Not at all like this hard-eyed stranger before her.
“Sit down, my lady.”
“I’ll stand, thank you.”
“Sit down.” He studied her rigidly. “Please.”
India sank into a tufted velvet wing chair opposite the cluttered desk.
“Forgive me. I shall try to put this as plainly as I know how, Lady India.”
“Lady Thornwood,” India corrected fiercely.
His eyes glinted for a moment. “As you say.” Silently the earl tipped several inches of brandy into a glass and drank deeply. Only then did he turn back to India. When he did, the mask had fallen back into place, shielding his feelings. “Delay will only make this more painful. I am Devlyn Carlisle, yes. I am a week returned to London, yes. Beyond that, however—” He turned away, studying the rows of gleaming crystal decanters on the wine table as if they were utterly unfamiliar. Indeed, he looked at the whole room as if it was unfamiliar, India thought. “In short, I came home, and yet I did not come home. I have no recollection of being Devlyn Carlisle. I have no recollection of what made this man laugh or cry. Or love…” As he spoke, his long fingers traced the edge of his jaw, where a scar gleamed like a silver crescent in the candlelight. “I was cut down at Quatre Bras, so I am told.”
At his words, a ragged sound spilled from India’s lips, but the earl resolutely ignored it, his eyes locked on the goblet in his hands. “Afterward I had no memory of the French blade that wounded me, or of the two days I spent in a pile of wounded bodies. Perhaps it is just as well. I was left for dead and was too weak to correct the impression. Eventually an English officer found me and carried me off to an overworked surgeon, who wrestled me back from death. All this I know only from reports. My own memory begins several months later, when I awoke covered in dirty bandages in a smoky farmhouse somewhere near the French border.”
“But what happened to take you there?”
“I cannot tell you that. Beyond those few facts, I can tell you nothing at all. All those months are missing in my mind. You claim that I am your husband and I cannot dispute it. You claim we were in love, and I cannot dispute that either. But the deepest truth is that I am not that man, nor ever will be again. I am a stranger to you — even as I am to myself.”
India’s hands began to tremble. “You … remember nothing?”
“Nothing.” Thornwood shook his head grimly.
India could only stare at him. Could what he said possibly be true? Did he truly remember nothing of their meeting in Lady Richmond’s rose garden after that chance encounter on the street, or the whirlwind courtship that had followed? Had he forgotten the shock of sweet passion, the swift flare of hunger, the wrenching pain of parting? Was this truly no more than a cool stranger who looked out at her from those well-loved features?
India trembled, gripping the arms of the wing chair.
The movement made Thorne frown. “I am sorry to break it to you this way, my lady. If what you say is true, this must be a grave shock.”
Again the emotionless words, every one a knife tearing at India’s heart. “But it has been over a year. You still can’t remember?” Something cool touched her fingers. India looked down to see a wineglass pressed to her hand.
“Drink. Then we will talk,” the unsmiling stranger who was her husband ordered.
India took a sip, letting the comforting heat burn down her throat. Blindly she watched Devlyn, who turned away to pace the firelit room.
Every movement was achingly familiar, yet now she imagined there were subtle differences. “What happened, Dev? What happened to us?”
“A war happened, madam. A lifetime intervened.” He gave a harsh laugh. “During that time I nearly died. Sometimes I think I did die, between the wounds I bore and the fever that came afterward.” Again his long, powerful fingers traced the silver scar at his jaw.
“But surely that will change.” India looked at him in confusion, fighting desperately to retain some shred of hope in the face of this detached flow of words. “Eventually, you will remember. Little things at first, then more.”
“No.” He cut her off harshly, his eyes burning. “Do not delude yourself. The doctors shake their heads and cluck, but they make no assurances.” He ran his hands through his dark hair. When he looked up, the wrenching desolation in his eyes made India’s breath catch.
“So you see, I’m afraid I can be of no use to you. You will of course have your man of business call on me and present the proper documents. If the marriage is legal, some sort of settlement will be made.”
“It was perfectly legal,” India said tightly.
He studied her face, his expression hard. “I see. Was the union consummated?”
India flung herself to her feet, color staining her cheeks. “You dare to ask such a thing?”
“I must. You claim to be my wife, may I remind you? Unconsummated, a marriage is an easy matter to break through annulment. But consummated, or with heirs, the business will be a great deal messier.”
This clinical recitation was more than India could bear. “Messy? Is that how you think of it? I waited for you! I watched every load of wounded carried back into Brussels. I searched the roads at dawn and stopped every English soldier, desperate for even a scrap of news. Week after week, I waited.” Her lips trembled and she caught back a ragged sob. “All that time I stayed and worked, tending wounds I could hardly bear to look at. It was little enough to do when I hoped that one of the soldiers might have some news about you. Sometimes I thought I saw you walking out of the dust, that old teasing smile on your face. And then the fevers came. Even then I worked on until one day I was struck down, too.” India felt deathly cold as she continued. “They say I came very close to dying one night, my lord. Shortly after that…” Her eyes glittered, pools of pain. “Never mind. Just tell me how you can look at me and call our past — our marriage — messy.”
Devlyn Carlisle muttered a low curse and strode toward her. “Sit down. There is no purpose in—”
India drove her trembling fists against his chest. “Don’t touch me.” She was on the edge of breaking, and she knew it. But she would never show her pain to this hard stranger with the face of the man she had loved. “You have made yourself more than clear. I-I must go.”
“It is late, madam. Stay here and rest awhile longer. Then I will fetch a hackney. You are in no condition to go anywhere right now.”
India pushed him away, and in the process her fingers splayed, driving against the breadth of his chest. She flinched as a jolt of memory slammed through her.
Memories of warm, hard muscle.
Memories of strong hands and low laughter.
And the gentle, aching pleasures he had shown her in a quiet garden rich with roses while around them a desperate city prepared for war. As the moon climbed through the velvet sky, they had tasted enchantment itself, fighting to hold back an implacable dawn which would tear them apart all too soon.
Trembling, India drove away the memories. They were too difficult to bear. “I must go now. Don’t hold me, I beg of you.” There was a fierce tension in her shoulders as she struggled desperately for control.
Thornwood stiffened. “I am sorry.”
India’s ragged laugh was full of despair. “Sorry? What good does sorry do?” She took an awkward step backward. Her eyes were luminous with unshed tears as she stared at him. “Good-bye,” she said. “Good-bye, Devlyn Carlisle. Do not come to see me. Do not try to contact me, not ever again. I am now as dead to you as you are to me. I must finally learn how to accept that.” Then her chin rose and she made her way proudly to the door.
CHAPTER 5
Over the next two days, the Earl of Thornwood sent five messages to India at the Duchess of Cranford’s town house.
Each message was returned to him unopened. When he sent his man of business to speak with the auburn-haired heiress, he, too, was sent away.
At each impasse Thornwood’s temper grew steadily worse. Finally he called at th
e Duchess of Cranford’s town house in person.
His reception was far from welcoming.
No, Lady India was not receiving.
No, she would not accept a written message from the Earl of Thornwood.
No, there was no way he could possibly speak to her, the old butler announced imperiously. Then he closed the polished oak door in Thornwood’s face.
Fuming, the earl stalked back to Belgrave Square. If it was war the female wanted, it was war she would have. Once in his study, he pulled forth quill and vellum, and after a moment his bold scrawl raced over the page.
The note was not to India, however, but to Ian. Thornwood disliked being devious, but he saw no other way to reach this stubborn woman who appeared to be his wife. And reach her he would, for their tense encounter in his study had left him more shaken than he cared to admit.
The past was the past, he had told himself grimly, but the empty words did not banish the sight of India Delamere’s pale face nor her trembling hands.
Nor did they banish the odd, hollow pain that day and night gnawed at his heart.
~ ~ ~
The streets around Belgrave Square were lit by moonlight, quiet save for the steady clip-clop of a single passing carriage when the Earl of Thornwood’s study door was thrown open.
“What do you want of me?” India Delamere stood stiff and furious in his foyer, color flaming through her cheeks.
“I am delighted to see you received my message. Let me take your cloak.”
India’s hands clenched on the swirling flow of midnight-blue velvet. “There is no need, because I will not be staying.” She flung the silk-lined capelet back over her shoulder angrily. “I asked you to leave me alone, but you refuse. What game are you playing?”
“No game,” Thornwood said tightly. “I merely wanted to assure myself that you are … faring well.”
“Perfectly well, thank you.”
“Why have you not sent your man of business to see me?”
India shrugged. “I shall notify you of my decisions in due time. Now, if you are quite finished, my lord?”
“Not just yet.” Thornwood’s fingers touched her shoulder, unconsciously reprising the gesture she had made here only three days before.
Had it been only three days? To Thornwood it seemed a cold and painful lifetime.
“Stay for more of this insulting interrogation? I think not. You told Ian you had to speak with me on a matter of great urgency, and so I came. Obviously, it was just a lie.”
“No, there is something else.” Thornwood drew his hand slowly from his pocket. “I was going through some old papers and I found this letter. I don’t remember, but you mention I was away running messages for Wellington in the countryside.” Thorne’s eyes were unreadable as he held out a folded sheet of paper. Between the folds was pressed a delicate glove of fragile lace. “Do you recognize it?”
“My glove.” India’s face paled.
“It was in the letter you sent to me.” Thornwood’s eyes narrowed. “You wrote that this glove has been in your family for two hundred years. It seemed only right for me to return it to you now that…”
India took the exquisite piece of lace. “Now that our vows are ended?” She laughed tightly. “How very touching. Thank you so much for your courtesy, my lord.”
“You are offended. It was not my intention to hurt you,” he said stiffly.
“No? But you do a superb job of it.” For a moment tears misted India’s eyes. “Don’t waste your worry on me. I’ll survive this, just as I have survived everything else, Lord Thornwood. And in the meantime I will thank you to stop interfering in my life!”
India spun about and was nearly at the door when a small figure wandered into the hall, a battered doll clutched in one hand. Golden curls tumbled over the girl’s long, pleated nightgown, and her eyes were full of sleep.
“I heard voices,” the girl said anxiously. “Angry voices, just like before. Why are you shouting? And why is the pretty lady crying, Papa?”
A muscle flashed in a hard line at Devlyn’s jaw as he looked down at the little girl whose nightgown trailed over the floor, three inches too long and two sizes too large. “The pretty lady is not crying, Alexis.” He looked up at India, his dark eyes implacable with a silent command. “You weren’t, were you?”
India stared at him, her heart pounding. Papa, the girl had called him! Sweet heaven, what other secrets had this man hidden from her? But of course, he was right, it wouldn’t do to show her turmoil before this innocent child. India gave a bright and entirely false smile. “Your father was quite right, my dear. I simply had something in my eye.”
The little girl nodded knowingly. “I understand. That happens to me quite a lot, too.” As she spoke she hugged her well-worn doll to her chest. “But why were you talking so loudly? I could hear you all the way up the stairs.”
“Grown-ups do that sometimes, Alexis,” Thorne said gravely. “But now I think it’s time you and Josephine went back up to bed. Nurse will be looking for you.”
The little girl frowned. “Nurse will sleep till midday. She put something from that bottle in her tea again. It always makes her talk strangely and bump into walls when she walks.”
Thorne’s face darkened. “Bottle? What bottle?”
At his harsh tone, the girl shrank back against India’s skirts, her hand unconsciously stealing into the soft folds. “It’s all right,” India murmured. “I’m certain that your papa isn’t angry at you, my dear.”
The little girl sniffed but did not let go of India’s skirt. “I suppose you’re right,” she said finally. “He does shout a great deal. It seems to happen whenever he gets those letters with the red wax seals. Then I hear him talking about blunderers and fools and cloth-brained imbeciles.” Her head cocked and she looked up at Thornwood. “What’s a cloth-brained imbecile, Papa?”
“Not now, Alexis,” Thorne muttered, frowning. “It’s time you were in bed. And I do wish you would stop calling me Papa. We’ve discussed all this before, you know.”
India’s eyes widened. A bubble of relief pressed through her chest. So he was not the girl’s father.
A moment later two more childish faces appeared in the corridor. The taller was a boy of roughly twelve with the clear and steady gaze of someone far older. Beside him stood a gray-eyed girl of about nine, who was frowning at her sister. “How many times have I told you not to bother Lord Thornwood?” The girl put her arm around Alexis. “There’s no one in your room, you know. There never is. It’s all just another one of those dreams you have.”
“There was someone there.” The little girl’s lip trembled. “I saw him. He had terrible eyes and huge teeth and a big black mask to cover the scar across his cheek. He was there, I tell you, standing right at the foot of my bed.”
The boy clicked his tongue. “You were dreaming, Alexis. Now come upstairs with Marianne and me and stop troubling his lordship. You wouldn’t want him to be sorry he brought us here from Brussels, would you?”
“Of course not, Andrew,” the young girl said in a pitiful voice. She looked up at Devlyn, her face troubled. “You aren’t, are you? Sorry that you took us in after our parents—” Her voice broke.
Devlyn sank down until his face was level with hers. Very carefully he brushed back a strand of hair from her cheek. “Of course not, Daffodil. Who else would teach me how to play Spillikins and Chase-the-mouse? Just think of all I’d be missing.”
The little girl nodded soberly, then took a step out from behind India’s skirts. “I’m glad,” she said softly. “Because if we hadn’t come here, I don’t know what we would have done.”
“So that’s where you’ve gotten to.”
The three children spun around as a dour-looking individual came charging down the stairs, a shawl flying at her shoulders. “You’re not to be trusted, not the lot of you! I can see I shall have to be more strict with you in the future, so I can break this outrageous behavior of yours once and for all!”
<
br /> So this was the children’s governess, India thought. The woman’s cheeks were unnaturally flushed, no doubt from the drink that Alexis had so innocently described.
“What you will do, Miss Porter, is see the children to bed,” Thorne said curtly. “And tomorrow morning you will present yourself at my study at precisely seven o’clock, when we shall discuss your future here. Or the lack of one.”
The woman’s eyes widened. She started to make an angry reply, but contented herself with a little hissing puff of breath before turning to shoo the children before her up the stairs.
India felt her heart catch as Alexis gave a sad wave before disappearing.
“By now you understand that they are not my children,” Thornwood said harshly. “I found them wandering quite parentless in a little village outside Quatre Bras. I took them in and saw to their needs. When no relative could be found, I brought them back with me to London. But they are in sad need of discipline, I’m afraid.” He plunged his hands through his hair and laughed darkly. “But my little dramas can hold no interest for you. The hour is late, my lady, and your presence here is questionable, to say the least. I suggest that we discuss our problem tomorrow. At your residence, perhaps?”
“There is no need to trouble yourself.” India raised her chin. “I wish to have no further contact with you. In one thing you were right, Lord Thornwood. I see now that the man I knew, the man I loved and married, died at Waterloo. I have no interest whatsoever in the stranger who has come back in his place.”
Thorne frowned. “Enough of this skirmishing. We are two adults. I’m certain we can be civilized about this whole tangled affair.”
India gave a harsh laugh. “Civilized? If you knew anything about my family, you would realize that being civilized is not a Delamere strong point. In fact, you ought to be glad that I do not have my pistol about me.” She turned toward the door. “Good night, my lord. Of rather, good-bye.”
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