Page 70 of A Secret Consequence for the Viscount
‘And if I never retrieve my memory?’
‘Then we will make new ones. Together.’
‘Starting now?’
She reached out to run her hand across his cheek, the skin rough beneath the pads of her fingers. ‘I wish I had been there for you when this happened.’
‘And I thank the God above that you were not.’
Tipping his forehead down against her own, he sucked in breath.
‘I have slept with other women, Eleanor, both here and in America, and while I have not been a saint I promise from now on it will only be you in my bed. For ever. Is that enough for you? To take all the parts of me that are damaged and still want what is left?’
His voice shook and she knew the depth of all he was saying, his years of lostness marked in sorrow. And, now, honesty.
She had loved him as a boy, but she loved him twenty times more over as this man. Strong. True. Hurt. Dangerous.
Her hand dipped into her bodice and she showed him the ring that hung at the bottom of her chain.
‘You gave me this one of the last times we were together and I have not taken it off since.’
The gold caught the flame in the fire and she saw the flash of it in his eyes, his pupils distending and tightened into brown as he looked away.
* * *
It was like turning a key in a lock and the door finally opening. He remembered. He remembered laughing with her as he had bought the ring from a small shop in Piccadilly after their kiss at Lackington’s. It was a celebration gift to go with the wine and hamper from Fortnum and Mason.
Her blue eyes had matched the stones and she had loved them. Zircons, the man had called them. Imitation diamonds.
And with that small crack in memory other walls began to teeter and fall and it all came tumbling in, his lost days and weeks.
He cursed as his hands flew to his head because colour slammed into his temples, not quite painful, but almost. Rushing words and images and the noise of voices. And there in the very centre of everything was Eleanor, laughing, crying, lying there beneath him with love in her eyes.
‘I saw you at the Vauxhall Gardens. You were with your grandmother and we met in front of the rococo Turkish tent.’
‘You remember?’
‘It was evening for the lights had just been turned on and you had dropped your coin purse as I passed you and I bent to pick it up.’
Her blush surprised him.
‘You told me your name was Antoinette? Why?’
‘I’d recognised you and yet you did not seem to know me and with all the stories that circulated about your exploits I thought I should be a more interesting acquaintance if my name was exotic.’
‘You spoke with a French accent?’
‘An accent and name which you knew as false in the first moment of conversation.’
He began to laugh. ‘Your grandmama called to you to come back to her and you grabbed my hand and ran.’
‘I was fresh out of the schoolroom and it was said by everyone in society that you were reckless and fascinating. It was my chance for an adventure and I took it.’
‘Six days?’
‘Pardon.’
‘We were here six days later. At Bromley House in bed together.’
