The Perfect Stranger (26 page)

Mac found Stevens in the stables. “’Tis a bad business, Stevens. That wee lassie truly loves him, ye ken.”

“I know.”

“It will destroy her when she finds out.”

“As she must, soon,” Stevens said in a somber voice. “We were warned this would happen.”

“Should we not prepare her?”

Stevens shook his head. “That’s for Mr. Nick, and you know he doesn’t want to upset her any more than he has to. Why upset her to no purpose? Give her till Bilbao.”

“Aye, I suppose.”

Nick awoke disoriented. He parted the curtains of the alcove and looked out. Nothing looked familiar. The room was tiny and very simply furnished. He tested the door, and it opened. He was not locked in then. That was a relief.

He padded to the window and looked out over neat patchwork fields. A farm. He was on a farm somewhere in France. He had no memory of this place, no memory of coming here. From the look of the sun, it was sometime in the late afternoon; the shadows were long and the light mellow. His head was still throbbing with a residual ache; he knew what had caused the problem. But where was he, and how had he arrived there? And how long had he been asleep? Or had he blacked out again?

It was worrying. His headaches had produced small gaps in his memory before, but this was the worst yet.

He found a ewer filled with clean water and a large basin. He splashed his face in the water and dried it on a clean rag folded next to it. His head felt marginally clearer, though he still had no recollection of coming here. His boots lay on the floor, and his jacket and breeches hung from pegs on the back of the door. He dressed and went downstairs in search of answers.

His nose caught the scent of meat stew, and he followed it to a large, open kitchen.

Faith sat in a chair beside the fire, a golden-haired baby in her arms. She was singing softly to the babe, a song he didn’t recognize, and rocking gently back and forth.

Nick stopped dead, thunderstruck. His sense of disorientation increased. The scene made no sense to him. Faith looked serene and happy and too damn beautiful to be real. But she was real. She was his wife. Only…where had the baby come from?

She looked up and smiled at him. As always, when their eyes met, he felt a thud in the region of his chest.

“Oh Nicholas, how is your head? You slept for a very long time.”

“Tolerable, madam, thank you,” he said brusquely. She knew he didn’t like to talk about it. He stared at the baby. “Er?”

Faith jiggled it in her arms. “Isn’t she lovely?”

“Very nice,” he said cautiously, racking his brains. “Er, where are Stevens and Mac?”

“I’m not sure; outside, perhaps.” She didn’t even look at him, just smiled at the baby and resumed her song.

Nick beat a hasty retreat.

Outside, things slowly came back to him. He remembered the journey he was on, he even vaguely recalled the layout of the farm buildings. But there was no sign of either Stevens or Mac. He returned to the kitchen and stopped dead.

There were two babies now, two golden-haired babies, one in each of Faith’s arms. She looked blissful.

He must have made some strangled sound, for she looked up. “Come and see, Nicholas,” she said softly. “Hope and I must have looked like this when we were babies.”

Feeling as if he’d stepped into some bizarre dream, Nick moved closer and peered at the babies. Yes. There were definitely two of them. Identical. Both golden-haired and blue-eyed, like his wife. He swallowed.

“I’ve never seen any other twins before,” she told him. “Apart from my sister and me, that is. Hope and I have such a strong bond.” She gave the babies a soft look. “I wonder if these little ones are the same. Oh, I wish Hope could see them, too.”

Nick made a noncommittal sound.

“The one with her face buried in my neck is Clothilde, named after our Clothilde, of course, and the one blowing you bubbles is Marianne, after her other grandmother.”

Our Clothilde?
As far as Nick could remember, he’d never owned a Clothilde. Nor was his mother called Marianne. She was Matilda Jane Augusta Blacklock, née Alcott. Thank God he remembered that, at least.

“It was nice of Clothilde to get her daughter to bring the twins over for me to see them, wasn’t it?”

Relief trickled through him. “I’ve never seen them before, have I?”

She gave him a puzzled look. “How would you? They arrived when you were asleep.”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said, satisfied. One of the babies waved a chubby fist and, without thought, Nick reached out a hand to it. The child latched onto his finger with a determined grip and gave him such a look of triumph that he laughed aloud. “Strong little thing, isn’t she?”

Faith laughed. “Yes, and determined. I’ve never had much to do with babies before. It’s amazing how much personality they have, even at this age. I can see that Marianne—she’s the one who has your finger—is going to be the adventurous one, and Clothilde will be the shy one.”

He said curiously, “Is there always an adventurous one and a shy one?”

Faith shook her head. “I’m not really sure about always. But with Hope and me, there was, certainly.”

“So Hope is the shy one.”

She gave him a surprised look. “No, Hope is the brave one.”

He raised his brows and said, “She must be a force to be reckoned with, then.”

“No, not if you mean she’s bold and pushy. She’s not,” She came to her twin’s defense hotly. “She’s lovely. She’s brave and clever, and—” She blinked rapidly, and he realized her eyes had filled with tears.

Her hands were full of babies, so Nick pulled out his handkerchief and dried her cheeks for her.

When she could speak, she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to turn into a watering pot. It’s just that having these little ones here has made me think of Hope and how much I miss her. She’s very special, my twin sister. All my life she has tried to protect me.”

“In that case she must be a wonderful girl,” he said softly. “Nearly as wonderful as her sister.”

She gave him a misty smile and busied herself with the babies. After a minute she said, “Why would you think I was the adventurous one?”

She was so in earnest, so genuinely puzzled that he could not help but smile. “I have no idea. It must have something to do with you living in sand hills and learning to fish and swim and riding after us and preferring to travel long hours on horseback and sleep on the cold, hard ground in a foreign country than to dwell in comfort in England.”

She considered his words, then dismissed them with a shake of her head. “Most of that I had no choice about. And the swimming and fishing and traveling have been fun—as long as someone else kills and cleans the fish. And as for sleeping on the hard ground, we haven’t slept out of doors since that first night. You are too chivalrous to allow it.”

Chivalrous? He felt his face warming and moved away so she wouldn’t notice. There was one reason and one reason only why she hadn’t slept a single night on the ground, and it had nothing to do with chivalry. It was so he could make love to her every night. And again in the morning. To his chagrin, he couldn’t seem to get enough of her.

He cleared his throat. “I’ll see if Stevens and Mac have returned.”

He stepped outside, grateful for the silence in which to think. The gaps in his memory were disturbing. Thank God he’d recalled in time.

But it meant he couldn’t trust his memory.

He’d probably dreamed that he’d heard his wife say she loved him. He didn’t want anyone to love him. The thought was unbearable. He had enough of a burden to bear.

Was dreaming she loved him a form of madness? he wondered.

One of the horses had lost a shoe, and Stevens had taken it into the nearby village to have a new shoe fitted by the local blacksmith, so they ended up staying the night in the farmhouse. Mac and Stevens bedded down in the barn, while Faith and Nick used the room he’d slept in earlier.

“Aren’t these sheets nice?” Faith said as she climbed into bed.

Nick looked at them. They looked like ordinary sheets to him, and he said so.

“Yes, but they’ve been soaped and scrubbed and dried in the sun; you can smell it.” She sniffed. “Heavenly! In England, sheets often have to be dried in the kitchen or in front of the fire. And some have a faint damp smell. They don’t get the sun baked into them like this. I’m sure it helps you to sleep better.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” He slipped between the sheets and automatically reached for her. She turned to him with a soft blush and a welcoming smile, and that thud in his chest happened again. There was something about the way she looked at him…almost tenderly.

It gave Nick pause. They were only a week or so away from Bilbao. He frowned. It would have been better for her if they’d slept in the barn. Or if he’d slept in the barn, leaving her with her precious sun-dried sheets.

“You’re not getting attached, are you?”

For a moment she said nothing, just gave him a searching look. “No, I’m not getting attached.” She said it quietly, calmly, but something in her voice disturbed him.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” And she sounded sure, this time. It should have reassured him. It didn’t.

“Good.”

Her face was fresh-washed and glowing in the candlelight. She was wearing that nightgown again, the one that the old woman had given her with lace in all the right places. She smelled faintly of roses, and how she managed that—smelling so sweet and fresh no matter where they were—he didn’t know or care. All Nick knew was that he wanted her, wanted to take that nightgown off her and explore the woman underneath, to feel her warm silkiness wrapped around him and taste her sweetness and her warmth. He wanted to bury himself in her, not thinking about Bilbao and what it would bring, not thinking about anything except Faith and the glorious oblivion of making love with her.

He shoved the doubts and uncertainties from his mind and moved closer to her and then suddenly the image of her in the kitchen came to him. Of Faith with a babe, two babes, in her arms.

He hesitated. “What if you fall pregnant?”

She blinked. “I would be delighted. I would love to have a baby. But I’m not thinking about that!”

He was a bit surprised by her unconcerned tone. “Not thinking about it? Not at all?”

“No, of course not.” She gave him a smile. “Why would I?”

There was no “of course” about it as far as Nick was concerned. And as for why, well, he would have thought that would be obvious.

She explained. “We’re living in the moment, remember? Not making any plans or considering the future in any way. Wasn’t that what you wanted?” Her wide-eyed query made him uncomfortable.

Yes, it was what he wanted, but it disturbed him to think she was taking him so very literally. She needed to be prepared for if…or when…

Oh God, he ought to be more responsible. He’d meant simply to help her: to marry her, restore her good name, and send her on her way. Instead she’d become embroiled in his problems. Oh, he could argue that she’d done that herself by disobeying his orders, but it was his responsibility. If he hadn’t been so weak, so unable in the face of that sweet smile to drive her off with harsh words…

He couldn’t help himself. He’d been so strong up to now, but this girl…she undermined his every resolution. A small taste of heaven before…

She raised herself, leaning on one elbow, and looked at him. “I thought now was what you wanted, Nicholas.” She hadn’t done up most of the tiny buttons on the nightgown. One pearly shoulder slipped from the neckline, satiny smooth in the candlelight. The open neck of her nightgown dipped temptingly into shadow, and Nick’s eyes followed.

“Oh God yes, now is all I want,” he muttered and, drawing her to him, he began to explore the shadowed mysteries, feathering kisses onto her silken skin in a trail of exploration.

He woke before her in the morning and found himself watching her sleep. So beautiful, her hair in tumbled clusters of gold, her long lashes caressing her cheeks. Asleep, she looked so young, such an innocent, it was hard to believe she was the same person who welcomed his lovemaking with such natural sensuality and joy.

He’d never experienced anything like it. She made him feel powerful, ten feet tall, and yet at the same time humble…and needy.

Yes, needy. He wanted her again. It was unforgivable of him to keep her like this. He prayed she meant it when she said she was not the least attached.

Nick slipped out of bed and began to dress.

A sleepy voice greeted him. “Good morning, Nicholas.” She stretched and held her arms out to him in an expectant gesture. He bent and kissed her quickly. He was a damned fool ever to have invented that “morning duty” notion. It was one she took very seriously. But it played merry hell with a man’s resolution.

She lay back on the pillow and watched him as he continued dressing. Then she asked, quite as if they were continuing the conversation of the night before, “Why are you so worried that I will get attached to you? I mean, we are married, after all.”

“Women get attached.”

She gave him a quizzing look.

“You are a woman,” he pointed out.

“Yes. Yes I am,” she agreed in a thoughtful tone. “So, don’t men get attached, then?”

He started to shake his head, but some shred of fundamental honesty asserted itself, and he found himself saying, “Some men do.” He retrieved his position quickly. “But not soldiers.”

“Not soldiers. I see.”

“Yes, and I will warn you again that there is no possibility of me getting attached to you. Despite our marriage and despite any, er,
proximity
.” He was not yet up to admitting he’d rutted on her like a stoat at every opportunity, so he gestured vaguely to the rumpled bedclothes and her naked shoulder rising from them.

“Because you are a soldier.”

“Correct, madam.” It was the only reason he could think of. And there were elements of truth in it.

“I see,” she said again. She seemed to think it over a few moments, then she said, “I still don’t quite understand why it would be a problem if
I
got attached. I mean I’m not, of course. No, not at all. Not the least little bit, in fact,” she assured him with a bright smile. “I’m just interested in the
theory
of attachment.”