A very long time ago, he’d given her a family heirloom, a wedding ring. She jolted upright. Her ring! She’d always worn a ring, hadn’t she? Yet her hands were bare. When she’d awoken in the hospital in Abbotsford, there had been nothing at all on her body aside from a simple shift. She wondered what had happened to the ring. Someone must have stolen it, along with her clothes. Simon had never mentioned a ring. The lack of anypersonal belongings on her was the reason why it had been impossible to identify her.
Lena rubbed her forehead.
A heaviness settled on her heart.
He had known the truth all along, of course. He’d lied when she’d asked him whether they’d been in love. Maybe he simply hadn’t known what else to say. It explained his sudden aloofness and why he’d pulled away when she’d told him she remembered her love for him.
Memories were deceptive, he had said. How right he had been!
While she had adored him as only a child could, an adoration that had later blossomed into love—he had not loved her back.
She rubbed the empty space where her wedding band had been.
Yes, she had loved him. Of that she was certain, but she’d also feared him.
It hadn’t been a good marriage.
He’d returned to London soon after the wedding, leaving his young wife behind in the magnificent country house that was a glittering palace filled with gilded mirrors and marbled halls.
She’d been so lonely.
He’d always been polite to her. Courteous, as one was to a stranger. She’d tried so hard to please him, but it was difficult to please someone whom one hardly knew. He’d intimidated her, and in her eagerness to please him, she’d begun to fear him. Fear of seeing the look of impatience in his eyes. They’d been in different worlds. He, so much older, so far above her, and she, barely outof the schoolroom with no idea of the ways of the world…
It was the music that had kept her company. Alone in the hall, she’d spent hour after hour playing the piano. It had almost become an obsession. There was nothing else that gave her pleasure. She’d practised and practised for hours, honing and sharpening her skills as a pianist. The only people who had ever listened to her were the butler, the housekeeper, and the other servants.
Up to that point, the memories were clear. Then everything was jumbled together like scattered pieces of a broken mosaic, refusing to fit into any coherent pattern. There were so many visions, scenes, disconnected fragments that seemed to make no sense. All these faces.
Good heavens, her parents!
She jumped up, wringing her hands.
Her mother, pale and tired, and her father, boisterous and loud and cheerful. Had Aldingbourne informed them that she was alive? They needed to be informed.
She probably ought to tell him, too, that most of her memories had returned.
Lena rubbed the back of her head as it began to ache.
Most, but not all of them.
She still had so many questions. Why Scotland? Why had she gone there? Why couldn’t she recall why she had left? Was it because she’d discovered he had a mistress?
She clasped a hand over her mouth. Good heavens. Of course. She must have run away. Didn’t she have a great-aunt living in Scotland? She must have run away to stay with her.
Her head thumped and ached and refused to retrieveany more memories. Instead, there was the same empty void that had previously engulfed her entire mind.
She pulled on the new stockings, tied them with a matching pink ribbon and admired them.
Her first real present from him.
It must mean something, must it not?
She furrowed her brow in consternation.
But what, exactly, did it mean?
When they metin the hallway some time later, he did not meet her gaze. He tugged on his neckcloth with an impatient move, as if it suffocated him. Then he strode away to his room without a word.
Lena hurried after him before he could close the door. “I wanted to thank you again for the stockings.”
