Chapter Two
Lucien stood in Lord Lorne’s drawing room waiting to meet the Marquess’s daughter, Lady Courtney—a woman he’d once been engaged to.
The urge to tug at his cravat was overpowering.
The emerald silk had been Lauren’s choice.
“You always favored green,” she’d said with that tremulous hope he’d grown to dread.
He’d worn it to please her, though the color felt wrong somehow.
In Ireland, he’d favored simple linen in earthen tones, clothes that wouldn’t show the dirt from working his land or make him stand out at the local pub.
The opulent room made him acutely aware of the vast gulf between his old life and his new reality.
Where his father’s house showed the shabby remnants of former glory, Lord Lorne’s drawing room fairly gleamed with wealth.
Gilt-framed mirrors reflected the afternoon light, multiplying the sparkle of the crystal chandelier.
The Turkish carpet beneath his boots—he’d had to buy new boots, his old ones were deemed too rough for London society—was thick and unworn, its colors still vibrant.
Fresh flowers scented the air from delicate porcelain vases; unlike the wildflowers Ava would gather for their rough wooden table in Ireland.
He wandered to the fireplace, noting the fine marble mantelpiece with its elegant ormolu clock.
No copper pots caught drips here, no water stains marred the elaborate ceiling roses.
Even the furniture spoke of careful maintenance—the silk damask upholstery pristine, the mahogany tables gleaming with fresh polish.
This was the world he’d apparently been born to, yet he felt more out of place here than he ever had in his humble cottage.
What would the lady of this house make of his rough manners?
Despite Rockwell’s careful coaching, he knew he still moved more like a farmer than a viscount.
His hands, though clean and newly manicured, still bore the calluses of manual labor.
Would Lady Courtney recoil from those hands?
Would she see past the fine clothes to the country bumpkin beneath?
The sound of approaching footsteps made him stiffen.
He’d insisted on coming alone, despite Rockwell’s protests.
This meeting needed to happen without an audience, without the weight of everyone’s expectations pressing down on him.
He squared his shoulders, trying to project a confidence he didn’t feel.
Time to see if his former fiancée could stomach the rough-hewn man who’d replaced her cultured viscount.
The door opened.
A massive grey blur shot past Lady Courtney’s skirts before she could catch the leather collar, and Lucien found himself nearly knocked backward by an enthusiastic mass of shaggy fur.
A towering Irish wolfhound, greying around the muzzle but still strong enough to plant both paws on his chest, whined joyfully in his face.
The dog’s tail wagged with such force, its entire body shook, and it tried desperately to nuzzle his chin, its rough coat brushing against his face.
“Freya, down!” Lady Courtney’s voice cracked with emotion. “I’m so sorry, she’s usually better behaved, it’s just—” She broke off, pressing trembling fingers to her lips. “You gave her to me, the day we became engaged. She…she remembers you.”
Lucien steadied himself, gently lowering the dog’s paws to the ground.
The creature immediately pressed against his legs, whining softly, tail still wagging.
He felt a strange tightness in his chest as he looked down at the hopeful brown eyes gazing up at him.
Another piece of his past he couldn’t recall, another relationship severed by his memory loss.
He turned his attention to the hound’s owner.
Lady Courtney Montague was exactly as described, yet nothing like he’d imagined.
Tall and willowy, she seemed to float into the room, her auburn-rich hair arranged in elaborate curls that caught the afternoon light streaming through the windows.
She moved with the innate grace of the aristocracy he still struggled to emulate, each step measured and precise, though he noticed her fingers trembling slightly at her sides.
Her face held a delicate beauty that spoke of good breeding and gentle living—so different from the sun-weathered features he’d grown used to in Ireland.
But it was her eyes that caught and held him: a striking amber brown, like whiskey held up to candlelight, and filled with such naked longing that he had to force himself not to look away.
Those eyes went wide at the sight of him, and for a moment, her careful composure cracked.
He saw the flash of joy, quickly followed by uncertainty, and beneath it all, a grief so profound it made his chest ache in response.
“Lucien,” she breathed, and the raw emotion in that single word made him want to flee. “Forgive me, I mean Lord Furoe.” Instead, he executed a perfect bow, just as Rockwell had coached him.
“Lady Courtney.” The formal address seemed to pain her. She took an instinctive step forward, then caught herself, smoothing trembling hands over her pale blue muslin skirts.
“They told me you were alive, but I…” She trailed off, studying his face with an intensity that made him want to turn away. “You truly don’t remember me?”
“I remember nothing before waking in Ireland.” The words came out harsh and it piled the guilt on. He softened his tone. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” A flash of something—grief, perhaps, or pity—crossed her face before she mastered it. “Please, sit. Would you care for tea?” Freya curled up on the floor at Courtney’s feet.
The social niceties felt surreal. Here he sat, taking tea with the woman he’d supposedly loved enough to pledge his life to, and he felt nothing but discomfort and a gnawing sense of guilt.
“How are you finding your return to London?” Courtney’s voice was soft as she poured the tea with practiced grace. “It must be…overwhelming.”
Lucien accepted the delicate porcelain cup, acutely aware of his calloused hands against the fine China. “Everything is strange,” he admitted. “Like walking through someone else’s life.”
“Your family must be overjoyed to have you home. As am I.” She paused, then added more gently, “Lauren talks with me often. She’s my very good friend. Her support after you were believed killed…. We consoled each other. She’s been…worried about your father and the family financials.”
“The situation at home is far from ideal.” The bitterness in his voice spilled out like the tea drops over the rim of his cup, no matter how he tried he couldn’t contain it. He took a sip of tea to cover his discomfort.
“I know it cannot be easy,” Courtney said, her amber eyes studying him with unexpected understanding.
“To return to a life you don’t remember, to responsibilities you never asked for.
” She set her cup down with a faint clink.
“If there’s anything I can do to help—with society, with… anything—you need only ask.”
Including marrying me? He wanted to ask but feared her reply. What if she said yes? What if she said no?
The genuine warmth of her offer caught him off guard. He’d expected reproach, or at least the awkward pressure of expectations, not this quiet compassion. “That’s…very kind.”
“We were friends long before we were anything else, Lucien.” A shadow crossed her face. “At least, I believe we were. I hope we might be again.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
The woman before him showed the same desperate hope he’d seen in his sister’s eyes, and the barely concealed disappointment in his father’s.
But she offered simple acceptance of who he was now.
She hadn’t raised the subject of their previous engagement.
Perhaps she no longer wanted him. How arrogant he was to think she’d simply welcome him back. A stranger. A shell of his former self.
“Your sister tells me you have a daughter.” Her voice remained carefully controlled, though he caught the flush rising on her neck as she refreshed his tea.
“Yes. Ava-Marie.” His throat tightened at thoughts of his little girl, who was currently exploring her new home with wide-eyed wonder. “She’s four.”
“Named for her mother?” The question held no judgment, but Lucien tensed anyway.
“Yes.” He set the untouched tea aside. “Lady Courtney, I should apologize—”
“For falling in love with another while you had no memory of me? For building a life without me?” She shook her head, a sad smile playing at her lips. “You were dead, Lucien. For five years, I mourned you. I visited your empty grave. I wrote you letters I could never send.”
The mention of letters made him sit straighter. “Letters?”
“Yes, I still have all of yours. Perhaps somewhere in your study are my letters too.” She rose and crossed to a small escritoire, withdrawing a ribbon-bound bundle.
“Perhaps…perhaps they might help? They span our entire courtship, from when we first met at Lady Ashworth’s ball to…
” She swallowed hard. “To the week you disappeared.”
Lucien stared at the packet she held out. His own words, written in a hand he no longer recognized, chronicling a love he couldn’t remember. The thought made his head spin.
“I can’t accept these.” But even as he spoke, his hand reached for them.
“They’re yours,” she said simply. “As much a part of your past as your house, this life.” She hesitated, then added softly, “As I was.”
He studied her properly then, trying to see what his past self had loved about her.
She was beautiful, certainly, in that refined way of the ton.
So different from Ava’s wild beauty, with her untamed copper curls and fierce green eyes.
Where Ava had been all passion and impulse, Lady Courtney radiated quiet strength and careful control.