Authors: Judith McNaught
Tags: #Man-Woman Relationships, #England, #Historical Fiction, #Americans - England, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #Americans, #Amnesia, #Historical, #English Fiction, #General, #Love Stories
Until You (5 page)
She looked confused, not appalled, but that didn't diminish Stephen's own sense of relief. He hadn't made that subtle "confession" about his true nature because he needed or desired absolution, or wished to do penance. What mattered most to him at the moment was that he had at least been honest with her for a change, and that redeemed him a little in his own eyes.
As he headed down the long hall to his own chamber, Stephen felt completely elated about something for the first time in weeks, no, months: Charise Lancaster was on the way to a full recovery. He was completely certain of it. She was going to pull through, which meant he could now notify her father of her accident and at the same time give the man some needed reassurance about her eventual recovery. First he had to locate him, but that task and the delivery of the letter could both be handed over to Matthew Bennett and his people.
S
tephen glanced up from the letter he was reading and nodded a greeting at the light-haired man in his early thirties who was walking toward him. "I apologize for interrupting your holiday in Paris," he told Matthew Bennett, "but the matter is urgent, and delicate enough to require your personal attention."
"I'm happy to be of assistance in any way I can, my lord," the solicitor replied without hesitation. The earl gestured toward a leather chair in front of his desk, and Matthew sat down, feeling no affront—and no surprise—that the man who had summoned him from a badly needed holiday was now making him wait while he finished reading his mail. For generations, Matthew's family had been privileged to act as the Westmoreland family's solicitors, and as Matthew well knew, that honor and its enormous financial rewards carried with it the obligation to make oneself available whenever and wherever the Earl of Langford desired.
Although Matthew was a junior member of the family firm, he was well versed in the Westmorelands' business affairs, and he'd even been called upon several years ago to handle an extremely unusual personal assignment from the earl's brother, the Duke of Claymore. On that occasion, Matthew had felt a little intimidated and off-balance when he answered the duke's summons, and he'd suffered an embarrassing lack of composure when he heard the nature of his assignment. However, he was older now and wiser, and quite happily confident that he could handle whatever "delicate" matter of the earl's that required his attention—and without so much as a blink of surprise.
And so he waited with perfect equanimity to discover what "urgent" detail needed his particular attention, ready to give his advice on the terms of a contract, or perhaps a change in a will. Given the use of the word "delicate," Matthew was inclined to think the matter probably involved something more personal—perhaps the settlement of a sum of money and property on the earl's current mistress, or a confidential, charitable gift.
Rather than keep Bennett waiting any longer, Stephen put the letter from his steward on his Northumberland estate aside. Leaning his head against the back of his chair, he gazed absently at the intricate plasterwork on the frescoed ceiling twenty-five feet above, his mind switching from the steward's letter to the other, more complicated problem of Charise Lancaster. He was about to speak when the under-butler, an elderly man whom Stephen belatedly recognized as Burleton's former manservant, interrupted with a polite cough and said a little desperately, "Miss Lancaster is insisting upon getting out of bed, milord. What shall we tell her?"
Stephen transferred his gaze to the butler without lifting his head, smiling a little because she was obviously feeling much better. "Tell her I do not intend to let her out of bed for a full week. Tell her I'll join her after supper." Oblivious to the mixture of shock, admiration, and dismay that flickered across Matthew Bennett's normally bland features, or the erroneous conclusions the other man might draw from his smiling remark, Stephen decided to tackle his problem head-on. "I seem to have acquired a 'fiancée,' " he began.
"My heartiest felicitations!" Matthew said.
"She isn't
my
fiancée, she's Arthur Burleton's."
After a distinct pause, during which Matthew struggled to think of some appropriate response to that revelation, he said, "In that case, please convey my… er… felicitations to that gentleman."
"I can't. Burleton is dead."
"That's a pity."
"I killed him."
"That's much worse," Matthew said before he could stop himself. There were laws against dueling, and the courts were taking a stern posture of late. Furthermore, the blatant presence of the dead man's fiancée in the earl's bed wasn't going to do his case any good either. The solicitor's mind already searching for the best possible line of defense, Matthew said, "Was it swords or pistols?"
"No, it was a carriage."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I ran over him."
"That's not as straightforward as swords or pistols," Matthew said absently, "but it
is
much easier to defend." Too worried to notice the odd look the earl was aiming at him, he continued thoughtfully, "The courts might be persuaded to take the point of view that if you'd truly meant to kill him, you'd have chosen a duel. After all, your skill with pistols is widely known. We can call dozens of witnesses to attest to that fact. Theodore Kittering would make an excellent witness in that regard—he was a crack shot before you wounded him in the shoulder. No, we'd better leave him out of it, because he isn't fond of you, and the duel would be bound to come out during the trial. Even without Kittering's testimony, we should be able to convince the court that Burleton's death wasn't what you actually intended—that it was incidental to the event and, therefore, loosely speaking, an accident!" Very pleased with his logic, Matthew withdrew his thoughtful gaze from across the room and finally looked at the earl, who said very clearly, and very slowly, "At the risk of appearing hopelessly obtuse, may I inquire what in the living hell you are talking about?"
"I beg pardon?"
"Am I to understand you think I ran him down deliberately?"
"I was under that impression, yes."
"May I ask," his lordship drawled, "what possible reason I could have for such a deed?"
"I assume your reason had something to do… er, was directly related to… er… the presence of a certain young lady who is not permitted to leave your… ah… bedchambers."
The earl gave a sharp crack of laughter that had a rusty sound to it, as if laughter were foreign to him.
"Of course," Stephen said, "how foolish of me. What other conclusion could you have reached?" Straightening in his chair, he spoke in a brisk, businesslike tone. "Last week, the young woman upstairs—Charise Lancaster—arrived in England from America. She was betrothed to Burleton, and their marriage was to take place the following day by special license. Since I was responsible for his death, and since there was no one else to tell her what had happened, I naturally met her ship and gave her the sad news. I was talking to her on the dock when some idiot lost control of a loaded cargo net and it struck her in the head. Since her only travelling companion was a ladies' maid, and since Miss Lancaster is too ill to leave England for a while, I'll have to depend upon you to notify her family of all this and to escort any family member who wishes to come back here to England. In addition, I want to settle Burleton's affairs. Put together as complete a dossier on him as you can so I can see where to begin. The least I can do is make sure his name is cleared of debts that he didn't have time to settle before he died."
"Oh, I see!" Matthew said with a smile of relief that he was happy to see the earl return.
"Good."
Reaching for a quill and paper on the desk, Matthew said with pen poised, "Where does her family reside and what are her relatives' names?"
"I don't know."
"You don't… know?"
"No."
"Perhaps," Matthew suggested, very cautiously, and very respectfully, "we might make inquiries of the young lady?"
"We might," Stephen said dryly, "but she will have precious little to tell you." Taking pity on the solicitor, he added, "Her injury was to the head and severe enough to cause a loss of memory, which Dr. Whitticomb believes is a temporary condition. Unfortunately, although her health is mostly restored, her memory isn't."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Matthew said sincerely. Thinking that concern for the young woman had somewhat diminished the earl's usual perspicacity, he suggested diplomatically, "Perhaps her maid could be of help?"
"I'm certain she could. If I knew where she was." With veiled amusement, Stephen watched the solicitor struggle to keep his face from showing any emotion whatsoever. "I sent someone to her cabin within minutes after the accident, but the maid was nowhere to be found. One of the crew members thought she might have been English, so perhaps she went home to her family."
"I see," Matthew replied, but he still wasn't overly concerned. "In that case, we'll begin our inquiry on the ship."
"It sailed the following morning."
"Oh. Well, what about her trunks? Was there anything in them to give us a clue as to her family's direction?"
"There might have been. Unfortunately, her trunks sailed with the ship."
"You're certain?"
"Quite. In the immediate aftermath of the accident, my only concern was to get her medical attention at once. The following morning, I sent for her trunks, but the
Morning Star
had already sailed."
"Then we'll begin our search at the ship's Office. There's bound to be a passenger manifest and a cargo manifest, and they'll be able to tell us what her ports of call were in America."
"Start with the shipping office," Stephen agreed. He stood up, concluding the interview, and Matthew promptly arose, his mind already on the search he was about to instigate.
"I've only been to the Colonies once," he said. "I shan't mind another visit."
"I'm sorry to have cut your holiday short," Stephen repeated. "However, there's another reason for urgency, beyond the obvious one. Whitticomb is becoming concerned that her memory hasn't shown the slightest sign of returning. I'm hoping that seeing people from her past may help."
A
s he'd promised, Stephen went upstairs to see her later that evening. He'd made it a practice to visit her twice each day, and although he kept them very brief and impersonal, he found himself nevertheless looking forward to them. He knocked on her door, and when there was no response, he hesitated then knocked again. Still no reply. Evidently his instructions that a maid was to be with her at all times had not been followed. Either that or the servant had fallen asleep on duty. Both possibilities angered him, but his primary emotion was alarm for his houseguest. She'd wanted to leave her bed. If she'd decided to try it, despite his instructions, and then collapsed with no one there to help her or sound an alarm… Or if she'd lapsed back into unconsciousness…
He shoved the door open and strode into the chambers. The
empty
chambers. Baffled and annoyed, he looked at the bed, which had been neatly made up. Evidently the little idiot had not seen fit to follow his orders, and neither had the maid!
A soft sound made him swing around. And stop cold.
"I didn't hear you come in," his houseguest said, walking out of the dressing room. Clad in a white dressing gown that was too large for her, with a hairbrush in one hand and a blue towel loosely draped over her head, she stood before him barefoot, unselfconscious, and completely unrepentant for ignoring his instructions.
Having just been needlessly subjected to several awful moments of fear, Stephen reacted with a flash of annoyance, followed by relief, and then helpless amusement. She'd borrowed a gold cord from the draperies and tied it around her waist to hold the white dressing robe closed, and with her bare toes peeping out from beneath the long robe and that light blue towel over her head like a veil, she reminded him of the barefoot Madonna. Instead of the real Madonna's serenely sweet smile, however, this madonna was wearing an expression that looked bewildered, accusing, and distinctly unhappy, all at once. She did not make him wait to find out the cause.
"Either you're extremely unobservant, my lord, or else your eyesight is afflicted."
Caught completely off-guard, Stephen said cautiously, "I'm not certain what you mean."
"I mean my hair," she said miserably, pointing an accusing finger to whatever was concealed beneath the towel.
He remembered that her hair had been matted with blood, and assumed the wound to her scalp had bled even after Whitticomb had stitched it. "It will wash right out," he assured her.
"Oh, I don't think so," she said ominously. "I already tried that."
"I don't understand…" he began.
"My hair is
not
brown—" she clarified as she swept the towel away and picked up a fistful of the offending tresses to illustrate the problem. "Look at it. It's
red
!"
She sounded revolted, but Stephen was speechless, completely transfixed by a heavy mass of shiny, flaming strands that tumbled in waves and curls over her shoulders and the bodice of her robe and down her back. She released the handful she was holding, and it ran through her fingers like liquid fire. "
Jesus
…" he breathed.
"It's so… so brazen!" she said unhappily.
Belatedly realizing that her real fiancé wouldn't be standing there, staring at something he would have already seen, Stephen reluctantly withdrew his gaze from the most magnificent, and unusual, head of hair he had ever seen. "Brazen?" he repeated, wanting to laugh.
She nodded and then impatiently shoved aside a glossy panel of coppery locks that slid away from her center part and draped itself over her forehead and left eye.
"You don't like it," he summarized.
"Of course not. Is that why you didn't want to tell me its real color?"
Stephen seized the excuse she'd inadvertently handed him and nodded, his gaze shifting back to that exotic hair. It was a perfect frame to set off her delicate features and porcelain skin.
It began to register on Sheridan that the expression on his face wasn't revulsion at all. In fact, he looked almost… admiring? "Do
you
like it?"
Stephen liked it. He liked every damn thing about her. "I like it," he said casually. "I gather that red hair isn't quite the thing in America?"
Sheridan opened her mouth to answer, and realized she didn't know the answer. "I… don't see how it could be. And I don't think it is in England."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because the maid who helped me admitted after I pressed her that she had never seen a head of hair this color in her
entire
life. She looked perfectly appalled."
"Whose opinion matters most?" he countered smoothly.
"Well, when you put it that way…" Sheridan said, feeling shy and overheated beneath the warmth of his smile. He was so beautiful—in a dark, manly way—that it was difficult not to stare at him and even more difficult to believe he'd actually chosen her above all the women in his own country. She loved his company, his humor, and the gentle way he treated her. She counted the hours between his visits, looking forward eagerly to each one, but the visits had all been very brief and completely uninformative. As a result, she still knew nothing about herself, or about him, or about their past relationship. She was no longer willing to exist in limbo, waiting for her capricious memory to return at any moment and provide the answers.
She'd understood Lord Westmoreland's point of view, which was that she shouldn't jeopardize her health by overtaxing her mind, but her body was healed now. She'd gotten out of bed, bathed, and washed her hair, and then put on the dressing robe, in order to prove to him that she was well enough now to ask questions and hear answers. Her legs felt wobbly, but that might be due to a lingering weakness from her ordeal or, more likely, it was another symptom of the flustered nervousness she sometimes felt in his presence.
She nodded toward a pair of inviting gold-silk-covered sofas positioned near the fireplace. "Would you mind if we sat down? I'm afraid I've been in bed so long that my legs have grown weak from disuse."
"Why didn't you say something before?" Stephen said, already stepping aside so that she could precede him.
"I wasn't certain it was allowed."
She curled up on the sofa, tucked her bare feet beneath her, and arranged the dressing robe neatly around her. One of the things she'd obviously forgotten, Stephen noted, was that well-bred young ladies did not entertain gentlemen who were not their husbands in their boudoir. Stephen, on the other hand, was as aware of this as he was his own transgression in being there. He chose to ignore both issues in favor of his own desires. "Why did you say you weren't certain you were allowed to sit down?"
Her embarrassed gaze slid to the fireplace, and Stephen felt absurdly deprived of the delight of her face, and absurdly pleased when she looked back at him. "I understand from Constance—the maid—that you're an earl."
She looked at him as if she almost hoped he'd deny it, which made her the most unusual woman he'd ever met.
"And?" he said when she didn't continue.
"And that I ought properly to address you as 'my lord.' " When he merely lifted his brows, waiting, she admitted, "Among the things I do seem to know is that in the presence of a king, one does not sit unless invited to do so."
Stephen suppressed the urge to shout with laughter. "I am not a king, however, merely an earl."
"Yes, well, I wasn't certain if the same protocol applied."
"It doesn't, and speaking of the maid, where the devil is she? I specifically said you were not to be left alone at any time."
"I sent her away."
"Because of her reaction to your hair," he assumed aloud. "I'll see that—"
"No, because she'd been with me since dawn, and she looked exhausted. She'd already tidied the room, and I certainly didn't want to be bathed as if I were a child."
Stephen heard that with surprise, but then she was full of surprises, including her next announcement, which was stated with a great deal of resolve and only a tremor of uncertainty. "I've been making some decisions today."
"Have you now," he said, smiling at her fierce expression. She was not in any position to make decisions, but he saw no reason to point that out to her.
"Yes. I've decided that the best way to cope with the loss of my memory is to believe that it's merely a passing inconvenience, and for us to treat it that way."
"I think that's an excellent idea."
"There are a few things I'd like to ask you, however."
"What would you like to know?"
"Oh, the usual things," she said, choking on a laugh. "How old am I? Do I have a middle name?"
Stephen's defenses collapsed, leaving him torn between the wild urge to laugh at her wonderful, courageous sense of humor and the wilder urge to pull her off the sofa, shove his hands into that mass of gleaming hair and bury his lips in hers. She was as enticing as she was sweet, and more sexually provocative in that robe and curtain cord than any gorgeously dressed—or undressed—courtesan he'd ever known.
Burleton must have been in an agony to take her to bed, he thought. No wonder he intended to marry her the day after she arrived…
Guilt abruptly doused Stephen's pleasurable contemplation of her appealing assets, and shame ate at him like acid. Burleton, not he, should have been sitting across from her. It was Burleton who should have been the one to enjoy this cozy moment with her, to see her curled up on the sofa, barefoot; it was Burleton who had the right to be mentally undressing her and thinking of taking her to bed. No doubt he'd been thinking of little else while he waited for her ship to arrive.
Instead of all that, her ardent young lover was lying in a coffin, and his
killer
was enjoying the evening with his bride. No, Stephen corrected himself with savage self-disgust, he wasn't merely enjoying a pleasant evening with her, he was
lusting
after her.
His attraction to her was obscene! It was insane! If he wanted diversion of any kind, he could choose from among the most beautiful women in Europe. Sophisticated or naive, witty or serious, outgoing or shy, blondes, brunettes,
and redheads
—they were his for the asking. There was no reason on earth to feel a wild attraction to this woman, no reason to react to her like some randy adolescent or aging lecher.
Her quiet voice jerked him from his furious self-reproach, but his feelings of revulsion lingered. "Whatever it is," she said half-seriously, "I don't think it has very long to live."
Stephen's gaze snapped back to her face. "I beg your pardon?"
"Whatever it is that you've been glowering at over my left shoulder for the last minute—I hope it has legs and can run very quickly."
He gave her a brief, humorless smile. "My thoughts drifted. I apologize."
"Oh, please do not apologize!" she said with a nervous laugh. "I am vastly
relieved
to know you were thinking of something other than my questions with that black scowl on your face."
"I'm afraid I've forgotten the questions entirely."
"My age?" she provided helpfully, her delicate brows lifting. "Do I have a middle name?" Despite her lighthearted tone, Stephen realized she was watching him very, very closely. He was disconcerted by the way her eyes were searching his, and he hesitated for a second, still struggling to switch his attention to the topic at hand. She broke the silence before he could, by heaving a great, comical sigh of dismay and warning him in an exaggerated, dire voice, "Dr. Whitticomb told me this malady I have is called am-ne-si-a, and it is
not
contagious. Therefore, I shall be very much aggrieved if you mean to pretend you have it too, and thus make me look quite ordinary. Now, shall we start with something a little easier? Would you care to tell me
your
full name?
Your
age? Take your time, think about the answers."
Stephen would have laughed if he hadn't hated himself so much for wanting to. "I am three and thirty," he said. "My name is Stephen David Elliott Westmoreland."
"Well that explains it!" she joked. "With so many names, it's little wonder it took you awhile to recall them all!"
A grin tugged at his lips, and Stephen tried to negate it by chiding as sternly as he could, "You impertinent baggage, I'll thank you to show me a little more respect."
Unchastened and unrepentant, she tipped her head to the side and inquired curiously, "Because you're an earl?"
"No, because I'm
bigger
than you are."
Her peal of laughter was as musical as bells and so infectious that Stephen's face hurt from the effort to keep his expression blank.
"Now that we've established that I am impertinent and you are larger than I," she said, giving him a laughing, innocent look from beneath her lashes, "would it be equally correct to assume that you are also older than I?"
Stephen nodded because he couldn't trust his voice.
She pounced instantly. "By how many years?"
"Persistent little chit, aren't you?" he said, caught between amusement and admiration at how neatly she'd twisted the subject back around to her questions.