Tempting the Bride - By Sherry Thomas Page 0,55
agreement will not be in the least affected by my indisposition.”
At her firm reassurance, however, he seemed only to become more dejected. He set down his teacup. “That is most kind of you. I’m glad to see you are doing well, and I really ought not to take up any more of your time.”
He rose and bowed slightly.
“Would you not care to speak to me of your books?” she asked, still disoriented by the peculiarity of his demeanor.
But he’d already left.
Hastings had long considered the addition of the Fitzhugh family to the murals. Their figures would be quite small, their faces too indistinct to be recognizable. But they’d be dressed in English fashion of the previous decade, quite unmistakably a band of tourists.
He traced a finger on the path that wound down the side of a hill. He could put them on the path, and have a breeze lift the ribbons on the ladies’ hats. Their attention could very well be drawn to the ruined monastery on the next hill, except for Helena’s. Her face he would paint turned directly to the viewer—to him.
“Do all my authors act so strangely in my presence?” Her voice came from the door. “And do you always turn white as a sheet and run when one of them comes to call?”
His heart thudded in thunderous relief—Martin in person had not triggered a collapse of the dam that held back the greater reservoir of her memory.
“Who is that man?”
He tensed again. Something in her voice told him that this time her suspicion had been well and truly aroused, that there would be no distracting her with a head of golden curls, no matter how fluffy and springy.
“Do you have any idea why he thought it acceptable to call on me at such an hour? And why, by the way, did you act so strangely?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Her voice became more insistent. “What are you withholding from me, sir? Why haven’t you looked once in my direction? Do you know that you are appearing quite guilty, even though I can’t fathom what wrongs you might have committed?”
The time for truth, the entire truth, had been thrust upon him.
He slid the pad of his index finger along the top of the wainscoting. “I used to be secretly jealous of Mr. Martin, who was a great favorite of yours,” he said, still without looking at her.
Her tone was one of utter bafflement. “Mr. Martin?”
“Yes, Mr. Martin.”
“But I married you, didn’t I? That ought to have settled the debate of who is my greater favorite.”
His fingers gripped the edge of the wainscoting, as if so flimsy a hold could anchor him in place when the storm came. “We are not married,” he said. “We are only pretending to be married.”
Helena understood the individual words Hastings spoke, but together they made no sense at all. “How can anyone pretend to be married? Did we hold a pretend wedding as well? And why would my family allow such a state of things to stand?” She sucked in a breath. “Or do they even know?”
“They know, but they have no choice but to let the pretense stand, at least to the world at large.”
Various muscles in her face contracted and tensed. She had no idea whether she was grimacing or trying to laugh at the ludicrousness of what he was saying. “Explain yourself.”
He looked skyward, as if praying for a miraculous intervention. “In the life you no longer remember, it was not me you loved, but Mr. Martin.”
Distantly, she marveled that she still remained standing. “I don’t believe you,” she said. Or perhaps she was shouting, for he seemed startled by the vehemence of her words. “I can’t have loved Mr. Martin. I felt nothing—nothing at all—when I saw him.”
“Nevertheless, you have loved him since you were twenty-two years of age,” he said, his eyes melancholy.
Was this a dream from which she couldn’t awaken? Five years of loving Mr. Martin? “Then why didn’t I marry him, if I’d loved him for so long?”
He shrugged. “Circumstances.”
She tried to peer through the curtain in her mind, but her past was as impenetrable as a London pea souper. “He is a gentleman and I am a lady. What kind of circumstances would prevent us from marrying if we so chose?”
“He was already slated to marry someone else—not engaged, but under heavy expectations.” Hastings slanted his lips to one side. “He did not defy those expectations.”
The implication of this last statement thundered in her head. “Mr.