Page 10 of Victorian Bride

“I think, perhaps, we began wrong,” he said.

“I wonder why that is,” Mya retorted.

He laughed, a short, sharp bark of a laugh. “You are not like any woman I have ever met.”

“And yet, you’re exactly like every man I have ever met.”

That wasn’t strictly true. Mya had met a grand total of two men since waking up with no memory, and one of those men was Doctor MacAslan, who had been nothing but gentlemanly. But the sentiment felt real. Mya was sure she had known other men in her previous life, and the chances that at least a few of them had annoyed her as much as Lord McGregor did were high enough to gamble on.

The reply prompted another chuckle, and the sound of it settled low in Mya’s belly, warming her from the inside out. Mya ignored the feeling.

“Laughing at me isn’t going to convince me otherwise,” she pointed out.

His eyebrows lifted. “If you are going to continue to look for things to be displeased with, I’m sure that you will find them, but might I suggest you stop and consider actually hearing what I am saying instead of immediately jumping at my throat?”

The reprimand stung. Mya lifted her chin, arms crossed over her chest, and stared him down. “I’ve heard what you are saying,” she said.

“Yet you continue to behave in such a fashion. I thought I was doing you a favor, giving you an excuse, but I see now that you have none.”

“Think what you like.”

If he was going to lecture her, she was hardly going to remain and allow him to go on. She spun on her heel and started toward the house.

“Mya!”

She paused. Turned. He was standing closer than she had expected, near enough that she almost imagined she could feel the heat of his body against her own. Her throat felt suddenly tight. Her heart beat faster in her chest. “What?” she asked, forcing the word to come out flat.

“Are you truly going to walk away without so much as a word? I did save your life, you know.”

Mya’s fingers curled against her palms. “And just what does that have to do with this? Do you feel as though I owe you something for saving me?” she demanded.

“Of course not.”

He sounded offended enough that Mya believed him. Still, she wondered what he’d meant by it. “Then why bring it up at all?”

“It is something a normal person might consider a good quality in another,” he said, tone dry.

There was something about his voice, just then, the angle of the light on his face… Then it was gone. Mya shook her head. If they had known each other before her accident, he would have mentioned, surely. Unless there was something to be gained by keeping her in the dark. Maybe it wasn’t luck that he had found her in the field.

But Mya dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. Whatever she thought of him, he didn’t seem like the sort of man who would be responsible for harming a woman.

“You can take a step back, now,” she said.

One corner of his mouth curled upward. “Is that so?”

“It is so.”

“And yet,” he said, “here I am.”

So close, he smelled faintly like ink and old paper, and beneath that of something warm and living. That too seemed strangely familiar, and Mya wondered if she was doomed to always be having flashes of familiarity that never resolved themselves into genuine memory, like a picture not properly developed. She found herself swaying forward, drawn toward him as though he exerted some physical pull.

His head tipped down. For the barest second, they almost touched, breath mingling warm between them.

Mya took a quick step back. Lord McGregor reached out, then stopped. His hand fell back to his side before it had even touched her. They stood for a moment, stock still, staring at each other, and then Mya turned and hurried back toward the house, feeling his eyes on her until the trees cut her off from his view.

Chapter 5

Mya walked barefoot under trees green with spring, their tender new leaves all unfurling toward the sky. The scent of coming rain curled around her, soft on the breeze, though the sun shone overhead, light spilling down through the branches to dapple the carpet of bluebells on the forest floor. In the murky green distance, a stag grazed among the silvery trunks. It stood bright against the green backdrop, its white fur almost shining in the sunlight shining directly on it.