Instead, she found herself asking about his farm, his life in Ireland. She watched his face light up when he spoke of his daughter, and there…there was the tenderness she remembered, the capacity for deep love that had made her fall for him all those years ago.
“You always wanted children,” she found herself saying, then immediately regretted it when his expression shuttered.
“Did I?” He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, I don’t…”
“No, I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t make comparisons. It’s not fair to either of us.”
But it was hard not to. Hard not to notice how his eyes still crinkled at the corners when he smiled, even if the smile itself was different, more reserved, weighted with experiences she knew nothing about. Hard not to hear echoes of his old wit in his occasional dry observations.
He was like a familiar painting viewed through rippled glass. The basic shapes were there, but everything was subtly distorted, changed. The aristocratic education and manners were camouflaged, perhaps mixed with a farmer’s practical wisdom. The carefree young lord who’d stolen her heart had been transformed by amnesia and hard work into someone both more and less than he’d been.
Yet there was something compelling about this new version of him. She could see why the Irish woman—Ava—had loved him. Even without his memories or title, he radiated a quiet strength, an innate nobility that had nothing to do with his birth.
And he was so extraordinarily handsome, other men paled in comparison.
That was why, all those years ago, she’d been so surprised when he’d singled her out for his attention. She wasn’t a great beauty, not like Valora or even Farah. She’d thought it was too good to be true, but he’d courted her and made her love him and then he’d gone to war… At the time, she’d not understood it would be dangerous. Lucien told her he was going to ensure fighting didn’t break out. He believed the Irish fighters would talk with him, given that he was Irish on his grandmother’s side and he could speak the language.
When she learned he’d been killed, she had been so angry at him, but the anger dissolved and turned to profound grief when she realized she’d never see him again. Never have his strong arms around her. Never know a love that filled her soul.
She was just alone.
Now he was back with no memory of her. Would she be as lucky a second time around? She also wasn’t a young debutante anymore. She was four and twenty.
“Will you tell me about our engagement?” he asked suddenly, startling her from her thoughts. “Rockwell mentioned it, but…”
She hesitated. How could she explain their courtship without making him feel guilty for not remembering? How could she describe their love without making him feel pressured to recapture something that might be lost forever?
“We were friends first,” she said finally. “That was the foundation of everything. We could talk for hours about books, art, music. You made me laugh. You challenged me to think differently about things. You didn’t try to shelter me, as if women could not possibly be equal to men.” She smiled at the memory. “You courted me for nearly a year before proposing. The letters will tell you more.” She looked out the window at the sunny day, but the room still felt gray. “We were so in love.” She turned to look at him. “I’m not saying that to hurt or raise expectations, but to explain why this is very difficult for me. I have never really gotten over you and now here you are, alive. But you’re not the man I fell in love with. And I know what Lauren and Rockwell are hoping for, that I’m to be your savior.”
“I feel the same. We have that in common.” His voice was gentle. “Whatdoyou want from me now?”
The question hung between them, heavy with implications. Courtney met his gaze squarely, seeing both the man she’d lost and the stranger he’d become.
“I want to know you,” she said honestly. “Not the man you were, but the man you are. If you’ll let me.”
Something flickered in his eye, relief, perhaps, or gratitude. “I think I’d like that,” he said softly. “To be friends again. To see if…”
He didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t need to. They both knew there could be no promises, no guarantees. Only the possibility of something new growing from the ashes of what was lost. She had to remind herself that he might need her more than she needed him.
To start at the beginning would have to be enough.
But she was also conscious that Lucien didn’t have much time. The sisterhood investment group was well aware of how precarious the Danvers’ finances were. The money Tiffany earned from their investments had been helping Lauren keep the creditors from the door. Lucien needed to marry and marry well.
The afternoon ended far too soon. Freya followed Lucien as he took his leave, and she had to call her back. “We’ll see him again soon, my girl,” she said as she stroked her hound’s head. Perhaps she should be like Freya and simply accept him for who he was now, not caring what had happened or that he’d been gone for so long.
But people were not dogs. Still, their first meeting gave her hope.
Chapter Three
Later that day,Lucien stood at the window of the drawing room at Danvers House, watching night fall over London. The room felt alien despite everyone’s assurances that he’d spent his youth here. Like everything else since returning from Ireland, it was a constant reminder of what Ava’s deception had cost him.
Ava had been working as a prostitute in a high-class brothel and had found him injured in the streets of Dublin. She’d taken him in and, learning he had amnesia, told him he was her husband, and he had believed her. He’d had no reason not to. He spoke Gaelic and was in Ireland. She’d seen a way out of a life she hated and took it. He found it hard to blame her.
She was a great beauty, and he hadn’t been able to resist her Irish free spirit. But she’d kept him from his true family and responsibilities. But then he had Ava-Marie…. What if he’d come home five years earlier?
He held one of his love letters to Courtney in his hand.
My dearest Courtney,
