Chapter Ten #2
The warmth from the grate felt good. He closed his eyes and let his head loll back.
The image of Georgina, kneeling beside the picnic basket at Hampstead Heath returned to him. He said nothing, fearing any utterance on his part would chase it away, again.
“Shall I fix you a plate?”
“If you like, pet.”
The man, Drake, bending to whisper something in her ear.
The woman’s call from behind him. “Teddy, you aren’t even listening. I’m just coming to the best part.”
“Patience, sweetheart.”
That last bit was new—and not as he would have expected. He tried to recall more. Nothing came. Damn.
She wedged the first boot free, and started on the second, as he replayed the last seconds of his memory—for it must be a memory.
“…I’m just coming to the best part.”
“Patience, sweetheart.”
Was that normal, he wondered, his referring to his mate’s intended in such a familiar manner? He went back further in the vision.
Drake bending to whisper in Georgina’s ear.
His eyes opened. Drake had not been smiling when he spoke to Georgina. Indeed, no. He’d practically been scowling, as if displeased by something.
Adding to that, Georgina’s dislike of Lady Catherine, no matter that she’d denied it.
An unwelcome thought occurred to him. Had he cheated on Georgina with Lady Catherine, his best friend’s soon-to-be fiancée? He wanted to reject the possibility out of hand. Unfortunately, as he could not remember, he could not.
“Georgina,” he began, “I recall your brother speaking to you about something after you offered to fix me a plate.” And frowning. “What did he say to you?”
“I haven’t the vaguest notion.” His second boot hit the floor.
“Are you sure? Because—”
“Didn’t I just say so?” She rose to her feet, her expression unreadable—but there was something lurking in her quicksilver eyes. A wish not to tell.
Had he cheated on her with this Lady Catherine? If only he could conjure an image of the woman.
“Georgina, tell me of this Lady Catherine.”
A mulish expression covered her face and he gained the distinct impression she meant to refuse his request.
“I insist,” he added.
After a moment, her face akin to someone sucking on a lemon, she spoke.
“She’s tall for a woman, and very elegant.
She has a swanlike neck and straight, fine hair and, unlike me, a perfect, willowy figure that looks ever so lovely in everything she wears.
” As she prattled out her description, she backed away, aiming, by his estimation, for the door.
He sensed she didn’t intend to close it as she had this morning.
He rose onto his stocking-clad feet as she went on. “She has a perfect, heart-shaped face and is, by now you’ve no doubt worked out, as different from me as morning from night.”
Nostrils flaring, she drew in a breath, and Teddy feared she meant to continue cataloguing Lady Catherine’s many charms while discounting her own.
“Georgina,” he called in as soothing a voice as he could muster while simultaneously raising it to snag her attention.
Less than a foot from the open double doors, she froze. Her mouth snapped shut, her cheeks flamed pink and her eyes flashed silver fire. She was the epitome of a woman scorned. Bloody hell. He had betrayed her. She must’ve figured it out after he’d left.
And he must’ve been a damned fool.
“Yes?” she demanded.
He stalked toward her, reaching past her, intending to shut the doors, shoot the lock, and show her with his hands, mouth, and cock the utter ridiculousness of her assertion she was anything less than feminine perfection itself.
Seconds, mere seconds, before he made contact with the doors, Danvers appeared in the threshold, holding a tea tray in his big hands. He took in the two of them, then stepped inside.
Teddy fixed him with a glower.
“Oh, Mr. Danvers, hello,” Georgina murmured, “do come in,” she added unnecessarily, as the butler had already crossed the threshold. All evidence of her temper, save her flushed cheeks, vanished in a blink.
Danvers offered Georgina a somber nod. Then his gaze slid to Teddy, the corners of his eyes narrowing fractionally.
“Your medicine, sir? The mistress asked that I take charge of preparing and delivering it for you, just as you had me do this morning.” He’d angled his body so that Georgina could not see the single black brow he now arched.
For a moment, Teddy stared at Danvers, completely at a loss. Then comprehension dawned.
He relaxed his scowl. “Oh. Yes. Very good. You may set the tray down and leave.” He gestured toward the small, inlaid table near the armchair he’d vacated.
Georgina’s skirts swished as she hastened through the doorway. “Yes, well. If you’ll excuse me, I have some…” she broke off, and appeared to search her mind for a viable excuse before continuing, “…correspondence to see to.”
Teddy glanced at the desk and snorted. Correspondence, indeed.
A moment later, he heard the distant thump of, he guessed, her chamber door as it shut.
Danvers took his time, placing the tray before fixing Teddy with a stern eye. His expression was not that of a servant aiming to please his master, but of a headmaster preparing to lecture a recalcitrant student.
Teddy regarded him with upshot brows. “May I help you?”
The butler moved to the doors and closed them softly, then turned to face Teddy. “I went out on a limb for you today.”
“By inferring you’d brought my medicinal tea tray this morning?”
Danvers’s gaze flicked to the tea tray. “I did not infer. I maintained your lie.”
Teddy wanted to argue, but he could not deny Danvers’s words. “What of it?”
“Sir, am I correct in assuming you do not wish to come under the influence of what I am almost certain is henbane that laces the tea madam wishes for you to drink?”
“It’s poison. It’s worse than the poppy they give the soldiers on the field.
It hasn’t contributed a thing to my recovery, not one damned thing.
It leaves me muddy brained, exhausted, and unable to cope, if you must know.
” More so than that, it left him with gaps in his memory throughout the day.
It was in those instances he’d been accused of trying to snuff himself.
The degradation could not be borne. He would not drink the stuff.
Danvers nodded. “I understand, sir. I need you to understand that I am now complicit in your deception. Do not make me regret it.”
Teddy sucked in a breath. “How dare you? I could sack you for your insubordination.” Even as he said the words, he knew he’d do no such thing. In actuality, he was in this man’s debt, assuming he meant to do continue helping Teddy.
Danvers shook his head in evident disgust. “You could, but if you did, you’d not be the man I know you to be.” He turned for the doors and reopened them.
Excitement sparked through Teddy. “Danvers, are you implying we know each other?”
The large man glanced back at him over his shoulder. “No,” he said simply, then left without another word.
Teddy stared at the empty doorway for a moment in dumb stupefaction, then grunting with annoyance, approached the tea tray.
He lifted the pot’s lid, releasing a puff of steam.
He bent to sniff, and detected what promised to be a decent blend of Ceylon.
More importantly, the tell-tale scent of his special brew was absent.
Feeling unreasonably sullen for someone who had finally caught a break in the battle regarding his medicinal tea, assuming Danvers meant to keep his mouth shut, he poured himself a steaming cup, then turned toward the large, undraped windows to take in the view of the vast ocean.
For a moment today, he’d felt like himself, or at least like what he thought he should feel. He’d experienced peace and freedom from the incessant dread which he hadn’t recognized as his constant companion until it was gone.
The dread came back with a vengeance the moment Georgina began speaking of Drake. His so-called closest friend. Might he have cuckholded the man?
Or had he done something far worse? He pinched his eyes shut as that dull throb at his temple reasserted itself.
He finished his cup with one toss of his head—wouldn’t want Georgina to come back and find he hadn’t drunk it—and headed for his chamber to finally rid himself of his salt-encrusted, now nearly dry, clothing.
Regaining his memory had been his sole purpose from the moment he’d awoken in the make-shift military hospital with no clue as to his identity.
The time spent with his family had only amplified that desire, especially as he had not experienced anything like the recent flashes of memory while with them. Nor had he felt any sort of connection.
Not with his obsequious cousin, Jonathan, who claimed the two had a bond akin to brothers, who nonetheless reported his every move to the earl.
Not with the earl’s wife who watched him with eyes that said she feared his condition was catching, and especially not with the earl himself.
His father. And there could be no doubt the man was Teddy’s father. Anyone could see the resemblance.
But he felt no paternal warmth from the man.
Varying degrees of disappointment, anger, and revulsion burned in the man’s eyes so similar to his own.
Based upon his grumblings for Teddy’s ears only, Teddy was forced to conclude his father not only blamed him for what had befallen him, but also took it as a personal affront.
Not to mention the man had never once believed him when he said he hadn’t tried to murder himself.
The final proof of his father’s lack of charitable feeling for him came when he emerged from a drug-induced slumber to find himself at Brook Haven, a bloody madhouse.
It had been akin to finding himself trapped in a living nightmare from which he thought he might never awaken, especially if they continued pouring that noxious tea down his throat.
Then Georgina swept in to claim him.
He undid the fall of his pantaloons and stripped them off, then started unbuttoning his shirtsleeves and contemplated the woman currently hiding in her bedchamber.
His wife. Yes, he could see that, now. He could scarcely imagine a woman existing who he could want more. And she clearly wanted him—just as she clearly intended to deny the extent to which she did.
Deny all you want, darling. He saw the desire in her eyes, felt it in her touch.
Something he had done must have caused her to withdraw from him. Something involving her brother, he feared. At the mere thought, a shudder rolled through him—of fear.
All he’d wanted was to remember who he was. Now he felt like a child afraid to look under his bed for what he might find there.
Well, bullocks to that. He would unearth the past, however alarming the truth turned out to be—and Georgina was the key. None of his memories had started coming back before she showed up. Through her, he would unlock the mystery of his past. If that meant pushing past her defenses, so be it.
In point of fact, that task might prove the most pleasurable aspect of this entire affair. He knew just how to begin. He headed to the velvet bell pull and tugged.