Chapter Two #2
She said they’d been friends first. Perhaps his previous self had grown to love her, for while she was an attractive lady, verging on beautiful even, he felt no spark, no fire in his belly to have her.
Not like his reaction to Lady Farah. When Lady Farah had found him in Ireland and told him the truth about who he was, she’d been like a safety beacon calling him home.
And the guilt returned, making his stomach clench.
“I’m not him anymore,” he said finally. “The man who wrote these letters…he died in Ireland.”
“I know.” Her voice caught. “But you’re still Lord Lucien Furoe.
Still the man who taught my brother to fish, who argued philosophy with my father, who danced with me at Almack’s and made me laugh even when I was trying to be proper.
Still the man I gave my heart to.” She smoothed her skirts again, a nervous gesture.
“I don’t expect you to love me. I don’t even expect you to like me.
But I would very much like the chance to know who you are now. ”
The simple honesty of her words struck him. No demands, no expectations of recovered memories or rekindled love. Just an offer of…friendship? Understanding? He wasn’t sure.
“I should warn you,” he said, fingering the ribbon-bound letters, “I’m not very good company these days.”
“Neither am I.” That sad smile again. “Five years of mourning dulls one’s social graces.”
Despite himself, Lucien felt his lips twitch in response. “Then perhaps we can be poor company together.”
Her eyes lit with something that might have been hope. “I’d like that.” She smiled. “Please tell me about Ireland,” Courtney said softly, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “Were you…were you happy there?”
Lucien studied her face, searching for any hint of the connection they’d supposedly shared. She was beautiful, with an elegant grace that spoke of her aristocratic upbringing.
“I was content,” he said carefully. “We had a small cottage near the sea in Malahide. I worked the land, grew vegetables, raised some sheep. It was a simple life but satisfying.”
“And your wife?” The word seemed to catch in her throat.
“Ava.” He looked away, memories of her deception churning in his gut, though he kept his voice steady.
“She nursed me back to health after my injury. We married in the local church.” The lie came easier now, practiced.
“She was kind, made me feel safe when I had nothing—no memories, no past, not even my own name.”
“It must have been very different from the life you’d known here,” Courtney observed, her voice free of judgment.
“So I’m told. I cannot remember what my life here was like, so I could hardly miss it,” he replied with a slight smile. “Though apparently, I took well to farming. The local grain merchant said I had a natural gift for it.”
“Your mother was Irish,” Courtney offered. “You used to spend summers at your grandmother’s estate in County Cork. You loved it there.”
The information hit him like a physical blow. Another piece of himself he couldn’t remember. “That explains why the language came so naturally to me, even with no memories.”
“What about your daughter? Will you tell me about her?”
His face softened genuinely. “Ava-Marie. She’s four now, full of life and mischief. She has my coloring but her mother’s spirit.” He smiled fondly. “She loved to play hide and seek in the village graveyard of all places.”
“It must have been difficult, losing her mother so young.”
“Thankfully we have Caitria, Ava’s cousin. She’s been like a second mother to Ava-Marie since Ava fell ill.” He studied Courtney’s face. “I know this must be…difficult for you to hear.”
“No more difficult than it is for you to have to tell me, I imagine,” she replied with surprising gentleness. “To come back to a life you don’t remember.”
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” he admitted. “Lord Furoe feels like a costume I’m wearing.”
“Perhaps,” Courtney suggested softly, “you don’t have to be who you were. Perhaps you can be someone new. Or a mix of old and new. Someone who builds a future rather than trying to recapture the past.”
Their eyes met, and for a moment Lucien glimpsed what his past self might have seen in her. Not just her beauty, but compassion, wisdom and understanding.
*
Courtney watched Lucien as he spoke, her heart aching at the familiar yet foreign way he moved, the ghost of remembered gestures haunting his unfamiliar mannerisms. He still looked like her Lucien except for the scar down the side of his face. Still so handsome, it was a struggle to breathe.
The way he ran his hand through his hair when troubled, that was pure Lucien.
But the careful way he held himself, the slight Irish lilt that crept into his speech when he talked about his life in Malahide, his guarded smile—those belonged to a stranger.
The old Lucien was full of life and spirit.
This Lucien was battered and bruised. His eyes held no mischievous sparkle.
It had taken all of a few seconds upon walking into the room, for her to realize the Lucien she had loved and pined for was gone and he was never coming back. This Lucien, this stranger, was not the love of her life.
But still her heart clenched with longing. A familiar looking stranger, that made her want to pull him into her arms and kiss him senseless. She wanted to feel that it truly was him. But she couldn’t.
Because he didn’t remember her. The pain in her chest would not ease.
She’d once been his heart’s desire. He couldn’t keep his hands off her. Always finding ways to sneak a kiss and when they’d shared their secret night together… Her fingers rose to trace her lips, but she caught his raised eyebrow.
She wanted to ask so many questions. Did he still love poetry?
Did he still argue philosophy with the same passion that had first drawn her to him at Lady Ashworth’s ball?
Did he still have that deep laugh that used to make her heart skip?
But those questions would only highlight what he’d lost, remind him of a man he couldn’t remember being.
Instead, she found herself asking about his farm, his life in Ireland. She watched his face light up when he spoke of his daughter, and there…there was the tenderness she remembered, the capacity for deep love that had made her fall for him all those years ago.
“You always wanted children,” she found herself saying, then immediately regretted it when his expression shuttered.
“Did I?” He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, I don’t…”
“No, I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t make comparisons. It’s not fair to either of us.”
But it was hard not to. Hard not to notice how his eyes still crinkled at the corners when he smiled, even if the smile itself was different, more reserved, weighted with experiences she knew nothing about. Hard not to hear echoes of his old wit in his occasional dry observations.
He was like a familiar painting viewed through rippled glass.
The basic shapes were there, but everything was subtly distorted, changed.
The aristocratic education and manners were camouflaged, perhaps mixed with a farmer’s practical wisdom.
The carefree young lord who’d stolen her heart had been transformed by amnesia and hard work into someone both more and less than he’d been.
Yet there was something compelling about this new version of him. She could see why the Irish woman—Ava—had loved him. Even without his memories or title, he radiated a quiet strength, an innate nobility that had nothing to do with his birth.
And he was so extraordinarily handsome, other men paled in comparison.
That was why, all those years ago, she’d been so surprised when he’d singled her out for his attention.
She wasn’t a great beauty, not like Valora or even Farah.
She’d thought it was too good to be true, but he’d courted her and made her love him and then he’d gone to war…
At the time, she’d not understood it would be dangerous.
Lucien told her he was going to ensure fighting didn’t break out.
He believed the Irish fighters would talk with him, given that he was Irish on his grandmother’s side and he could speak the language.
When she learned he’d been killed, she had been so angry at him, but the anger dissolved and turned to profound grief when she realized she’d never see him again. Never have his strong arms around her. Never know a love that filled her soul.
She was just alone.
Now he was back with no memory of her. Would she be as lucky a second time around? She also wasn’t a young debutante anymore. She was four and twenty.
“Will you tell me about our engagement?” he asked suddenly, startling her from her thoughts. “Rockwell mentioned it, but…”
She hesitated. How could she explain their courtship without making him feel guilty for not remembering? How could she describe their love without making him feel pressured to recapture something that might be lost forever?
“We were friends first,” she said finally.
“That was the foundation of everything. We could talk for hours about books, art, music. You made me laugh. You challenged me to think differently about things. You didn’t try to shelter me, as if women could not possibly be equal to men.
” She smiled at the memory. “You courted me for nearly a year before proposing. The letters will tell you more.” She looked out the window at the sunny day, but the room still felt gray.
“We were so in love.” She turned to look at him.
“I’m not saying that to hurt or raise expectations, but to explain why this is very difficult for me.
I have never really gotten over you and now here you are, alive.
But you’re not the man I fell in love with.
And I know what Lauren and Rockwell are hoping for, that I’m to be your savior. ”
“I feel the same. We have that in common.” His voice was gentle. “What do you want from me now?”
The question hung between them, heavy with implications. Courtney met his gaze squarely, seeing both the man she’d lost and the stranger he’d become.
“I want to know you,” she said honestly. “Not the man you were, but the man you are. If you’ll let me.”
Something flickered in his eye, relief, perhaps, or gratitude. “I think I’d like that,” he said softly. “To be friends again. To see if…”
He didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t need to. They both knew there could be no promises, no guarantees. Only the possibility of something new growing from the ashes of what was lost. She had to remind herself that he might need her more than she needed him.
To start at the beginning would have to be enough.
But she was also conscious that Lucien didn’t have much time. The sisterhood investment group was well aware of how precarious the Danvers’ finances were. The money Tiffany earned from their investments had been helping Lauren keep the creditors from the door. Lucien needed to marry and marry well.
The afternoon ended far too soon. Freya followed Lucien as he took his leave, and she had to call her back.
“We’ll see him again soon, my girl,” she said as she stroked her hound’s head.
Perhaps she should be like Freya and simply accept him for who he was now, not caring what had happened or that he’d been gone for so long.
But people were not dogs. Still, their first meeting gave her hope.