Chapter 5
DID GRACE EVEN enjoy eggs?
She pushed the questionable breakfast offering around her plate, considering. They did not look particularly appetizing. But was that just because of how they’d been cooked this morning? Had she liked them before, or had her head injury addled her preferences as well?
She scowled at the plate. Goodness but it was exhausting not knowing herself.
Like her mind was filled with fog, or a blank expanse of nothing, peppered with the occasional light.
So much was unknown to her. Even her family, whom she recalled, felt foreign in a way.
Mama’s face ought to be as familiar to her as the back of her own hand.
But instead, it was as if her mother were a well-loved book from her childhood.
She remembered it, but the details were hazy.
But she hadn’t even a hazy inkling of whether she liked eggs for breakfast, or venison for dinner.
She had no idea how she liked to pass her time or who in the neighborhood she knew.
The ball the night before had left her with more painful throbbing in her head and a sense of underlying failure, though she couldn’t have done any better.
She’d not even stepped on Lord Ellison’s toes once, though she could not say the same for the two men she’d danced with after.
They’d not had the same level of skill in leading that the earl’s heir had possessed.
“Dear? Are you well?” Mother watched her closely, a line between her brows.
Grace nodded, setting down her fork. “I do not think I enjoy eggs.”
Mother’s eyes flicked to the plate. “Perhaps some toast instead?”
“I am not particularly hungry. I shall go…” And do what?
Lie down? She’d just woken. Read? It sounded pleasant enough, but seemed foolhardy to spend her time learning about fictional worlds when she knew so little about her own.
“To the nursery. William and Margaret will be up, yes?” Her youngest siblings were a balm to her battered mind.
Those two did not watch her strangely or question every one of her actions, they simply pulled her into the nursery to color or play.
There was some pain at the time lost—she remembered both at a far younger age—but the pain was softened by small arms wrapping around her neck or kisses to her cheek.
Grace would make up for lost recollections with new ones.
“Grace…” Her mother’s voice was tentative, but it kept Grace in her chair. “Perhaps you might stay a moment. I expect we will have many visitors today, with you newly returned and so many acquaintances renewed last night.”
Disappointment slid through Grace—her head hurt at the thought of trying to recall names and connect them to faces. But she nodded, not wishing to bring about another of Mama’s downtrodden expressions.
“I think it will be good,” Mama continued. “We are unsure if your memory will return, and until then, it would be best to move forward, not dwell on the past and what we cannot regain.”
How easy it must be not to dwell on the past when one knew what it contained.
Grace walked around perpetually feeling as if she were forgetting something important.
She felt as if half her vision had been taken from her, replaced with a dark void.
But still, she did not argue. She must have had a very solicitous demeanor before the accident, because it was easy to slip into deference to others.
And when she had voiced her maudlin thoughts or stated an overt opinion, she’d been met with surprise.
She had not always been that way. Not as a child at least. But that must have changed as she neared adulthood.
Mama cleared her throat—a delicate, quiet sound.
“You had… well, you had hoped to marry when you left to stay with Aunt Elizabeth. You’d been quite adamant that you would find a beau while in Dover.
And you had many promising options, though none came up to scratch at the time of the… of the accident.”
Had she? Had she left behind her heart in Dover? No, she would have remembered someone that important, yes? Or her aunt or mother would have told her.
“And so, with your age, I do think it would be good if you turned your aims to that endeavor yet again. Your past may never be fully returned to you, but your future is wide open and that, I think, is where we ought to put our efforts.”
A surge of frustration rose at her words. Grace was floating in a sea of confusion and loss, and Mama wanted her to find a husband?
The butler entered then. “Ma’am, a Lord Ellison to see you.”
“We will receive him in the drawing room.” Mama turned bright eyes onto Grace. “And he,” she whispered, “is a perfect candidate.”
Grace found herself ushered into the drawing room within minutes. Lord Ellison stood as she and Mama entered.
He was an attractive man. Tall, with dark hair and eyes, a fine jawline and intelligent gaze.
But their conversation the night before had been, quite honestly, boring.
He’d been thoughtful in his concern over her dance recollection—though that might have just been concern over her humiliating him as his partner—and he’d been a steady lead in the dance.
But she did not feel a draw towards him in any way.
Mama clearly did, though, opening her arms in a welcoming gesture. “Lord Ellison! How kind of you to visit. Though I imagine it is not me you have come to see.”
Something about his eyes was tight as he responded. “It is always a pleasure, Mrs. Whitmore. But, yes, I had hoped to take Miss Whitmore for a stroll around your gardens, if she does not object?”
“It sounds splendid, does it not, Grace?”
Fresh air did sound nice. When one was being stifled in their own mind, a little extra space was appreciated.
“Yes, thank you.” She smiled. He was a poor substitute for her enthusiastic friends in the nursery, but she supposed he would have to do.
His eyes were intent on hers, as if waiting for more, so she stepped back toward the door. “I will just grab my pelisse and bonnet.”
She met the man in the entrance hall some minutes later, dressed for the brisk autumn air.
His expression was stoic as she approached, somehow at odds with his tousled black curls. “You look very fine this morning, Miss Whitmore.”
“Thank you,” she returned. “Shall we?”
The butler held the door for them as they exited to circle the house.
The crunch of gravel and leaves beneath her feet was pleasant.
Her hand on Lord Ellison’s arm was benign.
She stared up at him, tracing his features with her eyes.
Something about him felt as if it should be familiar.
But it was not. Was that just because his was the foremost family in the neighborhood?
She would have known of him, even if she’d not known him.
“I am unsure whether I should ask what has you scrutinizing me so,” he said without looking at her.
“I apologize,” she said. “I am trying to place you in my memory.”
“And?” This time he did look down, his eyes meeting hers with a curious narrowing.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
He cocked his head, his steps slowing. “That seems to frustrate you.”
She dropped his arm as they stopped in the middle of the path. “It is an odd sensation.”
“How so?”
She studied the man. Did he ask in earnest or out of basic civility?
His feet shifted, but his eyes were steady on hers while he awaited an answer. And he was the first to ask. The first to not just assure the thoughts would come back or that she needn’t worry about losing them.
“Well,” she said. “My loss of memory is more than unsettling. It is aggravating. I am told what I like and who I know… but it does not feel right to me. It is as if I am a stranger to even myself.” She pushed out a little breath. “I apologize, I should not unburden my worries on you.”
“To the contrary,” he said. His tone was dry but not disingenuous. “I am quite adept at being a burden-carrier.”
That made her stifle a laugh. Why would anyone wish to carry a near stranger’s burdens?
The man had to be here out of duty, the same as the night before when their mothers had exchanged eager looks.
But when he said nothing more, she looked up to see him watching her, a slight quirk to his brow—expectant.
“Oh, well…” The opportunity was too great to give up.
She could not burden her mother, who appeared somewhere between squeamish and pitying when she spoke of her lost memory.
And she hadn’t any friends she knew of. If Lord Ellison were here out of duty, she may not even see him again; unburdening herself was more than a little tempting.
“The doctors cannot tell me anything of use except that minds can be fickle things. Or, even worse, that I am lucky to have survived with only my memory affected.”
“How did you fall?” he asked, head cocked and eyes still entirely engaged. More so than she’d seen them through the entirety of their short acquaintance.
She looked heavenward, embarrassed. “It was foolish. I, evidently, took a wager.”
His brows rose. “A wager?”
She nodded. “With my three-year-old cousin. He was certain I could not balance along a stretch of rocks, and naturally I had to show him how very brave and impressive I was.” She gestured with her hands.
He pulled a leaf from the branch beside him, tearing small pieces from it. “Naturally.” The corner of his mouth twitched. Hopefully he was entertained, not derisively amused.
“Yes, well, balancing was evidently easy enough, but when I bent to climb down, my foot caught on the hem of my dress, and I fell to the shingles below—quite spectacularly, if you are thinking otherwise. It was a large drop, and I went feet over head, and—if my aunt is to be believed—hit my head upon a stone with an almighty crack before landing in a heap, as if dead.”
A prolonged wince was on his face. “And you broke nothing?”
She turned down the path, wishing for some movement while she spoke. He fell into step beside her, hands behind his back as they passed shrubs and dormant bushes. “Only bruises. Nothing broken but my pride. And my past.”
He blinked a few times in quick succession, brows lifted. “How long ago was this?”
Wind crept beneath the collar of her pelisse, chilling her.
“A little more than a month. I convalesced at my aunt’s for the first several weeks, then my aunt and uncle opted to bring me here, at my parents’ request and the doctor’s agreement.
He seemed to think that the familiarity of home would help my memory return. ”
When next she looked over at Lord Ellison, there was a crease between his brows as he studied the shrubs to her left. He must have felt her gaze, for he looked up, clearing his expression. “And you have been home a week?”
She nodded.
“Yet nothing is familiar?”
Her frustration bled into her voice. “Hardly anything. Even the house is changed from what I recall. I—you may know this, but my father rose in station. They added two entire wings to the home that I do not remember. My siblings are grown. The servants are unknown to me. Sometimes it feels as if something should be familiar, but I am uncertain if that is just because Mother is looking at me in expectation, or if a hint of nostalgia or memory is attached to the object, location, or person. I…” She swallowed.
“I admit I am beginning to despair, though I try to tell myself it has not been so very long yet.”
They turned down another path, his tall frame casting her into shadow. “What do you recall? Six years are gone, you said?”
She bit the inside of her cheeks, thinking. “Yes. I remember my family. I knew my aunt and uncle even, but my little cousin was a mystery to me. I do hope he’ll forgive me for it. He was so very crestfallen when I had to ask his name.”
The lord’s smile was pitying, and she looked away from it to a lone bloom that had outlasted its peers. She trailed a finger along the petals as they passed. “We had a puppy when I was younger, I recalled that. I have been told that he died some three years ago, though.”
“So you have lost everything from the last six years, then?”
Her head cocked. “It seems so. Except even some things from before then are confusing too. People I did not know well. Places I evidently did not visit often.”
He made a sound of contemplation. “Perhaps you need more.”
“More what?” She kept anticipating that the conversation would end. That his curiosity in her ailment would fade and they would return to benign topics. But it had yet to happen. Had she misjudged his interest and engagement? Colored her perception of him with her own insecurities?
“Familiarity. What if… what if you were to apply yourself to the activities you previously enjoyed? Perhaps some action would spur your memory on.”
She nodded, slowly. The idea had merit. “I would certainly be willing to try it. Of course, I have already been doing the things I imagine I used to. Sleeping in my bed, breakfasting with my parents, reacquainting myself with the neighbors.”
“Yes, but none of those would have strong feelings attached to them. The consistency is what would make them unimpressive to your memory. They are the interims of life—the interludes between acts. You must do things you used to look forward to and greatly enjoy. Then, perhaps, something would return to you.”
A bubbly sensation began somewhere near her chest. Excitement. This might not work in the least, but it was something. In a world that wished her to move forward, this man was suggesting a chance at uncovering the past.
She was nodding before she even realized it.
“Good,” he said. “You gather a list of your favorite things. I imagine your mother could help you with that, and we will begin at the top.”
She froze, turning to face him again. He continued on several steps before realizing she’d stopped.
“We? You intend to help me?”
He folded his arms and nodded, the actions stiff. “If you do not mind? I imagine there must be some things you will need two people for, or an escort, so consider me at your disposal. I… well, I am quite available for the next fortnight.”
There was something to his expression, but she did not know him well enough to decipher it.
Why was he willing to help her? Had someone put him up to it? But she found she hardly cared. The prospect was too enticing. “Very well, if you are certain. I will gather a list.”
“I will return tomorrow after breakfast.”