The realization was enough to make him drop his hand away.
“Are you feeling ill?” she asked, worry furrowing her brow. “You’ve gone pale.”
“I…am well.” He struggled to make sense of the dark and jagged pieces of his mind. “I may have had a memory return just now, but I…I don’t know.”
“A memory?” Her brows rose, her voice infused with hope. “What sort of memory?”
He did not want to admit the truth to her, but neither did he want to lie. “Hitting someone. Forming a fist, swinging a punch. I remember how it felt, I think.”
Unless he was deluding himself? He’d had many dreams over the course of the past few days as well, but it was impossible to determine what was real, if anything, and what was merely his slumbering mind’s madness or attempts to create a history for himself to fill the hollow.
“You remember punching someone?” she repeated, voice hushed, as if she had entered a church and was afraid to speak too loudly.
“Hell.” He ran his right hand over his mostly healed face, confusion settling in, battling the desire that blanketed him whenever Caro entered the room. “For a moment, it seemed real, as if it were something I’d done. But now, I don’t know.”
She was watching him with a stricken expression, those beautiful eyes of hers wider than ever. “Were you remembering the day you were attacked, do you suppose?”
“Mayhap.” A dull ache thumped to life in his head, almost as if to remind him he was working himself too hard. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Not if I can’t recall the rest.”
This time, it was she who touched him, her small, work-reddened hand brushing over his arm in a tender caress. “You will remember. Have faith. You mustn’t force yourself. It will return to you in time.”
But that was the devil of it.Wouldhis memory return?
Frustration rose within him, and he wanted to shrug away from her gentle concern. But he also never wanted her to take her hand away. He wanted the brand of Caro upon him forever, to wear like a shirt.
“I may never remember,” he said, trying to keep the fear accompanying that undeniable fact at bay.
And failing.
He gave himself away by trembling. She felt it. He knew she did.
The worry on her countenance tucked itself into his heart. And he wanted to wear her sweet apprehension, her caring, there too. To keep it always, this closeness they had in the cozy confines of her room, when the vastness of the world beyond had yet to reach him. As much as he wanted to leave this chamber, he also recognized it as a haven in that moment.
“You will remember,” she repeated, as if he would by her decree.
Her hand was still on his arm. He moved subtly, withdrawing until their bare palms pressed together. His fingers laced through hers.
“I need to leave this room, Caro,” he said softly. “I need to speak to your brothers. To earn my keep here if they will have me. I’ll not be your burden any longer, nor will I keep you from your bed.”
Her fingers tightened on his, concern furrowing her brow. “You cannot. You are still healing.”
“I’m healed.”
Except for my empty goddamn head.
“I need to remove your stitches,” she pointed out.
“Do it now.”
“But—”
“Please,” he interrupted, entreating her as best as he could. “I can’t stay here like this, like a lion in the cage at the Royal Menagerie.”
“Have you visited the menagerie?” she asked.
He blinked, sifting through his mind for the answer, and finding none. “I don’t know.”
Her thumb traveled over his inner wrist in a caress that sent new heat snaking to his groin. “Come and sit by the hearth. I’ll remove your stitches.”
