Instead, a stranger inhabited her body.
A stranger who wore fine dresses and spoke like an Englishwoman and didn’t remember how she had grown and laughed and loved—loved him!—aboard a merchant ship on the opposite side of the world.
Worse . . . she didn’t understand the value of what she had lost.
To the question,Why did you assume your brother’s identity and board the ship under false pretenses?, she had recounted the reasons Kieran already knew—her feelings of terror and desperation, her strong desire to avoid the workhouse.
But beyond that, she could answer little.
Why did you continue the charade?
I don’t know.
Who did you tell you were a woman?
I can’t remember.
Did Captain Cuthie know?
I don’t know.
With each answer, more of Kieran’s hope died—her memories were well and truly absent.
She had been his lodestar for so many years. He had prayed for her, that she had lived, that she was well.
And God had granted them both that miracle.
Her bodyhadlived.
But the person who had been Jamie . . .
Where had that woman gone?
“Ye must prepare yourself for the reality that she may never regain her memories, Kieran,”Alex had warned him more than once over the past few months.“Jamie may never wish to return to a life as your wife.”
The words felt nearly prophetic now.
She sat unnervingly still before Mr. Patterson, her posture rigid and ladylike and very un-Jamie-esque. His Jamie had been a constant blur of motion, her shorn curls a whirling halo around her face.
Now, her hair had grown long, the wild curls tamed and teased into an intricate knot with ruthless precision. The fine wool of her pelisse accentuated her creamy complexion, the tanned skin of her time aboardThe Minervahaving long ago faded.
In short, Miss Eilidh Fyffe was every whit the genteel captain’s daughter she had been raised to be.
The only trace of Jamie that Kieran could see were the rounded fists in her lap. His Jamie had clenched her hands when she was upset or incensed or readying herself to defend those she loved.
He stared at her achingly familiar face, the one that he cherished and loved and longed to cup between his hands and bestow a trembling kiss. His eyes dropped to her mouth, the lips that had spoken marriage vows on a beach at dusk in Sydney Harbor, promising to never let him go.
As if feeling the weight of his regard, she turned her head and met his gaze. Her silvery-green eyes burned with emotion—fear, apprehension, wariness—but no recognition. No love.
Not even a flicker of memory of their handfasting. Of the strength in her fingers afterward, as she snatched his hand and led him by starlight along a glistening path, giggling over her shoulder, “Ye better adore the surprise I have planned for ye!”
He looked away.
The weight of memory was too heavy, and he was too alone in shouldering its burden.
The rest of the Brotherhood sat in various places around the room, watching Mr. Patterson with Jamie. Were their thoughts like Kieran’s? A torrential reminder of what had been lost?
Kieran suspected so.
