“This is it,” Rose said, her tone small, as though she had already sensed his disappointment.
How was it that she could know him so well, even as he now didn’t know himself? It was as though she could see inside of him, see into things that he could not. She had done so on the flight, and then again once they had landed. Of course, none of it seemed to matter, as her sixth sense mostly involved realizing that he was craving alcohol, and then denying him the satisfaction.
“Yes,” he said. “So it is.”
“You don’t remember it.” She sounded crestfallen.
“No,” he said, surveying the bricks and mortar yet again. Waiting for a feeling of homecoming to overtake him. Waiting for anything beyond this fuzzy, blank confusion.
“You have been coming here often for as long as I can remember,” Rose said. “Ever since you first started working with my father. When you became his protégé.”
“Is that how we met?”
She nodded wordlessly, the gesture slightly stilted. “You would always sit with him in his study, but I can’t enlighten you as to the content of those meetings. I was not included. Which stands to reason since I was a child.”
He wondered then how old she was. If she was much younger than him. She did seem young. But then, he had very little reference point for that since he wasn’t entirely certain how old he was.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“I don’t think that’s relevant. Anyway, it isn’t polite to ask a lady her age. Is that something you’ve forgotten?”
“No. Survival skills made sure that was instilled deep inside of me still. However, it seems relevant. If I was here having business meetings and you were a child then clearly there is an age gap between us.”
“Something of one,” she said, her tone airy, distant. “But it isn’t important. Why don’t we go inside and I can show you to your room.”
Her words didn’t strike him as odd until they were wandering through the grand foyer of the home, surrounded by enough marble and fine art to make any museum curator jealous.
“To my room?” he asked.
“Yes,” she returned.
“We do not share a room?”
She cleared her throat, fidgeting slightly. “Well, for the purposes of your recovery it would be extremely impractical,” she said, neatly sidestepping the question. That was something he noticed she did with frequency.
“You did not make it sound like there would be any changes in our living arrangements when you talked about showing me to my room.”
“You’re making assumptions.”
“I am. Enlighten me as to the situation, Rose. My head hurts and I find that I am in a foul temper.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “This is a very traditional house. With an obscene amount of rooms, as I’m sure you guessed. It’s very much existing in its own time. And, I suppose you could say our living arrangement exists in the same time. We both like our space.”
“Are you saying we live like some outmoded royal couple?”
“Yes. As I said, you are often away. For business. That means I often live on my own. So I elected to retain my own space, and that suited you just fine.”
The answer seemed wrong to him. The arrangement seemed wrong to him. Which was strange, because he knew the man he was. The man who possessed all of the memories, all of the past experiences, had clearly found it the right way to conduct his marriage. Who was he to argue with that superior version of himself in full possession of all of the facts?
Still, he wanted to. Because his wife had come to his side immediately when he had been injured. Because her blue eyes were the only thing he truly remembered.
“Will you be able to make it up the stairs?” she asked, looking at him with concern in her expression.
“None of my limbs are broken.”
“Your ribs are.”
He shifted, wincing. “Only a couple.”
“Tell me if this is too taxing.” She began to lead the way up the broad, curved staircase. The steps were carpeted in a rich dark red, the banisters made of oak, polished to a high-gloss sheen. Money, history and tradition oozed from the pores of this place. And he had a strange sense that he did not belong. That somehow all of this was not his birthright, in any sense of the word.
He looked at Rose, her delicate fingertips skimming along the banister, her long, elegant neck held straight, her nose tilted up slightly. She was a bit plain, it was true, but she was aristocratic. There was no denying it. She was fine-boned, and refined, each and every inch of her.
He had the feeling that her skin was like silk. Smooth, perfect and far too luxurious for any mere mortal man to aspire to.
Somehow, he had her. Somehow, he had this house.
And he could make none of it feel real. Everything seemed to exist on its own plane. As if it were a strange dream he’d had once long ago.
A dream he couldn’t quite remember.
He paused, a sharp pain shooting up his side, somehow going straight up his neck and through his jaw, rendering him motionless. As if sensing his discomfort, Rose turned. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he returned.
“You don’t look fine.”
“Pain is a very determined thing,” he remarked, continuing to stand there frozen as he waited for the lingering effects to recede. “It doesn’t like to stay at the site of the injury.”
“I’ve never been seriously injured. So I don’t really have any experience with that.”
“I... I don’t know if I ever have been before. But either way I don’t remember it. So it feels remarkably like the first time.”
That made him wonder what other things might feel like the first time, and judging by the suddenly healthy color in his wife’s face, she was wondering the same thing.
Of course, with his ribs being what they were, that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.
It was a strange thought, the idea of going to bed with someone he didn’t know. Except, he did know her. But he might be different with her now. He might not be able to be the lover she deserved, or the one she wanted.
“Can you keep going? Or do you need for me to figure out a way to fix you a room downstairs?”
“I’m fine,” he said, welcoming the interruption of his thoughts.
Finally, they reach the top of the stairs and he continued to follow her down the long corridor that led to his bedroom. Though bedroom was a bit humble of a word for what was in actuality an entire suite of rooms.
There was a home office, an extremely large bathroom, a sitting area and a room that actually contained a bed. “Do you have something similar?”
She nodded in affirmation. “Yes.”
“We really are quite a bit like a royal couple.” It made no sense to him, and it also felt wrong. He felt...captivated by Rose. Drawn to her. He couldn’t imagine agreeing to separate bedrooms.
But perhaps things were different when his head was full of other things. Right now, it was only filled with pain, and her.
She was preferable to the pain, no contest.
She tilted her head to the side. “I find it very strange. The things you know and the things you don’t.”
“So do I. In all honesty, I would rather forget my surface knowledge of world customs