Forever Mine

by Monica Burns

  “Guilt?” He frowned. “You mean because I wasn’t hurt and Victoria was?”

  “Yes.” His sister nodded and watched him with that assessing gaze of hers.

  “No,” he said with a soft grunt. “I’ve already considered that. This isn’t guilt.”

  Nick moved to stare out the hospital window, his brain vaguely noting how the morning sun illuminated the hospital garden below. Memories of yesterday afternoon flooded his head. The first moment when he’d seen Victoria in the shop. The explosive sound of the blast. The sight of Victoria’s agony as electricity lashed through her body. The way she’d collapsed like a rag doll against the wall. But it was the knowing he’d lost her somewhere in the distant past that confused him the most. He was finding it almost impossible to reconcile what happened yesterday with the logical order of his daily life.

  A low moan from the hospital bed jerked Nick’s attention away from the window as the monitor started beeping madly. In three strides, he was at Victoria’s side. Gently, he wrapped his hand around her wrist and brushed his fingers gently across her forehead.

  “Victoria. Can you hear me? Victoria.”

  “No. Not. Vickie.” Her words were barely distinguishable, and Nick leaned closer in hopes she would say something else.

  “Fight, Victoria. Come back to me,” he rasped urgently. “Come back to me now, my sweet witch.”

  The door to the hospital room burst open as two nurses charged into the room. As they checked Victoria’s still motionless body and reviewed the monitors, the equipment alarms shut off abruptly. Once more, the steady beep the monitors had maintained throughout the night filled the room. Victoria didn’t make another sound, and Nick lowered his head to kiss her forehead.

  One of the nurses gently pushed him out of the way so she could examine Victoria’s responses. When she’d finished, the nurse looked at her colleague and shook her head. Fear sliced through him. What if he were wrong? What if Victoria never woke up from this coma? He pummeled the defeatist thought into submission. He wasn’t wrong. She would wake up. A few moments later, the nurses left the room, and Nick moved back to Victoria’s side.

  Silently, he urged her to hear him. Urged her to come back to him. Nick grew still as he remembered what he’d murmured to her. Sweet witch? It was too specific an endearment for him to simply brush aside, and it only increased his confusion as to what was happening to him.

  “Sweet witch? Not sweetheart? Where in the hell did you come up with that one?” Nora asked with bemused curiosity.

  “I don’t know,” he bit out in a tight voice as he looked over his shoulder at her. “It just came out.”

  “Right,” she said softly with a look of skepticism.

  “Let it be, Nora.” He turned his head to stare down at Victoria again, his hands gripping the metal side bar of the bed. “I’m dealing with enough right now as it is.”

  “I have no doubt of that.” Sympathy filled Nora’s voice as she moved forward and rubbed her hand on his back before she went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “I need to get to the shop and deal with the cleanup and the insurance people.”

  Nick nodded his head as she walked toward the door. Not once had his sister even suggested he should be at the shop and not the hospital. Somehow, like his uncle, she understood he needed to be here.

  “Anna, thank you.”

  “What did you call me?” Nora asked as she whirled around to face him. There was an odd expression on her face, and he shook his head.

  “What?”

  “You called me, Anna.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he said with a frown as he struggled to grasp the fact that Nora might be correct. He was so damned tired he couldn’t remember much of anything at the moment. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “If I did, I’m sorry. I’m tired. One of the nurses must be called Anna.”

  “I’ll see you later,” his sister said quietly. “If you’re going to insist on staying here, open up that recliner and try to get some sleep.”

  Nick opened his eyes and met his sister’s penetrating gaze. She smiled slightly then walked out of the room leaving him to contemplate the fact that he’d used an unusual endearment with Victoria, and in all likelihood he’d called his sister by another name. He slowly returned to the recliner trying desperately to understand what was happening to him. As he sank down into the vinyl-covered chair and closed his eyes, Nick knew he was stumbling across a landscape he’d always brushed aside as being unrealistic. Now, he was no longer certain of anything, except the fact that the only thing in his life that mattered was Victoria.

  Chapter 7

  October 1897

  “Fuck,” Nicholas muttered as he limped through the connecting corridor that ran between his room and Vickie—no, Victoria’s. She’d been vehemently insistent that he call her Victoria. He liked the sound of it. Instantly, his brain shouted at him for being a fool to be taken in by the woman’s performance. An almost flawless one. His wife had always exceled at small dramas, but this…this was something so beyond the bounds of anything she’d ever done. Nicholas threw open his bedroom door then slammed it behind him.

  Frustrated, he rubbed the back of his neck as he glared at the closed door. The vulnerability she’d displayed only a moment ago had shaken him more than he cared to admit. He’d told her she’d fainted, but that was a half-truth. Her shallow breathing had become almost non-existent as he’d taken Victoria’s limp form from Molly’s shaky grasp. Not even his light pats to her cheeks had stirred her out of her almost death-like state.

  Perhaps the most disturbing thing of all was the way her face had contorted with pain as she’d regained consciousness and taken that deep breath of air into her lungs. At that moment, he’d come close to believing she really wasn’t his wife, and the fear she might die in his arms had filled him with emotions he didn’t understand.

  Nicholas didn’t know what was worse, thinking Victoria was on the verge of dying or the fact that he’d been ready to bed her before he’d left her room the first time. He’d not been that hard for a woman in a long time. Not even when courting his wife had he been consumed with so much lust. And she had wanted him as much as he’d desired her. Vickie would never have caressed his cock the way Victoria had. If Molly hadn’t knocked on the door when she had, he didn’t think he could have stopped himself from bedding her.

  “Damn her.”

  Nicholas limped his way to the window overlooking Brentwood Park’s ornamental gardens. Vickie’s behavior had always been easy to predict. However, this new personality of hers was one he’d never seen before. Victoria. The name suited her changed behavior. Was it possible she was telling him the truth?

  “You’re a bloody fool, Guildford.” He snorted with disgust. “This is your wife. The woman who’s done nothing but humiliate you since the day you married her.”

  Humiliation. His hand gripped the window’s drapery in a tight fist. He’d suffered more than his fair share of degradation over the past three weeks. First, there had been the frantic search when Vickie failed to arrive at Grenville’s ball. Then the suspicious looks, the police investigation, and the rumors. Not willing to rely solely on the police, he’d hired his own investigators.

  It wasn’t until Darby had drunkenly confronted Nicholas at the club and accused him of murder that things had taken a turn for the worse. The moment Scotland Yard had knocked on his door, he’d not only been humiliated further—he’d begun to worry. The snap of the wooden curtain rod penetrated his thoughts as the dark green drapes collapsed on his head forcing him to fight his way out from under the heavy expanse of material.

  “Damn it to hell.”

  “My lord, I’m aware you’re not fond of frivolity, but the curtains protect the carpets from the sunlight,” his valet said in a wry tone as he entered Nicholas’ bed chamber.

  Small in stature, Gerald Roberts moved quickly to Nicholas’ side to help him escape the weight of the drapery. The manservant ef
ficiently folded the drapes up into a tidy bundle and set them on the bed before picking up the broken curtain rod and leaning the pieces against the wall.

  “I’ll have Mrs. Beechum arrange for repairs to be made tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” Nicholas grunted. Roberts had been with him for years and their relationship was more friendship than that of employer and servant. He owed his life to the valet.

  “I understand her ladyship has returned.” The valet moved to the wardrobe to pull out Nicholas’ evening clothes. “I’m certain you’re relieved she’s returned safe and sound.”

  “Relieved that I’ll keep my neck is what you really mean.” He eyed the older man with a sardonic twist of his lips as he watched the valet begin to prepare shaving cream to remove Nicholas’ afternoon shadow. The valet nodded toward a nearby chair.

  “That too.” Roberts chuckled as Nicholas limped forward and sank into the chair. The valet frowned at him. “Your leg is bothering you more than usual, my lord.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said with a wave of his hand.

  “You forget how well I know you, my lord.” Roberts covered Nicholas’ face with one of the hot wet towels he’d brought with him to the room. “I’ve heard you exercised it quite a bit at Goodman Cottage this morning.”

  Nicholas tugged the towel off his face and glared up at the valet. Clearly unrepentant for his observation or the fact that he’d been listening to gossip about what had happened at the cottage, Roberts met Nicholas’ gaze with a look of chastisement. With a noise of disgust, Nicholas covered his face again with the warm towel.

  “I might have strained the leg a bit more than usual,” he mumbled through the towel.

  “I’ll prepare some liniment for you to use before you retire, my lord.”

  Nicholas grunted his appreciation while experiencing a sense of guilt. He would have gladly sacrificed his leg ten years ago if it would have changed things. Roberts pulled the towel off Nicholas’ face and began to lather his skin with shaving cream.

  “Her ladyship’s return has caused quite a stir in the household.” Roberts set the shaving cream aside to sharpen a razor blade on a leather strap. “Mrs. Beechum was amazed at Lady Guildford’s pleasant manner and other remarkable changes.”

  “Am I to interpret that to mean Mrs. Beechum’s astonishment at her ladyship’s request to occupy the room next door?” Nicholas narrowed his gaze at the manservant.

  “I believe it was her ladyship’s apparent distaste for the room she normally occupies that surprised Mrs. Beechum more, my lord. Even Jamieson expressed a modicum of surprise at her ladyship’s polite manner.”

  “Good God,” Nicholas exclaimed softly. “Jamieson? The man is unflappable.”

  “Indeed, my lord. Apparently, he was quite startled by the sight of her ladyship dismounting from Zeus, and her lack of fear.”

  “Jamieson’s correct. Her ladyship showed no sign of the terror she normally exhibits around horses.”

  Nicholas frowned as he remembered Victoria had shown no fear of Zeus and even asked for a horse to ride. The only thing that seemed to terrify her was the day’s date. When he’d told her the year, the color had drained from her face until she was paler than when he’d pulled her from the icy pond. Seconds later, he’d set her down and watched as she retched in the snow. While it was possible she was carrying Darby’s child, instinct told him she wasn’t. What troubled him more was the terror and hopelessness in her blue eyes when she’d clearly recognized the cottage.

  “Perhaps it has something to do with her head injury,” Roberts said as he worked swiftly to shave Nicholas’ face.

  “Possibly,” he murmured. From the look of her injury, she’d clearly taken a severe blow to the head. Was it possible her wound accounted for her new behavior? “However, I’ll be interested to hear your impressions once you’re reacquainted with the mistress of the manor, Roberts.”

  “I shall be happy to give a full report when I do, my lord.”

  “And do you expect to find the lady as changed as the rest of my staff do?”

  “While I confess to curiosity about her ladyship’s behavior, I believe we both know my presence has always made the lady in question most uncomfortable.”

  “You mean rude,” Nicholas snapped. “My wife has always been a self-centered woman who’s cared little for anyone except her own comforts.”

  “Which will make it all the more interesting when I come face-to-face with her ladyship.”

  Roberts smiled as he lightly scraped shaving cream off the side of Nicholas’ face with the straight razor. There was a mischievous sparkle in the older man’s eye, and Nicholas snorted with soft amusement. If there was any sure way to prove Victoria’s story was false, it was simply to put her in the same room with Roberts. Vickie had always been visibly uncomfortable in the presence of his valet.

  Nicholas’ gaze fell on the disfiguring scars covering one side of Robert’s face. Scars the man had earned saving Nicholas from the fire at his paper mill in Lydney shortly after he became the earl. He frowned as he remembered how shortly after their wedding Vickie had insisted he dismiss Roberts simply because she couldn’t bear to look at the man. It was something he’d never do. Roberts had saved his life, and for that the man would always have Nicholas’ loyalty and affection.

  § § §

  More than an hour later, Nicholas headed downstairs. As he passed Victoria’s bedroom, his stride slowed a fraction as he envisioned her in bed with her auburn hair spread out on her pillow. Infuriated with the direction of his thoughts, he uttered a small oath of self-loathing and pushed the image from his mind.

  This weekend was supposed to have been nothing more than a quiet visit to the country with Anna and Sebastian for company. He’d simply wanted a reprieve from the gossip and unexpected visits from Scotland Yard. That plan had crumbled into disarray the moment Eleanor overheard him discussing the weekend with Anna. The duchess had seized the moment to enlarge the party, and before he’d realized what was happening, Eleanor had arranged everything.

  He was fortunate the gossip columns hadn’t learned of the house party. They would have had him swinging from the garrote for entertaining while his wife was missing. At least that problem had resolved itself, despite Victoria’s unusual return and preposterous tale. Now the only problem to solve was Eleanor Legette, Duchess du Chatelaine.

  The woman had been pursuing him for months. He should have discouraged her from the start, but she’d proven amusing company. Still he had no excuse for allowing her to invite herself, the Palmertons, and Charles to Brentwood Park this weekend. He wasn’t an imbecile, he should have ended the weekend before it even began.

  Even if he’d wanted to make the woman his mistress, he wouldn’t. His wife might not honor her vows, but his honor meant a great deal to him. Liaisons presented a number of dangers. The most treacherous of which was the possibility of a bastard. The thought of siring an heir to his title was horrifying enough. In that respect, Vicki’s liaisons saved him from sharing her bed.

  As he reached the foot of the stairs, he heard laughter echoing out of the salon. Nicholas entered the room to see Catherine Dewhurst, Viscountess Palmerton sitting on the loveseat with Anna, while Charles Barrows, Sebastian, and Catherine’s husband, John were pouring drinks at the liquor cabinet. Eleanor’s absence wasn’t surprising as the woman was always late.

  “Nicholas, you’re here,” Anna exclaimed as she smiled at him. “We were just discussing Vickie’s return.”

  “Victoria.” The automatic response earned him a raised eyebrow from Anna, but his best friend’s wife didn’t question him.

  “Anna and Sebastian told us that Vickie showed up out of the blue this morning,” Charles said with amazement.

  “One of the farm tenants found Victoria unconscious outside their cottage.” Nicholas nodded as he crossed the floor to the liquor cart and poured himself a brandy.

  “Damned peculiar,” Charles said as he shook his head in disbelie
f.

  “Since when did you decide to call her Victoria?” Sebastian asked quietly as he took a drink of brandy.

  “When she asked me too.” Nicholas shrugged. Exactly what had prompted him to do as she asked?

  “Why on earth would she ask you to call her, Victoria?” Charles snorted disparagingly.

  “She says she’s hated the name Vickie since she was a child.” Nicholas frowned and shook his head.

  “It’s just damned peculiar, that’s all,” Charles muttered. Sebastian nodded his head as he took a drink of brandy.

  “I’m afraid I agree with Charles,” Sebastian murmured quietly. “Tread lightly Nicholas. Whatever she’s up to, I have no doubt it will not be in your favor.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but I did take Anna’s advice, and—”

  “Nicholas, you wound me to the quick, mon cher. Do you not value my counsel as well?”

  Eleanor’s small cry of disappointment forced its way into the conversation, and Nicholas turned to face the petite woman standing in the salon doorway. The woman’s petulant expression annoyed him, but it was his comparison of the hard calculation in Eleanor’s blue eyes to a warm sapphire gaze that irritated him more. He didn’t like making comparisons where Victoria was concerned.

  “Anna offered her advice before you arrived. It was sound counsel from a trusted and loyal friend.” Nicholas almost regretted his cold reply as Eleanor flinched as if he’d hit her. A split second later, she’d regained her composure.

  “Forgive me mon cher, of course, you should value the advice of your friends. I was simply expressing the hope that you hold my friendship in similar regard.” She crossed the room and laid a hand on his arm.

  Not about to give the woman any hope, he offered her a brief smile then turned to pour her a glass of Madeira. As if aware he was in a dark mood, Eleanor crossed the floor to take a seat opposite Anna and Catherine. As she accepted her glass, the duchess glanced around the room.

  “You really should do something different with this room, Nicholas,” she said with open disdain. “The décor is…”