“I hate you,” she began, only to have her words cut off by a spasm of coughing.
“I’ve heard that too many times to take any notice of it, and I’m beginning to suspect you’ve a very limited vocabulary,” he replied and picked her unprotesting form up in his arms and carried her from the church to his carriage waiting outside.
Lady Malton was leaving the vicarage and glanced across the churchyard inquisitively as she recognized the Duke of Camareigh’s carriage sitting in front of the church. Her round face beneath her canary-yellow bonnet sharpened with interest as the duke came striding from the church with what looked to be a young gentleman clasped tightly in his arms. All Lady Malton could see were a pair of booted feet bobbing up and down and an eagle’s feather peeping over the duke’s shoulder. She squinted her eyes to see better, stepping quickly behind a bush when the duke glanced up, an ominous expression on his hard features.
How extraordinary, Lady Malton thought excitedly as the duke’s carriage rumbled off, a riderless horse following behind. Something was very strange here. There was something so familiar about an eagle’s feather. What was it? She gave a small gasp as she realized where she had seen an eagle’s feather before, but what in the world would the Duke of Camareigh be doing carrying the notorious highwayman, Bonnie Charlie?
***
Sabrina knew little of the next couple of weeks as she burned with fever and shook with chills. Drinking herb teas and having evil-smelling salves rubbed on her chest was all she recalled when she finally recovered her senses.
She woke one morning exhausted and drained, yet wonderfully relaxed as she lay in her bed. The sheets were fresh and cool and smelled of lavender. One of the casement windows was open and a balmy, rose-scented breeze moved the pages of a book left open in a chair near the bed. She turned her head towards the door as she heard voices and then it opened as Mary came in carrying a tea tray. She crossed the room silently and placed the tray on the table beside the chair with the book in it. Moving the book she sat down and poured herself a cup of tea.
Sabrina frowned as she noticed the dark circles under Mary’s eyes and the paleness of her cheeks. She was surprised by the carelessness of Mary’s appearance. Her primrose gown was wrinkled and had a stain near the hem and was too loose around the waist, and her hair was untidy with stray curls hanging down her neck. She looked tired and worried as she sipped her tea. This wasn’t at all like Mary.
“Mary,” Sabrina spoke distinctly from the bed.
Mary looked up startled, her cup clattering precariously in the saucer as she stared at Sabrina’s face, the violet eyes clear and lucid as they returned her stare.
“Rina!” she cried tearfully, the tea sloshing out of the cup into the saucer as she hurriedly set it on the table. “You’re yourself again?”
She rushed over to the bed and placed her hand against Sabrina’s cool cheek and then kissed both thankfully. Sabrina looked at her in bewilderment.
“What is wrong? You seem so distraught,” she asked Mary, who was perched on the side of the bed watching her carefully. “And you don’t look yourself, either. I’ve never seen you so rumpled before. You look as though you’d slept in your clothes,” Sabrina teased.
Mary smiled with embarrassment. “As a matter of fact, I have.”
At Sabrina’s expression of disbelief she nodded. “Yes indeed, I’ve slept many a night in my clothes since you’ve been ill.” She took one of Sabrina’s thin hands in her own. “We thought you would surely die. You’ve been seriously ill.”
Sabrina looked up at her incredulously. “Ill? Me? I don’t believe it,” she laughed.
Mary frowned as she heard the positive note in Sabrina’s voice. “Don’t you remember how you became ill?”
Sabrina shook her dark head, beginning to feel panicked as her thoughts came vaguely to her. “I remember a picnic we went on. You and Richard, Aunt Margaret and myself. We had roast chicken and pickled salmon, which I remember Aunt Margaret said was a bit too salty,” she told Mary, wrinkling her brow as she tried to remember, not seeing the disquiet in Mary’s eyes as she continued, “and that was yesterday, wasn’t it?”
Sabrina looked up at Mary, her violet eyes troubled. “That’s strange, I can’t seem to remember anything but the picnic. Everything else seems hazy. I don’t remember becoming ill. But I suppose I have, for I do feel weak,” she told Mary, then smiled up at her ingenuously. “Do you suppose there are any gooseberry tarts left? I am starved to death,” she laughed, looking like the Sabrina of long ago, her eyes twinkling as her dimple appeared.
“Oh, I think we might find something in the kitchen for you,” Mary promised, her expression strained. She pulled the downy coverlet back over Sabrina’s shoulders and smiled with an effort. “Now that you are well again we must see that you stay that way. You lie back now and I’ll go get you a nice bowl of broth, and maybe a small dish of custard.”
“With cinnamon,” Sabrina added as she settled under the covers and stretched lazily.
“With cinnamon,” Mary agreed as she forced herself to sedately leave the room. As soon as the door closed behind her she leaned against it, feeling her knees too weak to hold her. After a brief moment she hurried downstairs, running into the salon, her expression apprehensive..
“Lucien!” she cried out thankfully.
He got up abruptly from the chair he’d been sitting in at the desk, his correspondence forgotten as he saw the look on Mary’s face. He clasped her shoulders, dread in his eyes as he stared down into her stricken face.
“She’s dead?” he said tonelessly.
Mary swallowed, trying to find her voice, but could only shake her head in reply.
Lucien’s grip tightened painfully. “My God, Mary, what has happened? Is Sabrina all right, then?” he demanded, a light entering his darkened eyes.
“The fever has broken, she’s awake.”
Lucien released her and sank down on the edge of the settee. ‘Thank God.”
Mary bit her lip, not knowing how to continue and stood there silently watching until Lucien looked up, sensing there was more. “What is it? You might as well tell me.”
Mary sighed and pressed her fingers against her eyes wearily. “I’ve said I thought Sabrina was suffering from more than just a chest cold and marsh fever.”
Lucien nodded. “I remember.” He could remember everything of the last fortnight as vividly as a moment ago. How many times had he sat beside Sabrina’s bed helplessly watching her toss and turn with nightmares, watching her burn with fever as he cooled her with cold compresses, only to have her shake uncontrollably the very next instant, watching her grow thinner and thinner before his eyes.
“I think she had brain fever as well,” Mary’s voice broke into his thoughts.
“What are you telling me?”
“She cannot remember anything before her illness.” She held up her hand at his ejaculation of amazement. “Oh, she knows who she is, but she doesn’t remember any of the traumatic events preceding her illness.” She paused, then continued hesitantly, “In fact, I don’t believe that she will remember you, Lucien, or even masquerading as Bonnie Charlie.”
Lucien’s scar seemed to throb and Mary looked away from the look on his face.
“It’s as though she has blocked out all that was painful to her and all that had hurt her. She is completely untroubled—almost like a child.”
Lucien hid his face in his hands as he sat with his elbows on his knees and stared at the pattern of the carpet beneath his boots. “Well,” he laughed harshly, “she never did intend to marry me, and it would seem as though she will have her wish—at least for now—unless she never remembers me.”
Lucien looked up, a cynical sneer curling his lips. “Or maybe she does, and this is just another of her damned masquerades to elude me. Is it? Is it another hoax concocted between you two? Is she still playi
ng games, Mary?”
“No, I honestly believe she does not remember. I know her—why would she pretend to me? We both saw how ill she was, she hadn’t the strength to fight you, Lucien,” Mary said honestly. “She has truly forgotten. I believe her.”
Mary shifted her position uncomfortably, a distressed look entering her gray eyes as she coughed nervously. “I’m afraid there is another problem. I did not mention it earlier because, well, frankly I did not believe that Sabrina would live, so it did not matter.” Mary spoke softly, looking Lucien directly in the eye. “I have cared for Sabrina most of the time, except when you sat with her. We have always been very close, of course, and living here in the same house, well, I…” Mary stumbled over the words and looking out of the window took a deep breath and said quickly, “I think Sabrina is with child.”
Mary’s face burned painfully and she felt it must be as red as her hair as she watched the duke for his reaction. She cleared her throat. “It could of course be that her illness has affected her, but I really do not believe that is the reason. S-she talked a lot in her delirium, and so I wondered if it might be a possibility, her being with child, and whether it could possibly be yours? I don’t believe it would be any other man’s.”
Mary felt a shiver of fear run through her body at the angry blaze in the duke’s sherry-colored eyes as he stood up and took a step toward her. She unhesitantly took a step backward and continued to face him.
“Mine,” he said arrogantly, “and no other man’s.”
Mary expelled her breath, her shoulders sagging. “I don’t know what to do. If she doesn’t remember you, and she is with child—how do I explain the baby?”
Lucien picked up his discarded coat from the back of the chair he’d been sitting in and slung it across his shoulder. “You don’t.”
“But I don’t understand? She’ll have to know.”
“Of course, but any necessary explaining will be done by me. After all, I am her fiancé—and the father of her child. I think I know what needs to be done.”
He walked to the door, his step light for the first time in several weeks.
“Which means?” Mary persisted, not caring for the look in the duke’s eyes.
Lucien turned, a half-smile parting his lips. “If she has no memory of me, then she also has no memory of her feelings towards me, does she? When I present myself as her fiancé, she will naturally assume she loves me, won’t she? She will not recall hating me, nor her objections to marrying me.”
Mary stared at him open-mouthed, unable to comprehend exactly what he intended.
“Actually things have worked out quite nicely, for Sabrina and I shall be married before the end of the week—that is all of the time I have—and without the declaration of war it would have previously involved.” He rubbed his scar, his eyes reflective. “You do realize that if what you suspect is true, how necessary it is now, more than ever, for Sabrina and me to wed?”
Mary nodded reluctantly. “Yes, of course, but I do not like to deceive her. It’s not right and can only end in tragedy. You’ll give her time, won’t you?” Mary pleaded.
Lucien shrugged. “I don’t have much time, but she will have time to recover a little of her strength—but not time to recover her memory.”
With that unyielding remark he left the room, leaving Mary standing irresolutely in the center, a look of deep misgiving on her face.
It was late in the afternoon of the next day that Lucien entered Sabrina’s room. She’d insisted upon having a sponge bath and Mary had shampooed her long hair, rinsing it with warm water from a pitcher and then toweling it dry and brushing it soothingly in long strokes from scalp to waist. In a clean, snowy white nightgown of soft lawn, Sabrina sat propped up in her bed humming an old ballad from her childhood, surprising herself that she could recall it at all, when a strange man entered and came boldly to her bed and stood staring down at her enigmatically.
He was very handsome despite the scar on his cheek, Sabrina thought as she pulled the coverlet up around her shoulders modestly. He was tall and lean in leather breeches that clung like a second skin to his thighs, and his partially unbuttoned leather waistcoat and ruffled shirt front revealed a triangle of golden hair on his chest. His hair was the same dark golden color and curled behind his ears in unruly waves.
“You’ll pardon my dress, but I’ve been out riding and was just informed that you’d awakened and were having tea, so I thought I’d join you,” he finally said, and without waiting for an invitation, sat down on the edge of the bed, one booted leg crossed over the other. “I even brought my own cup,” he added with a smile as he filled his cup from the teapot sitting on a tray beside the bed.
“Who are you?” Sabrina demanded curiously. “Why are you here in my room?”
“I’m thirsty,” he answered mischievously as he took a large swallow of the steaming brew. “And in answer to your first question, I am Lucien.” He narrowed his eyes speculatively as he added purposefully, “I would’ve thought you’d have remembered me, little Sabrina?”
Sabrina placed her fingers to her temple as it throbbed suddenly, “I am sorry, but I’ve been ill, and I’ve forgotten a few things, but I’m sure I would have remembered you. I am sorry, are you sure we know one another?”
“Oh, very sure, Sabrina, you see I am your fiancé,” he told her bluntly.
Sabrina gasped, her violet eyes widening. “It can’t be! I am not betrothed. I would remember, I know I would. You are a stranger to me,” she contradicted him, shaking her head in denial.
Lucien put his teacup down and, taking her clenched hands in his, held them comfortingly. “Not very much of a stranger since we are lovers and you carry my child within you.”
Sabrina’s face was flooded with color and she tried to pull her hands free. “No,” she whispered desperately.
“Yes,” he answered firmly, and slipping his hand beneath the covers, placed it possessively on her abdomen, the gesture shocking Sabrina into frozen silence. “Soon it will show.”
“Is that why you were to wed me?” she asked , mortified.
“No, I would wed you regardless. The plans were made before I knew of this.” His hand caressed her hips and slid behind her waist, pulling her close to him. “Trust me, Sabrina. Would you marry me if you did not love me? Would you have let me make love to you otherwise?”
Sabrina turned her head and faced him, her eyes guileless. as she tried to read his thoughts. Why would he lie? And if she were with his child, could she do anything else? She must love him—she would remember eventually, but until then she must believe him. And there was something so familiar in his sitting on the edge of her bed, it seemed so natural.
She smiled sweetly, her lips parting as she put her arms around his neck and looked up at him with trusting eyes. Lucien drew a deep breath, feeling desire stir as he felt her pliant body in his arms. Gone was the defiance and hatred he’d come to expect. The spitting wildcat had turned into a purring kitten.
He lowered his head and kissed her gently at first and then as she responded, more deeply, parting her lips with his and kissing her mouth passionately, straining her body close to him. His mouth clung to hers as she freed her lips to stare up into his warm eyes, a smile on her soft, pinkened lips as she said, “You do tell the truth, I think, for I do remember a kiss such as this somewhere in my mind.”
A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.
—]ohn Dryden
Chapter 12
“Oh, Lucien, look,” Sabrina called out as she hurried to Lucien’s side, her hands cupped around a nest of twigs and leaves. Nestled inside were three small chiff-chaff eggs, smooth and warm from the sun. “They’ve fallen from up there,” she told him as she pointed to a tree some distance away.
Sabrina looked up at Lucien entreatingly, her eyes darkened by the flo
ppy silk brim of her hat. A dimple peeped out as she smiled and, unable to resist her soft lips, Lucien stole a quick kiss.
“Now what do you want me to do with this?” he inquired lazily as she placed it in his hands confidently.
“Put it back.”
“You want me to climb that tree?” he laughed. “I outgrew tree-climbing when I did short pants.”
“I bet you were a sweet little boy, but probably a little devil when you did not get your own way,” she teased as she led him to the tree.
“And you still are a naughty little girl,” Lucien complained good-naturedly as he removed his coat and waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves above his elbows. He stood silently studying the tree and then placing the nest in a branch temporarily, gauged the distance and hefted himself up. He looked down from his perch above Sabrina’s head and smiled in self-disgust.
“Climbing trees. What next will you have me doing, I wonder. Rescuing frogs from lily pads or a mouse from a cat’s paw?”
He stared down bemusedly for a moment at Sabrina—his wife. They had been married last week in the small Norman church in a short service with only the family present, for Sabrina was still recuperating from her illness and tired easily. They had decided it would be best for her to regain her strength in her own home with her family around her rather than trying to adjust to new surroundings. There had been one outsider at the wedding, and that had been his grandmother’s solicitor who had witnessed the ceremony and then turned over the deeds to Camareigh. He had finally succeeded in claiming his inheritance. Soon he would take Sabrina there, it was where she belonged. His expression hardened as he thought of Percy and Kate, how they must hate him. He would deal with them as soon as he had Sabrina settled at Camareigh. His eyes roved possessively over her heart-shaped face raised to his, the black curls framing it delicately. Her cheeks were rosy and had filled out in the last couple of weeks and her eyes were bright and loving as they met his. She looked like a flower in her white dress embroidered with purple violets, a cinnamon rose he’d snatched from a stone wall tucked into her bodice, the little pink bud no softer than her own skin it lay next to.
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