“Yes, I’m going to marry her,” he snarled, furious and he didn’t know why. “You’ve married, have you not? It is the thing one does eventually. I hadn’t expected to do so now, but I’ve snapped the parson’s mousetrap upon myself with my own stupidity.”
Monty sank into an overstuffed chair, looking dazed. “Hell.”
“Hell? That’s all you have to offer?” Torrie stalked toward his host, anger clenching his jaw. “No Beelzebub’s earbobs or other such nonsense?”
His irate strides slowed as a sensation of familiarity hit him, along with a memory of laughing with the duke as they rode on Rotten Row. Of Monty tipping back his head and declaring,“Beelzebub’s earbobs, I’d give my left ballock for some whisky right now.”
But Monty didn’t touch spirits these days. He knew because Harriet had been firm on the matter, that he not offer the duke port following dinner, nor any other form of alcohol.
“Torrie?” Monty’s voice cut through the thoughts crowding his mind, bearing an intensity which had been previously absent. “Where did you hear that phrase before?”
He rubbed at his temples, his head feeling as if it belonged to another. “From you.”
“You remember.” There was hope in his friend’s voice.
Hope he didn’t like hearing, for it would inevitably be dashed. It was the same hope in the eyes of his sister and mother, the same incorrect belief that these small pieces of the past would instantly assemble themselves in his mind, like a shattered vase miraculously repaired. He couldn’t be fixed, and he knew it. He was irreparably broken.
“A vague, indistinct recollection, nothing more,” he said dismissively. “I don’t have my memory back. All I have are tiny shards that occasionally enter my mind, like a dream I’ve just recalled.”
Monty’s expression turned guilty. “I wish to God I’d never challenged you to a phaeton race that night. If I hadn’t, you’d still be yourself.”
“Iammyself,” he countered, for that was another misconception amongst those surrounding him. They missed the man he had been, but he didn’t know that man. He couldn’t mourn someone he couldn’t recall. “And I’d prefer not to think about that night. I’ve far more pressing concerns facing me than the past.”
“Of course,” Monty agreed, gesturing to the chair adjacent to his, arranged by the fireplace. “Sit, won’t you? I dislike you scowling over me like a wraith. Tell me everything from the beginning. I want to help you.”
No one could help him.
And it was the devil of a thing, because everyone thought they could. From Harriet to Mother, to Monty, and everyone in between.
But Torrie sat anyway, because his back ached, the injuries he’d suffered in the phaeton accident always eager to cause him pain anew. “All I want is for you to keep the governess here until I’m able to procure a special license and marry her. I’ve caused her enough harm today. Unintentionally, but the damage has been done. She’s alone in the world, with nowhere to go and no family to speak of, and she’s lost her situation as governess for Worthing after Eugenia dismissed her tonight.”
He was responsible for all that. And he had to make amends.
“Presumably the governess has a name?” Monty suggested, inducing another wave of guilt to wash over him.
“I can’t recall it,” he admitted. “Her surname begins with aB, I believe.”
Or had it been aD?
Never mind. It would change soon enough.
“Did you…ruin her?” Monty asked, his voice sounding stilted and awkward.
“Not truly. What must you think of me?” He shook his head, wishing it would clear the fog remaining within. “Don’t answer that. I understand how all this must appear, me bringing a governess to you in the midst of the night and begging you to keep her. The kidnapping. Christ. It was all meant to be an assignation Lady Worthing planned. She wanted me to carry her away and ravish her in my carriage, and I fully intended to do so. Except, I took the wrong woman from the library. In my own defense, it was dark.”
“But youdidn’travish the governess.” An ominous pause. “Did you?”
He glared at his friend, appalled. “Of course, I didn’t. I’m not a complete villain. Would I have done so, before?”
“No, never,” Monty hastened to say, filling Torrie with some small measure of relief. “I’m merely asking you the difficult questions so that later, when my wife demands answers, I have them to give. Regardless of whether you’ve truly ruined the governess, considering the circumstances, you can expect gossip.”
He smiled thinly. “I doubt any more scandal where I’m concerned could be a hardship. And if Harriet has questions, she might ask them of me. I am her brother, am I not?”
Not that he felt as if he were. He’d been told who everyone in his life was. His family, his friends, his own name. Feeling connected to those people had required a great deal of concerted effort, and in some instances, he had failed dismally. His relationship with his mother remained cool and stilted at best. She was desperate for him to return to his former self, and her determination sparked an answering resentment deep within him.
“She prefers Hattie,” Monty reminded him gently.
Yet another piece of the past he had forgotten, and for some reason, his mind refused to think of his sister as her preferred sobriquet instead of her given name of Harriet.
