“Whyever not?”
“Teddy? What is it?”
The memory—and it had to be that—had come at him, all at once, rather like a bat to the head. Now, he closed his eyes and pinched thebridge of his nose, uncertain if he aimed to hold onto the disturbing vision, or block it out.
Georgina edged closer, her delicate rose-petal scent wafting up at him.
He opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn’t want to explain. Frankly, he didn’t see the point. He’d asked her about Drake’s disparaging view of the two of them, and she’d made up some silly excuse about her brother not believing her worthy of Teddy. Any fool could see she was every red-blooded man’s dream, and then some.
She knew something she wasn’t telling, but maybe, just maybe, he ought to be content to let sleeping dogs lie.
You are Lord Theodore Arlington, a future earl, not some sniveling, plebeian upstart. Never permit the world to scent your unease, boy.Shame yourself and shame me.
He jerked, the words in his head like a back handed slap—then another realization dawned. He was a future earl. Heremembered.
It was a small thing. A fingernail’s clipping of knowledge. But he knew, suddenlyknewhe was Viscount Helmsley the future Earl of Ainsworth. “I’ll be damned,” he murmured.
“Teddy, I demand you tell me what’s happening in your head this instant.”
He drew himself upright and smoothed his lapels. “I’m the future Earl of Ainsworth.”
She tsked. “Yes, of course. That’s hardly news.”
“No,” he said, drawing out the word. “I’ve been told who I am, repeatedly. But now,I know.”
Her lush mouth opened to make a perfecto.
“And there’s something else,” he added, instinct overruling his earlier intention. “It’s the damnedest thing, but I’ve experienced one or two visions, perhaps memories, that I find confounding and slightly off.”
She blinked. “Oh?”
He studied her a long moment. Telling her of Lady Catherineoffering to let him “do that thing” to her, again, or about Drake dragging him away from Georgina in the park, was proving difficult.
With a grunt of frustration, he turned his gaze from her to absently scan the paper—the one he hadn’t really been reading since he’d come in here intent on gaining access to Georgina and nothing else.
But now, one name in particular jumped off the page. He snatched up the paper—the society section, as it happened—and read the fine print.
She gave his shoulder a playful swat. “Teddy, I really must insist—”
“It seems the earl has taken ill.”
“The…earl?” she asked.
“The Earl of Ainsworth,” he said, evidently nonplussed by her non-grasp of the situation. “My father.”
“You remember him, as well?”
He shook his head. “No.” Increasingly, he’d heard echoes of the man’s voice in his head, which he recognized as belonging to the earl, having spent a good month under the man’s roof, but, as yet, had no distinct memory of the man himself. He scanned the article in front of him. “Not from before, at any rate. It appears he’s missed the last several parliamentary sessions and, according to this article, that’s unusual. An undisclosed source says he’s had an apoplexy of some sort.”
He lowered the paper and eyed her.
She wore a distinctly guilty expression. This day was full of surprises.
“I see. You knew.”
“I didn’t.”
“Clearly, you did. You didn’t think this was something I might need to know?”
