I hold my breath.
“Where is that miserable imp?” Her voice is regal and feminine, even while muttering.
When Sabine St. Laurent has passed us, we slip out and dart up the stairs, giggling like a pair of children. Cecil is the reason my life has taken this odd turn, having been the cause of the accident that erased my memories, but he’s also myreason.
I close us into the dressing room and we lean on the door, giggling together. “Now, dear sir, it’s time I teach you to dance.”
His smile falls.
But I grab his hands and spin him wildly, twirling him then dipping him back. He grins, caught up in the moment, twisting and spinning until he lands in a heap of laughter on the floor. The wonderful part of losing one’s memory is that you forget so manyshouldsand can simplybe.I might have waltzed once, but I have no desire to relearn.
I drop beside him and we laugh our fool heads off and suddenly he’s a boy again, his features smooth and freckled. I watch him for a moment. I’ll do anything to keep that fleeting smile on his face.
“Is that your veil?” He points toward the long floating thing. “Come, try it on. I want to see how you look before anyone else!”
I laugh. But one moment I’m swishing that frothy veil before my face, pulling silly faces and the next I’m backing against the wall, panting and faint. I am assaulted by memories so vivid they might just be the end of me. They come in bursts, a pop of light from a photographer’s flash lamp with the heady floral scent of orange blossoms for a backdrop.
A man. His smile, his eyes.
Voice, low and gentle.
Face so veryexpressive.
No. That’ll do!I shake off the vision, but it continues.
His hand held out. Wind. Blowing sand. Frothy waves. Sand. Gulls.
I blink and look at Cecil. His eyes are wide, and darkness rims my vision on both sides. “What is it? Merryn?” His voice is far away, the ocean in a conch shell.
I close my eyes. The man is laughing. Peaceful. His eyes glow with the rightness of the moment. His expression is gentle. Filled with a deep and abidingaffection.
I shake my head. “Noth…noth—”
“Merryn!” It’s Cecil. He’s worried.
I surface in my dim, insulated reality—the one where I’m standing in the oldest church in Cheltenham with a small boy who has no one but me, and I’m about to walk down the aisle to marry Ansel James Winthrop.
This.Thisis my reality.
“I’m fi—I’m…fine.”
“You’re remembering.” His solemn face is watching, eager for me to be all right.
I offer a shaky smile. “More than I wish to.”
His face is pale. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave.”
I grab his shoulders. “That’s the last thing I intend to do.” It might be anything. Anyone. A picnic at the beach. A cousin beckoning me near.
“You’ll go back. I always knew you would.”
“There’s nothing to go backto.” Not yet, at least. And there won’t be, as long as I can help it. I pry my mind out of the hazy images and squeeze Cecil’s hand. He never came for me. Whoever the man is, he never came. So he is allowed to remain in the past, along with whatever we once had.
I place a hand on my chest as my heart vibrates a frantic rhythm. I breathe in again, deeply. Which is a mistake.
The scent of blossoms overpowers me. A band of cold moves up my forehead and the wall is holding me up as I break into a sweat, sucking in quick teaspoons of air. I’m swept up intoa gentle tornado of sea breezes and birds screaming and water slapping and hissing over sand and a man—
No.Pull yourself together.
