"Hello, Selena," he said without turning around.
She gasped softly. "How did you know it was me?"
"No one else would dare follow me here."
She clasped her hands and walked toward him on the small granite path that wound through the beds of white flowers. Her heart was beating too quickly, and a strange moisture dampened her palms.
This could be an end for them, right now, in the magical quiet of this garden. Ian could turn away from her, return her to the cold darkness of her life before his smile.
She released a shaky breath and twisted her damp hands together. For the first time, she spoke a thought that was not truly on her mind. "Did you help Andrew?"
He didn't turn to her. "Not yet."
At the answer, so quietly spoken, Selena felt a rush of affection for him. He probably didn't even know what the words meant, the effort they implied. She knelt before him and looked up. Their gazes met, and in his eyes she saw a quiet, resigned suffering.
"I disappointed you today," he said in a crisp, matter-of-fact voice.
"Yes."
He gave a laugh, soft and bitter in the darkness. "I told you I would."
She heard the finality in his voice and it angered her. "You yield too quickly."
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He drew in a sharp breath and looked down at her. "I've always cut my losses fast."
"But love-"
"Love." He shot the word at her like a poison dart. "You know nothing of love and less of me."
"I know you as well as I know myself."
"So you do. Of course, you don't know your own name."
The caustic edge to his words saddened her. She didn't understand why he wanted so badly to believe the worst of himself. "Oh, Ian. You are so troubled with the unimportant. I know all I need to know of myself."
"And what's that? That you love me? Is that your defining characteristic?"
"No. I am like any other human. My opinions and emotions and beliefs define me-not some word I cannot recall."
He touched her then, and she saw the sadness in his eyes. "So you have found opinions at last. And what do you believe in, my goddess?"
For once, the words fell from her lips easily, forming themselves from the emotions in her heart. "Goodness. Honesty. Beauty. Second chances. The feel of a raindrop on my lips. Laughter and tears and the healing power of each." She eased up on her knees and tilted her face to his. "I believe in you, Ian."
"Selena-"
She touched his lips to still the protest. "Shh. Listen to me. I may be brain-damaged, but I am not stupid. I watch the world, Ian. Things that you long ago stopped seeing, stopped believing in, are still real for me. Who is more wrong-the child who believes in fairy tales or the adult who does not?"
He stared down at her. Brushing a knuckle along her jawline, he tilted her face just a little. "What in the hell do I do with you, Selena?"
Tears burned her eyes. She wished she had the intel-
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ligence to tell him what it was she felt, but she was no poet. "Just love me, Ian. Make a beginning with me."
He gazed down at her, his flame blue eyes almost luminescent in the pale moonlight. "What if it's wrong, Selena?" His voice broke. "What if you belong to someone else?"
This question that bothered him so much meant nothing to her. All she cared about was the look in his eyes and the way he made her feel when he touched her. "How could it be wrong?"
He gave her a smile that was heartbreakingly sad and touched her face. "Ah, Selena ..."
She leaned forward, pressed her cheek into the heat of his hand and closed her eyes.
He made a soft, groaning sound and pulled her into his arms, holding her so fiercely she couldn't breathe.
Ian poured himself another huge glass of whiskey and tossed it down, tasting nothing, feeling only the false warmth in his gut.
Wobbling, laughing quietly to himself, he made his reeling way to his desk and sat down with a thud. The papers strewn across the mahogany surface blurred before his eyes.
For a split second, he saw the letters he'd filed at every post office between here and New York City. He'd told hundreds of people about the mysterious woman in his care. Hell, he'd begged her family to come forward.
He crashed his fist to the desk and swept the offending whiteness away. Papers scattered to the floor.
What was he going to do? Sweet Jesus, what was he going to do?
It was the question that haunted him, drove him to his knees and kept him reaching for the booze. Every moment, every second, every breath, reminded him that Selena might someday be taken away from him, that he-ignorant, selfish bastard that he was-had alerted the world to her presence. Every time the wind
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tapped on the windowpane, he jumped; every time Fergus drove into town for the mail, Ian stood at his window, sweating, obsessing, waiting for a letter to arrive.
To whom it may concern: I'm coming to claim my wife.
My wife, my wife, my wife. The mother of my children ...
He grabbed the fragile lamp from the corner of his desk and threw it in frustration. It hit the paneled wall with a thwack and crashed to the floor in a spray of broken glass. Flames shot up from the pool of fuel on the wooden floor, licked the dark cherry paneling. The acrid scent of smoke wafted through the air.
He stared at the flames. In the reddish gold swirls, he saw her eyes, the color of maple syrup, eyes a man could lose himself in. And her hair, the wavy, untamed sweep of burnished brown. So soft and sweet-smelling; it slipped through his fingers like silk.
He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he'd touched it more, wishing he'd kissed her more deeply, more often, wishing he'd peeled away her cheap gingham dress and stroked the petal softness of her skin. Wishing, ah Jesus, wishing ...
The door to his study slammed open. "Good God, Ian," Johann barked. "What in the hell?" He raced over to the broken lamp and wrenched off his coat, using it to stomp out the flames.
Ian tried to focus on Johann, but the younger man was blurry, swaying. A semihysterical laugh slipped from Ian's mouth. "Drink, Johann?"
Johann yanked up his coat and turned to Ian. Charred bits of fabric fluttered to the pale carpet, smoke wafted up from the sleeves.
Ian laughed again. "Ah, look, a smoking jacket."
Johann rolled his eyes. "You're soused."
Ian waved him over. Anything was better than the loneliness, the sickening thoughts that sped unrelentingly through his mind. "Drink with me, Johann."
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Johann poured himself a stiff drink and took a seat opposite Ian's desk. He dropped his burnt coat in a heap at his feet. "You don't look so good."
"I feel worse."
Johann frowned sharply. "My God, a human response. What is the world coming to?"
Ian rested an elbow on the hard wooden arm of his chair and rubbed his eyes, sighing softly. "What in the hell is wrong with me?"
Johann's face softened, a smile caressed his thin lips. "You don't know?"
"All I know is that I've finally gone over the edge. One word from Selena, a word, and my mind .. . snapped. I can't get it out of my brain."
Johann leaned forward. "What did she say?"
"Slept. As in, maybe she slept with a man before her injury."
"Holy mother of God." Johann slowly sank back into his chair. "She's so innocent.... I never considered that she could be married. What are you going to do?"
There was the question again, the one he couldn't outrun. "I'm going to kill anyone who comes for her."
Johann got slowly to his feet. "No wonder you've been locked up here for days."
It felt so good to talk about it with someone, to be less alone. "I'm afraid to see her, Johann. An honorable man would stay away."
Johann took a long sip before responding. "It was my understanding that you reveled in your dishonor."
Ian released a steady breath. "You said she would change me, and she has. I know I'm a selfish bastard, but I don't thi
nk I can change it. If I see her, I'll take her to my bed, and if I do that, I'll kill any man who comes for her."
"Frankly, that's the most sensible thing I've ever heard you say. So what's the problem? You're rich. The rich can murder anyone and get away with it."
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He looked at Johann. "What if she has children, Johann?"
Johann's smile faded. "I don't know what to tell you."
He stared at Johann, wishing suddenly that the scotch could warm him. "Tell me this, then," he said softly. 'Tell me how to have a normal life."
"You ask me?" Johann raised his hands in the air. "There is no normal life."
Ian leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his dirty, disheveled hair. "I want to sleep, Johann. I want dreams instead of nightmares. I want ..."
"Selena."
Ian squeezed his eyes shut, and knew it was a mistake the instant he did. She came full force into his mind, taunting, teasing, reminding. I feel love for you, Ian. I believe in you. Kiss me again. What if I am not a virgin? What if-
His eyes popped open. Despair coursed through him, made him ache for another drink. "What would you have done to keep Marie?" The question slipped out on a drunken slide, intimate and tinged in desperation. Ian tried not to look up, tried to keep his gaze focused on the desk, impersonal, cold.
The silence stretched out. Ian heard the soft, rhymthic pulse of Johann's breathing, and his control snapped. He looked up, staring at Johann through bloodshot eyes. "Answer me," he whispered, needing something from Johann in that minute that he couldn't fathom, didn't want to explore. Absolution, understanding; he didn't know what, but it made him feel weak and pathetic.
Slowly Johann lowered himself to his seat. His voice, when at last it came, was soft and uncertain. "I would have done anything."
Ian's tension released in a rush. He sagged forward, buried his face in his hands. He wanted to take comfort in Johann's words, to believe that he was normal in his reaction, but he wasn't yet so delusional. Ian had never
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done anything halfway in his life; there was no moderation in his soul. He had always been full speed, obsessive about everything. When he was a doctor, he was only that, nothing else. When he decided not to be a doctor, he hid away in the darkness, being nothing, substituting nothing. He'd lived either in the full light or in the full darkness, nowhere in between.
"I won't let her go," Ian said softly, not particularly to Johann. He simply said it, meant it.
Johann frowned. "But if she's married-"
"Enough." Ian barked the word, so loud his own voice rang in his ears. He couldn't stand it anymore, couldn't live this way. Once, maybe it had been fine, he'd been content to wallow in self-pity and hide away from the world. Once, the alcohol had been enough. Now nothing was left to him, nothing but Selena. She'd brought him out of his paralysis, shoved him into the full light of day, and he couldn't go back. Wouldn't go back.
He grabbed the crystal decanter and poured himself another drink, tossing it back without tasting it. "Get Edith and Fergus and everyone up here. Now."
Johann studied him. "What are you up to, Ian?"
He threw his empty glass at the fireplace, watching it shatter against the green marble. "I'm going to lock this place up tighter than a nun's drawers. No one will come in or go out. I'll send word to all of the towns I visited, telling them that the mysterious amnesiac has been claimed. I'll stay with Selena night and day, be beside her. No one will ever find her."
It was a long moment before Johann spoke. "You're describing a prison."
Ian gave him a steely look, wishing suddenly that he hadn't spoken to Johann at all. "Think of it as a sanctuary."
"Ian-"
"Don't," he said sharply, too sharply. He saw the concern in Johann's eyes and felt a flash of conscience.
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He shouldn't do this. It was wrong. Dishonorable. The words shot through his mind like needles, trying to find purchase, seeking some remnant of the rational man he'd once been.
But there was nothing left in him except a driving, burning obsession to keep her beside him, to stay in the light. He couldn't just sit and wait for the end.
To whom it may concern ... my wife ...
"No," he screamed, surprised to hear the sound of his own voice. He couldn't give in so easily.
"Ian, you're-"
"Mad," he said with a shrill laugh. "Yes, I am. But no one will take her from me, Johann. No one."
He heard the words for what they were.
A gauntlet thrown down to God.
Selena didn't understand what was happening. Last night Ian had been a stranger to her, frightening and distant. He stood in the center of the parlor, his eyes cold and narrowed, pacing the small room like a caged tiger, crashing into the walls, reeling with every step. He'd issued order after order in a voice she didn't recognize, slurred and ugly. No one was to leave the property for any reason. The doors were to be locked and kept locked. Only Ian would answer the door, only Ian would speak to strangers. No mail would leave the asylum, not even Lara's letters to her parents, and no mail would be received. Fergus had been sent on a mysterious mission; he'd left in the dark and not yet returned.
In an instant, everything at Lethe House had changed. The change had something to do with Selena, it was somehow her fault, but she couldn't understand what she'd done so wrong.
She'd tried to ask Ian, but he wouldn't look at her, wouldn't touch her. When their gazes happened to cross, he would look away quickly, but not before she noticed the pain in his eyes or the shaking in his hands.
He was out of control and it frightened her.
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He talked about her all the time. Every sentence he uttered carried her name, only there was no softness in his tone, no love in his voice. When she took a step, or reached for the door, or looked out her window, he was there, screaming at her to get back, to get inside. It was as if the night in the garden were a dream, a twisted vision of intimacy created by her battered mind.
The glorious world beyond the doors was suddenly closed to her, closed to all of them.
Maeve and Lara and Andrew had immediately gone back to wearing gray, to whispering among themselves with downcast eyes and hushed, hurried voices.
Selena moved to her window, all that was left to her of the world, and stared out. Another night was falling, creeping along the horizon in lengthening shadows.
She had not been out all day. She felt restless and fidgety, bruised by her confinement. She didn't know what she had done to incur Ian's wrath, but she knew that she couldn't live this way.
Perhaps he could survive in the dark, like some low, marshy forest plant, dwelling forever in the shadow of the ferns and the trees, but she could not. She was like the flowers that bloomed in the wide-open spaces, the daffodils that splashed in a yellow cascade down the grassy hillsides. She needed the sunlight on her face. It wasn't enough to breathe the air in this house, she needed to feel it fluttering against her skirts, needed to soak in its salty scent.
Straightening her spine, she plucked up her long skirt and went to her door, opening it slowly. It creaked and whined in the unnatural silence. Her heart sped up, anticipation brought a smile to her lips.
She crept down the shadowy hallway, past the closed door to Maeve's chamber, past the stairway that led to Ian's room. Down each creaking step, pausing, then moving slowly downward. At the wide, open foyer, she stopped, breath held, listening.
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A low, droning murmur of conversation wafted from the parlor. Ian and Johann were arguing again.
It was now or never. She wrenched open the front door and barreled outside, forcing herself not to laugh as she sped along the gravel path and through the nighttime forest.
The beach welcomed her in a thousand little ways. Wispy purple clouds crawled across the twilight sky, casting a myriad of shifting, dancing shapes on the undulating sea. Tiny stones rattled in the breeze. The air smelled of seawa
ter and pine and life.
She hugged herself and twirled around, reveling in the freedom, then she walked to the edge of the cliff, staring down at the swirling, turbulent white-tipped waves below. The sea breathed and pulsed, drew back, then hurled itself against the black rock ledge. Spray splashed her face. All around her, flowers shivered in the cold night air, tossing their multicolored faces in the breeze. A low hedge of phlox crept out from the shadow of the forest, as if seeking the magnificent view for itself.
"Selena!" Ian's angry voice broke through the silence.
She stiffened and-slowly turned around.
He stood at the edge of the forest, half-dressed. Black breeches hugged his long legs, and a white lawn shirt hung at an awkward angle over his naked chest. "What in the hell are you doing?" There was a cold evenness to his voice that chilled her to the bone.
"I needed to be outside."
He surged toward her, his booted feet striding across the uneven layer of gray rock. When he reached her, he grabbed her by the upper arm and yanked her away from the ledge. Holding her in an iron, unforgiving grip, he half dragged her through the forest and back toward the house.
At the lawn, he paused for a second, and she wrenched
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free. Her breath came in great, wheezing gasps. "I misunderstand what you are doing." "Get in the house."
Nervously she wet her lips. He stood there, tall and incredibly handsome, his gold hair glinting in the half-light, his eyes an almost incandescent blue. She longed to be what he wanted, to do what he asked, but she couldn't give up the sun. Not the sun. "No."
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, but not before she'd seen a flash of raw pain. "Get inside."
Her instinct was to go to him, take his hand and kneel before him, drawing him down into the warm grass beside her. To touch his cheek and gaze into his eyes and ask him what he was scared of, but she dared not get so close to him.
She had seen something in him in the past day that frightened her. A desperation, an anger that was too close to the surface. He was like a wild animal, prepared to do anything, hurt anything, to be free.
And he looked at her differently as well. It broke her heart the way he looked at her, reminded her of the days when he'd seen nothing but a patient. Now he saw nothing but a possession, something to keep at all costs. Once again, he wasn't seeing her.
He lunged toward her, grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her close. "I'm trying to keep you safe, you little idiot. Don't fight me."
She gazed up at him. "I cannot be you, Ian."
"What do you mean?"
"I will not live in darkness to be safe."
"It's the only way, Selena."
"Then let me go now."
A wild fury flashed through his eyes and he yanked her close again. So close, she could feel how he was shaking, smell the alcohol on his breath. "Never," he hissed. "You're mine."
Selena stared up at Ian; suddenly he was a man she'd never seen before.
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He didn't want to love her. He wanted to own her.