But then, he couldn’t remember beyond a month ago, when he’d awoken in a military encampment with no notion of who he was.
She sniffed and sent him a peeved glance, or meant to. He saw the tell-tale gleam of amusement in her liquid-silver eyes, which onlyheightened his own.
“May I continue?” Drawing her torso erect in her chair, she did a little shoulder waggle—and his gaze dipped, briefly, to her high-necked bodice that showed no amount of cleavage and yet did nothing to obscure the enticing swells underneath the fabric.
No.He should not be ogling her.
He dragged his gaze upward. He was a gentleman. As he neither recognized her, nor knew what to call her, he had no business indulging carnal thoughts about her.
On the other hand, she had claimed to be his wife—which somehow did not equate.
“I know you have something you wish to say, darling. However, I have questions that I believe deserve answers before you lay down whatever decree you intend to issue. Don’t you agree? I am, after all, at a serious disadvantage.” He batted his lashes.
She attempted to remain stoic, but dimpled despite her obvious efforts not to.
Somehow he’d known she would. Satisfaction surged through him and he smiled at her in triumph.
Her eyes widened, as if dazzled.
Ah.She had a weakness for him, evidently. That, and her tender caresses en route from Surrey, did lend credence to the possibility they had married for love.
Still. The notion of him being in love with someone to the point of needing to marry her before setting off for war struck him as unlikely—not impossible, however.
“Explain to me again how it is nobody seems to know I’ve a wife? And why in Hades did you never come to see me after my return?”
She drew her hand to her face as if she meant to shove her spectacles up her nose—the spectacles currently sitting beside her place setting—then dropped her hand to her lap. “Did you have many visitors?” she countered.
He had not. His parents hadn’t wanted anyone to see him in hiscondition.“What difference does that make?” he snapped.
She shrugged, doing that shoulder waggle again. This time, he kept his eyes locked on her face. “I was just wondering. In truth, I did not understand why…” She broke off, and the pink tip of her tongue touched on the corner of her rosy lips.
He was not sharing her bed chamber—by her choice. He was not going to focus on her lips.Hischoice.
“That is, why you did not reach out to me once you returned home.” She nodded, as if pleased with her own response.
“Perhaps because you didn’t you call on me?” he offered sweetly.
Again her hand came up, and again, she dropped it in her lap. “The thing is…” She broke off and her lower lip trembled, ever-so-slightly. “I had not heard from you in some time. I began to wonder if…” She hesitated. “If your feelings for me had waned. Thus, though I knew you’d returned, I felt obliged to wait for you to call on me.”
Feasible, he was forced to admit. Why hadn’t he corresponded with her for “some time”? Had his feelings waned? Was he the fickle sort?
“I see. Well, now you know why I did not.” At leastonereason he hadn’t. “Tell me again of our secret nuptials.”
“Before you left, we went to the park where we often spent time—the Vale in Hampstead Heath.”
A flash of memory filled his mind—of green hills, tall trees, and a pond—then it was gone. His pulse spiked as hope flooded his chest. “Go on,” he urged.
A dreamy look came over her face. “You pulled me aside from the others and told me you could not bear us to part without making our bond official. That night, you awaited me on the other side of the garden wall at my parents’ townhouse on Rally Street at midnight, and from there, we rode all night to Gretna Green, where we married. We made it back in the nick of time to avoid anyone noticing my absence.”
He frowned as he tried to wrap his mind around what she told him. “I brought you back? You mean, we didn’t spend the night?”
“Of course not.”
“Whyof course not?” he demanded. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. We got married, and straight away set off to return—”
“Not straight away,” she insisted, her silver eyes flashing with ire. “We spent several hours there, being…happy about being married.”
That was an odd way for her to say they’d made love following their marriage ceremony. If indeed that’s what she meant. For all he knew, they stopped for crumpets and tea.
