Until You

14

Now that he fully understood the importance of Whitticomb's reasons for wanting Stephen to play the part of her devoted fiance, Stephen was determined to set matters to rights at once. He paused outside her door, braced himself for the inevitable bout of tears and recriminations that were bound to pour forth from her the moment she saw him, then he knocked and asked to see her.

Sheridan started at the sound of his voice, but when the maid hurried forward to admit him, she returned her gaze to information she was copying out of the London newspaper, and said very firmly, "Please tell his lordship that I am indisposed."

When the maid relayed the information that Miss Lancaster was indisposed, Stephen frowned worriedly, wondering just how sick she had made herself because of his neglect. "Tell her that I came to see her and that I'll return in an hour."

Sheridan refused to feel even a trace of pleasure or relief that he intended to return. She knew better now than to depend on him for anything. Dr. Whitticomb had been so distressed over the state he'd found her in that morning, that his alarm had communicated itself to her, shaking her out of her dazed misery. If she was going to fully recover, he'd warned her, it was absolutely imperative that she take care of herself physically and that she keep her mind active.

He'd rushed through a disjointed-and, Sherry suspected, dishonest-explanation about her fiance's neglect that included statements such as "absorbed by pressing business matters," and "obligations of his rank," and "problems with the stewardship on one of his estates." He'd even implied that the earl hadn't been feeling quite himself lately. Unfortunately for the kindly physician, the more he tried to explain away Lord Westmoreland's inexcusable disinterest in his fiancee, the more obvious it became to Sheridan that her presence, and her illness, were apparently less important to the earl than the tiniest details of his business and social life! Furthermore, she had every reason to believe that he was actually punishing her, or teaching her a cruel lesson, for having had the nerve to bring up the topic of love.

She had spent days tormenting herself for doing that and blaming herself for asking him if he had a heart. But as she'd listened to Dr. Whitticomb's lecture about her health and watched the somber look on his face, her guilt and hurt had finally turned to justifiable indignation. She wasn't engaged to the physician, but he'd been worried about her. He'd gone to the trouble to travel a distance to see her. If love was a laughable, forbidden emotion to sophisticated English noblemen, then the earl could at least have made allowances for her lost memory!

As to marrying the earl, Sheridan couldn't imagine what madness could have caused her to make such a decision. Thus far, the only positive attribute he seemed to possess was that he was remarkably handsome, which was certainly not reason enough to wed him. Furthermore, when her memory returned, if she didn't recall things that completely altered her opinion of him, she fully intended to tell him to take his marriage proposal and make it to some other female, one who was as cold and impersonal about marriage as he was! She found it almost impossible to believe that, in her right senses, she would have felt differently about the matter of marriage. Perhaps her father had been deceived into believing the earl would make her a good husband and had insisted she wed the man. If so, she would go to her father and explain why she'd decided not to do so. In the last few days, whenever she tried to think of her father, she couldn't conjure a face, but she could feel faint stirrings of emotion-a gentle warmth, a loving closeness, a sense of loss as if she missed him terribly. Surely, a father who evoked feelings like that wouldn't be the sort to force his daughter to marry a man she didn't admire in the least!

Exactly an hour later, Stephen knocked at the door again.

Sheridan looked at the clock on the mantel, angrily noting that he was at least punctual, but that didn't influence her decision. Continuing to study the newspapers that she'd spread out on the writing desk by the windows, she spoke to the maid: "Please tell his lordship that I am resting." As she said the words, she felt a spurt of pride in herself. Although she didn't know anything factual about Charise Lancaster, at least she didn't lack spirit or resolve!

On the other side of the portal, Stephen's guilt was replaced by the beginning of alarm. "Is she ill?" he demanded of the maid.

The chambermaid looked pleadingly at Sheridan, who shook her head, and the maid answered him in the negative.

An hour after that, when Stephen again knocked upon the door, he was informed she was "having a bath."

An hour after that, he was no longer worried, he was annoyed. He knocked sharply, and this time he was advised that "Miss is sleeping."

"Tell 'Miss,' " he ordered in a dire, warning tone, "that I will return in exactly one hour, and I expect to see her, very clean and very rested and ready to go downstairs for supper. We dine at nine."

An hour later, when the earl knocked on the door, Sheridan experienced a degree of amused satisfaction. Smiling to herself, she sank deeper into the warm bubbles that threatened to spill over the marble bath. "Tell his lordship that I prefer to eat in my room this evening," she instructed, feeling sorry for the poor maid, who looked as if she'd rather be flogged-or else was afraid of being flogged.

Stephen flung open the door before the maid had finished the sentence and stalked inside the bedchamber, nearly knocking the servant over. "Where is she?" he snapped.

"In-in the bath, my lord."

He started toward the doorway that led into the special marble bath suite he'd had installed off this bedchamber several years ago, then he caught the maid's appalled expression and changed direction. Walking over to the table by the window, he glanced at the open newspaper and saw a piece of writing paper lying beside it. "Miss Lancaster!" he said, raising his voice and using a tone that made the poor chambermaid blanch. "If you are not downstairs in exactly ten minutes, I will come up here and haul you down there myself in whatever state of dress, or undress, I happen to find you! Is that clear?"

To his disbelief, the chit didn't dignify his ultimatum with a reply! Wondering who she could possibly be writing to, Stephen picked up the writing paper. He was thinking sardonically that poor Burleton was probably better off dead, because Charise Lancaster would have made his life a hell with her outrageous obstinacy and temper, when he picked up the paper and realized what she'd been doing. In a precise, elegant hand, she'd recorded facts she'd gathered from the morning Post, facts that she must have known before, but which she was having to relearn. Because of him:

King of England-George IV. Born 1762. George IV's father was George III. Died two years ago. Called "Farmer George" by English people. The King is fond of ladies and fine clothing and excellent wines.

After every few recorded facts, she'd tried to list similar facts about herself, but there were only blank spaces where easy answers should have been.

I was born in 18____?

My father's name is______?

I am fond of______?

Guilt and sorrow raged through Stephen, and he closed his eyes. She didn't know her own name, or her father's, or the year of her birth. Worse, when her memory did return, she was in for the biggest blow of all-the tragedy of her fiance's death. All of that… and all because of him.

The words on the paper felt as if they were searing his hand, and he dropped it onto the desk, drew an unsteady breath and turned to leave. He would not lose patience with her again, no matter what she said or did, he vowed. He had no right to feel anger or frustration; he had no right to feel anything except guilt and responsibility.

Determined to do everything in his power to atone for the hurt he had inflicted on her with his neglect-and was going to inflict on her when she ultimately learned her real fiance was dead-Stephen headed for the door. However, since he couldn't begin his program of atonement until she left the bathing room, he warned, in a more courteous, but very firm, voice, "You have eight minutes left."

He heard the bath water slosh, nodded with satisfaction, and left. As he walked down the upper hall toward the staircase, he realized he was going to have to do more than apologize for neglecting her; he was going to have to come up with an explanation she would accept. Before she lost her memory, Charise Lancaster had obviously harbored youthful, idealistic notions about love and marriage, since she'd plainly asked him if they were "very much in love." Inwardly, Stephen recoiled from the mere mention of the word. As he'd discovered, with age and experience, very few women were actually capable of feelings or behavior that even approximated that tender emotion, though nearly all women talked as if it were as natural to their sex as breathing. For his part, he instinctively mistrusted the word and any woman who mentioned it.

Helene shared his feelings in that regard, which was one more reason he enjoyed her company. Moreover, she was faithful to him, which was more than could be said of most of the wives of his acquaintances. For those reasons, he kept her in a style that would have befitted the legitimate wife of a nobleman, complete with a beautiful London townhouse, a large staff of servants, closets full of gowns and furs, and a splendid silver-lacquered coach with pale lavender velvet squabs-a color combination that was Helene Devernay's "signature." Few but she could wear it, and others who tried never managed to carry it off or look as lovely in it. She was sophisticated and sensual; she understood the rules and did not confuse lovemaking with love.

Now that he thought about it, not one female, including those he'd spent enough time with to start betrothal rumors circulating, had ever presumed to try to engage him in a discussion about love, let alone expect him to actually profess it.

Charise Lancaster, however, was obviously not so practical or so sensible. She clearly expected her fiance to discuss it-at length, no doubt-and that was something Stephen intended to avoid for his sake and her own. Once her memory returned, she was going to hate him for all his deceptions, but she would hate him far more for humiliating her with false protestations of undying affection that he didn't feel.

Two footmen stepped forward as he reached the drawing room and swept open the doors. His forehead furrowed in thought, Stephen walked past them and then over to the sideboard, where he poured sherry into a glass. Behind him, the doors closed silently, and he turned his attention to the most pressing problem at hand. Within the next minute or two, he had to invent some truly plausible explanation to give her for his blatantly unloverlike behavior the last night they'd talked, and for avoiding her since then. When he'd first gone upstairs to see her, he'd intended to apologize and soothe her with a few vague platitudes. Now that he had a better idea of her temperament, he had the uneasy conviction that she wouldn't settle for that.