Dread hollowing out her insides, she exited the library and trudged down the corridor to the drawing room. She flung the door open.
Inside, both her parents turned to her with expectant, fear-filled eyes.
“I’ll do it. I’ll marry him.”
An icy calmfilled Teddy on the drive to Ainsworth Hall, his familial home.
All he’d wanted for the last several months was to remember who he was. To reclaim his life. And now, his memories restored, he had only to step back into his life and pick up the reins. Somehow, he’d thought it would feel better than this. He’d thought it would feel like triumph.
Instead, he felt nothing at all. No, that wasn’t right. He felt empty. Cavernously empty.
He walked straight up the stone path to the front door, let himself in and came face to face with Jenson, the earl’s longtime butler, who stared at him as if spying a ghost.
“Lord Arlington? Is it you?”
“Indeed it is, Jenson. I’m home. Are the earl and countess about?”
A tremulous smile curved the man’s aged mouth. “Indeed, sir. It is so good to have you back. But forgive a foolish old man his rambling. I shall fetch the countess. Your father”—his facefell—“Lady Ainsworth will explain.” The normally staid servant ran up the stairs.
At least someone was glad to see him. A vision of Georgina, sending him her most brilliant smile as she admitted,I had to be believable,came to him. His stomach clenched as if he’d swallowed a mouth full of rancid wine.
She intended to marry another. Yet, she’d lain with him. What would her intended think of that, he wondered? How did she plan to explain her lack of virginity, and what about the possibility of a babe? Had she even considered the potential consequences? None of this made any sense. They would have to have another conversation, obviously, starting with the pesky detail that she seemed disinclined to recall: She was already bloody married to him.
And after that? He couldn’t precisely say. Danvers had been right. He should have waited. Should have girded himself with…what? What could have prepared him?
Forcing the scene—and Georgina—from his mind, Teddy started up the stairs, hand gliding along the cool polished railing as he made his way to the upper floors where he’d find his father, if he was truly ill, abed.
Felicity, his father’s wife, appeared on the landing. She clutched a white lace hanky in her hand and looked pale and frail and as if she’d aged ten years since last he’d seen her.
“Teddy, is it really you?” The anxious look on her face implied her question had more to do with his mental state than his physical whereabouts.
“Aye.” He continued up. “How are you, Felicity? I understand my father has taken ill.”
“How did you…” Her words drifted off.
He reached the landing. Unsure whether she meant to ask how he’d escaped, or how he came about retrieving his memory, or how he came to know of his father’s illness, he said, “Suffice it to say, I remember my past in all its living color. As to how, that’s a long story,for another day. Lastly, I read of the earl’s possible illness in the society section of the paper.”
She surprised him, flinging herself into his chest and hugging him tightly. “Thank God you’re here. I’ve been so afraid.”
He wrapped one arm around her, patting her on the back. He’d never been particularly close to his stepmother, whom his father had married soon after his mother’s death. He didn’t disdain her; it was more that their relationship had never moved past the initial stage of acquaintanceship.
“Why, afraid?”
“It’s your father. His illness came on with no warning, and his decline has proceeded rapidly. The doctor doesn’t think he has much time left.”
“Take me to him.”
With a palpable air of relief, she fisted her skirts and hastened to the earl’s bedchambers, opening the antechamber door and standing back as if reticent to enter herself.
Teddy passed into the dimly lit chamber and crossed to the tomb-dark bedchamber, thanks to the curtains and shutters being drawn up tight to allow for no encroaching light.
The only illumination came from a roaring fire in the grate that left the room suffocatingly hot. The heavy scent of musty, sweaty sheets filled the still air. Fumbling in the dark, Teddy lit first one, then a second oil lamp. Then he glanced toward the bed where his father lay, very still.
He moved to stand beside the sleeping man, gratified when he saw the slight rise and fall of his chest. Slumber, evidently, gave the earl no respite from what ailed him. His mouth curved downward in a severe frown, in a face gaunt with weight loss and etched with lines. He’d never seen his father look so mortal.
“How long?” he asked, eyeing the bedside table where a tea tray holding an empty teacup and half eaten piece of toast sat.
“Soon after your…er…departure.”
