“And for causing my lifeblood to flow onto my cravat?” he asked.
Bess scratched some more. “She says you’re exaggerating the nature of your injuries, and she reassures me that the scratches you suffered were scarcely deep enough to bleed. Only look at what an angel she is.”
“She is indeed an angel,” he agreed pointedly.
But he wasn’t thinking about the cat. Rather, he was thinking of the kindhearted beauty on whom the feline was slumbering in peaceful respite. He raked his fingers through his hair, continuing to watch her, soaking in the quiet radiance she exuded. The happiness. Her legs were curled beneath her, skirts pooled and keeping her limbs hidden from view. The cat was snuggled where Torrie himself longed to be, and again, he had to tamp down an inconvenient rush of envy.
“Perhaps that is what her name should be,” Bess said, pulling him from his thoughts.
“Angel?” He stroked his jaw thoughtfully, contemplating the appellation. “Seems a bit of an exaggeration, particularly considering the state of my neck and shoulder.”
“Your shoulder?” Bess’s eyes flew to him. “You never said anything about an injury to your shoulder. What happened?”
“Her claws,” he said wryly. “But at least I had the protection of a few layers of garments. The same can’t be said for my neck.”
“Poor darling,” she murmured, stroking the cat’s back. “Shall I kiss it for you later?”
Damn it, the effect his wife had on him was criminal.
He was lusting after her whilst she held a cat in her lap.
A small, relatively innocent feline who had been so terrified by her journey that she had nearly clawed him to ribbons, it was true. Nonetheless, watching his wife bonding with the cat had proven more than worth every drop of blood he had shed.
“You may kiss me wherever and whenever you like, wife,” he told her, giving her a teasing wink.
As predicted, his words brought a charming flush to her cheeks. He could have said more—would have, likely—had they not possessed the audience of the feline. Somehow, saying vulgar things to Bess felt wrong when there was a cat involved.
“I’m a fortunate woman indeed,” she said, no trace of humor in her voice.
She was all seriousness, and he wondered if she was thinking about what had happened between them in the past. When he had been someone else, and she had been a wallflower he had so ruthlessly mocked and ignored. Although he and his mother had not spoken of Bess’s past affections for him since the day of their dreadful argument, he had found himself contemplating it often. He was curious, he couldn’t lie. What had she felt for him, if anything?
“Is it true?” he found himself asking at last. “That you set your cap at me all those years ago?”
Her flush deepened, her gaze dropping from his to the blasted cat, and he regretted his question instantly. Her discomfort was palpable, and he hadn’t intended to ruin this blissful idyll with her by dredging up painful memories.
“Forgive me,” he hurried to say. “It was unkind of me to ask, and it hardly signifies. I’m not the man I was then. It is merely that…sometimes I think about the past. I wonder about it. I wonder if I’ll recall more, or if I’ll only ever have a trickle of random, incoherent memories to string together in remembrance of the man I was before.”
“You needn’t apologize,” she said quietly, head still bowed over the cat. “I can well understand your curiosity. I can’t begin to understand what it must be like for you, not knowing, not remembering. Having no notion of when or if the rest of your memories will return.”
Amnesia was its own kind of hell, and he was trapped within it. But thanks to Bess, he was beginning to find a place where he truly felt as if he belonged.
“I’ve had time to make my peace with it as best as I’m able.” He flattened his palm on the pile of pillows and used it as leverage to haul himself nearer to her. The cat shifted in her lap and stretched, offering a tiny pink yawn, but promptly resumed her sleep. “It’s only that sometimes I find myself angry with him. Jealous of the time he could have had with you, had he not wasted it so thoroughly.”
She looked up again, giving him a sad smile. “Perhaps it is selfish of me, but I’m glad you are the man you are and not the man you once were. When I was younger, I was foolish. I saw you from across a crowded ballroom and our eyes met, and I fancied you were… I had this foolish notion… It doesn’t matter. It’s all best forgotten now.”
He leaned forward, resting his weight on his arm, needing to be closer to her. “What were you intending to say? What did you fancy?”
The most astonishing thought occurred to him then. Had she been in love with him, when she had been a debutante and he’d been a devil-may-care rakehell tearing about London with Monty? A new stab of jealousy accompanied the thought.
Envious first of a cat and then of his former self, the man he could scarcely recall having been.
“It is nothing,” she repeated, eyes firmly pinned to the cat.
Did the cat have a name? Was it Angel? He wasn’t sure, but his greatest concern for now was unraveling a piece of his past, with his wife’s help. He needed to know.
“Bess.” He reached forward, brushing a tendril of hair away that had fallen across her silken cheek. “Tell me. Please. I want to know.”
“Oh, Torrie.” She bit her lip, glancing up at him again, looking uncertain. “It’s embarrassing, my foolishness. I was dreadfully naïve, and I know that now.”
