A Kiss to Remember

  "Perhaps he'd prefer kitten stew," Lottie suggested icily, her snub nose tilted at its most haughty angle.

  "I was rather hoping for broth of brat," the stranger shot back.

  Laura didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Please don't tax your strength so, sir. You've suffered a terrible shock. You're not yourself right now."

  Everyone else in the room seemed to disappear as he turned that fierce gaze on her. "Then why don't you tell me who the bloody hell I am?"

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  But at other times, I feel as if

  you must still be my precious little boy.

  The emotion in the man's golden gaze was part fury and part plea, underscored by a panic that was almost palpable. If she didn't act, and act quickly, someone in that room was going to blurt out something that would make her plan impossible.

  "Oh, you poor darling." Favoring him with her most sympathetic smile, she stepped forward and took his arm. "I can't blame you for waking up in such a wretched temper after all you've been through."

  His eyes narrowed as he stared down at her. "Why did you call me darling?"

  "Why'd you call him darlin'?" Cookie repeated suspiciously, drawing the bloody hatchet out from behind her back.

  Ignoring both of them, Laura turned, planting herself firmly between her guest and everyone else in the room. "What he needs right now more than our fussing and coddling is some peace and quiet."

  The man snorted. "I hardly consider being accosted by a pack of rabid cats and a hatchet-wielding harpy 'fussing and coddling.'"

  Breaking free of Cookie's grip, Dower lunged forward. "I'll coddle you with this pitchfork, I will, if you speak ill o' me missus again."

  Ducking beneath the tines of the makeshift weapon, Laura placed a soothing hand on Dower's chest. "He doesn't mean to be unkind. He's just exhausted and confused. Which is why I'm going to have to ask the rest of you to leave us alone."

  Dower began sputtering anew. "You've gone plumb balmy in the 'ead if you think I'm leavin' you all alone with that savage."

  "And a half-naked savage at that." Cookie gave the quilt shielding the lower half of the man's body a nervous look.

  "Don't be ridiculous. You know as well as I do that he would never hurt me." Laura stole a glance over her shoulder at the large, glowering stranger, hoping she was right. He'd looked much shorter and less menacing while unconscious.

  "If he lays so much as a finger on you, gel, all you got to do is scream and I'll come a-runnin'," Dower promised, brandishing the pitchfork in the man's direction.

  "If she screams anything like her sister, I'll be the one doing the running," the man stiffly assured him.

  Still grumbling, Dower and Cookie reluctantly filed out of the chamber, leaving Laura to retrieve Lottie and her armful of kittens from the bed. Lottie dragged her feet, sniveling most piteously until Laura leaned down and hissed, "March, young lady, or I'll give you something to cry about."

  While she shooed Lottie into the hall, George continued to lean against the doorframe, a thoughtful glint in his eye. Her brother had always known her better than anyone else and he obviously suspected that she was up to some mischief. When she turned her glare on him, he ducked out the door, but his smirk promised her that his cooperation wouldn't come without a price.

  "Sweet dreams," he called to their guest just before Laura closed the door in his face.

  She took her time twisting the brass key in the lock, then slowly turned to face her companion. She was already wondering if she had made a terrible miscalculation. Even garbed in nothing but a quilt and a scowl, he looked about as helpless as a hungry lion.

  "Why did you call me darling?" he demanded again, as if the answer to that question was of more import than how he had ended up naked in Lady Eleanor's bed.

  "Just a habit, I suppose," Laura replied, her expression one of studied innocence. "Would you prefer I call you something else?"

  "You might try my name." His steely tone suggested that she was already trying his patience.

  "Your name?" She choked out a rusty laugh. "Well, we've never before had to stand on such ceremony, but if you insist…" Laura had always prided herself on her honesty. It was only by picturing herself trying to dig the dirt out from under Tom Dillmore's fingernails on their wedding night that she was able to softly add, "… Nicholas."

  His bewildered scowl deepened. "Nicholas? My name is Nicholas?"

  "Why, of course it is! Mr. Nicholas… Radcliffe," she added firmly, borrowing a suitably dashing surname from Lottie's favorite author.

  "Nicholas Radcliffe. Nicholas Radcliffe," he muttered. "Damn it all! I can't seem to make sense of any of this." Slumping against the wall, he cradled his brow in his hand. "If I could only stop this infernal ringing in my head…"

  Laura started toward him, drawn by genuine sympathy.

  "Don't!" He flung out a hand, glaring at her from between the strands of hair tumbled across his brow. It was almost as if she posed more of a threat to him than a crazed Cockney wielding a pitchfork.

  Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror that sat atop Lady Eleanor's dressing table, Laura realized what a sight she must be. Her feet were bare, her cheeks flushed, her hair piled carelessly atop her head with dark tendrils tumbling this way and that around her face. The damp muslin bodice of her high-waisted gown clung to the gentle slope of her breasts. Torn between smoothing her hair and tugging her skirt down to cover the pale expanse of her ankles, she settled for awkwardly folding her arms over her bosom.

  "We seem to have determined who I am. But that still doesn't explain who you might be." He cocked his head to study her, making her even more aware of her state of dishabille. "Or why you feel compelled to address me with endearments."

  He obviously didn't recall their first meeting in the wood. Or their first kiss.

  Since her folded arms no longer seemed adequate protection against his penetrating gaze, she tried to distract him by plucking one of Lady Eleanor's shawls from the armoire and wrapping it around her shoulders. "There's a bit of a chill in the air, don't you think?"

  "On the contrary. I'm finding it rather warm in here. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I'll be needing this quilt any longer."

  As his fingers threatened to relax their grip, Laura's eyes widened. "You most certainly will! At least until Cookie launders your trousers."

  The dimple in his right cheek made a brief appearance, informing her that he had only been toying with her. "Cookie? By any chance, would that be the harridan wielding the bloody hatchet?"

  "Oh, you needn't be frightened of Cookie. She wouldn't hurt a fly." Laura frowned. "A chicken, perhaps, or any other animal that can be baked into a pie… but not a fly."

  "I daresay you can't say the same for the man who tried to skewer me with the pitchfork."

  Laura waved away his concerns. "You shouldn't pay any mind to him, either. He was just being Dower."

  "He most certainly was."

  Laura laughed. "Not dour. Do-wer. Jeremiah Dower, to be precise. He's Cookie's husband and sort of a man-of-all-work about the manor. Cookie has always claimed that his disposition is so sour because his mother nursed him on lemon juice. I'm sure he didn't intend you any harm. He probably believed you to be in the grip of some sort of violent fit. You've been drifting in and out of consciousness ever since they returned you to us."

  "Returned me from where?"

  "You really don't remember, do you?" Sighing dolefully, Laura plucked at the row of silk rosettes adorning her bodice to avoid looking him in the eye. "The doctor warned us that it might be this way."

  "And what doctor would that be?"

  "Why, Dr… Dr. Drayton from London. You see, Arden doesn't have a physician of its own, although Tooley Grantham, the blacksmith, has been known to lance a boil or pull an abscessed tooth if the occasion demands it. So it was this Dr. Drayton who told us that it wasn't uncommon for a man to experience some degree of m
emory loss after suffering such a traumatic injury in the woo—" She barely stopped herself from saying "wood"—"in the war."

  "The war?" he repeated softly. "I remember the war."

  "You do?" Laura forgot to hide her surprise.

  He had slumped against the wall again, his eyes clouding as if with the smoke from a distant battlefield. "I remember the smell of the gunpowder, the shouting… the thunder of the cannons."

  "You… you were with the infantry. You were quite the hero, we've been told. Which is why you stormed up that hill at Waterloo and tried to capture one of the French cannons after its fuse had already been lit."

  He straightened. "Are you sure I was a hero? That sounds more like the action of an addlepated lackwit."

  "Oh, it was very brave! Had the impact occurred another foot to the left, you would have been blown to bits instead of being thrown clear of the worst of it. Of course, you might have escaped injury altogether if you hadn't… hadn't… landed on your head," she finished quickly, pained to discover that she possessed a talent for lying that might actually exceed Lottie's.

  He massaged his brow with those long, elegant fingers of his. "I suppose that would explain this devil of a headache."

  Laura nodded cheerfully. "It certainly would. We were beginning to wonder if you'd ever regain full consciousness."

  "But now I have." He lowered his hand.

  "Yes," she agreed, unnerved by the contrast between the silk of his voice and the predatory glint in his eye.

  "With you."

  "With me," Laura echoed, backing into a three-legged occasional table. How on earth was he managing to stalk her without taking a single step in her direction?

  "Whoever the hell you are!" he suddenly thundered, making her flinch.

  The table behind her teetered dangerously. She turned to steady it, stalling for time. It had taken negligible effort to lie about his name. So why was she finding it nearly impossible to tell the truth about hers? She toyed with the items on the table, trailing her fingers over a satin pincushion and a pewter thimble. When her hand absently came to rest against the worn leather cover of Lady Eleanor's Bible, she nearly snatched it back in shame. But a surge of defiance stopped her. She had asked God to send her a man and He had. How could it be a sin to keep him?

  Swallowing the last of her misgivings, Laura turned and met his burning gaze with a cool aplomb that surprised even her. "Don't you remember me, darling? I'm Laura Fairleigh. Your betrothed."

  His rugged jaw and regal cheekbones could have been cast in granite. He didn't even blink. "We're engaged?"

  Laura nodded.

  "To be married?"

  She nodded again, this time with a doting smile.

  He closed his eyes and began to slide down the wall.

  Laura made a small sound of dismay. She hadn't expected her lie to strike him a fatal blow. All the gold drained from his skin, revealing just how much the effort of staying on his feet that long had already cost him. This time he didn't protest when she came rushing to his aid, although he did muster enough strength to pry open his eyes and glare at her through his lashes.

  Laura caught him before he hit the floor, no easy task considering he must have outweighed her by at least five stone. It was only by wrapping one arm around his waist and bracing his shoulder with her own that she was able to keep him on his feet. Locked in that awkward embrace, they staggered toward the bed in a graceless waltz. She tried to ease him to the mattress, but the slick chintz of the coverlet gave her no choice but to half tumble into the bed with him.

  She lay there in a gasping heap, her arm still trapped beneath his weight. She couldn't have said whether her shortness of breath was due to exertion or the heated press of all of that smooth, bare male flesh against her side.

  "It's fortunate that we're already engaged," he said dryly, his warm breath tickling her ear. "If that manservant of yours caught us in this predicament, I suspect I'd be marrying you at the point of a pitchfork."

  Wrenching her arm free, Laura shoved herself to a sitting position on the bed. She tucked a wayward curl back into her topknot, her cheeks burning. "Don't be silly. Dower knows as well as I do that you're not the sort of man who would compromise his fiancée's virtue."

  "I'm not?" He frowned up at her. "Are you absolutely certain about that?"

  "Of course I am," she assured him. "You've always behaved with perfect decorum."

  Groaning, he flung an arm over his brow. "No wonder I was trying to throw myself in front of that cannon. I had no reason to live."

  With those piercing eyes of his hidden, Laura was free to study the beguiling curve of his lips. Free to remember the tantalizing kiss they'd shared in the wood.

  "You had the best reason of all," she said softly. "So you could return to me."

  He lowered his arm. An emotion even more disquieting than suspicion glimmered in the depths of his eyes. "Just how long have we been apart?"

  "Almost a year, I suppose." Laura ducked her head, beset by both shyness and shame. "Although it feels more like a lifetime."

  "Yet you waited for me."

  She met his eyes. "I would have waited forever for you."

  A spasm of bewilderment crossed his face. It was almost as if that tiny kernel of truth was more unkind than all of her lies. As he moved to cup her cheek in his hand, she realized it had been a mistake not to escape his reach when she'd had the chance. She doubted she could move now if the bedclothes beneath them burst into flames.

  His fingers were only an inch from her cheek when he let out a startled yelp.

  A yellow tabby kitten, all ears and gangly paws, was scrambling up his right thigh, its claws digging into the quilt with each exuberant bounce. Relieved by the distraction, Laura scooped up the tiny cat, cradling its fat, furry belly in her palm. "This one's so small my sister must have missed it."

  "Get it out of here, please," he said through gritted teeth. "I can't abide the beasts."

  Rubbing the kitten's downy fur against her cheek, Laura beamed at him. "I'm afraid your memory is failing you again. You adore kittens."

  His eyes widened. "I do?"

  She nodded. He watched with visible horror as she deposited the wriggling kitten on his chest. Man and cat eyed each other with equal mistrust for a tense moment before the kitten finally yawned, stretched, then curled itself into a purring heap, making a cozy nest of his breastbone.

  He shook his head. "I suppose next you'll be telling me I adore that insufferable little brat who set the cats upon me in the first place."

  Laura chose her words with care. "Despite your occasional clash of wills, you and Lottie have always been quite fond of each other."

  Closing his eyes, he turned his face away from her as if that last revelation was more than any man could be expected to endure. Laura gently drew the quilt up over his chest, stopping just short of where the kitten napped. "You've had more than enough excitement for one day. You need to conserve your strength."

  She was turning to go when he caught her wrist in his hand. His thumb brushed the sensitive skin at its inner curve in a motion dangerously near a caress. "Laura?"

  She drew in a shaky breath. "Sir?"

  "Do I adore you as well?"

  Her only defense against the rush of wistfulness his words invoked was to make light of them. Wrinkling her nose in a mischievous smile, she said, "Of course you adore me. How could you resist?"

  Laura slipped free of his grip and made her escape, hoping it wasn't too soon to begin congratulating herself on her own cleverness.

  "She's lying through her pretty white teeth."

  Since there was no one else in attendance, the man on the bed was forced to address his cynical observation to the ball of golden fluff nesting on his chest. The kitten stirred itself from its nap, eyeing him with drowsy interest.

  He reached to stroke the velvety triangle between the creature's ears. Despite his initial reluctance, the motion felt oddly familiar, as if he'd done it a hundred time
s in the past. "I know she's lying, but how am I to prove it when I can't remember the truth?"

  The kitten's eyes began to droop. Its mouth opened in a gaping pink yawn.

  "You haven't the least bit of interest in what I'm saying, have you? You're just indulging me by pretending to listen." Ignoring the cat's affronted mew, he lifted it over his head and peered beneath its belly. "Female," he pronounced, shaking his head in disgust. "I should have known."

  He sent the kitten trundling toward the footboard with a pat on the rump, then sat up and eased his legs over the side of the bed. A fresh wave of vertigo washed over him, making the room spin. He dropped his throbbing brow into his hands. It would have hurt less had the blasted cannonball taken his head clean off.

  When the throbbing began to subside, he cautiously peered around the bedchamber. Overall, its air was one of faded gentility—shabby, but not unwelcoming. The walls weren't hung with silk but papered in a pattern of pale roses he suspected had once been pink. A threadbare rug covered most of the wooden floor. The room's furniture consisted of a chair, a mahogany tallboy fitted with drawers, a dressing table, a washstand crowned by a porcelain bowl and pitcher, and an occasional table that was probably a castoff from some refitted drawing room. Not even a fresh coat of beeswax, lovingly applied, could disguise the fact that most of the color had been leached out of the wood by time and repeated polishings.

  As he breathed deeply of the orange blossom fragrance that scented the air, another wave of dizziness enveloped him. He closed his eyes and waited for it to pass. He couldn't accuse Laura of lying about one thing—he knew this place. He knew the white-and-gold fluted columns that supported the half-tester and the chipped stone of the hearth. He knew the shadows that gathered beneath the corner gables and the slant of the morning sun through the glass of the tall windows. There was a sense of rightness here that even he couldn't deny. Everything about the room was familiar.

  Everything but him.

  He slowly rose, taking care to secure the quilt around his waist. The dressing table with its brocaded stool and oval mirror seemed a hundred leagues away and he didn't want to be caught off guard by any more surprise visitors. Each shuffling step sent a thunderbolt of pain through his skull. By the time he arrived at the table and sank gratefully down on the stool, his skin was clammy with sweat and his hands were trembling.