He wished he did. He wished he remembered everything. But then, none of that seemed as important when Caro was near enough to kiss. When Caro was caressing him. He wanted her more than he wanted his next breath.
“It must bear some significance,” she said softly. “DDBGD.”
“Aye.” He knew the letters, had memorized them. Had searched his empty, frustrated mind for any hint as to what they may mean. “I wish I knew.”
“Do they represent names, I wonder?” Her gaze lowered, following the progression of her touch as she closed the last D. “Did it hurt?”
She wasn’t asking him, she was asking the man he had once been, and that man was a stranger to him now. The man he had woken up as didn’t have the answers. So he said nothing. Instead, he took her hand in his and brought it to his lips for a kiss.
Her swift inhalation was sharp in the quiet of the small room. Her eyes were back on his once more. “I’m sorry for any argument I caused between you and your sister, Caro, but I ain’t sorry I kissed you. Are you?”
She swallowed, drawing his attention to the creamy elegance of her throat. “We mustn’t do that again.”
“Why not?”
Her tongue darted over her lower lip. He stifled a groan.
“It isn’t wise,” she murmured, tugging her hand free to trail it over his chest.
“Caro.” Her name was a growl, leaving him. He caught her wrist, flattening her palm over his heart. “Do you feel that?”
“Yes.”
“You make it beat so.”
“Oh.” She took his hand in hers and guided it over her linen bodice, where her heart was thumping steadily. Quickly. “You do the same to me.”
Curse it all, what was it about this woman that made him want to take her up in his arms and keep her there forever? But he knew he could not. He had no right. Moreover, he needed to set some matters straight. He had not forgotten his initial reason for interrupting her here at her work.
“I need to speak with your brothers, Caro. No more secrets.”
“But—”
“It is the right thing to do,” he countered, removing his hand with the greatest of reluctance so he could button his shirt.
She nodded and stepped back. “As you wish.”
* * *
There wassomething familiar about Jasper Sutton. He was tall also, dark-haired, and possessed a lethal air that could not be feigned.
He also looked as if he had recently been dragged from bed.
His hair was ruffled, his attire rumpled, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. He had the look of a man who had spent the evening before in dissolution. Fucking and drinking, unless Gavin was wrong. He did not think he was. There were some things he simply knew.
If only his name and his past were one of them.
“You wanted to speak with me,” Caro’s brother said. “Blue ruin?”
Sutton stalked to a sideboard in his office and poured two glasses of gin without waiting for an answer.
He cast a curious glance at Caro, who stood at his side. She sent him a small, apologetic smile. Her brother was a strange chap indeed. She was toying with her skirts, twisting the muslin in her agile fingers, a habit he had noted on more than one occasion. When a man could not recall his past, he had no choice but to notice everything.
“I don’t know if I like blue ruin,” he said, thinking he wanted a lucid mind for the discussion ahead.
“Everyone likes gin,” Sutton countered, pressing a filled glass into his hand. “Drink it up. ’Tis excellent stores, and I don’t waste it on everyone.”
Tentatively, he sniffed the glass. He wondered if the man he had been before cared for spirits. But then, he realized it didn’t matter. All that mattered in this moment was the man he was now, such as he was.
