Chapter One
Summer, 1846
Lily Thornton reached for the doorknob and turned it. Inside, the room was dark, save for the fire at the hearth and a single candle burning on the mantel. The drapes were closed, shutting out the world.
“May I come in?” she asked softly.
There was no answer. She opened the door a little wider, uncertain of whether she should enter. Matthew Larkspur, the Earl of Arnsbury, had returned from India only days ago after her brother had accompanied him home. James had warned her not to visit him, for Lord Arnsbury had been captured and tortured by the enemy.He is not the man you once knew,he’d warned.
But he is my husband,she reassured herself. Even if no one else knew it but them, she had every right to see him. She took a single step into the darkness, wondering how badly he had been hurt.
Lord Arnsbury was seated in a large wingback chair a short distance from the fire. In the shadows, she could not see his face—only the outline of a man with his head lowered. In his posture, she sensed pain, mingled with frustration. Tension stretched out in the room, and she wondered if she should call out to his mother or a footman to join her as a chaperone. Both were lingering nearby in the hallway.
“Matthew, it’s Lily,” she murmured.
She prayed that when he heard her voice, it would break the spell of melancholy and bring him back. The silence grew heavier, and for a moment, she doubted herself.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she said. “Are you all right?”See me. Know that I love you and always have.
At last, he raised his head, and it felt as if she were facing a wounded tiger. “Go away.”
His voice was slurred, and she heard the traces of pain within it. Upon an end table beside the chair, she saw a glass. Had he been drinking? Or perhaps he had taken laudanum to help him sleep.
She ignored his command and pulled a chair across from him, sitting so close, he could touch her. Her heart was beating hard, and her emotions were tightly strung up inside her. With a glance toward the door, she saw that Lady Arnsbury was standing just beyond the door, allowing them a measure of privacy while still chaperoning her.
Lily spoke in the softest whisper, not wanting anyone to overhear her. “I am so glad you’ve returned,” she said. “I’ve waited so long.”
But again, he said nothing. It was as if he were a stranger, a man haunted by visions she could not see. His hands clenched the arms of his chair, and he demanded, “I want to be alone.”
His assertion wounded her deeply. “I am yourwife,” she whispered. “How can you ask me to go? After all that we’ve meant to one another.”
“Ihaveno wife,” he gritted out.
His head dropped forward, and for a breathless moment, she felt numb inside. The silver chain around her neck seemed to weigh against her throat. She withdrew it from her bodice and showed him the gold signet ring. It washisring, the one his grandfather had given him when he was a boy.
“What do you mean, you have no wife?” Tears gathered in her eyes, and a wrenching fear gripped her. Her heart was pounding so hard, she felt physically ill.
Matthew leaned forward and stared at her. His brown eyes were dilated, chips of flint in a face made of stone. Gone was the rakish earl she had known, and in his place was a man filled with suffering. She searched his expression for some sign of affection, some glimmer of hope for them. But there was not even a hint of recognition, and it hardly seemed as if he’d understood a word she’d said.
“Leave me,” he demanded.
The logical response would be to obey him, to wait another day until he was feeling better. It was clear that he was lost in his torment, and he needed time.
She didn’t know what had happened to Matthew, but she would not turn away from him in his time of need. They would face this together and overcome it.
Lily reached out to touch his cheek. She stroked the dark bristle of his beard, not caring that he appeared so rough and unkempt. He had been to Hades and back again. Even his hair was longer than usual, and she suspected he hadn’t cut it. Across his left cheek was a slash, a healing wound that seemed to have been cut with a curved sword.
“I promised I would never leave you,” she said, stroking the outline of his face. “And you promised to take care of me. Don’t you remember?”
At that, he caught her wrist and stood. He was so tall, she had to tip her head back to meet his gaze. His clothing hung againsthis frame, and the sharpness in his features suggested that he’d known hunger during his time in India. “How could I promise such a thing?” A faint note of irony creased his expression. “Especially when I have never seen you before in my life.”
The floor seemed to drop out from beneath her, and blood rushed through her cheeks. “I don’t understand.” Her throat tightened at the words. How was it possible for him to forget her? Her brother had said nothing about memory loss.
He started to sit down again, but he swayed like a man intoxicated before he stumbled into the chair, caught in a drugged haze. Something was not right, and she hoped that somehow she could alleviate his pain.
Lord Arnsbury glared down at her and pointed toward the door. “I don’t know your face, and I don’t know who you are. But I want you gone from here. Now.”
She was paralyzed at his words, frozen in place. Then he took her by the wrist and forced her to rise, pushing her toward the door. “I said go!”
