The Viscount's Counterfeit Wife (34 page)

Reed wondered what
message the man was trying to convey. Something to do with Talia, but
what did they know of her?

“Or we might see you
sooner, at Epsom Downs.” The short, stout one gave him a friendly
poke in the ribs with his elbow. “Now that you’re back, you’d
never miss the Derby, eh? We’ll see you there, if not before.”

He shook hands with the
two men, groaning inwardly when the tall one again clapped him
heartily on his sore shoulder. He wondered if perhaps this man,
having failed to shoot him dead on the first attempt, was now aiming
to kill him with friendliness! He envisaged a pain-filled and
sleepless night ahead.

The pair went back to
join their female companions, who were caught up in their own
conversation and didn’t appear to be interested in Reed at all.
Well, six years was a long time and they looked quite young, so they
probably didn’t know him.

He walked swiftly to
the hackney and climbed aboard.

Epsom
Downs?
Horse races?
Did he bet on horses? Not a good sign for his pocketbook. Perhaps
that was why his dear spouse was upset with him. Those two had
assumed he wouldn’t want to miss the races, which meant he’d been
a regular and involved in more than a passing manner. That could
explain the lack of servants and carriage, if he’d squandered all
of his blunt on gambling.

Or he could be a horse
breeder. He preferred that picture. It fit in better with the solid
person he thought… felt…
assumed
he was.

Tally had taken her
pencil out and was sketching the two men. Reed didn’t recognize
them, that was obvious to her. She hoped they hadn’t noticed. Her
drawings would help Mr. Mason identify them, if she captured good
enough likenesses. She’d give him the sketches to show to his
sources. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, by tomorrow evening, someone
had recognized one or both of the men and they could reveal who Reed
was?

Foster gave a warning
knock on the door and, seeing Reed approaching the carriage, she
hurriedly slipped her sketching paper into her bag. No need to let
him know she was planning to have his friends investigated.

“Mason shouldn’t
have traipsed off like that, leaving you sitting here alone. He’s
supposed to be keeping you safe.” Reed was disgruntled and letting
her know it.

“The man’s entitled
to some time of his own.” It looked like they’d totally abandoned
the fiction of the Scot being her brothers’ friend.

She changed the
subject. “That must have felt strange.”

His look said that was
a colossal understatement.

She peered up at him.
“Did you not recognize them at all?”

Leaning back against
the squabs, Reed closed his eyes. “Their faces look familiar, like
people I knew long ago, but my mind remains a big black hole when it
comes to recalling their names or anything else about them.”

Indeed, his brain
seemed to have shut down completely. “Knowing I have no memory, why
did you walk away and leave me alone?” He heard the accusation in
his voice but felt no guilt. She deserved it.

“I don’t know those
men, so there was not much I could have done had I remained,” she
explained gently in her it-only-makes-sense tone of voice. “I
assumed it would be easier for you not to have to make introductions,
if you didn’t remember them. And it also provided you with an
excuse to leave them, if they knew you had me waiting in the
carriage.”

It made too much sense,
robbing him of his right to be angry with her. He felt aggrieved and
wanted to direct his ire at someone. Everything seemed strange
without the memory of who he was.

Looking out at the
people they passed, he wished with all his heart that his identity,
his life! would be restored.

Why did his wife not
know men who appeared to consider themselves his good friends?

Stop
looking for trouble.
The men said they hadn’t seen him
in six years and Mrs. P said he and Talia had been married for less
than three weeks. Of course, she didn’t know them. She barely knew
him!

Nothing strange in
that, was there?

She suddenly leaned
closer and, without saying a word, patted his arm to comfort him. She
must have seen his disappointment and realized how upset he was.
There wasn’t much she could say. They had no idea how long his
blank memory was going to continue. He did, however, appreciate her
calming touch.

They’d called him
“Selly”. His mind went back over every word that had been uttered
in their exchange. He heard the tall one mutter something that
sounded like, ‘Trust an Eames to find a beauty….’

No mention of the name
Leighton, not once. That seemed wrong. For all he knew, he was a
swindler, using Eames and Selly for some people and Leighton for
others. Christ! Had he married Talia under a false name? Was she
being duped too or was she part of the duping scheme?

He wished he knew whom
he could trust to answer all his questions truthfully. He’d have
liked to think his wife was trustworthy, but was she? He hated to
admit it, but her eyes were too frequently evasive.

He was preoccupied and
silent all the way back to the house. He didn’t like the doubts
that were starting to invade his beliefs. Doubts about himself.
Doubts about his wife.

He swallowed painfully,
past a hard lump of suspicion. She was all he had. He depended on her
for everything. And, besides that, he liked her. One hell of a lot!
He didn’t want to contemplate a world where he discovered Talia to
be counterfeit.

* * *

The library was in
total darkness when Reed entered it late that same night. With all
the questions buzzing about like noisy bees in his mind, he’d been
unable to sleep. He might as well make use of his rare wakefulness to
look for information on “Eames” and “Windhaven”. His
“friends” said it was the place he’d most want to visit upon
his return. They seemed confident it was important to him.

It must have something
to do with horses because, almost in the next breath, the shorter of
the two mentioned Epsom Downs and horse racing. And the vague images
he had of these men, they were on horses.

Had he worked there? Or
maybe it was his home?

Those men were
gentlemen. Odd how he’d recognized that immediately. He’d known
they were peers the instant he spotted them. That knowledge appeared
to have remained lodged in his brain when all sense of himself and
his own identity remained illusive.

They spoke as equals.
Was he one of them, then? If so, then he couldn’t have been working
at this Windhaven place. Nor must he be an actor or a thief, though
thieving depended largely on a man’s circumstances, he’d learned.
Some peers were capable of thievery and not only of enormous sums but
of a person’s body and soul. Ah… intriguing recollection. He
hoped one day he’d remember why he was so certain of a peer’s
potential for perfidy. (And his own penchant for alliteration!)

He wasn’t sure how
one researched a place? Perhaps he’d focus on the name he thought
he’d heard, instead. ‘Eames’.

He strode over to the
bookshelves and unerringly found the Debrett’s.

He stilled abruptly.
He’d known exactly where it was! Damn odd. He hadn’t even
hesitated.

Shrugging, he put the
notion aside, as he had many others in the past few days since he’d
awakened
sans
memory.
The good thing was that memories were starting to come back now. They
were piling up so swiftly, he was no longer jotting them all down,
and he wasn’t worried about forgetting them either. He was
discovering that what memory he did have was excellent.

He’d mentioned none
of this to “Missy,” as Foster was fond of calling Talia. Most of
the recollections flitting through his brain were inconsequential,
and none of them were of his wife. And that disturbed him. You’d
think the most important person in his life would feature large in
his memories.

Nor had any of his
recovered memories furnished him with information about who he was
yet. He sensed it was only a matter of time before he’d know all he
needed to get his life back, but impatience was eating him up. He
wanted it to happen now!

Setting first his
candle and then the tome down on the lectern, he began flipping
through the pages. “Eames.” Spelled as it sounded, he guessed.

“Collins…Davenport…E…
Eames!” There it was! Running his finger along the lines, he began
to read silently.

George Earnest Gordon Eames, Earl of Merkvale,

Viscount Selwich of Windhaven Forest.

Windhaven! He’d found it without
even looking! He sensed there was a little more than luck at play
here. He must have a connection to this family.

born 12 Oct. 1761; succeeded his father,

Thomas, the late earl, K.T., 19 April 1814;

married, 5 April 1784, Daphne Anne Dobbs,

da. of Lawrence Dobbs, 1st Lord Bentwick,

Reed Gordon Eames, Viscount Selwich, b. 9

February 1789…

Reed! That must be him!
He sat down abruptly in the large armchair behind the desk with the
book on his lap. He lit a second candle. He was almost afraid to
think it, but “Reed” was not that common a name and even the
nickname “Selly” fit, if he were Viscount Selwich.

If it was, he was born
in 1789, which made him thirty years old. He hadn’t realized he’d
forgotten his age. He hadn’t even thought about it. This Reed
Gordon Eames was heir to the family owning Windhaven. But if this was
his family, why had none of them come to visit him?

He sat back, reflecting
on what he’d just read, hoping it might unblock memories of himself
and his family, but nothing happened. The only idea going through his
mind was that, because of that dream, he was pretty sure he came from
a happy family, with loving parents.

He read a few more
lines. The Earl, George, was still alive — in his late fifties,
Reed calculated, and George had three sons and two daughters. So he
might have two brothers and two sisters. Surely one of them must want
to know how he was doing!

If he was the heir, why
had he been away for so many years? That didn’t sound like a happy
family. It sounded more like someone who’d been banished.

None of the sons were
yet wed. But since his marriage to Talia was of recent origin, it was
too soon to be recorded in any version of the book. Turning back to
the front page, he checked the publication date.

1813. Six years ago!
The same length of time he was gone. Coincidence? So many things
seemed to date back to six years ago. Even that man in the park
waiting for his son. Something serious must have happened at that
time to change the course of his and other people’s lives.

The question was, if
he’d been sent away and stayed away for that long, why had he come
back now? He leaned his head against the back of the leather chair,
hands linked behind his head, and pondered. He didn’t like to think
he was up to no good, but he’d been shot and that meant someone
wasn’t happy with him. Try as he might, he wasn’t able to
resurrect a single memory of his family or his previous activities,
other than that vague Christmas dream.

He closed the book and
stood up. He’d take it up to his room. On the slight chance Foster
had overheard some of his conversation with his “friends” this
afternoon and told Talia, he didn’t want to risk her doing some
research of her own. Especially if he’d wed her under a false name!

He’d joked about that
earlier, but it was becoming a real concern now. Why would they be
living under the names of Mr. and Mrs. Leighton? She must not know
his real surname! Was he a fraudsman, after all?

But if he was heir to a
title, why would he need to use a false name? Unless he’d done
something so heinous his family had disinherited him.

One thing he was
certain of, he’d better decipher what all of this meant before
allowing her to find out who he really was.

* * *

Philip Mason glanced
around the country inn. When he spotted Bernard Morley, or “the
Baron” as most of the Brotherhood called him, he made his way
across the room to him. He pulled out a chair opposite his friend.
“Why here? Why on the furthest outskirts of Town?”

“Didn’t want to
chance anyone we know overhearing us.”

He heard the unusual
caution in his friend’s voice. “What do we ever talk about that’s
so confidential?”

“There’s something
I have to discuss with you. Something I didn’t want overheard.”

The Baron’s low tone
forced Mason to lean forward to hear him above the noise from the
tables around them. “Now you’ve piqued my curiosity.”

“You have a new
client, I hear.” His friend’s intent gaze, as well as his words,
immediately made Mason wary.

“Yes?” Having
anyone, even a good friend, know about his business made him uneasy.

He and the Baron had
become friendly three years ago when he first came to Town. Mason had
sold out about a year after Waterloo and decided to remain in London
for awhile. Until matters at home had settled.

They’d first met as
rivals in a friendly boxing contest at Jackson’s and, after their
bout came to a draw, had become fast friends.

Even so, his
professional life was private.

Had it been anyone
outside their group, he’d have even denied knowledge of having a
client, but as luck would have it, he’d landed among an enlightened
bunch. No stigma was attached to working to earn a living in their
group of friends. He knew that was not the case among most of their
peers.

The Baron had
introduced him to his group of friends, the Brotherhood of Spares. So
called because most of them were… or had been spares. As such, most
had to find a means of making enough blunt to survive in London. Some
gambled, others helped manage their families’ property, and he and
a good number of others had found a way to put the skills they’d
learned in the army to use helping others, while earning a good
living.