Chapter 10 #3
Grace froze, a barrage of emotions waterfalling about her, making it hard to focus on any one feeling at a time. Who was the man she’d been engaged to? Did she care to know? Did she care for Lord Ellison?
And… an inkling of doubt wormed its way through her as Mama’s words about her dowry registered. Lord Ellison would not enact a falsehood with her, would he? No. He had been nothing but kind and genuine in all their acquaintance. He would not be spending time with her for her dowry.
Still, her smile was rather shaky when the men at last rejoined them.
Lord Ellison was stopped by Lady Hartwell who exchanged several words with him. He smiled and nodded and appeared quite solicitous, but within a minute, he was seeking Grace out near the darkened window.
“Thank goodness I have found you. I’ve been bored out of my wits,” he said as he settled in a chair beside her.
“None of the men offered to share their drinks with you?”
“Not a one, if you’ll believe it.” He grinned, and she could not help returning the smile.
“And you?” he asked, leaning toward her. “How did you fare?”
Her eyes flicked to her mother, who was watching them with a smile on her face.
The rest of the room stood in small and large groups, and the hum of conversation built.
“Well enough, I suppose,” she said. She wanted to bring up her betrothal.
But then she also did not. “I admit, I am rather curious to finish our conversation from dinner… to know what you knew of me before my accident.”
“I have always appreciated how you do not mince words, Miss Whitmore.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And yet here you are doing a great deal of mincing. What is it you do not wish to tell me?”
He sighed. “It is only that I think my recollections reflect more on me than on you.”
“I will not be angry, if that is what you are worried about.” She leaned closer as a couple passed behind their chairs, taking a turn about the room.
He clasped his hands together, staring at them.
“You always appeared perfect. You said what was expected and spoke when spoken to. You were… like a statue. I never saw a hint of the personality you show now.” His words sounded apologetic and she felt as if she had to defend the actions she’d taken years before but no longer recalled.
“I believe I was trying to help my father solidify his place in Society,” she said.
He nodded. “That would be understandable.”
“But how am I to remember who I truly was then, if hardly anyone knew it? Clara has been at school some three years, so even she could not have known my personality. My true likes and dislikes. I may never relearn the truth of myself. I do not feel perfect. I do not wish to be perfect.”
He swallowed as someone laughed across the room. “I wish I could help you, Miss Whitmore. I am sorry that I did not pursue more of a relationship with you to have the answers you seek. I truly wish I had.”
“I do not blame you. I am simply frustrated. Would that my mind weren’t a stranger to me.”
For the second time that night, he placed his hand on top of hers and squeezed.
She felt that simple contact through all of her. The tips of her fingers and toes were aware of where he’d touched her. But her mind was beginning to pulse with the exertion of attempted remembrance. Who had she really been before? Would that woman ever be returned to her?
Pain lanced through her head, a newly familiar pain. Heavens, but tonight was a terrible night for one of her headaches.
“Shall we have some dancing?” Mama called from the other side of the room. She was likely still watching Grace and Lord Ellison, but Grace could not find it in her to care what her expectations were for the two of them.
“I would ask you to dance,” Lord Ellison said as footmen arrived to move the furniture, “but you do not appear to feel well.”
“No,” she pressed her eyes closed. “My head gets this way from time to time since the accident. It is funny that somehow it remembers the pain I underwent yet nothing else.”
“What can I do?” His hand was still on hers, and he gripped her fingers. If the pain in her head were not increasing so rapidly, she would be rather fixated on that.
“There is a tea the housekeeper makes.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “I will get it. Do you need to leave? Lie down?”
She did not want to, but experience told her that without the quiet darkness of her room, this pain building above her right eye would only magnify. Last week she had attempted to push through it and ended up losing her dinner.
Her hesitation must have been enough, because his hand moved from hers to beneath her elbow, urging her to a stand. “Let us get you away from this noise.” There was something in his voice, a speed with which he spoke, that betrayed urgency.
She winced, rubbing forefingers above her ear. Heavens, but the pain moved quickly.
He saw her to her mother, then offered to find a maid to send up the tea. The last thing he said as Grace was whisked from the room was, “I will send a note round tomorrow, to learn how you fare.”
And then he was gone.
He’d said they’d known one another in the past, but not well.
Why, then, did the feeling of walking away from him in a state of pain feel so familiar?