Chapter Seventeen
William followed behind Penelope and his daughter, entranced by the sweet ease between them. Penelope showed Millie flowers, animals and other curiosities as they walked and he found himself relaxing, the tension loosening from his shoulders.
Although his daughter didn’t answer any of Penelope’s questions with words, her eyes sparkled as she nodded, pointed, or laughed, and soon they had travelled half the distance of the lake without him saying a single word to them.
Millie ran over to the lake’s edge and looked for a smooth stone as Penelope instructed and Penelope stood by watching. He settled in beside her.
‘Have you always had such ease with her?’ he asked.
‘It took some time for her to get used to me, but she is eager to learn and love. She is a treasure.’ Her smile was bright and brilliant and the sunlight captured the soft caramel and rich browns of her irises. Tiny gold flecks danced in them and he couldn’t steal his gaze away.
‘What?’ she asked, a faint blush rising to her cheeks.
‘You are absolutely enchanting, my lady,’ he said. ‘And I find it hard to look anywhere else.’
And he meant it. His words weren’t flattery or full of empty promises.
Despite himself, he found himself bewitched by her kindness and acceptance of him, his situation, and for the care she gave his daughter, especially when he was so lacking now.
He reached out his hand, his thumb skimming along the edge of her palm as he wrapped his fingers around her own, a skittering fire resounding in his blood.
Was this what love felt like? Or was this a heady attraction born of baser desire?
Ironically, he didn’t know and he surely couldn’t ask, could he?
Millie rushed to them and held out a perfectly smooth stone to him and smiled.
His stomach turned as this was the first time she’d come to him this way since his accident and he released his hold on Penelope’s hand.
His daughter smiled and thrust it towards him again and then pointed to the lake.
He stood, uncertain, but smiled and thanked her, accepting the stone from her small, soft fingers, still slick from the water of the lake.
He closed his palm around it and a rush of emotion captured him. What was his life before? Did they run along the shore together or cuddle for afternoon naps? What he wouldn’t give to remember. He cursed himself and his body’s weakness.
Penelope leaned close and whispered into his ear, ‘She wishes for you to skip stones along the water. It was one of your favourite things to do together, aside from nightly bedtime stories.’
‘Ah,’ he replied. ‘Was I any good at it?’
‘Quite, actually,’ she cooed before stepping back.
‘I was afraid you might say that,’ he replied.
He studied the lake, his pulse picking up speed, as if this were a competition and great hopes were pinned to his success, which in a way it was.
Would he be able to do it? He wanted to live up to his daughter’s expectations of him, even if it was only how far he could skip rocks along the surface of a lake.
He opened his palm, looking at the flat tan rock, wishing the stone within it could remind him exactly how to do such.
Sadly, it said nothing.
‘Let your mind go and see if your body remembers. You might surprise yourself, Your Grace,’ she said with a wink. Evidently she could read his discomfort like a gossip sheet.
He smiled and chuckled. ‘Fine idea.’ He tossed the stone into the air, caught it and followed Millie to the water’s edge.
Millie clapped her hands in glee and he put on the most serious face he could, studying the water, and pretending to stretch out his shoulder. She giggled and his heart swelled in his chest. Her laughter was effervescent and he wished to bottle it.
He reached back and released the stone. It skipped along the water seven times before it sank and Millie jumped up and down with joy.
A flash of memory overtook him. He was a boy at the lake with another boy in the evening, a sunset budding before them, skipping stones one after another until finally an older woman came out, beckoning them to come inside for supper.
‘I wager your pudding you can’t beat me, Brother,’ he challenged, tossing a rock into the air and catching it.
‘I will take the wager and double it. Two days of desserts I can beat you,’ his brother quipped, smiling. ‘I can all but taste my victory now.’ He rolled up his shirt sleeves, preparing for the throw.
‘Agreed. And what you taste is the sourness of disappointment when I best you,’ he countered, rolling up his sleeves as well.
The sun burnt a bright gold red before them, setting along the ridgeline of the valley. A breeze ruffled their hair and made the early wildflowers sway, sending a sweet smell to tickle his nose.
‘My boys,’ their mother called from behind them at the Manor, ‘come in and get washed.’
‘One more throw, Mother. Whoever wins gets two days of desserts.’
‘If you don’t hurry, I will eat all of your desserts,’ she quipped, a smile evident in her voice.
‘You would not do such to your sons,’ his brother challenged.
‘I just might,’ she countered, gave a wry smile and turned for the house.
He and his brother dropped the stones from their hands and jogged back to the Manor until they caught up with their mother. Each of them pressed a kiss to her cheeks and bounded into the house like the hounds barking behind them, eager to come in.
William felt the warmth of the memory deep in his bones and he almost laughed aloud with his younger self before the memory faded away and thrust him back into the present moment.
‘William?’
Startled, he turned to see Penelope watching him with concern knitting a fine furrow between her shapely eyebrows. He shook his head and smiled. ‘I just remembered something.’
Her mouth opened and her eyes widened. ‘What?’ she asked, as her gaze slid away to Millie who clutched his pant leg.
‘When I was a boy skipping rocks in this exact spot. With my brother and mother.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ she replied in a rush, releasing a breath.
He reached down and ran his palm along his daughter’s dark curls.
Had her hair always been so soft? The weight of her tiny body pressed against his leg such a balm?
While he couldn’t remember the answer, he knew it had to have been a resounding yes.
She was his daughter and what would ever have been more important to him than her?
He looked down at her and smiled, and she wrapped her arms around his knee.
While he wished he could remember her, remembering something was a start.
‘Perhaps this means you shall remember all in time?’ Penelope said.
There was a pull of hesitation in her voice that he couldn’t work out, but he was too pleased over remembering something to explore it. ‘I hope so. I would like to remember more joyful times like that one.’
While he knew both his parents and brother were dead, as he had probed in the early days of his amnesia for such answers, he felt the loss more keenly now that he had remembered them and felt the love at that first memory.
No doubt he would remember more of his losses and grieve them a second time.
He shoved the thought aside. There were more pressing issues, like his daughter, the upkeep of the Manor and his upcoming nuptials…
‘Have we set a date?’ he asked, reaching for her hand and enjoying how it slipped into his so easily, as if he’d done it a thousand times. He smiled. Most likely he had, even if he couldn’t remember.
Blast.
Hattie’s stomach curdled.
Just tell him.
He tightened his hold on her hand, and she sucked in a breath as the sensation buzzed through her again.
Would it be like this every time he reached for her?
Kissed her? The blissful agony and the easing ache after she breathed through the initial contact were becoming addictive.
She didn’t wish to tell him the truth. Ever.
And if he fell in love with her now as her then it counted, did it not? She wouldn’t have to tell him who she was.
She frowned. Even she couldn’t pass such lies on as truths to herself.
‘Penelope?’
She wasn’t being herself, was she? She was pretending to be a lady. One with an esteemed standing in society and fine clothes. She was not Hattie Potts who’d arrived mud-splattered with three gowns to her name in a rather worn portmanteau.
She released a nervous laugh. ‘We had not set one as we were so newly engaged.’
That wasn’t entirely untrue now, was it?
‘Perhaps that is something we can do together that I will remember,’ he teased. He swung little Millie’s arm which resounded through his body and into hers.
She slowed to a stop. The guilt of pretending all was well in front of Millie also cut her to the quick.
‘Are you sure you still wish to?’ she asked, unable to hold his gaze. ‘You do not remember proposing to me. You do not really know me. You should know the woman you marry.’
He released her hand and stooped to be eye level with Millie.
‘Run inside and get washed before we eat. Penelope and I will be in shortly.’ He kissed Millie’s cheek and she skipped along the meadow to go inside.
He watched her enter the Manor and rose to face Hattie.
The intensity of his gaze made her take a step back.
He clutched both of her hands and closed the gap between them, his leg pressing in against the fold of her skirts.
‘I know…’ He paused. ‘Actually, I cannot know how hard it has been for you. The position you have been put in. And I cannot pretend it is not a risk to move forward. I do not remember the first blush of love I felt for you or the first kiss we shared, or even the moment I met you…’
Hattie held her breath.
‘But, since I have awoken, I have felt the awakenings of something that feels like love. A tenderness and longing…and when I kissed you this morning, it felt as though we had something magical. As though we do have something akin to a true romance. Can you try to trust that even time cannot thrust what we have asunder?’
She swallowed hard. The passion in his gaze, and the vulnerability in his features, made her unable to move. Would all he said fade away if she blinked? Did she imagine his words? Tears bloomed in her eyes and she was unable to stop them. He gripped her face, wiping away a tear with his thumb.
‘I’ve upset you, which was the last thing I wanted. I am sorry, I…’
And rather than splutter out an answer, she leaned into him and kissed him.
She threaded her hand through his hair and along his neck, unable to contain the feelings she had for him any longer.
He answered her kiss, pressing into her gently and then with more urgency until their bodies were crushed together, although it didn’t feel close enough.
She shoved aside her worries and savoured being held, wanted and kissed by a man.
By him. By the man she was beginning to love.
He pulled back and chuckled. ‘Perhaps you are ready to move forward with setting a date after all,’ he mused, his voice husky and his gaze hooded.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I am…but let us wait until you are more recovered. I do not wish to add to your responsibilities at present.’
He nodded and smiled. ‘Wise indeed, my lady.’
As he gripped her hand in his and they walked back to the Manor, she rejected all worries. She would savour every moment of their time together for as long as it lasted. And if she was lucky, he might just love her for who she was, Hattie Potts, who’d become a lady while he was sleeping.