Carousel of Hearts (22 page)

“The devil you say! I’ve really lost three whole weeks?” he said, astonished.  “How bizarre.”

“The physician who attended you, Dr. Kinlock, said that your memory would almost certainly return, and do so quite abruptly and thoroughly,” Antonia explained. “In fact, I think he said it might happen while you were sleeping. Kinlock also said you might not remember the interval between the accident and your recovery of full memory.”

While Adam digested the information, Antonia bit her lip at a an appalling new thought.  Her first reaction to the return of Adam’s memory had been delight.  But apparently the weeks of their falling in love were gone from his mind.

She could see that his behavior was subtly different, without the nuances of intimacy that had developed. Their kisses and promises no longer existed for him. 

She shrugged philosophically. They would have to start over again, and he might never remember the sweeter moments of the past three weeks with her. 

Still, it was far better for him to be restored to his full self, no longer incomplete. Coaxing him back to their recent state of closeness would have a certain delicious appeal of its own.

“While it’s difficult to believe that a whole piece of my life has disappeared, the evidence seems to be written on my skull,” Adam said, fingering the scar on his head again. “Have I missed any important events?”

His eyes scanned Antonia with approval. “You look much happier than you did. Has Simon returned and persuaded you to renew your engagement? I shouldn’t think that anything else could have cheered you so thoroughly.”

“This is going to be much more complicated than I anticipated,” she said ruefully.  “If my looks are improved, it’s because you and I have been betrothed for the last three weeks, and it has agreed with me famously.”

Adam froze. “That’s impossible.  What about Judith?”

Antonia stared at him. “What has Judith to do with anything?”

“I can’t have asked you to marry me”—Adam’s face was utterly rigid—”because Judith and I are betrothed.”

Antonia’s heart congealed. “How can you be betrothed? Neither of you ever mentioned such a thing!”

“She and I reached an understanding just before you and Simon ended your betrothal. Because you were so unhappy, we did not speak of it.” Adam’s eyes reflected the confused pain that Antonia was experiencing.

“But if you two had an understanding, why did she never speak of it?” Her mind flashed back to the time of the accident.

Antonia had been half-mad with grief. How had Judith behaved? She might have been equally worried about Adam, but she was less demonstrative by nature.  She’d certainly nursed him as devotedly.

Abruptly Antonia recalled Judith’s face when her employer had announced the engagement to Adam. Judith had been more than surprised or disapproving of the rapid betrothal. She’d looked almost ill. And no wonder if she was in love with Adam! She didn’t speak up then because it must have seemed too late.

Antonia buried her face in her hands, her whole body chilled with shock. “God help us all,” she said dully.

She felt Adam’s weight settle next to her. He put an arm around her shoulders, but it was the touch of a brother, not a lover.  She felt the difference instantly. “Tony, you must tell me what has happened.”

Only the whole humiliating truth would do. “I was distraught when you were injured,” she said unsteadily. “I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. Simon was gone for good, and you had said once that I could always marry you, and you seemed to mean it. So I decided to accept.”

She straightened, but kept her gaze down. “When you came out of the coma, I said that we were betrothed. You accepted that without question, perhaps because I seemed somewhat familiar. I wouldn’t have held you to a betrothal against your will, but you seemed…quite satisfied with the arrangement.”

She stared at her hands, which lay knotted in her lap. “So for the last three weeks, you and I have been betrothed.”

Antonia finally dared look at her cousin’s face, and recoiled at what she saw. “Adam, don’t look at me like that!” she cried.

He stood and walked away, explosive tension in his steps. “What a damnable tangle,” he swore softly. “Poor Judith.”

Poor Judith, indeed. It did not escape Antonia’s notice that her cousin’s first thought was for Judith, whom he wanted to marry. Had Adam not been in love with Judith, Antonia was sure he could have been persuaded to fall in love with herself, but now Judith held his first allegiance.

Judith, her best friend, whom Antonia had unintentionally put through hell. Briefly she wondered about the overseen embrace with Simon, but in the light of what she knew now, Antonia guessed that it was not what it seemed. Iin fact, Judith had implied as much.

“Adam, please don’t be angry with me,” she begged. “I would never have knowingly done anything to hurt you or Judith.”

His face eased, though his body was still tense. “I’m not angry with you. There is more than enough blame to go around. Had Judith and I not kept our understanding a secret, had she spoken up after I was injured, none of this would have happened.” Adam’s mouth twisted in a smile tinged with bitterness. “This would be amusing if it weren’t so painful for all concerned. Do you know where Judith is? I must speak with her at once.”

“Of course,” Antonia agreed bleakly, still stunned by his news. There would always be a bond between her and Adam, but in the future it would be Judith who must come first with him. Judith whom he would cherish and protect and love.

“She is in the house, I believe.” There was something else he should know. “Simon is at Thornleigh, too. When he heard about your accident, he returned from London immediately.”

Adam looked at her, his eyes hooded.  “I see.” Then he turned and headed toward the house.

Antonia watched his broad figure vanish among the shrubbery, feeling as if a knife were being twisted slowly in her heart. Surely God must be punishing her for every act of willfulness and selfishness that she had ever committed. Did love exist if it was not part of a person’s memory?

Yes, surely for a handful of days, Adam had loved her. Had she had the wisdom to love him sooner, he could have been hers. She knew that as surely as she knew the peaks and dales of Thornleigh. But the Adam who had loved her was gone. In a sense, he had never even existed.

Unfortunately, the love that she felt for him was piercingly alive. As the soft summer breeze caressed her, Antonia closed her eyes in a futile attempt to stop the tears that coursed down her face.

* * * *

Lord Launceston was a methodical man and he had spent several hours making a list. It seemed the best way to order his confused emotions. Then he struck a light and burned the list, which was not the sort of thing that one should leave lying around.

Staring at the ashes in the grate, he knew that the precise weighing of pros and cons had merely confirmed what he had already known. He was in love with Judith Winslow.

Simon had never thought of himself as an unsteady man, but he must be. Or perhaps Antonia’s brilliant beauty had temporarily blinded him to the gentler qualities of Judith, just as the sun outshone the moon when they shared a sky.

He had liked Judith from the beginning, had admired her intelligent, thoughtful mind. It had taken that moment of passion by the stream for him to realize how much more he felt than liking. Strange how the lower animal nature had such an influence on the emotions.

He stood, smiling at his attempt to be a natural philosopher even now. Love was a mystery, and only a poet would dare attempt to explain it.

Judith may not have been as moved by that kiss as he was, but she always seemed to enjoy his company. Their minds and emotions matched well. Perhaps, now that Adam and Antonia seemed bound for the altar, Judith might consider marrying elsewhere.

Simon’s fortune was nothing like so large as Adam’s, and he was all too aware of his defects of character, but he could offer a comfortable existence and the status of a married woman as well as love. In time she might come to love him as much as he loved her. Or if not that much, at least to love him a little.

Decision made, he set off purposefully to find her.

Chapter Twelve

Judith studied a newspaper in the morning room, looking at the shipping news. Very soon now it would be time to leave Thornleigh, and she was making plans.

At the sound of quick masculine footsteps she looked up, and when she saw Adam’s face, she knew instantly what had happened. He had always been polite and friendly in the weeks since the explosion, but he had never once looked at her like this, with the remembrance of past intimacy in his eyes.

“Your memory has come back,” she exclaimed, not really needing confirmation.

“Yes, I was dozing in the summerhouse, and when I woke, I remembered everything until shortly before the explosion. And nothing since then.”

He took a seat near Judith. “Antonia was with me and she explained what happened. All of it.” His grave eyes intent on her face, he asked, “It must have been dreadful for you watching Antonia and me together. Why didn’t you tell her about us?”

“How could I, when you didn’t remember me?’’ Her hand turned up in a gesture of impotence. “There was no proof of a betrothal, apart from my word.”

“And you didn’t want to set your word against Antonia’s.” Adam smiled wryly. “It was all quite absurd. My impetuous cousin told me that she had decided to accept my standing offer, not knowing that it was no longer open.” He regarded her questioningly. “Has anything happened in the last three weeks to make you wish to cry off from our betrothal?”

No, nothing at all, except that Judith had fallen in love with a man she could not have.

She searched Adam’s face, seeing the kindness that had attracted her to him from the first time they met in London, when he’d brought a present for a woman he didn’t even know. He would be a considerate husband. She still wanted children, the security and companionship of marriage, everything that he had once offered and she had accepted.

“No, nothing has changed,” she answered in a soft voice, reaching out for his hand as if it were a lifeline. The thought of leaving Thornleigh and being alone in the world again terrified her.  She wanted the life she could have with Adam.  She wanted Adam himself, for his kindness and caring.  “Not if you still want me.”

He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Then we shall continue as we were before?”

“So be it.” Judith words were a solemn ratification of their renewed agreement. The warmth of Adam’s gesture was deeply appreciated. She needed that warmth. She would never let him know of her foolish passion for another man.

“How is Antonia?” Judith asked hesitantly.

“Badly upset.” Adam glanced down at their joined hands, his fingers tightening. “When she learned that I was already pledged to you, she was horrified at what she had done.”

Her raw emotions near the surface, Judith ached with sympathy for her friend and employer. Where Antonia gave love, she gave wholeheartedly. Whatever her initial reasons, she had done that with Adam.

The thought pushed Judith toward a difficult decision. Just as Adam had asked her if she wanted to continue their engagement, she should ask him the same thing. She had seen Antonia and Adam together. There had been an intensely real bond between them. But with his memory of the last three weeks gone, perhaps that bond had vanished.

As she mentally debated, Lord Launceston entered the door of the morning room. At the sight of Judith and Adam holding hands, he stopped, his startled expression showing that he had drawn a quick and accurate conclusion.

His face took on the cool chiseled hardness of granite. “Your memory has returned, Adam?”

“Yes, just a few minutes ago. I have forgotten everything since the explosion, but Antonia explained what has been going on, in all its improbability.” Adam released Judith’s hand and stood, his steady gaze meeting his friend’s. “I hope that you have not been too distressed by the unlooked-for engagement between Antonia and me. That was a temporary aberration, now ended. I did not intend to come between you and my cousin.”

“I knew that.” Simon glanced at his former co-conspirator. “While news of the
soi-disant
betrothal was a shock, Judith and I deduced that Antonia must have acted on impulse, based on her lifelong affection for you.”

Under his calm manner, Simon was reeling, his thoughts and emotions in disarray. It had been obvious as soon as he entered the room that Adam and Judith were together again.

He should be pleased. Wasn’t this what Judith had wanted, what Simon had tried to help her attain?

Forcibly reminding himself that this was a glad occasion, Simon smiled and laid an affectionate hand on his friend’s shoulder. “The important thing is that you are now fully recovered. It has been an interesting interval, though not one I would choose to repeat.”

Judith spoke up, her gray eyes unreadable. “Antonia may still be in the summerhouse. Perhaps you should go to her.”

Of course Judith wanted time alone with Adam. Simon was glad that he had not found her a few minutes earlier. Having Adam enter while Simon was proposing to Adam’s affianced wife would have been a little more farce than a man could bear.

“When Antonia explained why she decided to accept me, she said that she thought you were gone for good,” Adam offered obliquely. “Otherwise it never would have occurred to her to consider marrying someone else.”

Adam and Judith both seemed to think that Simon and Antonia belonged together. Simon pondered that in a detached way. He himself felt too numb to have an opinion.

He rallied, reminding himself that at the very least he should give his friends some privacy. His next clear awareness came in the library. He must have taken a civil leave of Judith and Adam, though he had no recollection of doing so.

Simon felt like rudderless ship, uncertain of where he wanted to go or why he should bother making any effort to move. He had known Judith Winslow for only a few weeks. How could he miss her so much when he hadn’t even known that he needed her?