“What do you suggest, Doctor?” Lucy came to stand next to the two men.
Hughes reappeared. “A Miss Mary Harcourt is here to see you, Your Grace.”
Lucy nodded. “That’s Cecelia’s sister,” she told the doctor. “Show her in here, please,” she said to Hughes.
“Yes,” Dr. Archibald replied. “I must speak with this young woman immediately.”
Fifteen minutes later, Lucy had explained the entire situation to a wide-eyed Miss Mary Harcourt, who looked to be no more than twelve or thirteen and had a nasty cough. To make matters worse, the poor girl had brought no maid with her. Adam shook his head. The sisters’ circumstances were probably much more dire than he’d first believed, despite being the nieces of a viscount, a point that Adam quickly clarified with Mary.
“Yes, Viscount Harewood is our father’s eldest brother,” she said, her pale face blank.
It would have been beyond rude, of course, to ask after their financials, but Adam did ask one more thing. “And your parents? They died in a carriage accident?”
“Yes,” the girl replied without shedding a tear. She was obviously a brave little thing. She continued to fight her cough. “Two years ago. I miss them terribly. So does Cece.”
“Cece?” Adam replied.
“That’s what I call Cecelia,” the girl answered with a tentative smile. “Please tell me she’s all right.”
“How did you know she was here?” Adam asked.
“A family friend told me, Miss Redding. She came to call this morning and said she thought she’d seen Cecelia at a ball last night. She said Cecelia didn’t seem to recognize her. She told me Cecelia had been with a man named Hunt. The duke’s brother.”
“Yes, she was with me,” Adam admitted.
“I came here as soon as I could find someone who knew the duke’s address. Your butler informed me that Her Grace had taken a young woman named Maggie to shop on Bond Street and that they might be going to Madame Bissette’s hat shop. I went there immediately and that’s when I found Cecelia with Her Grace.”
“You may call me Lucy.” Lucy smiled at the girl.
Adam studied the girl carefully. Despite the difference in their coloring, she definitely resembled Maggie—no, Cecelia. He was impressed with the girl’s tenacity. Perhaps she should be a spy. “Well done, Miss Harcourt,” he said. The girl beamed at him.
Lucy turned to the doctor. “What should we do?”
“Miss Harcourt,” the doctor said to Mary. “You must go and speak to her. You’re the best hope of making her remember.”
Mary nodded, but tears glimmered in her blue eyes. Adam swallowed. It had to be difficult for her to contemplate the fact that her own sister didn’t recognize her. What would it be like if Derek or Collin didn’t recognize him? Adam vowed to do whatever he could to help Mary and her sister.
“Do you want me to go, too, Doctor?” Adam offered. “She still believes I’m her betrothed.”
“Her betrothed?” Mary exclaimed, pressing both small pale hands to her face.
“Yes.” Adam nodded. “She thinks I’m someone named the Duke of Loveridge.”
“The Duke of Loveridge?” Mary’s eyes were as wide as carriage wheels. “Why, that’s the hero from her novel.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Maggie was still sitting on the settee when the door to the drawing room opened and the girl from Bond Street tentatively stepped through it. Maggie had been looking through the papers that Lucy had left on the table. It was so odd. Apparently someone had written a story about herself and the duke. But who? And why was Lucy reading it? Maggie had barely managed to read a few pages before the girl came in, but she was more confused than ever. The story was exceedingly familiar, but something about it wasn’t quite right. Oh, why couldn’t she remember?
The girl stepped forward to stand on the rug, watching Maggie carefully. “May … may I come in?”
Maggie nodded slowly. “Yes, of course.” She watched the girl carefully, too. She was certain she knew her now. “We’ve met before,” she ventured. “Before today, I mean.”
Tears shone in the girl’s bright blue eyes. Maggie sucked in her breath. Suddenly she got the impression that she knew the girl quite well, indeed.
“Dr. Archibald said I should tell you things. Names and addresses,” the girl nearly whispered, coughing lightly into her hand.
“I don’t understand,” Maggie replied, shaking her head.
“My name is Mary,” the girl offered. “Mary Harcourt. And you are Cecelia, my older sister.”
Maggie gulped. She shook her head slowly.
“We live at 1815 Downing Square in the town house Father left us.”
Tears filled Maggie’s eyes, too. “No!”
“Our mother was Mary and our father was Charles, the youngest brother of Viscount Harewood.”
Maggie stood and backed toward the mantel. “Was?”
“They both died in a carriage accident two years ago.”
“Dead?” Maggie pressed her palm to her pounding head. Too many thoughts were running through it. Too many hurtful, awful thoughts. Her breathing was short, shallow. “What about the Duke of Loveridge?”
“He’s a character in a novel you wrote. A romantic novel that you were trying to sell to Mr. Cornwall. You left two days ago to meet him, and you never returned. I tried to find him but I didn’t know his address, and I couldn’t tell Uncle Herbert.”
Bile rose in her throat. She pressed a hand to the wooden arm of the settee. She glanced down at the papers still sitting on the table. Some of them were dirty and scratched. A few looked as if they’d been wet and had dried crinkly and hard.
The girl took another deep breath. “Uncle Harewood and Father had a falling-out years ago. He has not claimed us. We live with our mother’s brother, Uncle Herbert, and his awful wife, Aunt Selene.” Tears fell from Mary’s eyes. She coughed again. “You are to marry Cousin Percy.”
Percy. The name crumpled against her heart. It all made sense now. It all made horrible, awful sense. She’d been hit by the carriage, and her manuscript had gone flying. Peter, or whatever his name was, must have taken pity on her and taken her in. Her name was Cecelia Harcourt, and she did not belong here.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tears streaked down Cece’s face. She wiped at them viciously. “Oh, Mary, what happened?”
Her sister rushed into her arms and hugged her fiercely. “Do you remember, Cece? Do you remember who you are?”
“Yes,” she gasped between sobs, “but I’m not sure how all of this happened.”
Mary kept hugging her as if she didn’t want to let her go again. “Mr. Hunt says you hit your head when a carriage nearly ran you down. Dr. Archibald says you temporarily lost your memory.”
Cecelia concentrated on setting her off-kilter breathing to rights. She dragged air in and out of her shrunken lungs while she contemplated all the implications of this shocking news. “Mr. Hunt? Oh, my goodness. Peter? I mean … what’s his name?”
“I believe it’s Adam,” Mary offered tentatively.
“He’s not a duke?” Cecelia groaned.
“No, but his brother is.”
Cece squeezed her eyes shut. That explained so much.
“But Adam … Mr. Hunt seems ever so kind, Cece. He’s been good to me. And to you.”
Cece made her way back over to the settee and sank onto the cushion. She hid her face in her hands. “Oh, my goodness, Mary. I’ve been calling him Peter all this time. I told him he was my betrothed. He didn’t deny it.”
“You’ve been calling him the Duke of Loveridge, too,” Mary replied.
Cece groaned.
“Apparently, you thought you were Lady Magnolia and he was the Duke of Loveridge.”
The last two days flashed through Cece’s mind, every single misguided, mistaken moment of them. “For heaven’s sake, I wrote a letter to a rabbit.”
“What?” Mary’s blue eyes were filled with confusion.
&n
bsp; “Never mind. Why didn’t they tell me I was mistaken?” Cece asked, her face still hidden and no doubt flaming with her shame. A flash of anger surfaced as well. “Everyone lied to me.”
Mary sat next to her and patted her on the back. “Dr. Archibald asked Mr. Hunt to pretend along with you. He said it would be best not to upset you, and to hope your memory returned on its own. They might have lied to you, but they did it on the orders of a doctor.” Mary dissolved into a coughing fit.
“Oh, Mary, you shouldn’t be out in this air in your condition.” Cece pulled her sister close to her. The flash of anger immediately passed. It wasn’t everyone else’s fault that she’d sustained a head injury and believed she was a fictitious future duchess. It was kind of them to play along and keep from frightening her, actually. Not to mention they’d generously allowed a complete stranger to reside in their home the last two days.
“I’ve been looking for you day and night,” Mary replied, her coughing subsiding.
“Yes, I—” Cece sat up and pressed a hand to her chest. Just like that, it all hit her. The dream that seemed so real slipped from her grasp. She wasn’t Lady Magnolia Makepeace and the man she’d been referring to as her betrothed, the man she’d kissed, wasn’t Peter Peregrine, the Duke of Loveridge. “Who … who is this family?” she asked, already dreading the answer.
“You’re in the town house of the Duke of Claringdon. His youngest brother, Mr. Hunt, found you on the street. It was awfully fortunate they took you in.”
Cece groaned. “Oh, good heavens! The Duke of Claringdon? The war hero duke? Why, this family must think I’m a complete loon.”
Mary patted her back again. “They seem to like you, Cece.”
Just then, another awful thought struck Cece. Though it would certainly explain the butler’s odd behavior. “Is Lucy truly married to Derek?”
Mary nodded. “Yes.”
“Oh, my goodness. I’ve been flippantly casual with a duchess for the last two days? This couldn’t be any worse, could it?” She glanced at her sister, and the look in Mary’s eyes made Cece’s heart drop. “What? What is it, Mary?”
Mary wrung her hands. “Uncle Herbert has been beside himself. He posted the banns for your wedding to Percy the day you disappeared. Apparently, he’d already been intending to do so. When you were missing, he assumed you discovered what he’d been planning and you ran away.”
Cecelia pulled her sister into her arms again. “I’d never run away from you, Mary. I’d never leave you behind.”
Mary continued to speak through her renewed bout of tears. “I knew you must have had a good reason, Cece. But the wedding is still planned. It’s to be three weeks hence. Uncle Herbert has been turning up the town looking for you. I don’t think he ever expected you to be so close. I never told him about Mr. Cornwall.” Mary reached down and clasped Cece’s hands. “Please tell me. Did you sell your book to him?”
Cece searched her memory. Every bit of her awful encounter with the publisher came flooding back. She gulped. “No, darling. No. I did not.”
Mary pressed her lips together and raised her chin, obviously making a valiant effort to stop her tears. She nodded bravely.
Cece dropped her head into her hands again. Reality seeped into her brain. She was not a fine lady betrothed to a duke. She was an imposter, imposing upon a family that was apparently too kind to kick her out onto the street. Lucy had been so kind and Peter, or Adam, had been so … but wait. She lifted her head. He had kissed her back, hadn’t he? Knowing she wasn’t his betrothed. Was it possible that he had some true feelings for her? Oh, God, no. How could the brother of a duke want anything to do with her?
But the kiss had been wonderful, unforgettable. She’d remember it forever. A vision of her portly cousin Percy flashed in her mind. She’d failed to sell her story. She’d be forced to return home and marry him. The thought made her want to gag, but she’d be willing to marry the hideous man if it meant saving her sister’s future. And that’s what she would do. She had to be strong. For Mary’s sake.
She mustered a weak smile. “It’ll be all right, Mary. We’ll go home and—” She choked on the last word and swallowed hard. If only she had one more night to pretend, one more night to be with Adam. Just one more night.
Would they give that to her, these people who had been so kind to her? Would they give her and her sister one more night of shelter? If she was going to ask, she must decide immediately.
“Mary,” she said quickly, grasping her sister’s small hands in hers. “I’m going to ask the duchess to do me a very large favor, and I need your help.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Adam woke to the sound of light scratching at his bedchamber door. He blinked into the darkness and lay there contemplating his surroundings. Silence. He blew out a deep breath and folded his hands over his middle atop the covers. The day had gone nothing like he’d expected it to. When Mary had emerged from the drawing room, what the girl had told him made Adam’s chest inexplicably ache. Cecelia had remembered who she was.
Only one thought repeated itself in Adam’s mind. Cecelia would be leaving.
Then Mary had stared down at her slippers and calmly asked if she and Cecelia might be allowed to stay with them for one more night.
Cecelia had come out of the drawing room then, tears in her eyes. She looked up at him and their eyes met. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Hunt.” Her voice caught on the last word. “I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve put you through. You and”—she nodded toward Lucy—“Her Grace.”
“Of course you shall stay with us one more night,” Lucy said before Adam even considered replying. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”
“Just one more night. That’s all I ask,” Cecelia had said in a strained voice, still meeting Adam’s eyes.
Lucy had bustled both of them away then, and they’d been served dinner in their rooms. He hadn’t even got a chance to call her by her real name.
Adam threw the back of his arm across his forehead and grimaced. He hadn’t understood why Cecelia didn’t want to return to her home immediately, but he’d be less than honest if he didn’t admit that a part of him—a large part—was pleased that she would be staying longer, even if only for one more night. And that triggered the guilt. What sort of an awful lout was glad that she wasn’t going home? He was no gentleman.
But none of it made any sense, either. He knew barely anything about Cecelia or her situation. Mary had provided their address after profusely apologizing for the inconvenience her sister’s accident had caused their family. Lucy had assured her it was no trouble whatsoever and they were quite enjoying their unexpected houseguest. But as soon as the young women had been shown to their rooms, Lucy had done some investigating and confirmed that the Harcourt family was perfectly respectable. A lesser son of the ton on the father’s side, but they had fallen into ruin after a tragic carriage accident two years ago and the house was to be sold at auction soon. There were no indications of trouble, however, and nothing that could be considered dangerous. Was Cecelia truly in any danger?
Another thought nagged at Adam. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since he’d met with the publisher today. Cecelia’s novel and Mr. Cornwall’s words about needing funds to invest in work like Cecelia’s. Hadn’t Adam always wanted to forge his own path in life? Hadn’t he always wanted to make his own way? Step out of the shadow of his older brothers and be his own man? But investing in printing would mean accepting the money Derek had settled on him. And that would make him a failure before he’d even begun. No. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it.
Another light scratching sound on the door caught his attention, just before the handle turned and the door opened. It was Cecelia. She was dressed in her night rail, holding one small candle aloft. “Adam?”
* * *
Cecelia was trembling everywhere. She hoped Adam didn’t see the candle shaking. But she’d made her decision and she would see it through. Before committi
ng herself to Percy, she wanted to make love to someone she actually cared for, someone she was actually attracted to. And this man, Adam, had been kind to her, had made her laugh, had comforted her. He wasn’t the Duke of Loveridge. He was infinitely better. He’d saved her life. He was a true hero. She tiptoed over to the bed. Adam hadn’t answered when she’d called out his name. Was he asleep?
When she made it to the side of his bed, she held up the candle to see him quietly contemplating her. “What are you doing here, Cecelia?”
There was no use prevaricating. “Kiss me,” she said.
He pushed up to his elbows and blinked at her. She set the candle onto the table next to the bed and slid onto the mattress beside him. It was warm and soft. It smelled like him.
“Kiss you?” he whispered back, and she could tell he was considering it. “But we—”
That was it. She’d have to convince him the only way she knew how. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his mouth.
The kiss was scorching. Adam’s mouth opened, and he immediately took control of the kiss. He pulled her into his arms, his tongue owning her. Their mouths clashed, met, clashed again. Their tongues played in an epic battle until they were both shaking. Finally, he yanked his mouth from hers and rested his forehead against hers.
He carefully pulled her arms down from around his neck. He was still breathing heavily, but he managed to push himself away from her. “Cecelia,” he whispered. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what this means.”
“Yes, I do. I know exactly what this means. Please, kiss me again. Make love to me, Adam.” She didn’t wait for his reaction but pulled her night rail over her head and tossed it on the floor.
Adam’s breath left his body in a solid whoosh. The perfection of Cecelia’s body was nearly too much to bear. He’d been hard before but now he was painfully so. He couldn’t make love to her, couldn’t take the virginity of a lady who had been through all that she’d been through in the last few days. That would make him the worst louse in the history of louses. No. He couldn’t make love to her. But he could make her feel good. She was spread out naked on his bed, her glorious dark hair spilling over her shoulders, teasing against her nipple. His mouth watered.
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