Chapter 9
“Tell me honestly, Harris. Would I trust the man with my life?”
Alexander stood before the tall mirror as his valet adjusted the cuff of his coat. The morning light filtered through the high windows of Rosewood House, pale gold spilling across the dark wood furniture and the heavy carpet beneath his boots.
Harris paused only briefly before answering.
“Yes, Your Grace. Without hesitation.”
Alexander watched the older man’s reflection carefully.
Harris had served him for years. That much he had learned through the household staff and the quiet certainty with which the man moved about his rooms. The valet carried himself with the calm efficiency of someone who knew his master well.
“You did not even ask which man I meant,” Alexander said mildly.
Harris finished smoothing the sleeve of Alexander’s coat before stepping back with a small nod of approval.
“You are meeting with Mr. Cartwright this morning, Your Grace. The estate manager.” His lips twitched faintly. “I assumed that was the man in question.”
Alexander let out a low breath through his nose. “Yes.”
The name still meant very little to him. It sat in his mind like a label pinned onto a stranger’s coat, something he had been told to recognize without possessing the history that should have given it meaning.
There were far too many things like that now. Faces, titles, places that everyone around him spoke of with easy familiarity, while he could only observe them with the detached awareness of a man studying a life that seemed to belong to someone else entirely.
“Tell me more about him,” Alexander prompted.
Harris met his gaze steadily in the mirror.
“Mr. Cartwright has served the Rosewood estates since before your father passed, Your Grace. Nearly twenty years.” He folded his hands neatly before him calmly, as though the matter was already settled in his mind. “I have never known him to be anything but loyal.”
Alexander turned away from the mirror and began to cross the room slowly, his boots making quiet contact with the thick carpet as he moved.
Loyalty is a fragile currency, easily claimed and far more rarely proven.
Under normal circumstances, he suspected he would have trusted his own judgment on such matters without hesitation. But now his instincts existed in a strange, uneasy tension with the gaps inside his mind.
He had awakened in a world that already knew him, populated by people who spoke to him with the ease of long acquaintance and who seemed to expect from him a familiarity he could not return.
Yet he stood among them with the uncomfortable awareness of a man walking through a life that did not quite feel like his own.
Except Diana.
The thought appeared with such sudden clarity that it made him pause beside the window.
He did not remember marrying her. And yet every time he looked at her, something inside him responded with an intensity that refused to be ignored.
The reaction came from somewhere deeper, from instincts that seemed to recognize her even when his mind could not supply the history that should have justified them.
But what unsettled him more was that the memory of the previous night rose suddenly in his mind with startling clarity.
The way she had been sitting in that armchair in the library with the candlelight falling softly over her hair. The moment when she had looked up at him with that mixture of defiance and uncertainty that seemed to define her entirely.
And then the kiss. The feeling of her mouth beneath his. The warmth of her breath as she had responded before she even realized what she was doing.
Alexander exhaled slowly and forced himself to straighten.
No. He was not about to stand here like some distracted boy replaying the memory of a kiss while discussing matters of loyalty and business. He pushed the memory aside with quite a lot of effort, forcing his attention back to the present moment.
Alexander inclined his head once. “Very well.”
The faintest trace of tension left Harris’s posture, though it was so subtle that another man might not have noticed it at all.
Alexander reached for the watch resting upon the desk and slipped it into his pocket as he spoke again. “Send him to the study. I shall join him immediately.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Harris turned toward the door.
Alexander’s voice stopped him before he could leave. “Harris.”
The valet paused immediately and turned back. “Yes, Your Grace?”
Alexander hesitated only briefly. “Thank you.”
The words seemed to surprise the man more than Alexander had expected, though Harris recovered quickly enough and inclined his head with quiet respect before leaving the room.
The door closed softly behind him.
Alexander remained where he stood for several seconds, his gaze fixed on the polished wood of the door as the silence of the room settled once more around him.
Trust was an uncomfortable subject when one could not rely entirely on one’s own memories to guide judgment.
He had been told repeatedly over the past days that he was a cautious man by nature. That he approached both business and personal matters with a measured, almost ruthless practicality that had earned him a reputation as someone who did not easily grant confidence to others.
Perhaps that caution had been necessary. Perhaps it had protected him. Or perhaps it had also created the sort of resentment that drove a man to commit violence against him.
The thought lingered unpleasantly in his mind as he turned and began walking down the corridor toward his study, his steps measured and steady while the questions circling in his thoughts refused to settle.
The long hallway of Rosewood House stretched before him, the pale morning light spilling across the polished floors. For a moment, he studied it with the same detached awareness that had become far too familiar over the past days.
He knew the house belonged to him. And yet there were unsettling moments when the place felt less like a home and more like a stage on which he had been unexpectedly placed.
His study stood at the end of the corridor, the heavy oak door slightly ajar as though the person inside had been waiting for some time. Alexander paused only briefly before pushing it open and stepping inside.
Mr. Cartwright was already waiting when Alexander entered.
The estate manager rose immediately.
He was an older man, perhaps in his late sixties, with thinning white hair and a narrow, thoughtful face that carried quiet intelligence.
His suit was plain but impeccably clean, the fabric worn only in the subtle way that suggested careful use rather than neglect, and his posture held composed dignity.
“Your Grace,” he said warmly.
Alexander closed the door behind him before speaking. “Mr. Cartwright.”
They stepped forward and shook hands.
The man’s grip was firm without being overbearing, a strength that spoke of quiet confidence rather than the need to prove authority. It was a small detail, but Alexander noticed it immediately. A weak handshake often betrayed a weak mind. This one did not.
Alexander gestured toward the chairs near the desk. “Please. Sit.”
Cartwright lowered himself carefully into the seat, resting his cane beside him with the careful movements of someone who respected both the room and the man who owned it. Alexander took the chair opposite him, leaning back slightly as he allowed a moment of silence to settle between them.
He studied the man openly.
Cartwright met Alexander’s gaze with calm patience, waiting. That alone told Alexander a great deal.
There was kindness in the man’s eyes, yes, but it was not the soft kind that came from sentimentality. It was tempered by intelligence and experience and suggested he missed very little of what happened around him.
Good.
Alexander needed a man who could think, not someone who merely followed instructions.
This man oversaw land, accounts, investments, negotiations.
The quiet machinery that allowed the entire duchy to function.
In many ways, Cartwright shared control over the most valuable assets in Alexander’s life.
Which meant that if he could not trust him, then Alexander stood on dangerously uncertain ground.
“I will speak plainly,” Alexander said at last.
Cartwright nodded immediately, as though he had expected nothing less. “That is always best, Your Grace.”
Alexander leaned back slightly in his chair, folding one ankle over his knee while he considered how much to say. If Cartwright truly was the man Harris claimed him to be, then honesty here would serve him better than half-truths.
“I have suffered an accident,” he said. “One that resulted in… certain complications.”
Cartwright’s expression shifted subtly, concern replacing the quiet composure.
“I had heard there had been an incident,” he said slowly. “But the details were scarce.”
Alexander folded his hands loosely together, resting them against his knee as he considered the man across from him. “My memory has been affected.”
Cartwright blinked once, the only outward sign that the statement had truly surprised him. “In what way, Your Grace?”
Alexander held the older man’s gaze, weighing his next words carefully. If he intended to continue running his affairs properly, then the man across from him needed to understand the situation in full.
“I remember nothing,” he said slowly. “I understand how trade agreements work. I recognize ledgers, contracts, properties that belong to the duchy. When I read financial reports, they make sense to me.”
Cartwright listened intently, his posture straightening slightly.
Alexander continued. “But that knowledge exists without the memories that should accompany it.”
Cartwright’s brows drew together as he leaned back slightly in his chair, exhaling in a slow and thoughtful manner that suggested he was already turning the information over in his mind.
“I see.”
The older man’s sharp eyes seemed thoughtful rather than startled. Alexander decided he appreciated that.