Tempting the Bride (19 page)

He pulled out a neatly folded, snow white handkerchief and dabbed at his upper lip. “You mean to say I am a stranger to you?”

“I’m afraid so.”

She thought she’d made herself perfectly clear from the beginning, but he stilled all the same. His handkerchief hovered in midair, like the white flag held up by a surrender party. “I…I see.”

“Please feel free to tell me anything I need to know. Lord Hastings assured me that I delighted in publishing your books, so I am certain whatever you tell me would be quite welcome.”

Mr. Martin swallowed. “There is—there is not much to tell. I’d always wanted to write histories. When you started your publishing firm, you encouraged—compelled me, I might say—to hand over my manuscripts. The books have been very well received and I am exceedingly grateful to you.”

“That is wonderful to hear. I am glad I’ve been able to be of assistance to one of Lord Hastings’s friends.”

Mr. Martin looked down. He reached for the cup of tea that had been brought for him. She was startled to see that his hand shook.

“I apologize,” she said immediately. “My husband did mention that you were also a dear friend to me. How remiss of me to think of you only as his friend.”

“No, no, if anyone should apologize, it is I. I believe you were coming after me the day of your accident—probably concerning a matter having to do with my latest manuscript.” He laughed a little, not from mirth but from what seemed to be a great and growing uneasiness. “I’m quite despondent to be the cause of so much trouble.”

That could explain some of his discomfort, if he thought himself the culprit in her accident. She felt sorry for him, but she also felt as if she’d rehearsed for one play, but had been thrust onstage in the middle of another. “How can I blame you for my own inattention while crossing the street? And you must not blame yourself, either.”

He raised his face. “That is perhaps easier said than done.”

She realized that he shared her coloring, though his was less intense—reddish brown hair and hazel eyes. “I’m alive and hale—and really not terribly bothered about what I cannot remember.”

His face only became more anguished. Why did he and Hastings both exhibit such extreme reactions? Was it possible he was afraid to lose her as a publisher? “Am I contracted to publish further works by you?”

His teeth clamped over his lower lip. “Yes, two more volumes on the history of Anglia.”

“Then I shall stand by my commitment. And I will read your works and familiarize—or refamiliarize—myself
with them, so as to better prepare for your next manuscript. Our publishing agreement will not be in the least affected by my indisposition.”

At her firm reassurance, however, he seemed only to become more dejected. He set down his teacup. “That is most kind of you. I’m glad to see you are doing well, and I really ought not to take up any more of your time.”

He rose and bowed slightly.

“Would you not care to speak to me of your books?” she asked, still disoriented by the peculiarity of his demeanor.

But he’d already left.

H
astings had long considered the addition of the Fitzhugh family to the murals. Their figures would be quite small, their faces too indistinct to be recognizable. But they’d be dressed in English fashion of the previous decade, quite unmistakably a band of tourists.

He traced a finger on the path that wound down the side of a hill. He could put them on the path, and have a breeze lift the ribbons on the ladies’ hats. Their attention could very well be drawn to the ruined monastery on the next hill, except for Helena’s. Her face he would paint turned directly to the viewer—to him.

“Do all my authors act so strangely in my presence?” Her voice came from the door. “And do you always turn white as a sheet and run when one of them comes to call?”

His heart thudded in thunderous relief—Martin in person had not triggered a collapse of the dam that held back the greater reservoir of her memory.

“Who
is
that man?”

He tensed again. Something in her voice told him that
this time her suspicion had been well and truly aroused, that there would be no distracting her with a head of golden curls, no matter how fluffy and springy.

“Do you have any idea why he thought it acceptable to call on me at such an hour? And why, by the way, did
you
act so strangely?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Her voice became more insistent. “What are you withholding from me, sir? Why haven’t you looked once in my direction? Do you know that you are appearing quite guilty, even though I can’t fathom what wrongs you might have committed?”

The time for truth, the entire truth, had been thrust upon him.

He slid the pad of his index finger along the top of the wainscoting. “I used to be secretly jealous of Mr. Martin, who was a great favorite of yours,” he said, still without looking at her.

Her tone was one of utter bafflement. “Mr.
Martin
?”

“Yes, Mr. Martin.”

“But I married you, didn’t I? That ought to have settled the debate of who is my greater favorite.”

His fingers gripped the edge of the wainscoting, as if so flimsy a hold could anchor him in place when the storm came. “We are not married,” he said. “We are only pretending to be married.”

H
elena understood the individual words Hastings spoke, but together they made no sense at all. “How can anyone
pretend
to be married? Did we hold a pretend wedding as well? And why would my family
allow such a state of things to stand?” She sucked in a breath. “Or do they even know?”

“They know, but they have no choice but to let the pretense stand, at least to the world at large.”

Various muscles in her face contracted and tensed. She had no idea whether she was grimacing or trying to laugh at the ludicrousness of what he was saying. “Explain yourself.”

He looked skyward, as if praying for a miraculous intervention. “In the life you no longer remember, it was not me you loved, but Mr. Martin.”

Distantly, she marveled that she still remained standing. “I don’t believe you,” she said. Or perhaps she was shouting, for he seemed startled by the vehemence of her words. “I can’t have loved Mr. Martin. I felt nothing—
nothing at all
—when I saw him.”

“Nevertheless, you have loved him since you were twenty-two years of age,” he said, his eyes melancholy.

Was this a dream from which she couldn’t awaken? Five
years
of loving Mr. Martin? “Then why didn’t I marry him, if I’d loved him for so long?”

He shrugged. “Circumstances.”

She tried to peer through the curtain in her mind, but her past was as impenetrable as a London pea souper. “He is a gentleman and I am a lady. What kind of circumstances would prevent us from marrying if we so chose?”

“He was already slated to marry someone else—not engaged, but under heavy expectations.” Hastings slanted his lips to one side. “He did not defy those expectations.”

The implication of this last statement thundered in her head. “Mr. Martin is
married
?”

“Very much so.”

“When did he marry?”

“February of ’ninety-two, six months after you first met.”

She felt as if she’d been shoved to the ground. “And until just before my accident, I was
still
in love with him?”

“You never took to any other suitor. He and his wife had little to do with each other. In time you persuaded him to have an affair with you.”

She wasn’t just lying on the ground, she was being trampled by a stampede of wildebeests.
“What?
When?”

A shadow of pain crossed Hastings’s face. “The two of you would be the only ones to know when it started. All I can tell you is that I discovered you in January of this year. Your sister and sister-in-law immediately took you out of the country.”

As well they should—she’d have done the exact same thing.

“Unfortunately the strength of your feelings for him was such that when you returned to London, you sidestepped the surveillance your family put into place, and met him at the Savoy Hotel. That meeting, however, had not been set up by either of you, but by his sister-in-law, intending on exposing wrongdoing on his part.”

Her skeleton felt as if it would rattle apart with the force of her shock. She stared at Hastings, wishing his words would stop. But he went on, his tiding of evil news relentless, inexorable.

“I happen to know the sister-in-law’s husband, who’d said she was up to something. I also happened to intercept the message she’d sent to Mr. Martin, pretending to be you. I followed Mr. Martin from our club to the hotel. When I realized what was happening, I ran up the stairs to warn you, with his sister-in-law coming up the lift at roughly the
same time. There wasn’t enough time to get Mr. Martin to safety, so we hid him in the bath and pretended that
we
had eloped and were enjoying our honeymoon.”

A part of her still hoped he’d shout, “April Fool!” at any moment. But deep in her heart she recognized the inescapability of truth.

She swallowed. “How much time elapsed between the incident at the Savoy Hotel and my accident?”

“Your accident happened the next morning.”

What had Mr. Martin said when he called on her?
If anyone should apologize, it is I. I believe you were coming after me the day of your accident—probably concerning a matter having to do with my latest manuscript.

Whatever she’d wanted to speak to him about, it would not have concerned his latest manuscript. She flushed. She could not imagine herself chasing him in broad daylight, so intent that she’d very nearly forfeited her life to that carriage.

“You still don’t remember, do you?” Hastings asked quietly.

She shook her head. Perhaps it was for the best. She was beyond mortified—a married man, and she pursuing him in the streets as if he’d made off with her reticule.

“What did I see in him?” she asked no one in particular. She could not imagine herself breaking all rules of propriety for someone who inspired as little feeling in her as Mr. Martin.

“He was a sweet, openhearted man. You trusted him utterly.”

“My judgment was obviously impaired. I set myself at the risk of ruin, and my family at the risk of utter humiliation and heartache. They would never have been able to
acknowledge me again. And my God, Venetia’s baby. I’d never have been able to see my nephew or niece.”

“This is
your
family we are talking about. They let you become a publisher with little more than a raised brow or two. They would have let you see Venetia’s child, but you would have needed to be extremely discreet.”

She could scarcely breathe for her searing aversion to this reckless, selfish woman who had been described to her.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said gently. “You are judging your action—and Mr. Martin’s—without context. He was a winsome young man, very well liked for his bright smiles and good nature. Caving in to his mother’s insistence on the matter of his marriage turned him more timid, more doubtful, and, ultimately, less joyful. But you’d fallen in love with someone who had not yet made that terrible mistake, who was full of hopes, dreams, and a sincere idealism.

“You lost him when you loved him the most, a difficult blow that never quite softened with time. When you met Mr. Martin in subsequent years, you saw not the man he became, but only the one he’d been, the one you’d have gladly married if only you’d had the chance. Perhaps you forgave him too much, but who among us would not wish to be so generously loved and generously forgiven?”

She leaned back against the doorjamb. His kindness was a balm to her badly singed soul. She let herself wallow in the magnificence of his compassion, the sweetness of his friendship.

He took a step toward her, his brow furrowed with concern. “Helena, are you all right? I hope you are not angry that we haven’t told you sooner. It is a complicated story
and not always a happy one, and we didn’t quite know how to—”

She held up her hand for him to stop. The only person she was angry at was herself.

“Helena—”

She adjusted the cuff of her right sleeve rather unnecessarily. “Where were you in this doomed, idiotic love affair of mine?”

His surprise at her question was followed by a wistful smile. “On the outside looking in.”

“So all this—” She gestured at the glorious mural he’d created for her and didn’t quite know how to go on.

“I’ve always loved you,” he said, his eyes a blue that was almost violet. “You know this.”

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I only wonder whether I deserve such devotion.”

“Sometimes people fall in love with those who do not return the same strength of feelings. It is as it is,” he said with a quiet intensity. “What I give, I give freely. You owe me nothing, not love, not friendship, not even obligation.”

N
ow everything was out in the open.

Hastings felt at once exhausted and unbearably light, all his secrets unloaded. She, on the other hand, looked as if the weight of a continent had settled on her shoulders.

He closed the distance between them and touched his hand to her sleeve. “It has been a long day. Would you like to take some rest? I can have some refreshments sent up.”

She gripped his lapels and yanked him toward her with surprising strength. “How dare you leave me alone in my hour of need.”

He had rarely been more startled. “That is not what I—”

“I know.” She let go of him and smiled sadly. “And what
I
meant was, ‘Stay with me.’”

“Of course. Would you still like to have tea sent up?
There are books you like in the sitting room. I can read to you from—”

She gripped his lapels again. “I thought you were more clever than this.”

She looped her free arm about his neck and kissed him, her tongue seeking his with a need that had him all but moaning aloud.

He forced himself to pull back. “Wait!”

“No.”

“Helena, you’ve just been told some shocking news. You are not feeling quite yourself. You should be taking a bath, or having something to eat, not leaping on a fellow you didn’t even like ten days ago.”