Third time unlucky, she thought in that split second, and then she knew no more.
When she opened her eyes she was lying in a darkened room. A tentative turn of her head told her it was her hotel bedroom and a tentative movement of her body advised her to remain where she was for a bit longer.
"You'll have a headache," Adam's voice said, "but the doctor has assured me there are no bones broken."
With a gasp she forced herself into a sitting position. Adam was ensconced in the one armchair the room possessed. He had discarded his jacket, and the tray by his side, with its assortment of tureens and coffee pot, told her some considerable time had passed.
"Go away," she croaked. The room was blurring again but she held on to reality as best she could. "Leave me alone, Adam. We've nothing to say."
"Lie still and rest." His hands were upon her body: strong, warm hands that held her down. "Sleep some more, Sharon. You'll feel better when you wake up next time."
It was too much effort to argue, apart from which her tongue was leaden in her mouth, making speech impossible. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the floating feeling washing over her. Adam was right. There would be time to talk later.
When she awoke for the second time it was dark outside the window, though in her room a small lamp shed muted radiance in the far corner. But the most important thing was that Adam had gone.
She sat up gingerly. There was no dizziness and she swung her legs to the floor. Apart from a slight stiffness in her shoulder she felt normal. It was a good thing the Moore family came from strong stock. She smiled, remembering that Tim was fond of saying this each time the twins hurt themselves.
The twins! Tim! She clutched at the bedhead.
Her brother, Tim. She remembered now. Remembered it all.
Sobbing with relief she crossed to the dressing table and stared at herself. She wasn't just a name any longer; she was a person with a past and a present. Resolutely she refused to contemplate that without Adam she had no future. Suffice that she had regained her memory. Miracles were not for mortals to create.
She opened her bag and took out the two letters she had received from her brother. No wonder he hadn't called her to find out how she was: to have done so might have endangered her masquarade—a masquarade she had entered because of him. Yet both his letters had made it clear she could end her pretence whenever she liked… if only she had been in a mental position to have realised this.
But now everything was falling into place. At last she could face Adam without shame. What she had done was wrong but, knowing her motivations, not unforgivable.
She was engulfed by such a warm feeling of happiness that her body broke out in a sweat, and with trembling legs, she returned to the bed and sank down on it.
For several moments she stayed there, collecting her thoughts and satisfying herself that her memory had indeed returned. She found no blanks anywhere. Everything was clear: her departure from South Africa, the aeroplane crash, the struggle to escape from the burning wreck… She shied away from this last thought and went into the spartan bathroom to wash, as if water could expunge that particular memory!
Her face was pale, her disheveled hair a golden aureole around her head. Washing hurriedly, she applied lipstick and mascara. The colour heightened her fragility, making her eyes luminous and large, her mouth a sensual scarlet focus. Nervously she rubbed off the lipstick and went back into the bedroom.
Adam was there, formally attired in a suit, his tanned face set in impassive lines.
"Feeling more like yourself?" he asked.
"I'm completely myself, thank you."
Her tone, as much as her words, made his eyes narrow, and she noticed the dark shadows beneath them.
"I know who I am and why I'm here," she went on breathlessly. "It wasn't for the money. In fact, there wasn't any money involved in it for me. Your sister- in-law made up that part of it."
"I know."
"You do? How?"
"I've just spoken to your brother in Cape Town and he told me the whole story."
Sharon's legs refused to support her and she looked at the chair. Intercepting her glance, Adam reached out with both hands and drew her forward and down onto the bed. Then slowly, he sat beside her. His thigh touched hers, but she lacked the strength to move away. How could she when all she wanted to do was press even closer?
"Tim has told me the whole story," Adam went on and, in dispassionate tones, put the entire episode of Tim and the real Sharon Peters in perspective. He began with Carol, Tim's wife, and her obsessive devotion to the twins, born a year earlier, lightly touching on Tim's feeling that he was no longer important to the woman he loved nor even necessary in his own home.
"Tim needed a lot of support himself, at that time," Sharon said in firm defence of her brother. "He'd started up his own hi-fi business and wanted to be able to talk things over with Carol. But she never had time for him. That's when he met your sister-in-law. He'd gone to install some stereo equipment in her home and she fell for him. He's very good-looking and—"
"He must be if he takes after you," Adam interposed.
"But the affair lasted only a couple of weeks," Sharon continued as if she had not heard him. "By then he came to his senses and realised what a fool he'd been."
"Which was too late, of course," Adam concluded, "for by then he had written a couple of stupid letters to that bitch of a woman and she was threatening to tell Carol."
Sharon's eyes darkened with pain as she remembered the misery Tim had gone through in his efforts to buy those letters back. But Sharon Peters had enjoyed her power to blackmail and her demands had increased, rather than lessened with time. It was when those demands had become unbearable that Tim had finally confessed the whole sordid episode to his sister.
"I went to see her myself," Sharon stated flatly, "but she said she would only give Tim back his letters if I went to London and impersonated her for a few months. I told you her reasons for my doing that in the letter I left you."
"It's all so clear now that you've explained it," Adam breathed. "I blame myself for not tackling you the moment I discovered you were an impostor."
Sharon stared at him, not sure she had heard correctly.
"You mean… you knew I wasn't… that I was…"
"I didn't know who you were but I damn well knew you weren't Sharon Peters!"
"How?"
" Because of your hair."
She touched her hand to it. "I don't follow."
"It's quite simple." He lifted his own hand toward her hair, as if he wanted to touch it, too. Then he dropped his arm and half moved away from her, yet still remained close enough for her to see the faint rise and fall of his chest.
"I knew that my sister-in-law was a dyed blonde. Rufus told me so in one of his letters. Apparently he wanted her to go back to being a brunette but she wouldn't. It wasn't the complete proof I needed but I soon had more evidence."
"I'm younger," she said quickly.
He chuckled. It was the first time he had relaxed this much with her and she was dismayed at the way it disarmed her.
"You're much younger," he agreed, "and much more innocent, too! But that wasn't what I meant. It was when I heard you playing the piano. That's when I knew for sure that you were an impostor. You see, Rufus was crazy about music and he had told me that the only thing that bothered him about his new wife was that she was tone deaf! That was when he'd first married her, of course. Shortly before he died he had lost all his illusions about her."
There was a short silence; both of them were preoccupied with their own thoughts.
"Then, I went through all this for nothing!" Sharon let out a deep breath. "But why didn't you confront me with the truth and throw me out?"
"Because it was already too late. You have a marked ability to wrap yourself around a man's heart and…"
The intensity of his gaze set her heart racing; but he started to speak again and she forced herself to concentrate.
&nbs
p; "At one time I thought that perhaps my sister-in-law was dead and that you'd taken over her identity in order to live off Rufus's family. But as I came to know you better, I couldn't believe you'd be willing to live a lie for the rest of your life."
"How right you were!" Her mouth twisted as she recollected the anguish she had undergone in the short while she had known she was doing the impersonation at all.
"You'll never know the battle I fought with myself," he went on, abruptly rising and going to the window. "I hated you, yet at the same time I wanted you. And when you went out with Simon I could have throttled you both!"
"I knew you were jealous,"she admitted.
"I couldn't tell you how I felt, though. You were living in my home as Rufus's wife, and until I knew the reason—and also if you had really lost your memory—I was forced to keep quiet. Then this morning, when you ran away, nothing mattered to me except finding you again."
He turned and walked back across the room, but this time he knelt by the side of the bed. His face was brought level with hers, and he was able to stare deep into her eyes.
"I love you, my darling. That's why I came after you. To tell you I loved you and didn't care a damn about you impersonating my sister-in-law for the money. I felt sure you must have had a valid reason for doing it."
"You honestly believed that? That it wasn't because I wanted money for my career?"
"I didn't think you'd ever do anything underhanded merely to further your ambitions. I knew it had to be for some emotional or moral reason.''
"How right," she said shakily. "I was so afraid Carol would leave Tim if she discovered he'd been unfaithful to her."
"I'm glad he came clean," Adam said. "His wife had to know the truth. You can't be happy together if your marriage is built on a lie. Apart from which I think your own sister-in-law needed to know one cannot discard a husband once he's given you some children to love, and then expect the man to hang around until she's ready to accept him again. Women don't want to be regarded as sex symbols," he added dryly, "and men don't want to be only seen as studs!"
Pink of cheek Sharon nodded, but was careful to avoid his eyes. "What will you do about the real Sharon Peters? If your mother finds out the truth she'll receive an awful shock."
"She has to know. I realise that now. It's the only way of rendering Sharon Peters harmless!"
"Harmless! What a wonderful word. She's such a…"
"Don't try to find the right word," he advised. "I've already seen her so I know what you mean. That's where I went this afternoon while you were asleep."
Adam moved lithely and was on the bed again, his arms around Sharon's slender body.
"Don't you think we've exhausted the past and should start thinking of the future? You know I won't let you go back to Africa, don't you?"
Sharon still refused to look at him and focused on his shirt. "I wasn't sure."
"What do I have to do to convince you? Didn't my kisses tell you anything?"
"Only that you wanted me."
"Want you forever," he said fiercely and tilted her chin with his hand, forcing her to look up. "I want to make love to you. Want to be the only man who has the right to possess you, take care of you for the rest of your life and cherish the children that our love for each other will give us. If that isn't love enough for you," he said thickly, "then tell me what else I must do."
Words failed her and she clung to him. Heat emanated from his body and she responded to it… as the way she knew she would always respond to him. She and Adam were one. The sound and the echo; the violin and the bow.
"Would you have married Helen if you hadn't met me?"
She had not meant to ask the question but now that it was out, she was glad.
"Probably," he said carelessly. "But you'd have married some other man if you hadn't met me."
She laughed. Trust Adam to be logical and right.
"I was terribly jealous of her. That's why I went on seeing Simon."
"They're both unimportant." Adam's mouth moved along her cheek but did not touch her lips. "I dare not kiss you. If I do, we'll never get out of this room tonight!"
"I like this room," she whispered, her hands coming up to touch his silky hair. "I'm not afraid of you, Adam."
"You should be. I'm afraid of myself." He pulled her hands away and stood up. "I've paid the bill here and told them we're leaving. I want to take you home. Do you feel up to the journey? If not we can stay over."
"I'd like to go home. "Tears filled her eyes. "I never thought I'd hear you say those words to me. I'm so happy, Adam."
"Our happiness is just beginning." He caught the hands she held up to him and gently pulled her to her feet. "But it isn't going to begin here," he said whimsically. "I've a more romantic notion for our honeymoon. A long slow voyage to your family. Say a month on a cruise ship?"
"Lovely." She nuzzled her face into his neck. "I'm an excellent sailor."
"Pity," he said against her mouth. "I was hoping you'd want to stay in bed all the time!"
Her laughter was stifled by his lips and, returning his kiss, she savoured the joy of the future.
Rachel Lindsay - Forgotten Marriage Page 14