Flames of embarrassment licked at Shannon’s cheeks when she understood his meaning.“Wehad nothing together.”
Brandon paled beneath his tan, and his expression became remote. “I should have expected you would throw that in my face, Aurora. I stand corrected. Nevertheless, Clara is my daughter in spirit if not in blood. I will not brook interference from you. Is that clear?”
“You don’t understand. I wasn’t—that is, I didn’t mean—oh, I cannot think when you look that way. Please go! Go away!”
But Brandon did not go away. His jaw slackened and his brow furrowed as the clipped rhythm of his wife’s speech finally registered. Belatedly he understood what Clara had meant when she said her mother was talking funny. Rory had never assimilated the easy drawl of a southerner. Her voice always had a lilting quality to it, an influence from her French parents. This woman’s voice was something else again, but he refused to believe what his ears were telling him. “What game are you playing now?” he demanded. She was up to every trick, he told himself. He would put nothing past her.
In defense Shannon pulled the coverlet up to her shoulders. Her mouth opened to answer but no words would come out. She shook her head mutely.
Brandon thrust his hands in his pockets to keep from throttling her. “Say something, dammit. Your voice worked well enough a moment ago. And don’t cry,” he added when he saw threatening tears. “Don’t you dare cry!”
“I w-won’t. Only s-stop glowering.”
Brandon took a deep, calming breath and his fingers threaded through his silky hair, “I do not glower.”
It was an odd thing to say, and so untrue that Shannon had an urge to laugh. He sounded affronted. She struggled to tamp down a smile, and the corners of her mouth twitched. “You do, you know. Not when you look at—Clara—that’s your daughter’s name, isn’t it?” Brandon nodded in bewilderment. “You only glower at me. And I don’t know why. Didn’t you receive the earl’s letter? Or did you, and you don’t want anything to do with me?” She knew she was babbling, but she could not help herself. She was so frightened by the strength of the man in front of her that she thought she had better explain herself quickly. “I can understand that, you know. I said as much to his lordship. I told him I wouldn’t do as a governess. It isn’t fitting, but then, you must know that.”
Brandon lowered himself slowly into the bedside chair, his head reeling. “I think this is a very poor joke,” he said finally. “Who put you up to it? Was it Parker?”
“I don’t know anyone named Parker.”
“It must have been Aurora.”
Shannon looked at him hopefully. “Then you realize I’m not Aurora? I’m not your w-wife?”
Brandon’s eyes closed briefly. “I realize it…now. Why did you say nothing before? You knew who I thought you were. Or was it part of the joke?”
“I couldn’t speak before,” she reminded him. “Then you did not come around, and there was no opportunity to explain myself. There is no joke. At least I don’t think there is. I’m as bewildered by what has occurred as you. I’ve never met your wife, Mr. Fleming.”
“But you know me. How is that?”
Shannon bit her lip. Obviously he did not remember her. Worse, he had not received the earl’s correspondence. It was merely happenstance that she was in his home. That, and the astonishing fact that she resembled his wife. “We met once before. At Glen Eden. You fished me from a brook on that occasion.”
Brandon looked at her blankly. “No. It could not be.” He spoke to himself rather than to Shannon. “I knew there was a similarity, but this? No. It isn’t true.”
Shannon did not understand what he meant. “It is true,” she said, commenting on the only thing she thought was clear. “You were with the earl, and I was--”
“Asleep in a patch of wild strawberries,” he finished slowly. He recalled everything about his early morning ride with Eric Redmond: the winsome charm of a certain young woman; her unfeigned shyness at a simple flirtation; the innocence of expression in a face of startling beauty. The clarity of the memory astonished him, but he leashed the unexpected surge of pleasure that shot through him. “I remember.”
She brushed back a strand of hair and fiddled with the end of her braid. The coverlet slid lower due to her inattention. “Then why did you say it wasn’t true?”
“I was speaking of something else.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t,” he said softly, again as if to himself. “Not really. And that is the way I prefer it.”
“All right,” she agreed.
“No argument?” He relaxed slightly. “I think I like that.”
“I don’t like to fight,” she offered quietly with intense conviction.
Brandon’s thoughts suddenly flashed on the moment four years earlier when he had ridden up to the vicar’s cottage with Shannon Kilmartin in the saddle in front of him. The iciness in Thomas Stewart’s eyes was not something he was likely to forget, nor was the punishment he had surely meted out to his daughter. “No, you wouldn’t, would you?” He visibly shook himself out of his reverie by leaning forward in his chair and placing his elbows on his knees. He folded his large hands and made a steeple with his thumbs. “I think you have some explaining to do, Shannon Kilmartin.” He paused. “It is still Kilmartin, isn’t it? You never married?”
She felt a familiar ache in her throat and forced an answer past it. “No. I never married.”
He nodded thoughtfully, as if the answer did not surprise him. “What were you doing on board theCentury?”
