if you do not wish it. You may go at your own pace. I am sure you will be walking well on your own in no time at all.’
‘But you do not need to do it now,’ Penny insisted. ‘Rest is still important. And quiet. For now, we will leave the two of you alone.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’ He and the woman spoke simultaneously.
‘You need your rest,’ Justine said, laying a hand gently on his chest to try to ease him back down to the mattress. ‘There will be time later for us to speak.’
‘I have had more than enough rest,’ he said. ‘If you are all to be believed, I have been asleep for months.’ She was probably right. His head ached from even this small bit of activity. He needed time to think. But before that, he needed answers. Despite the innocent look on the beautiful face in front of him, Justine knew more than she had said.
‘Leave, all of you. Please,’ he added after noticing the shocked looks on their faces at his short temper. ‘But send for my valet. After all this time in bed, I want to wash and dress. Until he arrives, I will talk to my wife.’
‘Of course,’ his brother said, with a relieved smile. ‘If you are well enough, you can come down to dinner, or we will have a tray sent up. Either way,’ he stepped forward again and clasped Will’s hand in a firm grip, ‘it is good to see you recovering. Come, Penny, I am sure they have much to discuss that does not concern us.’
Once they were gone and the door shut behind him, he was alone in a room with a woman who claimed to be his wife. He suppressed a rush of panic. He was still too weak to defend himself, should she not be as kind as she appeared. But why could he imagine such a sweet-faced thing as a danger to him? If she’d meant him harm, she’d have had ample opportunity before now.
Still, should not a new bride be happier to see her husband recovering? If she loved him, why was she standing at the side of his bed, mute like a criminal in the dock? There was something wrong about her. It was one of many things he could not place.
She seemed to realise this as well, for she attempted a hesitant smile and slipped easily back into the role of caregiver. ‘Is there something I can get for you? Anything that might give you comfort?’
‘What a good little nurse you are, to be so solicitous.’ he said, not feeling particularly grateful for it. ‘At the moment, there is nothing I need, other than an end to this charade.’
‘There is no charade,’ she said, looking more puzzled than frightened. ‘We are not trying to trick you. You were injured and have been unconscious for several months. Come to the window and you shall see. The christening was at Easter time. It is no longer spring, or even summer. The leaves are falling and the night air is chill.’
‘I do not need for you to tell me the weather,’ he grumbled, glancing at the grey sky beyond the glass. ‘I can see that for myself. And I know I was injured, for I still feel the pain of it.’ He ran a careful hand through his hair, surprised at the crease in the scalp. ‘But that does not explain the rest.’
‘What else is there?’ she said, though she must know full well what he meant.
‘It does not explain you. Who are you, really? And who are you to me?’ He looked full into the wide green eyes. ‘For I would swear before God that you are not my wife.’
‘William,’ she said, in a convincingly injured tone.
‘That is my name. And what is yours?’
‘Justine, of course.’
‘And before you married me?’ he said, unable to help sneering at such an unlikely prospect.
‘My surname? It was de Bryun.’ She paused as though waiting for the bit of information to jar loose some memory. But nothing came.
‘So you say,’ he replied. ‘I suppose next you will tell me you are an orphan.’
‘Yes,’ she said, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.
In a day, he might regret being so cavalier about her misery. At the moment, he had problems of his own. ‘So you have no one to verify your identity.’
‘I have a sister,’ she added. ‘But she was not present at the time of our wedding, nor was your family.’
‘I married without my family’s knowledge?’ Penny had hinted at as much. But it still made no sense. ‘So neither of us considered the feelings of others in this. We just suddenly...’ with effort, he managed to snap his fingers ‘...decided to wed.’
‘We discussed it beforehand,’ she assured him. ‘You said there would be time after. You said your brother had done something much the same to you.’
As he had. That marriage had been as sudden as this one. And Adam had admitted that he could not remember his wedding either. But while circumstances were similar, he had more sense than Adam and would never have behaved in that way. ‘You could have learned the details of Adam’s wedding anywhere,’ he said.
She sighed, as though she were in a classroom, being forced to recite. ‘But I did not learn it anywhere. I learned it from you. You told me that your father’s name was John, your mother’s name was Mary. They were Duke and Duchess of Bellston, of course. You had one sister, who died at birth. And you told me all about your brother. It was why I brought you here. Why would I have done that, if not for love of you?’
This was a puzzle. He rubbed his temple, for though he was sure there was a logical explanation for it, searching for it made his head ache. ‘You could have got any of that from a peerage book.’
‘Or you could have told me,’ she said, patiently. ‘And it is not so unusual that I have no parents. You have none either.’
That was perfectly true. So why did it seem somehow significant that she had none? He shook his head, half-expecting it to rattle as he did so, for he still felt like a broken china doll. ‘I suspect I can quiz you for hours and you will have an answer for everything. But there is one question I doubt you will answer to my satisfaction. What would have motivated me to take a wife?’
‘You said you loved me.’ Her lip trembled, though she did not look near tears. ‘And I did not wish to lie with you, until we were married.’
It was not a flattering explanation. But it made more sense than anything else she had said. ‘I can believe that I might have wanted to lie with you. My eyesight is fine, though my memory is not.’ He stared up at the magnificent hair, still mostly obscured by her very sensible cap. Tired and confused as he was, he still wanted to snatch the muslin away, so that he might see it in all its glory. ‘You are a beauty. And you know it, do you not? You are not going to pretend that you are unaware of the effect you have on men. Why did you choose me?’
‘Because I thought you were kind and would be a good husband to me,’ she said. There was something in her voice that implied she had been disappointed to find otherwise. Then she cast down her eyes. ‘And you are right. I cannot help the way I look, or the reaction of others.’
‘I do not see why you would wish to,’ he answered honestly. But when he looked closely, her face held a mixture of regret and defiance, as though she very much wished she were plain and not pretty. Her clothing was almost too modest, nearly as plain as a servant’s. The cap she wore was not some vain concoction of lace and ribbons, but undecorated linen. If she was attempting to disguise her assets, she had failed. The simple setting made the jewel of her beauty glow all the more brightly.
‘You are acting as if, now that you have what you want, it is somehow my fault that the results do not please you.’ She absently straightened the cap on her head, hiding a few more of the escaping curls. ‘I did not seduce you into a marriage you did not wish. Nor did I injure you and leave you to your fate. I doubt I can prove to your satisfaction that things are just as I claim. But can you prove that I have done anything, other than to give you what you wanted from me, and care for you when it resulted in misfortune? You are alive today because of