What had that been about?
She rubbed her nose in confusion. She’d thought he would be glad that her memories were returning. Why did she have the feeling it was the opposite, that he did not want her to remember? She had almost, not quite, but close enough, declared that she loved him. ‘Fond’ wasn’t nearly the same as ‘love’, but she’d summoned all her courage and told him that she remembered that she’d liked him.
Rather a lot.
So why did he have the demeanour of a man who had been told like the world had just ended?
Truth be told, his behaviour had changed since that moment they’d danced in the garden. Since she’d kissed him. When she’d looked at him and realised that her feelings were no longer forgotten.
She pressed a hand to her heart.
They were still there, those precious feelings.
Her eyes filled with tears, not because she was sad, but because she was endlessly relieved that she’d remembered her love for him.
But he had withdrawn immediately. As if shutters had closed inside him, creating an invisible barrierbetween them, leaving her utterly confused and a little hurt.
Why was he pulling away, and what was she supposed to do about it?
She snatched up the poker and thrust it into the glowing embers of the fireplace with a frustrated motion, sending a shower of sparks shooting upwards like tiny fireworks. She leaped back, avoiding the fiery spray.
Was that it? Was he retreating because he, too, was afraid of getting burned?
She dropped the poker with a clatter to the hearth and rubbed her eyes tiredly.
If only she could understand the man!
Chapter Twenty-Two
She seemedto be remembering only the happy memories. No doubt there had been those, too; those rare moments when she’d been happy.
Yet it would only be a matter of time before she remembered the other memories as well. When she had not been happy. Those had to be the overwhelming majority.
When they’d danced in the garden, that must have triggered one such memory. He should never have asked her to dance to begin with. He hadn't thought at all, which was unusual for him.
That kiss!
It had been so long ago since they’d kissed.
He’d acted purely on the impulse of the moment, out of the desire to feel her in his arms again. It had been one of those moments when all sense of time and place had been suspended. The air had been thick with unexpressed emotions, and he’d allowed himself to surrender to the moment.
A fatal decision.
He’d known it was a mistake when she’d raised her face to kiss him, her eyes brimming with the exact same expression Catherine had.
He hadn’t understood it then. What a thick-headed dunderhead he must have been not to see that what had been in her eyes was love.
He understood it now.
An icy arrow of terror had shot through him.
Suddenly, she was no longer Lena, but Catherine, as she had been then. Catherine, with that look of adoration in her eyes. Catherine, whom he held in his arms.
She had always loved him.
He had loved her far too late.
She had left him.
