Come the Dawn (5 page)

“I
must
see him.” India brushed past the man into the broad foyer. Rows of keen-eyed Carlisles smiled down lazily from gilt-framed portraits. At the end of the hall a silver candelabrum burned outside a half-opened door. “There is no need to announce me.”

“Really, miss, I must protest. This is not at all the thing. Who are you to push in here unannounced, demanding to see Lord Thornwood?”

“Who am I?” Something dark and wounded filled India’s eyes. “I am his
wife.”

The butler’s face paled. “Wife?” he repeated.

“Wife.” India’s fingers locked. “Please, where is he?”

“Right through there, miss — er, my lady.” In his surprise, the butler nearly stumbled over an ornate Hepplewhite end table near the door. “But you can’t—”

“Chilton, is that you?” A husky voice echoed from beyond the half-opened door. “Where is that port I asked you to fetch?”

It was a voice India knew well.

A voice she had thought never to hear again.

She swayed a little, one hand pressed to the wall. So it
was
true. The man she had seen in the ballroom had been no illusion. Up until that moment, India had thought it might be a mistake.

“Are you all right?” the butler asked anxiously.

India took an unsteady breath and nodded, her head filled with a thousand questions. How would he have changed after all these months apart?

“Chilton, are you there?” Again the low, familiar voice rang out. India shivered, remembering the first time she had heard that voice in the middle of a crowded and muddy Belgian street. The tall officer had caught her bonnet, blown off in a stiff spring wind.

His look had been frankly admiring. “I find myself in a cruel dilemma, faced with two crimes. I am not sure which is the greater,” he had added huskily.

A smile had tugged at India’s lips. “Indeed?” she had asked softly. “And what crimes might they be?”

He had not spoken for a moment, his eyes narrowed. For the barest instant his fingers had brushed hers, and India had felt the touch churn all the way to the soft soles of her kidskin boots, mired deep in the mud of the Brussels street.

With slow grace he had bowed, proffering the charming straw bonnet with the tiny decoration of wild strawberries. “The first crime would be for such a lovely lady to lose this fetching bonnet.” His gaze had risen, burning over her face. “But for me to return it would be even worse.”

“And why is that?” India had felt unsteady, aware of the heat of his gaze, tasting the raw power radiated by this stranger.

“Because then you would use it to hide the most remarkable pair of eyes I have ever seen.” His voice had darkened. “And surely the most beautiful mouth.”

Even now India felt a knot form in her throat at the memory. Had they been merely words? Had Thorne’s gallantry been only as lasting as their time together?

India’s hands clenched. She refused to believe it.

His emotion had been as real as her own. There must be some other explanation for his absence.

But now everything would be wonderful. He was back, and all her pain would be past.

At that moment the study door swung open. A broad-shouldered figure stood silhouetted in the light from the room beyond. “Chilton, have you been at the port again?” The man took a step forward, his eyes narrowing. “Who is this woman, Chilton?” he demanded.

The cold, flat question brought India to a dead halt. She looked up at the sculpted jaw and lean face of the man in the doorway.

At Devlyn Carlisle, the man whose death had tormented her for months.

The man she had married on the eve of the encounter at Waterloo.

India moved forward slowly, her heart pounding. “Dev, is it truly you?”

He froze, his mouth thinning to a hard line. “I beg your pardon.”

India moved into the candlelight, her eyes misted with tears of joy. Slowly she put back her velvet hood, light spinning auburn sparks over her hair. “You’re alive. You’ve come back to me at last.” She reached out and caught his wrist.

But the man in the doorway only frowned down at her. His mouth hardened and he slowly pulled away. “I am afraid there has been some mistake.”

India searched the lean face, the gray, cool eyes, seeing now the changes she had not noticed before. “It has been very hard for you, hasn’t it? You look older, harder. I suppose I do, too.” She laughed raggedly. “But none of that matters now. You’re back, and I have so much to tell you.” For a moment regret darkened her eyes. “But there will be time enough for questions and explanations. For now, let me simply touch you and convince myself you’re really alive.”

Her hands reached out, settling on the hard muscles at his shoulders. She felt him flinch at even that light touch.

“Dev?”

He muttered a curse, staring at the pale fingers spread against the dark wool. “My name is Thornwood.”

“Not to me.”

“We are — closely acquainted?” the man before her asked roughly.

“You are my husband and the man I love,” India said with quiet dignity. “Don’t you know me?”

Thornwood pulled his arm from beneath her hand and frowned at the butler, who was watching them with avid curiosity. “That will be all, Chilton,” he said curtly. “Leave us now.”

“Of course, my lord.”

“What’s wrong, Dev? What cruel game are you playing?”

“It is no game.”

India still expected him to throw out his arms and pull her against him, his eyes gleaming as they had in Brussels.

She had expected it, but he made no move toward her, and the pain of the discovery was like a sword cut to her heart. How could he stare at her so coldly with no hint of memory or emotion in his eyes?

“I’m afraid there has been a grave misunderstanding, Miss—”

“Lady India Delamere. In truth, Lady Thornwood. As if
you
didn’t know.”

“Have you come like the others, all agog to snag a bit of gossip about the newly returned earl?” Thornwood’s voice was harsh with cynicism.

“Not for gossip. I have come to see the man I love. The man I thought loved me. The man I married in Brussels just before Waterloo.” India’s voice trembled. “Yet I begin to wonder if you can possibly be the same man.”

“My dear woman, a dozen females have already been to see me tonight. Each one claimed a prior and very intimate acquaintance.” Thorne’s voice was chill. “You must excuse my skepticism, even though
you
are the first to claim marriage.”

India swayed, her thoughts in turmoil as she studied the familiar features which now seemed to belong to a cold, hostile stranger. “But it’s true.”

“Is it? And where is this ceremony supposed to have taken place?”

India’s hands tensed. “Don’t joke. Not about this, Dev. It’s not like you.”

“Perhaps you don’t know anything about me, madame. Perhaps I am not who you think I am.”

“How can you speak to me so? I have waited so long. Any moment I thought you’d come striding through the smoke and chaos, jaunty as ever. But no matter how I kept waiting and hoping, you never came back.” Her voice caught and a small, broken sound tore from her throat.

Thornwood cursed harshly. “I think you had better come inside and sit down.”

“I don’t
want
to sit down. I want to touch you. I want to kiss you,” she said huskily.

A vein hammered at the Earl of Thornwood’s forehead. “There is something I must … explain.”

India brushed at her eyes, tears glinting in the candlelight. “Explain? What do you mean?”

“Not here,” the man with her husband’s face said grimly. For a moment there was infinite sadness in his voice. “In the study. I find that I require a drink.” He bowed tightly. “After you, madame.”

India moved inside, her body tense. Pain dulled her fine eyes as she dimly registered the rows of shelves covered with well-worn books from floor to ceiling. Here and there were scattered exquisite wooden models of Spanish galleons, Chinese junks, and sleek English square-riggers. Newspapers spilled across one corner of a vast mahogany desk, alongside visiting cards, correspondence, maps, and vellum invitations.

Something tore at India’s heart. She remembered laughing at Devlyn’s description of the ordered chaos of his study. It was like him somehow, at least like the man he had been, reckless and exuberant and endlessly clever about anything he put his mind to.

Not at all like this hard-eyed stranger before her.

“Sit down, my lady.”

“I’ll stand, thank you.”

“Sit
down.”
He studied her rigidly. “Please.”

India sank into a tufted velvet wing chair opposite the cluttered desk.

“Forgive me. I shall try to put this as plainly as I know how, Lady India.”

“Lady Thornwood,” India corrected fiercely.

His eyes glinted for a moment. “As you say.” Silently the earl tipped several inches of brandy into a glass and drank deeply. Only then did he turn back to India. When he did, the mask had fallen back into place, shielding his feelings. “Delay will only make this more painful. I am Devlyn Carlisle, yes. I am a week returned to London, yes. Beyond that, however—” He turned away, studying the rows of gleaming crystal decanters on the wine table as if they were utterly unfamiliar. Indeed, he looked at the whole room as if it was unfamiliar, India thought. “In short, I came home, and yet I did not come home. I have no recollection of being Devlyn Carlisle. I have no recollection of what made this man laugh or cry. Or love…” As he spoke, his long fingers traced the edge of his jaw, where a scar gleamed like a silver crescent in the candlelight. “I was cut down at Quatre Bras, so I am told.”

At his words, a ragged sound spilled from India’s lips, but the earl resolutely ignored it, his eyes locked on the goblet in his hands. “Afterward I had no memory of the French blade that wounded me, or of the two days I spent in a pile of wounded bodies. Perhaps it is just as well. I was left for dead and was too weak to correct the impression. Eventually an English officer found me and carried me off to an overworked surgeon, who wrestled me back from death. All this I know only from reports. My own memory begins several months later, when I awoke covered in dirty bandages in a smoky farmhouse somewhere near the French border.”

“But what happened to take you there?”

“I cannot tell you that. Beyond those few facts, I can tell you nothing at all. All those months are missing in my mind. You claim that I am your husband and I cannot dispute it. You claim we were in love, and I cannot dispute that either. But the deepest truth is that I am not that man, nor ever will be again. I am a stranger to you — even as I am to myself.”

India’s hands began to tremble. “You … remember nothing?”

“Nothing.” Thornwood shook his head grimly.

India could only stare at him. Could what he said possibly be true? Did he truly remember nothing of their meeting in Lady Richmond’s rose garden after that chance encounter on the street, or the whirlwind courtship that had followed? Had he forgotten the shock of sweet passion, the swift flare of hunger, the wrenching pain of parting? Was this truly no more than a cool stranger who looked out at her from those well-loved features?

India trembled, gripping the arms of the wing chair.

The movement made Thorne frown. “I am sorry to break it to you this way, my lady. If what you say is true, this must be a grave shock.”

Again the emotionless words, every one a knife tearing at India’s heart. “But it has been over a year. You
still
can’t remember?” Something cool touched her fingers. India looked down to see a wineglass pressed to her hand.

“Drink. Then we will talk,” the unsmiling stranger who was her husband ordered.

India took a sip, letting the comforting heat burn down her throat. Blindly she watched Devlyn, who turned away to pace the firelit room.

Every movement was achingly familiar, yet now she imagined there were subtle differences. “What happened, Dev? What happened to us?”

“A war happened, madam. A lifetime intervened.” He gave a harsh laugh. “During that time I nearly died. Sometimes I think I
did
die, between the wounds I bore and the fever that came afterward.” Again his long, powerful fingers traced the silver scar at his jaw.