Remember Me - Regency Brides 03 (11 page)

"Oh. .." Helen sounded like a deflating bal oon. Just like her bright ideas! "I suppose that would be al right," she relented after coming up with no reason able excuse to turn down his offer of help.

"I'l walk with you," North chimed in, and Helen could have kissed him.

Did he know what she'd been up to? "I wil hold your hand while the doctor performs the surgery," he added teasingly. One quick glance at his eyes told her she hadn't fooled him one bit.

"Never take the eyes lightly, Reverend," the doctor cautioned, unaware of Helen's subterfuge. "One tiny shard of wood or glass can cause a world of damage."

"Of course, Doctor," North answered contritely as they fol owed the older man, who was dressed rather more like the dandies of the English ton than the usual American mode of dress she'd seen thus far. His coat was a rich gold color with red trim at the sleeves and lapel. The vest underneath matched the ruby color of the trim and was made of shiny brocade. Considering
every
other man at the picnic wore more somber colors in shades of black, gray, and brown, he quite stood out.

Helen felt ridiculous as Dr. Giles examined her eye. He kept making the sound
mm-hmm,
and she wondered if he actual y saw anything.

He didn't. "I'm afraid I cannot tel you the source of your irritation," he final y told her, looking perplexed.

Helen could have told him her source of irritation had blond hair and was flirting with the man she loved. Instead she thanked him for at least going to the trouble of examining her. "Perhaps the wind blew it out," she offered.

He accepted that it could have happened, and both she and North walked him back to the table.

Blondie was stil there. Waiting. She was already smiling at him, and the fluttering eyelids would certainly be next! "Nor.. . uh ...Reverend! Would you walk me back to my table? I just wanted to have a word with you for a minute."

North didn't even look surprised by her request: "Of course. Wil you excuse me?" he asked to the table at large, and Helen was glad to notice he didn't so much as glance at the blond.

"If you wanted to talk to me, Helen, there was no need to go to such theatrics.

Next time, just ask," he told her in a low voice as he smiled at her, flashing his even, white teeth.

Helen's face felt heated with embarrassment. "I noticed the blond girl was so il -

manneredly monopolizing al your time, and so I thought that since you might not know how to extricate yourself without hurting her feelings, I tried to do it for you,"

she offered, the lengthy explanation hardly making sense even to her.

But North agreed. "Aye, I was feeling quite uncomfortable. I might not remember much, but I do know the young ladies here are not skil ed in the art of ladylike manner or etiquette. These are some of the finest families in the area, and yet I do not understand why this facet of their children's upbringing is overlooked."

"Many of the English families are not former nobility such as Robert Baumgartner is but have come from little or nothing and become wealthy with hard work. I've heard the Creole plantations are a little different because more of them are from aristocratic families hailing from mostly France and Spain." Helen shrugged.

"That is why I am here. The Baumgartners wanted to make sure their younger daughter was taught those things."

They both looked to see Josie stil sitting at the table, stuffing cake into her mouth. Helen noticed there was white frosting smudged on both cheeks, and she, along with North, began to laugh. "Whether she wil fol ow your teachings is quite another thing altogether."

Helen laughed more. "I'm afraid you are right. Even her sister was having a tough time adjusting to al the rules of society when last I saw her." Helen thought about the beautiful and friendly Claudia Baumgartner whom she'd met while visiting London with Christina.

"Claudia is determined to be the lady that her grandfather, the Marquis of Moreland, wants her to be, yet I can't help feeling she's very unhappy. It's like seeing a caged tiger at a circus that you know just longs to be free."

"Did I ever meet her?" North asked, and Helen remembered that indeed she had seen him talking to her once.

"I believe you had been introduced," she answered truthful y, for she had no idea if he was better acquainted with her or not. North and Helen sat down at the table, and Josie chose that moment to get up, announcing she was going for another round.

North laughed. "She is going to be sick."

"Not if Mrs. Baumgartner sees her!" Helen peered over her shoulder to where Josie had just reached the dessert table. Just as she knew she would, her mother was there to intercept and lead her over to the regular food.

They chatted for a moment, topics ranging al the way from the weather to the people they'd met in Golden Bay. Final y their words drifted away, and for a sweet moment, they sat looking into one another's eyes, neither looking away.

Helen was surprised to have no feeling of awkwardness, and she got the impression he felt the same.

"Helen, if I may be so bold as to ask this, what is there between you and me?" he suddenly came out with, surprising them both. He sat back, rubbing a hand over his face. "I am sorry to have spoken so forcibly out of turn," he began to apologize.

"No, it is al right," Helen expressed, her heart pounding with fear and expectation al at one time. ' You cannot remember anything, so-"

"But you see, it is not that reason for which I am speaking." He looked around as if to see if anyone had heard his impassioned statement, and then let out a breath. "I am experiencing feelings for you I feel did not just begin when I first saw you two weeks ago. It's as though my heart remembers even though my mind cannot. I know we did not act upon them, but was there a mutual attraction between us?"

Helen could only be confused by his words. North had never given her any indication he felt anything but friendship for her when they were in England. He thought her pretty-this much she knew from Christina-but wouldn't she have sensed anything deeper from him? When he looked at her with his dazzling, friendly smile, wouldn't she have read something more in the depths of his blue gaze? She had certainly looked hard enough for any sign, any shred of love or deep affection.

She had lied to this man and misled him on so many things. And even though she had the golden opportunity to make him believe there was more between them so that he would feel more confident to pursue her, she just couldn't tel another lie.

"I wil tel you honestly, North, that I never knew you thought of me as anything but a friend. If you felt more, then I was not aware of it," she told him, careful not to mention her own feelings.

North shook his head. "I know I must have, Helen. The question is, why did I not act upon it? Why did I not cal upon you and pursue what I know I must have been feeling in my heart?"

Helen tried to comprehend what he was tel ing her, but she couldn't believe it.

Surely he had to be wrong! North had feelings for her when he knew he was a duke?

Helen thought back on the times she last saw him and realized that he started to avoid her at the bal s she would attend

He would say no more than a few words before he'd excuse himself to go talk to a friend and such. Could it have been because he liked her more than he should yet saw no hope in it?

Helen looked at North, with his lock of golden hair fal ing in a wave over his brow and the stylish yet simply made suit, which was tight about his shoulders. His handsome looks and elegance did not fit the image everyone had put him in.

They thought he was a clergyman, so they did not look past that title to grasp that this was no ordinary, common man.

"Perhaps your family would not have approved of me. I am, after al , just a gentleman farmer's daughter. They could have been pressuring you to settle on a woman of means," she offered truthful y.

"Hmm," North sounded, rubbing his chin thoughtful y. "I had not thought of that. It would seem like, judging from my attire, my family may have been in a financial quandary. Perhaps they were pressuring me to find an heiress," he murmured more to himself than to her, as if he were trying to reason it al out.

Abruptly he raised his head and smiled like a man who knew al the answers. "I have it al figured out!" he declared.

Helen felt as though her heart had fal en to the pit of her bel y. ' You remember everything?" she asked, trying not to sound dismayed by that prospect.

North, however, shook his head. "Unfortunately no, but I have been struck with insight! I know the reason I came to America!"

Helen blinked, trying to adjust to the path their conversation had taken. With North, she felt like she was often riding on a wild carriage ride, not knowing where they were heading or what sudden turns they might take. "It wasn't to be their preacher?" she offered, interested to know what scenario his mind had conjured up.

"Helen, I chose Louisiana because I knew you were going to be here!"

One week then two passed, yet Helen could not stop thinking about North's words at the picnic. Though she tried to dissuade him from his reasoning, he would not be influenced. To him, everything made perfect sense, and he treated his "epiphany," as he cal ed it, almost like it was a true memory.

Helen frankly did not know what to do or say when North wanted to talk about it.

Which he did-quite a lot. He wanted to know about each meeting they had, what they said, and how they treated one another.

It was so taxing on her poor nerves that Helen began to make excuses to stay away from his house. But that didn't work because he would just come down to the plantation to see her. It was an easy thing to do since he had an al y in the house, namely Imogene Baumgartner.

One good thing that happened was that North's preaching, thanks to Josie and Helen's helping him prepare, was greatly improved on the next Sunday, and one might say even inspiring on the third one. He seemed to be acclimating himself within the community as he visited families and prayed for their sick. As odd as it was, he seemed to be thriving in the occupation he was never meant to perform.

Helen would give herself headaches at night just thinking about the what ifs.

What if he never got his memory back? Would he be happy and content as Hamish Campbel ? What if he didn't remember until he was fifty? Would he want to rush back to England and try to acclimate himself to his old life, or would he decide to continue as a preacher?

Helen was certainly no philosopher about life's mysteries, but it sure opened her mind to possibilities outside what she'd always known. She even raised the question to herself as to whether God had, indeed, meant for North to take poor Hamish Campbel 's place.

But He didn't mean for you to lie and break one of His commandments,
a voice would always remind her whenever she began to justify herself and her actions.

A knock sounded at her door, pul ing Helen from her pondering. It was Monday morning, and she was supposed to have been brushing her hair but had, as usual, gotten lost in her thoughts.

After
Helen cal ed out for her visitor to come in, Imogene Baumgartner walked into the room, her face clearly upset. "Helen, I have just heard the most devastating news," she stated right away, her voice ful of sorrow as she pul ed a chair up so she could sit beside Helen.

Helen immediately thought of North. "Has something happened to Reverend Campbell?" she cried, not even realizing how easily his false name just rol ed off her tongue.

Imogene quickly assured her that wasn't it. She placed her hand over Helen's and told her, "It concerns Trevor Kent, the Duke of Northingshire, who is related to our friends at the Kent plantation."

Uh-oh,
Helen thought with mounting dread. In the few weeks North had been in Golden Bay, not once had she considered that if North were here, everyone else in the world would presume he was dead. How incredibly selfish and single-minded she had been!

"I'm afraid he has been declared missing and assumed to be dead," Imogene said gently, speaking the words Helen had already assumed would be the news.

"I believe Josie said you knew him?"

Helen glanced at her and then quickly lowered her eyes, hoping to give her employer the notion that she was shocked by the news. "Yes, but I knew him only as an acquaintance while I was in England," she said softly and careful y, trying not to lie yet not wanting Imogene to know of her feelings for the duke.

"Oh, then I am truly sorry," she offered in condolence as she patted Helen's hand again. "I have often heard from the Kents of what a fine man he'd been and how generous he was to his friends and loved ones. I had been hoping to meet him."

Helen listened to Imogene and heard her sigh sadly. "He was very nice to me when I first met him," Helen said, feeling like she needed to say something. In truth, she felt sick inside as she thought of his poor relatives and what they must be going through. Then she asked, trying to keep the worry from her voice, "Have they notified his family in England?"

She was relieved when Imogene shook her head. "No, they said they would search a little longer before they sent word. They are hoping against al odds that he stil lives."

Helen wanted to cry. What was she to do now? Again the situation had grown more complicated.

"Wel , I'l leave you to your grooming," the older lady said, as she got up from her seat and straightened the bow on the high waist of her fawn-colored morning dress. She was almost at the door when she seemed to suddenly remember something. "Oh! I also wanted to ask a favor of you."