Page 40 of When the Marquess Was Mine
When she spun around, he was right behind her, his arms folded. The set of his mouth and his eyes were just like Rob’s, and he was as livid at her as she expected Rob to be when she finally told him the truth.It’ll be a good trial run, she told herself in dark, nervous humor.
“Explain,” he bit out.
“I will, if you keep your voice down!” She took a deep breath. “Yes, of course you already know your brother is here.”
“Why the devil did Lady Winston say otherwise?”
“Because she doesn’t know,” Georgiana whispered, sparing an anxious glance toward the house. They were well away from it, but she felt as if every word and action must be as clear to every member of the household as if she and the major were on an illuminated stage. “It’s a complicated story, but your brother was terribly injured and lost all memory of who he is.”
“What?”
“Shh!” she hissed. “He would not have been welcome here if Lady Winston knew who he is. I told everyone he was someone else, and then he woke up not knowing that was all wrong, so now he believes he’s someone else.”
The major stared at her in disbelief. “Are you serious? No, you can’t be—you’re mad. West doesn’t know who he is? He was terribly injured, yet I saw him walking arm in arm with you? What sort of idiot do you take me for?”
“One who can’t listen very well, obviously,” she retorted. “I am trying to explain. He was very, very ill. He’s recovering, but his mind is still not well.”
He was shaking his head. “This is the most ridiculous tale I’ve ever heard.”
“But it’s true!” She tried to calm her temper. “I suppose you’ve come to take him home?”
“I bloody well have,” he growled. “Fetch him down immediately.”
“No.” She swallowed as his glare turned ferocious. “I think it would do him harm to have such a shock. Meet us tomorrow at the inn in Maryfield, and give me a chance to prepare him.”
“Now,” he said.
She threw up her hands. “No!”
“I’ll go demand Lady Winston fetch him down.”
Georgiana pictured it, and the shouting fury that would follow. “Don’t be an idiot,” she snapped. “What will you do? Haul him out of here like a wanted criminal? You’ve only got a horse, not a carriage. I swear to you, hewasinjured—beaten almost to death. He didn’t wake for three entire days, and when he woke up he did not know his own name! A mere walk into the garden a few days ago made him violently ill, and he can barely walk without a cane! If you barge in and tell him he’s someone else all of a sudden and drag him out of here, and his health suffers a reversal, I will telleveryonethatyoucaused it because you hadn’t the patience of a pig!”
His face had grown increasingly furious, but at the last, he suddenly grinned, and looked so much like Rob that Georgiana stopped with a pang.
“You’re howling mad,” he said, almost conversationally. “But otherwise harmless, I think. Very well. Tomorrow. I’ll have the patience of a pig and await you—and my brother—at the Bull and Dog. But if you’re not there,” he added, in a tone more frightening for being so even and pleasant, “you’ll never regret anything more.”
She let out her breath in relief. “We’ll be there.”
“You’d better be,” he promised, before striding to his waiting horse and riding off.
Rob stood inside the house, gripping the plain newel post of the back staircase and trying to calm his thundering pulse. Despite Georgiana’s efforts, he’d seen that man around the corner of the house, that blond fellow with the furious expression and the familiar face. That was... that was his brother.
His skin seemed to be shrinking, pulling in too tightly around him until he wanted to twist and run away from the agony of it. He wiped his brow with a shaky hand. His head felt like an egg cracking open, as if seeing his brother had splintered the shell around his injured mind. Chunks of memory dropped heavily into place, few of them comforting and none of them welcome, not now.
Hewasthe Marquess of Westmorland, the hated, reviled fellow who had come to Osbourne House intent on doing something—still not quite clear to him—vile.
Which meant he was not Lord Sterling.
And he was not Georgiana’s fiancé.
She’d lied to him. Emotion boiled through him, and his hands tightened around the newel post in a death grip. Every sparkling glance, every gentle touch, every kindness had all been a lie. Fury rose up in his chest—what had she been up to? Was this some massive game to her, leading him along by pretending to care for him?
Except... she hadn’t. She’d kept her distance, wary as a cat, until he coaxed her near. His fury was quickly subsumed by a wave of despair.
She was not his fiancée. She never had been.
Why would she lie and say she was?
