came from that direction.” She pointed behind her. “I had to cross over what turned out to be a steep mud slick. I’ve been following this river for an hour, and I don’t know how to get back to the palace. It’s not the same when you can’t hear the sea.”

  Thatcher anxiously sidestepped on the path, while Blake observed the clear note of distress in Chelsea’s voice. Tossing a leg over the saddle, he hopped down, took hold of the reins, and led Thatcher toward her.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. “It was clumsy of me, that’s all.”

  He looked down at the dark mud ground into her skirt and knew that she could not possibly have come through such an accident unscathed.

  Reaching carefully for her hand, he lifted it and turned it over to examine the chafed skin on the heels of her palms.

  His eyes lifted. “This looks painful.”

  She pulled her hand away and hugged the notebook to her chest. “It’s nothing.”

  “The palace is this way.” He gestured in the opposite direction. “I’ll take you back.”

  “That’s not necessary. I don’t want to interrupt your ride. Now that I know which direction is the right one, I will be on my way.” She started along the path, but he could see that she was working hard to hide a limp.

  “Don’t be stubborn,” he said.

  She kept walking. “I’m perfectly fine, Blake.”

  He followed with his horse in tow. “No, you are not. Let me take you back.”

  He caught up with her. At last she stopped and faced him. He glanced down at her notebook and made an effort to distract her from her impenetrable pride, which clearly was keeping her from accepting his assistance. “Were you writing?”

  “I was trying to, but the words wouldn’t come. It’s so quiet here, and strange. Nothing feels right.”

  “I know what you mean.” Then he realized for the first time that he might as well have been born on that bloody island a few weeks ago. It was all he knew.

  “I’m accustomed to the sound of the sea,” she continued. “And the smell of it, the feel of it in the air. It’s difficult to explain, but I feel quite...displaced.”

  He felt displaced himself. He had felt that way since he saw her mother dragging her up the stairs that final night.

  “Let me take you back to the palace,” he said again, struggling with the weight of his concern for her welfare and the genuine grief he felt, seeing her lost like this, when he was still so angry with her for what she had done.

  He had not forgotten. He would never forget. But he could not bear the idea of her falling and hurting herself.

  She turned away from him again and looked off in the direction of the wooded glen behind them. “This is not what I expected,” she said. “I wanted to come here and be formidable, and try to make things right between us, but I’m not sure if I have the stamina for this.”

  “For what?” he asked, worrying that she might want to leave, when she had agreed to stay until they knew her condition.

  “For the waiting,” she replied, meeting his gaze. “I don’t know how long we will go on like this, and I feel very lost. There is no one I can talk to—no one who is close to me. Your sister-in-law, Rebecca, has been very kind, but I feel like such an interloper. I am ashamed of my reason for being here, and I know everyone is suspicious of me. I cannot even look your mother in the eye, because she is such a lovely woman and she knows what I did. It’s not easy.”

  Blake had promised himself he
would not feel sorry for Chelsea or sympathize with her situation—not after what she had put him through—but try as he might, he could not help it.

  “Please,” he said, still laboring to keep a hard edge to his heart. “Allow me to take you back.” He held out a gloved hand.

  She stared at it and considered her options. Or perhaps she was thinking of her choices in the past...

  Finally, she placed her hand in his and let him assist her up into the saddle. When she was comfortably situated, he touched her ankle. “May I?”

  She nodded.

  Standing below her, he lifted her skirts and discovered a mud-stained stocking. He followed it up to a chafed and bloody thigh.

  “Chelsea...”

  “Yes, it hurts,” she finally admitted. “But I will not have you fussing over me.”

  He lowered her skirt to cover her leg, then led Thatcher down the wooded path. “When we reach the palace, I will send the housekeeper to see you. She’s very good with cuts and scrapes.”

  “How do you know that?” Chelsea quickly asked. “Do you remember things about her?”

  He felt his eyebrows pull together with surprise. “Yes. Somehow I do. I know this one thing.” A flicker of hope alighted in him. Perhaps in time he would remember more.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the watch. He looked at the gold hands and black Roman numerals, but still, it was unfamiliar. He slipped it back into his pocket.

  “Have you seen the Italian Gardens yet?” she asked. “Because I believe that is what you pictured in your mind that day on the beach. You mentioned mud puddles and a fountain and statue. When I looked out my window this morning, that is exactly what I saw.”

  He shook his head. “I have not seen it. The garden is below your window, you say?”

  “Yes. Your sister mentioned it to me last night. She said your father moved all the flowers and shrubs to higher ground because he believes the palace is cursed and a flood is coming. It is a symptom of his illness. So that explains the mud puddles you saw in your mind, and why you thought it was depressing. It was a true memory, Blake, and that is good news.”