“He truly has no memory of what happened before his accident?” she asked, forgetting about her hunger, her breakfast lying abandoned and cooling on her plate.
“Do you mean to suggest you didn’t know?” her ladyship asked, disbelief coloring her tone.
“Lord Torrington—Torrie—didn’t tell me,” she admitted, wondering at his omission.
Perhaps he believed it didn’t matter. Or mayhap he was embarrassed by his lack of memory.
Once again, the dowager’s nostrils flared, this time her eyes narrowing in accompaniment. “You’ll not repeat a word of it beyond these walls, or you will have me to answer to. I may not have been able to stop this abomination of a wedding, but do not believe for a moment that I’ll not do everything I must to protect myself and my son.”
There it was again, the dowager’s concern for herself, which seemed to overshadow any feelings of protection she bore for the viscount. It occurred to Elizabeth with stunning clarity that the viscountess likely considered her a challenge. Perhaps she was concerned that Elizabeth would usurp her place in the household or in her son’s heart. But neither of those would be the case.
“You needn’t fear I would ever do anything to harm his lordship,” she reassured the dowager now, all too aware of the other woman’s icy glare. “I’ll not speak of his private matters to anyone else.”
“His lordship is sensitive about the accident and he doesn’t prefer to speak of it,” the dowager continued, voice still frosty as her glare. “That is why I didn’t relay my fears to him when he announced his intention to make this dreadful mesalliance with you. But know this, Miss Brooke. I will be watching you. I don’t trust you or your motives, and I don’t believe a word of your protestations of innocence. Do you have any notion how many debutantes and widows have thrown their caps at him? He could have had his pick of any of the ladies in London, and instead he is saddled with you.”
Belatedly, she realized that the dowager was continuing to refer to her asMiss Brooke. She might have at least tried her given name, but likely, the slight was intentional and not inadvertent.
With that grim pronouncement, Lady Torrington rose from her chair, sweeping to her feet with the grace of a lady who had weathered the storm of society for decades. “I’ve had enough breakfast this morning. I do think I shall retire to my chamber.”
Elizabeth stared after the viscountess’s retreating form, the venom which had been directed at her leaving her unable to form a response. The door slammed loudly, and then she was seated alone at the breakfast table, a fine spread of food and cutlery laid out before her. The ensuing silence was as mocking as it was deafening.
She couldn’t eat another bite.
She hadn’t anticipated a warm welcome at Torrington House, but neither had she expected such an attack. Nor to be accused of having orchestrated her marriage when the only mistake she had made was to be in the earl’s library when she ought to have been abed. For that trespass, she had paid dearly, both with her situation and her reputation.
And now, despite her marriage, it would seem she was even more alone than she had been before. And married to a man who was, in every sense, a stranger to her. A man who had no recollection of the past.
Questions and misgiving swirled, one rising above all the rest to prominence. What would happen if Torrie’s memory returned to him?
* * *
Torrie returned homethat morning from Winter’s Boxing Academy tired, sore, and irritable. Decidedly not in the mood for an interview with his mother, who it seemed was waiting for the moment he set foot in the entry hall to spring out at him and demand an audience. Was it wrong of him to have hoped it would have been Bess instead, eagerly awaiting his return?
Yes, likely it was. He had stolen a governess, ruined her, married her, and now he very badly wanted nothing more than to debauch her whilst the rest of London went to the devil.
“Madam,” he addressed his mother formally, handing off his coat, hat, gloves, and walking stick, for it still felt strange to call her Mama as Harriet did. For his mind remained eerily bereft of memories of his former relationship with the woman who had given him life. “What is amiss?”
His mother cast a pointed glance toward the butler, Oswald, and the footman who had gathered at his return. “In private, Torrington, if you please. I require no more than a moment of your time.”
Judging from experience, that meant his mother wanted to chatter on about inanities for the better part of an hour. Always the need for an heir, an exhortation to attend this or that ball or musicale. A reminder that she expected him to do his duty and make certain no dastardly country booby cousin would inherit the title and cast her from the comfort of her home. The suggestion he court Lady Althorp’s eldest daughter.
His back ached from his exertions, his head felt as if it were laden with cobwebs, he was thirstier than a horse in the desert, and the gnawing desire to see his wife again was stronger than any of those bodily complaints and needs.
Wife.
He rather liked the sound of that word, the possessive surge that accompanied it. Better, he was finding, thanmistress. Here was a woman who was entirely his. Not an experienced, eager seductress as Eugenia had been, it was true, but there was something strangely enticing about claiming Bess.
He sighed as he took in his mother’s fretting countenance. “Can it not wait, my lady?”
“You have been asking me to wait for nearly a week, my lord,” she reminded him tightly.
Twin patches of color bloomed on her cheeks, a sign he had come to understand meant she was displeased. He often wondered at the mother-son bond they may or may not have shared before his accident. He found her difficult to know, not nearly as kindhearted as Harriet, nor as generous. She spoke of his father with anger, blaming his every fault for Torrie’s own sins, and he disliked that as well. Perhaps her hatred of his father, who he’d been told had been dead for some time now, hadn’t bothered him before. It was entirely possible that he hadn’t cared for his father either.
But it was the damnedest thing, not being able to remember. Not knowing. Sometimes, he hated it.
“Very well,” he allowed at last. “To the morning room, I should think. That is your preferred chamber, is it not?”
“It is.” Her expression softened. “You remember?”
