“You seem to remember quite a bit. When I spoke with Doctor Willis about your condition, he said that some memory loss patients forget how to walk or how to speak. You seem to have merely lost your long-term memory, and it is quite possible it will return to you in due course once you have fully recovered from your head injury.”
“Or I will be forever lost.”
She patted his knee. “In that case, you will make new memories. Your life is not over.”
“Yours is not either.”
She frowned at that. “Perhaps not, but you are of an age when most men marry. Perhaps you will find a new occupation and you will marry and start a family.”
He wanted to ask why it would have been impossible to start a family with her, but they’d barely just met, and he could tell the question would be unwelcome. Instead, he said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Which question?”
“Are you happy here?”
“Most days,” she said. “Do you feel better, my lord? We could go look at that mirror now.”
“Yes, all right.”
He understood that she was putting him off, likely to avoid having to answer more questions, so he’d stop asking her things for now. But he sensed that she was actually deeply unhappy with her situation.
She helped him up, and as they walked slowly back inside, she said, “Some women would be happy to escape the trap of matrimony. It gives them the freedom to pursue their own interests and own property for themselves. What they possess is theirs, not their husband’s.”
“Yes, I am sure that is true.” And it was likely that owning things for herself and pursuing her own interests were thingsAdele valued, but he still did not believe she relished in spending the rest of her life without a husband or children. Of course, he had no right to contemplate such things or to barge into her life in the way he had. He had no right to judge her choices or desires.
And yet this mix of yearning for something more than what she had and resigning herself to her fate intrigued him.
Wilton, the butler, greeted them at the door. “If I may,” he said, “the countess suggested we purchase another suit of clothes for Mr. Smith.”
“Mr. Smith?” Adele asked.
Wilton smiled. “Apologies. That is what I have taken to calling our guest when speaking with the countess.”
Smith. He tried on the name but wasn’t sure it fit. Still, it was a thing to call himself, an identity to cling to, and yet it was perfectly benign and anonymous. “Mr. Smith it is,” he said.
“Very well. I took the liberty of measuring the clothing you arrived in and sending those measurements to a tailor I know on Savile Row.”
“Is something wrong with the clothing I arrived in?” Smith—for he supposed that was his name now—asked.
“No, not at all. But they are evening clothes, as if you came from a ball or dinner party. We need something more appropriate for day.”
“I hate to put you to that expense.”
Wilton shook his head. “Not at all. The countess authorized it.”
“Perhaps I should meet this countess.”
Adele nodded. “Yes, I will take you to visit her when she is feeling a little better.” She turned to Wilton. “Mr. Smith has requested to see a mirror, so I was going to take him to the gold salon.”
Wilton opened his mouth, perhaps to ask a question, but then snapped his jaw shut. He nodded. “Very good, my lady.”
Adele led him down a hallway to a room that seemed to be set up for people to sit and converse. It was indeed gold—gold curtains, gold in the wallpaper, gold thread in the upholstery on the chairs and sofas. There was a huge, gold-framed mirror over the fireplace. It seemed opulent at first glance, but on closer inspection, the room was well-worn. The curtains were slightly discolored in places, the wallpaper was peeling near the ceiling, the upholstery was threadbare, and the mirror’s frame was tarnished near the bottom. Smith’s mind whirred as he tried to process this with what he knew so far. A countess, but a poor one, perhaps, or one whose fortunes had greatly diminished in recent years. Why had she spent money on a suit of clothes for him? He put that away to revisit later.
For here was the moment of truth. Smith walked up to the mirror and gazed at himself.
The man looking back was familiar, but again, it was like a heavy gray curtain hung between his conscious mind and his recollections. He knew this man, but not well enough to say who he was or how he came to be in this house.
Then he had a flash: a man with graying hair saying, “You have your mother’s eyes.” He could picture a woman with dark hair and eyes very much like the ones looking back at him now. She was strict, he knew, and opinionated, but also loving. She was his mother. He knew that on an elemental level. Just as he knew the man with graying hair was his father. And they each put all their hopes in him.
