He must have caught her staring at him, for he glanced down at her, but she quickly ducked her head, turning her attention to the baby. Alexandra wasn’t fond of strangers, but for some reason she seemed to like this tall, strange man who held out one strong finger for her to grasp, and her blue eyes focused on him, her tears drying up as quickly as they had come.
The service ended shortly thereafter, and Emma took a deep breath. She would have to bear the close presence of Brandon Rohan for less than a day, and she’d endured far worse. Tomorrow she would be back in the city, she reminded herself, back in her crowded rooms and her work at the hospital. Tomorrow all this would be over and if she were very careful she need never see him again.
Alexandra’s nurse stepped forward to take the baby from her, and Emma had no choice but to release her, reluctantly. It was then she made the dire mistake of lifting her head, only to stare directly into Brandon Rohan’s cool blue eyes, his half-ruined, half-beautiful face, and it felt as if her stomach dropped to the cold slate floor of the chapel.
She kept her own expression carefully blank, and there wasn’t a spot of recognition on his face. Brandon Rohan’s Harpy had disappeared into the mists of his memory, and she was nothing but a stranger to him.
It was relief that swept over her, she told herself. She would still need to be careful, but over the last three years he’d forgotten her face, her very existence, and little wonder, given the shape he’d been in. Any connection she might have had with him had vanished into the air, and she need never worry about it again. This was relief, she told herself firmly.
“Brandon, you accompany Mrs. Cadbury back to the house,” Benedick said. “You don’t mind, do you, Emma?”
Of course, she minded, but she couldn’t think of a viable excuse. Fortunately, Brandon was equally unwilling. “Much as it would honor me, brother mine, I’m afraid I’ve brought my horse. Unless you’ve brought an extra groom, I’ll have no choice but to ride.”
“We’ll send someone back for the horse.”
“I’m a dusty mess,” Brandon said.
“Emma won’t mind. She’s a surgeon—she spends her days in far more disgusting conditions than even you could provide.”
Emma froze, afraid Benedick’s casual words might jog Brandon’s memory, but the man beside her didn’t blink. “Well, in that case I promise not to bleed on her unless I find it absolutely necessary.”
It was a joke, Emma realized belatedly, and she was supposed to laugh at it. Today of all days she didn’t feel like laughing, but she forced her mouth into a polite smile. He’d forgotten her well and truly—even the reminder of her connection with hospitals hadn’t jarred his memory. Surely, she could survive a ten-minute drive back to the country house without incident.
Except when he put his hand on her arm to help her up into the carriage. She’d flinched, as she always did when a man put his hands on her, but his hands were different, far worse. They were familiar. Wickedly, heartbreakingly familiar.
She had touched him, bathing the fever from his wasted body, changing his bandages, reading to him, even singing to him in her soft alto, the old Welsh lullaby her granny used to sing to her, “All through the night.” She’d kissed his sweating forehead when he was suffering from delirium. She’d held his hand when he grew restless, and impossible as it seemed, she’d almost fallen in love with him. She’d kissed his mouth …
Looking back, it was nothing more than a dream, a dream he’d already forgotten, a dream she’d best let go of, and fast.
She only had to survive an uncomfortable five minutes of polite conversation during the short drive and she would be free. She eyed him covertly as he dropped into the seat opposite her, keeping her head lowered.
The carriage started smoothly enough, and she waited for him to begin the required social dialogue. He said nothing, and the silence grew long and labored until she finally looked up, almost defiantly.
He was
watching her with lazy curiosity, seemingly unmoved by the social gaffe. “They’re gray,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” The most obvious topic of discussion was, of course, the weather, but it was a clear, beautiful day with a bright blue sky, not a cloud in sight.
“Your eyes, Mrs. Cadbury. They’re gray.”
Oh, God help her, he wasn’t going to flirt with her! That would finish her entirely. She put on her coolest look, one that managed to frighten some of the younger surgeons who tried to lord it over her. “How observant,” she said in a flat voice that sounded just the slightest bit more hostile than was necessary. It appeared that she hadn’t taken his forgetfulness as well as she’d hoped.
“Well, considering that you seem to find my dusty boots to be of alarming fascination it required a real effort. Have you known my sister-in-law a long time?”
“Years,” she said shortly, then realized she was compounding her rudeness. “We work together on her projects.”
“Ah, yes, Sweet Charity. I gather that was her ‘nom de guerre.’ And what do they call you?”
“Mrs. Cadbury,” she said repressively.
He was singularly unmoved by her attempts to thwart him. “I somehow get the feeling you disapprove of me, Mrs. Cadbury. Have tales of my sordid past reached your delicate ears?”
If anyone had a sordid past she did, and she wasn’t about to pass judgment on anyone, particularly someone in Brandon’s position, broken by war, victim of the depredations of the Heavenly Host. She lowered her eyes again. “I make it a practice not judge other people.”
“Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone?” Brandon said softly. “May I assume you are not without sin?”
This was worse than she’d imagined in her most devilish daydreams. He was playing with her, a woman who was a complete stranger to him. In another man she might have almost called it flirting, but there was no light in his blue eyes, in his ruined face. “No one is without sin, Lord Brandon.”