Boot steps behind her paused, then reoriented themselves around the table’s head. He settled down at his new place.
“Where did you get the ale?”
“It is beer.” She pointed over her shoulder toward the keg, then thought better of it and stood. “Don’t move. I will get you some.” She did just that, making sure it was not too much. She did not need this man imbibing more than a half pint at most. Left to help himself, who knew how much he would enjoy?
She brought the crockery cup back and set it before him. If he thought it too little he said not a word.
She returned to her meal and he turned to his. She had wanted to dine separately so she would not have to talk to him. She would be damned before she entertained him now.
“This is very good,” he said. “You have a prize in Mrs. Smith.”
“Enjoy it while you can. Her husband normally hunts for us and this is the result of his last venture out. He will not be able to do so for at least a week because he hurt his leg. He rose to help me too soon, but I have told him he must rest it for an entire week now.”
“What about the other one? The young man who helped abduct me? Can’t he hunt for you?”
She poked at her food, wishing she had refused to talk. “Not right now. He has other duties to which he attends.” It sounded like she was hiding something, even to her.
He was good enough not to press the matter. Silence fell again.
“About your sister,” he said after another five minutes. “When am I supposed to have kissed her?”
Caroline set her fork down hard enough that its contact with her plate rang through the kitchen. “You don’t remember?”
“I don’t think I do, no.” He cleared his throat. “I have been combing through my memories, and there is no Dunham female among them.” He had the decency to at least look chagrined. “Perhaps her face—Does she look like you?”
“Enough that you thought you had seen me before. Her hair is not as dark and her eyes are blue, however.”
“I thought I had seen you before because Ihadseen you before. I am sure of it. At the country fetes my uncle and now my cousin holds. I come up for those, and you were at some of them.”
“I am well aware that you attend the fetes.” Bold of him to even mention it. “I was not at the last one, to my regret. You did not remember me from a country fete years ago.”
“I did. One year you wore a yellow dress and were present when your father handed Galahad over to my cousin.”
Shehadworn yellow that day. “My sister wore blue and was right next to me. Did you lure her with a memory of her garments, too? Tell her how memorable she had been? Flatter her into trusting you?”
“I am sure I did not. I regret to say, as I have already said, that I have no memory of her at all. Even her name.”
“Amelia, you rogue. Her name isAmelia.”
He pondered that name as if she had spoken Egyptian. “Amelia. Amelia. Amelia Dunham. No, nothing.” He flashed that damnable smile of his. “There has been a mistake. I never kissed her.”
She came close to throwing her dinner plate against the wall. Instead she held on to the thread of temper that remained and stood, took her plate and cup to the sink, and left them there.
“Please put your things in the sink before leaving,” she said as she passed him.
“You are angry because I don’t remember. Consider this, however. Perhaps it did not happen.”
His words caught her at the bottom of the stairs. That last thread snapped. She turned to him. “Oh, it happened. Nor was it only a kiss, you scoundrel. You seduced her. You got her with child, and youdon’t even remember her name.”
She turned on her heel and marched up the stairs, taking small satisfaction at the look of shock on his face.
Chapter 6
Achild. Was it possible?
Adam finished his meal not even noticing that he fed himself. All of his thoughts were on Caroline’s accusation.
He needed more information. He put his plate and cup in the sink and went in search of her.
