Loving Sarah (31 page)

The affection, the love, the concern, and even desire were all there in his warm hazel eyes.

“You cannot monopolize my sister, Ian,” Lucky said. “I wish to greet her too, you know.”

Pleasantries were exchanged all around. Lucky came over and hugged Sarah, giving her his sympathy for her loss. Before she could begin to cry, Elise made a great show of serving the tea that had just arrived.

Lucky and Ian discussed their voyage to China. While everyone chatted around them, Sarah sat quietly, praying that the sensation of comfort as she sat next to this man meant something positive. Her entire being felt at ease with this man, even though her brain didn’t remember him. It felt almost as though she were two persons inside of her one body. She happily listened to everything Ian and Lucky said and at times felt as though she remembered certain sensations, but the visual memory didn’t come to her.

When the conversation dwindled, Sarah looked up at Lia and realized she’d been under the magnifying glass during that entire conversation.

Elise and Lia smiled sympathetically. They recognized that she was processing thoughts and visions and emotions while they all spoke. When Sarah nodded to them, she was thankful they understood her silent plea. Lia asked her husband and brother to leave with her. Elise took Michael’s hand and followed, leaving Sarah in the center of the great room, facing the husband she could not recognize with her mind, but whom her body remembered.

He gave her a shy smile. “I wish I could have been here…for you.” Sarah could have sworn his eyes misted in commiseration for their loss.

Suddenly she felt her eyes burn. It was something she hadn’t done since waking from her unconscious state. She’d seen her sister-in-law and sister weeping, even her maid and several of the female servants. And all these past weeks, she’d never been able to cry, and now all of the sudden, there were emotions. She didn’t understand.

“I do not remember it at all.” Sarah felt an odd sensation of tears choking her voice, and she turned away from Ian and went to the window. She feared if he touched her she might collapse into an incomprehensible mess. Something told her there was a flood of tears pent up within her because up until now she’d not cried. She felt enormously guilty for that, for not crying over the loss of her sons.

For some reason, she felt she could do it now. The void of emptiness was caving in, and she was drowning in emotion. Suddenly, the damn burst and Ian rushed forward and held her for several minutes, letting her pour it all out in his arms. It felt right and comfortable to share her sorrow with this man. Perhaps because her babes were his children as well. So she cried for their stillborn sons, the loss of their lives, and perhaps her inability to have others.

She also cried for Ian, who needed legitimate heirs to carry on the heritage of his ancestors. Lia and Elise said he hadn’t known of her condition, and she’d wondered on more than one occasion if he would have been happy to have them.

She had her answer now. Felt it in the warmth of his embrace and the feeling of being safe and protected in his arms.

She sniffled and used the handkerchief to dry her eyes, then blew her nose in it. She knew she didn’t cry prettily and likely looked a mess, but she could do nothing about that now.

“They tell me we had sons,” she said. “I’m sure you are disappointed.”

“I’m thankful you are alive. If we are meant to be parents, then children will come.” He was silent a moment, and she wished she could read his mind. “Right now, we need to focus on getting you well.”

She turned back to face him and sat in a wing chair before the window. He drew a chair opposite her and sat, their knees almost touching. “I
am
doing well,” she said through a feigned smile. “I feel stronger every day and have had some tiny, irrelevant memories return. I remember wearing boy’s trousers, but cannot possibly recall why.” Her husband smiled, giving her the impression that
he
knew. She arched a curious brow.

“If I told you,” he said, his tone serious yet light, “then you may stop trying to bring those memories back. If the last twenty minutes is any indication, I feel every bit of it will come back in time.”

“Surely, you know that I have never been the patient sort.”

“Yes, I know.” His gaze grasped and held hers. “You are as beautiful as the day we met, Sarah. I’ve missed you greatly.”

“You have been informed that I do not have any memories of you, my lord? I wish I did, for I am certain they were good ones.” With the way he held her minutes earlier, and compassion he showed her thus far into their conversation, she was sure he was a gentle and kind man. These likely were the reasons she married him.

“For the most part, they were.”

“Thank you for not lying to me. I appreciate that.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Sarah, and I never will. Perhaps, in the past, I might have said things in frustration, or withheld my feeling and emotion, but from now on, I shall endeavor to be more open with you.”

“Do you wish to remain married?” she said past the lump climbing her throat, “even though you have legal grounds for annulment?”

He nodded. “If we are meant to be parents,” Ian said, brushing her loose tendrils from her disheveled hair behind her ears, his voice a sympathetic whisper, “then children will come. If not, we shall have each other as we grow old.”

She took a deep breath. “Since you have thus far been honest with me, I feel I owe you the same respect. I do not know what I wish just yet. I want so very much to remember you, and on some deeper level, I already feel I do.”

“That is understandable, considering what you have just gone through. I am a patient man, Sarah. I can wait.”

“What do we do now? Where do we go from here?” Her need to know how to proceed was important. How was she going to rebuild a relationship without a stable foundation? A foundation that she felt needed to be rebuilt from nearly the beginning.

He took her hands and held them between his. “I want you to give me time to make you fall in love with me again, Sarah.”

Her mouth grew dry at his words, and her heart began to beat a little faster. “You know I have no memory of you.”

“Give it time, love.”

“Did I love you?” She felt the physical attraction to him from the moment she walked into the room, but love was about more than physical relations. And from the way he’d just held and supported her during her bout of tears, she was sure she got that from him as well.

“Yes. That is, you left me a note saying you loved me. But I took your love for granted. I’ll not do so again.”

“I wish I could remember.” She looked up to him and gave him a shy smile, telling him that all was well. “Then I’d know whether I was angry with you or not for taking me for granted.”

“So do I, Sarah.”

She felt a growing sense of relief taking root. Suddenly, there was reason for optimism. “Where do you suggest we begin?”

“At the beginning,” he said, his hazel eyes softening as he smiled. “We create new memories and pray the old ones return.”

“You have a silken tongue, my lord. I think that is why I fell in love with you.”

“And I fell in love with a courageous and spirited young woman who boldly came to me aboard my ship and said she could be of use to me as we sailed to New York during the race.” He kept his gaze on her face as she processed that bit of information. “Do you remember that?”

“The words sound…familiar. But there are no mental images to match with them.”

“They will return one day,” he reassured her. “I have every faith you shall make a full recovery.”

“And if they do not?” She wasn’t trying to be a pessimist, but there was the possibility they would not come back according to Dr. Prescott.

“Then we will have the new ones, won’t we?”

Sarah nodded, her decision made. For now, at least, she would remain Mrs. Ross-Mackeever, the future Countess Mackeever.

T
hat evening, as the family finished dinner, Ian felt Sarah’s grasp on his hand, and he met her worried gaze. He wondered what was going on in her mind. They’d spoken of so much earlier that day that she could be thinking of any one of a hundred things. Sitting next to him, she tightened her hold beneath the table, before setting her sorbet spoon down.

“I have something I would like to say,” she began. The family all looked her way expectantly. “My husband and I would like to leave for London tomorrow. The Mayfair house has been ready for months now, and it is past time for me to carry on with living.”

Ren stared hard at him, and Ian was sure the duke believed him to be behind his sister’s declaration. What Ren didn’t know was that Sarah herself had come up with the idea. She believed seeing the cabin aboard
Revenge
might trigger more memories for her, which she desperately wanted. To her way of thinking, if she could fill in the gaps in her mind, she might be able to move forward. Staying here triggered nothing for her.

Ian was relieved that the duchess agreed with Sarah as she explained her reasoning. But he could tell from the look on Ren’s face that he was in for some serious questioning when the men retired for cigars and port. He didn’t expect to get out of the home with his wife
without
being asked more about his intentions with Sarah.

“I shall be headed back in the morning as well, as I have some business to attend to,” Lucky said.

Ian wondered why Lucky had not yet spoken of the girl child he now had in his custody. He would ask him later and beg him not to mention the infant to his wife. At least not yet. Hopefully, if she regained some memory and dealt with the grieving for their twins, she would better handle the new member of the family, for Lucky wanted to raise the babe as his own.

“Good, then we three shall go down together.” Sarah smiled at everyone at the table.

“I think,” the duchess said, “that it is a good idea, provided you proceed with caution so as not to be overwhelmed.”

“I agree with Lia, though I still worry for you. Try not to take it too fast, sister,” Countess Camden cautioned.

“I promise to take things slowly,” Sarah said. “Thus putting each memory and the emotions that accompany it in its proper place.” She met her brother’s gaze. “It’s the only way forward for me.”

Ren nodded, remaining silent during her declaration. As the footmen began to clear the dessert bowls, both brothers-in-law pushed back their chairs, a silent cue for Ian to do the same and follow them. Lucky must have read the unspoken invitation as Ian’s alone, for he broke with convention and remained in the dining hall with the women.

Once he was in the duke’s private study, a room that was fast becoming familiar to him, Ian took a seat across from his brothers-in-law and awaited interrogation. It wasn’t long in coming.

“Did you place this idea into her head?” Ren asked.

“No.” He was growing more than frustrated with the attitude of these two. Did they really think he would harm his wife? “Sarah told me what she wanted to do this afternoon when we walked in the garden. I agreed to support her.”

“What if something happens,” Michael said, “and she cannot handle it?”

“Then
I
shall be with her and will call her physician.”

Ren sighed as he filled a glass with port and passed it to him. “Has she remembered anything since seeing you?”

“I think so. Several times she said that things or words sounded familiar, but no image came to mind. I asked her the last thing she remembered clearly, and she said traveling to Liverpool, the morning after attending some come-out ball.”

“That would be the day before the race began,” Michael said.

Ian nodded and sipped his port. It wasn’t lost to him that her memories failed from the moment she met him at the home in Liverpool. All of the pain in her life occurred after meeting him. And he was likely responsible for most of it.

“As she is your wife and has said she wishes to remain so, I have no choice but to let her leave with you. But be careful of her. She’s still recovering.”

“You know I will.”

Ian left the two men, intending to seek his bed after a long day of travel and revelations. Sarah had asked to return to London the very next day because of the immediate sensations she was starting to experience. They were not quite full memories she said, but sensations and snippets of familiarity.

Wanting to keep the flow of memories moving forward for her, Ian had agreed to return to London with her, Sarah wanted to “find her memory,” she’d said and shared with Ian the hope she could find them in London.

He met Lucky on the landing going to his rooms. Because he and Sarah had decided earlier that Ian would keep a separate bed from her until she was ready, Ian was about to ask one of the footmen which room he was to occupy for the night when Lucky asked him to come into his for a moment.

Lucky asked for a ride into town with them, and Ian revealed his concerns for discussing the arrival of the child into the family during that ride.

“Oh, I agree. It’s too soon,” Lucky said. “We should wait until we see how she does for the next few days. Though, if Sarah were to come to Caversham House, it’s likely I couldn’t hide the babe from her. The entire neighborhood can hear her screaming down the rafters when she gets upset.” Lucky leaned back with his glass of wine. “She’ll learn about the child eventually, but I’d like to give her some time before we tell her.”