Until his Harpy had come along and ripped it away from him.
But when he returned to the hospital it had been almost a year since his family had found him and carted him out of there, and no one remembered the woman. The kind of women who worked in hospitals tended to be anonymous, from the dregs of society and quickly forgotten. Even the celestially beautiful woman who spent nights by his bed, holding his thin hand, teasing him, chiding him, exhorting him to live.
Celestially beautiful? He’d thought her some kind of angel. Now he could see her for what she was, his eyes no longer blinkered by sickness and vulnerability. She was a woman, nothing more, one who derived pleasure from taking a helpless man and making him rely on her, then abandoning him. In truth, a part of him couldn’t blame her. It was the only revenge against the abuse she’d suffered at the hands of men, and if he hadn’t known her he might even have applauded it.
But he did know her, finally, even with her deceitful games throwing him off-track. Never once had she tried to find him, never once had she reached out, even though his own brother married her closest friend. She’d kept herself aloof, indifferent, as he’d been drowning in a morass of decadence and addiction. After she’d saved him she’d been willing to stand back and let him die by his own hand.
No wonder she’d been as desperate to leave this place as he was. She’d probably been terrified he might remember her.
The wet nurse arrived through the door off the servants’ stairs, and Brandon drew back into the shadows abruptly. He should be well satisfied, he thought as he returned to his room, not even bothering to hide his limp. The nagging question about her had been answered—it explained his fascination with her, his obsession. It answered the question that had haunted him until he’d smoked enough and drank enough to drown it out—what had happened to the beautiful woman who sat in the shadows and had somehow become everything to him.
Whores’ tricks had served her well. She was well versed in the art of bringing a man to his knees, and she’d played him very well. He could salute her—she was a worthy adversary, and she’d managed to win their first encounter.
She’d won the second as well, playing her games again, the only pleasure she allowed herself to accept from the opposite sex. He mentally bowed down to her—he’d been in the presence of a master of manipulation and deceit.
But in the end he’d won, because he’d remembered, and he could now see her in all her duplicitous glory. He would leave first thing in the morning and never have to see that lovely, lying face again.
She would believe he’d forgotten her completely. It was a paltry revenge, but it was the least he could do. He’d return to the Highlands and do everything he could to make it the truth. He had no idea why he felt so angered by her lies, but he welcomed it. Anger was something he was used to—it fit him well enough.
Regret was far too troubling.
Chapter 17
He didn’t come back. Emma had been sure he’d return, to banter with her at the very least, perhaps even to flirt, to kiss her again, to perhaps. . .
And she might let him. She could allow herself so little, but that one night would tide her over for years. She could survive giving herself to him—there was no question that he wanted her. And she wanted him to hold her.
She might as well accept the fact: she was like a green girl in raptures over a pair of broad shoulders. And his shoulders were very broad after the years in Scotland, his strength returned to him in abundance.
But this hadn’t started with broad shoulders. This had all started with a deeply damaged man barely clinging to life, to long hours in the darkness as she did everything she could to bring him back from the precipice. With soft, harmless midnight kisses until they became something more. The man whose charm and wit had surfaced and enchanted her, until it was too late to defend herself.
She’d spent many long hours of the last three years, trying to understand her unlikely infatuation, she who despised most men, and she’d come across a simple answer. When she first met him, he was so frail he was no danger to her, not on any level, and she’d let down her guard. He wasn’t the enemy, as most men were, he was simply a damaged boy in need of comfort, and she’d tried to convince herself her feelings were only maternal. After all, she loved children—she found both boys and girls delightful.
But as Brandon returned to life, growing stronger day by day, it was already too late. When he’d first managed the pale ghost of a grin she was smitten, and nothing had been able to scour that unlikely attraction from her soul.
And his kisses. They were innocence and charm, and she’d never been kissed like that in her life. Growing up, she’d been kept close to home. The lurid dangers of the male species had been explained to her in such harsh and explicit terms that she’d viewed every man with distrust, relying on her stern father’s guidance, until he’d turn those same, lustful eyes on her and she’d known her presence on this earth was a curse.
Why had she let herself forget? For years she’d believed that her inconvenient beauty had tempted her saintly father to attempt something so heinous she refused to think about it. It wasn’t until many years later that she recognized the fault wasn’t in her, it was in the male of the species, and she’d been absolutely fine since then, armored in her dislike and distrust.
That is, until Brandon had slipped into her heart.
She’d always been a great reader, and she adored travel books, the vicarious adventures almost enough for a woman who would doubtless never leave England, and she read of a strange phenomenon in the desert, something called a mirage. It happened when the sun grew so abominably hot it seemed as if cool, refreshing water was floating on the sand. The idea had always fascinated her, and the knowledge that when the thirsty traveler arrived at the fantasy oasis they only found barren ground.
That was her relationship, for want of a better word, with Brandon. A mirage, a brief, tantalizing glimpse of cool, refreshing water, only to find it turn to sand in her mouth. She was a fool to ever let herself be so vulnerable.
She waited in the nursery for over an hour, but he didn’t return, and she told herself it was a relief. Tomorrow she could leave—she was feeling well enough, and Brandon would marry Miss Bonham, and she and her companion would be miserable. . .
It wasn’t her problem, she reminded herself. She was already dealing with enough—the girls at the Dovecote, her patients, her nemesis, the cow-handed Dr. Fenrush. There was no place in this world for unconventional attractions, be they between two women or a gentleman and a whore.
As luck would have it, she slept late into the morning, only waking when the sun moved overhead, the sun she hadn’t seen in so many days. She struggled out of bed, landing on the floor in a tangle of covers, bruising her backside, before she could fight her way out of the linen and throw off her nightclothes. Dressing normally was a matter of a few short minutes—she didn’t bother with voluminous petticoats, tight corset or a myriad of buttons, and her hair was usually screwed into a tight knot at the back of her head. She’d been primping the last few days, and she knew why, knew she should make her way downstairs looking like a drudge. And knew she wouldn’t.
She stared at herself, frustrated. She looked her age—two years older than Brandon Rohan, and a century beyond that. Perhaps she should just stay in her room to pack and have the maid bring her something to eat.
And then Melisande would come traipsing in, asking her all sorts of uncomfortable questions, and she surely didn’t want Brandon to think she was avoiding him. She was happier if he didn’t think of her at all, something he seemed to have mastered last night, even if his af
ternoon kisses had shattered her.
She yanked her hairpins out, twisted the long length of her hair into a knot and secured it with a few hairpins, secure in the knowledge that now she looked like herself, a sensible woman with no interest in attracting the attention of anyone. She could convince Brandon, and she could probably convince Melisande as well. She just needed to convince herself.