Page 49

“Oh yes, but a very talented doctor managed to pop it back in,” she replied. “To this day, I believe he can see out of it. Not well, perhaps, but he did not lose his sight.”

Anthony cleared his throat, and when that was not enough, he took a larger sip of his hot cordial. “Well… at least my son shall not forget that in a hurry, when he does go riding for the first time.”

“After that, we discussed the Duke of Highcastle’s amnesia,” she continued, relaxing. “I presented him with the question of, if he were older, whether or not he would prefer to regain his memories or remain in ignorance about whatever had come before. He could not decide.”

“What about you?” he said, meeting her eyes, her stomach fluttering at those beautiful green pools. “Would you want to remember or forget?”

She hastened to look busy, wiping crumbs off the workbench from her own sandwich. “I came to the conclusion that I would prefer a partial recovery. Selective amnesia, I suppose, where I could forget some things but remember others. Although, I was quite certain that I would not want to forget so much that I thought I was a child again. That would be most unnerving.”

He turned on his stool, his knee stopping just short of brushing against the side of her thigh. The small gap seemed to crackle with electricity, prompting her to brush away crumbs that were no longer there, her face flushing.

“What would you forget if you could?” he asked, slightly tilting his head, exposing more of his corded neck from the opened collar of his shirt.

Indeed, she could just see a hint of collarbone, that glimpse of bare skin making her want to fan herself rather furiously until her cheeks cooled.

“Painful things, mostly,” she mumbled, as she pushed away from the workbench and went back to the pot of syrup to see if it was ready to be bottled.

It was lukewarm to the touch, which was good enough for her.

“I think anyone would want to forget painful things,” she added, picking up a ladle so she could begin decanting.

She had already put a funnel into the first bottle, the somewhat viscous liquid sliding in smoothly.

“Your scars?” he asked, and she nearly dropped the ladle.

It was her own fault, really. She should have known that the conversation might turn toward her old burns after mentioning ‘painful things’, but she would not have known where to begin, even if she was willing to speak on the matter. That story was a tangled yarn, and if she pulled on the wrong thread, she feared she might unravel.

“Heavens, no,” she said, too brightly. “It would be rather a shock to wake up with no memories, to find oneself covered in scars. I would have to remember that.”

Suddenly, he was there beside her, reaching across her to take a bottle and set it on the counter on the other side of the stove. He moved around her, the closeness of him robbing her of her breath, as he plucked another ladle from a hook on the wall.

“Would you want to remember how you got them?” he said, as he joined her in decanting the cordial.

She considered the question, trying to distract herself from his proximity, his arm so close to nudging against hers. “I would not want to, but I think I would have to remember that, too.” She shrugged off the memories that tried to creep in. “What about you? Would you be a rememberer or a forgetter?”

“I think I would join you in a partial recovery,” he said. “There are years that I would happily cut out of my recollection.”

She was desperate to press him for more information, intrigued to discover what such a man as him would like to forget. But her nerves, and the unsteady beat of her heart, held her curiosity back. What if it was something bad? Did she really want to hear about that?

“Then again,” he mused, “would we be who we are if we could just carve out the parts of our lives, our pasts, that we do not like?”

Marina smiled. “That was William’s conundrum, too.” She paused. “You are quite similar, though I suppose that is to be expected from a father and son.”

“Similar?” He frowned. “How so?”

“Well… some of your thoughts are the same,” she floundered. “And you have similar expressions and mannerisms. Not to mention, you obviously look very similar.”

“I have always thought he looks more like his mother,” Anthony countered, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I have never seen much of myself in him.”

Perhaps you would if you actually spent any time with the poor boy, she wanted to retort, just managing to hold her tongue. Accusations of that kind would not foster any kind of warmth between the father and son. She needed to be subtler than that, carefully pushing them together instead of worsening the divide.

“He is eager to learn to ride,” she said. “Maybe you can teach him. I would, but I have never been very good. I find horses rather terrifying. And they are such intelligent beasts that I worry they might figure out that they do not have to carry me anywhere, and throw me off.”

Anthony concentrated on the next ladling of cordial. “I do not have the time to teach him.”

“Could you not make some time?” she encouraged. “An hour or two, here and there, while it is summer. Once the weather turns, it will be far more difficult to maintain his enthusiasm.”

“If he wishes to ride, I shall employ a tutor to teach him,” Anthony replied, as if that was the solution to everything, just delegating parenthood to everyone else.