A Kiss to Remember Read online

  "You didn't notice the way she was looking at him," George said darkly. "It was almost as if she might welcome the sort of death those hands could bring."

  "That's easy for you to say. You're not a woman."

  "Neither are you," he reminded her.

  Lottie rested her chin on one hand. "If Laura marries before her twenty-first birthday, she inherits the manor."

  "That does seem to be the point of all this lunacy," George agreed, wary of his sister's calculating expression.

  "But there was nothing in Lady Eleanor's will that said she has to stay married."

  "You know as well as I do that Laura would never survive the disgrace of a divorce."

  "Who said anything about a divorce?" Lottie stroked the puff of gray fur in her lap. "In Miss Radcliffe's novels, the villain who seeks to compromise the heroine's virtue always meets with an untimely demise before he can succeed."

  Planting his hands on his hips, George glared up at her. "Why, Carlotta Anne Fairleigh, you're not thinking of murdering that poor wretch, are you? Regardless of what you read in those silly books of yours, you can't just go around killing people because they don't fancy cats. Or you."

  "And why not?" Lottie retorted. "Just consider the advantages. As a widow, Laura would reap all the benefits of marriage, but suffer none of the constraints. And if her groom should happen to meet with just such an untimely accident after the wedding, but before the wedding night, then she would never even have to endure the shame of having him put his rotten, stinking hands all over her."

  George could not help but be swayed by the last. He moved to the barn door, hoping the breeze would sweep the haze of anger from his brain. The burned-out rubble of the rectory they'd once shared with their parents was tucked in a distant corner of the property, but on warm, windy days such as this one, he would have sworn he could still smell the acrid scent of smoke, still taste the bitter tang of ashes on his tongue.

  "If Papa and Mama were here, they'd know what was best for Laura," he said, turning his face to the morning sunshine. "They'd know what was best for all of us."

  "But they're not here. We are."

  He sighed. "The three of us have gotten along so well for so long. I suppose I thought we could just go on that way forever."

  "We can," Lottie said softly. "If you'll agree to help me."

  George closed his eyes, but could not blot out the sight of his sister in a stranger's arms. For a timeless moment, even the wind seemed to be holding its breath, awaiting his answer.

  When he finally turned back to the shadows of the barn, his lips were twisted in a grim smile. "Black has always been very becoming on Laura."

  Lottie's teeth gleamed down at him from the loft. "Precisely my point."

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  You were always such

  a perfect angel…

  Nicholas Radcliffe had a temper.

  He learned that about himself around teatime of the following afternoon when the bedchamber door creaked open for what seemed like the hundredth time in that endless day only to reveal someone else who wasn't his fiancée.

  It seemed that the elusive Miss Fairleigh had decided he was best left to the ministrations of whoever happened to wander past his room at any given hour. Dower had even paid him a brief visit that morning, smelling of sheep and glowering like a death mask. The man had informed Nicholas that he was on his way to London to visit the livestock market. He had crumpled his broad-brimmed hat in his hands and bitten off a curt apology for nearly impaling Nicholas with his pitchfork, all the while assessing him with beady black eyes that made Nicholas feel as if he were being measured for a coffin.

  Laura's brother had appeared next, bearing a tray of kippers and eggs and wearing a sullen scowl. When Nicholas had inquired as to the whereabouts of the lad's sister, George had mumbled something noncommittal and fled the room.

  When the door had swung open a short while later, Nicholas had sat up eagerly in the bed, ignoring his lingering dizziness. He had a thousand questions, most of which only Laura could answer. But to his keen disappointment, the white mobcap sitting askew on grizzled curls had belonged to Cookie. He had wrested the basin, soap, rags, and razor from the maidservant's chapped hands and insisted upon bathing and shaving himself, having no desire to repeat yesterday's performance.

  As she was taking her leave, he had not been able to resist blinking innocently, and saying, "You needn't hurry away, Cookie. I doubt I've anything under here that a woman like you hasn't seen a hundred times before." Arching a mocking eyebrow, he had peeked beneath the blanket. "Or at least once."

  Cookie had flushed scarlet, then buried a girlish giggle in her apron. "Go on with you, sir. You're a right naughty gent, you are."

  "That's not what your mistress tells me," he had murmured after she was gone, his grin fading to a pensive frown. The yellow kitten nestled in the crook of his knee had given him a quizzical look. Despite his repeated efforts to shoo the bothersome creature away, the little cat refused to leave his side for more than a few minutes at a time.

  As the hours lengthened and his temper shortened, he began to feel less like a patient and more like a prisoner. If he had his trousers, he could at least get up and pace the room. The throbbing in his head had subsided to a dull ache that was annoying, but not unbearable.

  Shortly before teatime, just when he was settling into a fitful nap, the door began to inch open again. When Laura failed to materialize, his first instinct was to hurl something breakable at it. All he could see from his reclining position was a mass of golden curls bound by a lopsided pink ribbon. It seemed his latest visitor was crawling on hands and knees.

  A small hand with plump fingers and blunt fingernails crept over the side of the bed and began to grope about in the bedclothes dangerously near to his hips. When it failed to locate what it sought, the curls began to rise like a gilded fountain. As Lottie Fairleigh peeped over the side of the bed, Nicholas narrowed his eyes to mere slits, watching her through his lashes.

  "There you are, you naughty beast," she hissed, reaching for the cat that was napping at his side.

  "That's not a very nice way to address the man your sister is about to marry," Nicholas drawled, propping himself up on one elbow.

  Lottie tumbled to her backside on the faded carpet, her mouth a pink 0 of surprise.

  "I should warn you that if you start screaming again, so will I, and then we'll be right back where we started."

  She snapped her mouth shut.

  "There, now. That's better," he said. "You're almost tolerable when you're not shrieking like a banshee."

  "I wish I could say the same for you," she retorted, making him smile in spite of himself. Rising, she dusted off the rumpled white dimity of her pinafore, striking just the right note of offended dignity. "Forgive me for disturbing your rest, sir, but I came to fetch my kitten."

  "And to think I'd unfairly assumed you'd come to smother me with a pillow."

  Lottie's head flew up, curls bouncing. Her blue eyes looked so guilt-stricken that he almost felt ashamed of himself for teasing her. But she recovered quickly, smiling sweetly at him. "A rather crude, if effective, method of dispatching an unwanted guest perhaps, but I much prefer poison. There are so many different varieties from which to choose. Why, in the old oak wood alone, I've catalogued seventeen different varieties of deadly toadstools."

  Nicholas sat up in the bed, eyeing the remnants of his lunch tray askance.

  "Now, if you'll excuse us." She reached for the kitten.

  The animal lashed out at her with its sharp little claws, drawing blood.

  "Ow! What have you done to her?" Lottie sucked her wounded knuckle as the kitten butted its head against Nicholas's bare chest, purring with rapture.

  Running a hand over the cat's silky fur, Nicholas shrugged. "Despite what you seem so eager to believe, I'm not without my charms."

  "Neither is Napoleon. Or so I've read." She wav
ed a haughty hand as if it had been her idea to banish the animal from her company. "You may keep the little traitor if you'd like. There's plenty more where she came from." Tilting her nose in the air, Lottie sailed toward the door, obviously hoping to leave with more aplomb than she'd entered.

  "Carlotta?" When she turned without hesitation, Nicholas knew he'd guessed correctly at her Christian name. He studied her guarded little face, hoping for some glimmer of recognition. But she remained as alien to him as his own reflection. "Despite the fact that we're obviously both strong-willed individuals, your sister assured me that we were quite fond of each other."

  The child met his gaze without blinking. "Then it would seem we are."

  She dismissed him with a regal curtsy, leaving an exasperated Nicholas to throw himself back on the pillows.

  By the time the copper glow of the rising moon began to seep into the chamber, Nicholas was beginning to long for Lottie's querulous company. He didn't think he could bear another minute of being confined to bed like some feeble invalid. Even the kitten had deserted him, scampering out the open window to hunt crickets on the starlit roof.

  He threw himself to his stomach, pummeling his pillow into submission. Perhaps being confined to bed wouldn't be so wearying if he had someone to share it. It was no great stretch of his imagination to envision the rich spill of Laura Fairleigh's hair across his pillow, to see himself kissing each freckle that dusted her cheeks as he pressed her into the softness of the feather mattress with his weight.

  He took pleasure in the wicked thought, even though it ill befit the staunch moral character his fiancée had assured him he possessed.

  The old house finally settled itself into the creaking rhythms of sleep, magnifying his restlessness. He sat up, tossing the blankets away, and flung his legs over the side of the bed. To his surprise, the room held steady, not tilting or swaying as he'd feared.

  That was when he saw his ticket to freedom folded neatly on the brocaded cushion of the chair.

  A pair of trousers.

  Someone must have returned them while he was drowsing.

  Shaking off the last traces of vertigo, he crossed the room with confident strides and drew on the trousers, savoring their familiar fit. He was delighted to discover a shirt draped with equal tidiness over the back of the chair. He fingered the crisp lawn, thinking it a rather extravagant fabric to be purchased on the stipend of a mere foot soldier. As he shrugged the shirt over his shoulders, he noted that several rips in the cloth had been mended with such care as to be almost undetectable. Perhaps the shirt had been the castoff of some benevolent officer.

  Once he was fully garbed, he stood with hands on hips, feeling more like himself.

  Whoever the hell he was.

  Nicholas raked a hand through his untidy mane, wincing when his fingers made contact with the tender goose egg at the crown of his head. He'd learned something else about himself that interminable day. He didn't fancy being held hostage to the whims of a woman. Laura had no right to inform him that she was his betrothed, then abandon him to make what he would of that shocking revelation.

  Gaining resolve along with his strength, he slipped into the darkened hallway, unable to say whether he was going in search of his fiancée or himself.

  Laura haunted the drawing room like a beleaguered ghost. She hadn't bothered to light a lamp or a candle, preferring the moon-dappled gloom for her fitful pacing. She feared she was only moments away from wringing her pale hands together like an overwrought heroine from one of Lottie's beloved Gothics.

  It was one thing to imagine sharing her life with a stranger in the bright sunshine of day, but quite another to contemplate sharing his bed in the shadows of night. She'd dreamed of marrying just such a man since she was a little girl, but those dreams had always ended with a tender declaration of love and a chaste kiss, not with six feet two inches of undomesticated male in her bed.

  A panicked little whimper escaped her. Her betrothed might have lost his memory, but she had surely lost her mind to have concocted such a harebrained scheme.

  She'd spent the entire day avoiding his company and rehearsing the history she'd invented for the two of them. She didn't dare commit a word of it to the pages of her journal for fear he might discover it later.

  Be sure your sins will find you out.

  It had been one of her father's favorite homilies and Laura could almost hear his gentle voice chiding her. Of course, her papa never would have believed his innocent little girl capable of committing any sin more damning than failing to learn her daily epistle or snitching a lump from the sugar bowl when her mama's back was turned. It had probably never occurred to either of her parents that she might snitch an entire man.

  Laura's shoulders slumped. It was too late to confess what she'd done and beg his forgiveness. Too late to whack him over the head with a candlestick and carry him back to the wood where she'd found him. He was hers now—for better or for worse.

  "We were introduced by a cousin," she mumbled, veering to the right to avoid stumbling over the ottoman. "A second cousin thrice removed. Or was that a third cousin twice removed?" She rubbed her aching temples with her fingertips, thinking she might have done just as well to stay in bed and listen to Lottie snore.

  The old rosewood secretaire loomed over her in the moonlight. A piece of crumpled stationery lay abandoned, but not forgotten, among the desk's clutter. It was the letter penned by Sterling Harlow's loyal minion. Laura despised the arrogant duke more now than ever before. After all, he was the one who had set her on this path to certain destruction.

  Fumbling in a darkened cubbyhole, she drew out a tinderbox. She struck a match, then touched its flame to the edge of the letter, feeling a surge of triumph when it began to crinkle and blacken.

  "Take that, you miserable devil," she murmured, holding it aloft. "May you roast in hell where you belong."

  " 'But heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,'" someone quoted from behind her, " 'nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.'"

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  Although I let them take you away from me,

  I have always kept you dose to my heart…

  As those deep, silken tones emerged from the shadows, Laura whirled around, fearing irrationally that she'd summoned the devil himself with her blasphemy. It wasn't the Prince of Darkness but her betrothed who leaned against the doorframe, the flames reflected in his golden eyes warning her that she might be playing with something even more dangerous than fire.

  Wrapped in nothing but a quilt, he had resembled some sort of magnificent savage fresh from the jungles of Madagascar. He looked no less uncivilized in trousers and a shirt. Without a coat and cravat to bind his masculine vitality, it seemed to spill from him in restless waves. The tawny gold of his hair, worn slightly longer than was the current fashion, brushed his broad shoulders while his shirt lay open at the throat. Laura glanced down, then wished she hadn't. The clinging buckskin of his trousers perfectly defined the elegantly chiseled muscles of his calves and thighs. He was certainly no spidershanks who had to use sawdust to pad his limbs.

  Or anything else.

  Pain seared her fingertips. Yelping, she dropped the smoldering remains of the letter and began to stomp on them with her slippers. "It was the latest bill from the butcher," she explained breathlessly, lifting the hem of her nightdress to avoid the scattering sparks. "He can be rather intractable if he doesn't receive his money by the first of the month."

  Her fiancé watched her graceless dance with keen interest. "So tell me, do you consign all of your creditors to hell or only the ones who insist on being paid?"

  To avoid answering, Laura tucked her singed fingertips in her mouth.

  "Let me have a look at that hand." As he crossed the room, shadows veiled his face, making him look even larger and more menacing than he had in Lady Eleanor's chamber.

  Laura's heart skipped a beat. What if Dower was right? What if she had
brought a murderer or thief into their midst? Suppose he hadn't been set upon by a band of highwaymen but was a highwayman himself? Surely any highwayman worth his salt could afford the outward trappings of a gentleman. Perhaps he had even discovered her subterfuge and had come downstairs to strangle her.

  Without realizing it, she began to back away from him.

  He stopped abruptly. "If you're my fiancée, then why do you behave as if you're afraid of me?" He drew nearer, looking so genuinely aggrieved that it was almost as if she were the one who had wounded him. "Have I ever hurt you or led you to believe that I would?"

  "Not yet." Her shoulders came up against the mantel, setting a porcelain vase to swaying. He reached around her to steady it, effectively cutting off her means of escape. "I mean, no."

  Her stinging fingertips were forgotten as he cupped her cheek, the callused pad of his thumb playing softly over her downy skin. Instead of shrinking from his touch, she found herself wanting to turn into it.

  His husky voice was mesmerizing. "If I'm the sort of bullying churl who would lift a hand to a woman, then I'd just as soon you'd have left me to the mercy of the French. It would have been no cruder a fate than I deserved."

  Laura ducked beneath his arm, seeking shelter in the moonlit bay of the window seat. She sank down among the cushions, folding her hands in her lap. "I'm not afraid of you," she lied. "I just thought it best to avoid any appearance of impropriety."

  "It's a bit late to worry about that, isn't it, considering that we've yet to have a conversation while fully clothed." His eyes sparkled with dark humor. "At least not in my memory."

  Laura glanced down at her nightclothes. The modest nightdress with its ruffled bodice and high lace collar was far less revealing than her damp gown had been. Oddly enough, it was the unbound hair rippling around her shoulders that made her feel the most exposed. Surely only a husband should see it in such disarray.