Storm and his rider easily kept pace as she headed out along the track. Storm tried a number of his usual tricks, but each time was immediately brought into line; encountering an invincible hand on his reins, he quickly desisted and settled to the steady pace.
She glanced at Logan, found him riding easily. “We’ll be able to gallop once we turn into the fields.”
Expectation lit his face. “Lead on.”
She did, through the soft light of the winter afternoon, with pewter clouds scudding across the gray sky. Following her usual circuit around the estate’s perimeter, checking the fences and gates, they galloped several times, cantered for most of the rest.
He grew more and more silent, more clearly absorbed with his memories.
When, with the light fading around them, they clattered into the stable yard, and Vincent and Young Henry came running to take the horses, he halted Storm and, for the first time in over an hour, met her gaze. “I was in the cavalry.”
She nodded, then wriggled and slid down from her saddle. He dismounted, handed over Storm’s reins, then fell in beside her as she walked to the house.
When she glanced at him, arched a brow, he frowned. “It’s not like with the dirk-this time it’s coming in bits and pieces, lots of snippets. Like bits of a jigsaw that I have to arrange to see the whole picture.”
She looked ahead at the house. “Just let it come. And if you can’t make sense of one piece now, set it aside for later, when you’ll have more pieces to work with.”
He grunted, and followed her into the house.
When, washed and in a fresh gown, she came down to dinner, she found him in the parlor, standing before the sideboard where they’d left his dirk, the saber, and the wooden cylinder. He had the saber in his hand, was experimentally wielding it. He looked up, met her eyes. “This
She merely smiled, and with her head directed him into the dining room.
He remained quiet and withdrawn during dinner, stirring himself only to apologize to Gilly for not hearing her question. The others understood he was wrestling with his memory and largely left him to it.
But at the end of the meal, when they all rose to repair to the parlor, he halted behind his chair, blinked.
She paused beside him, laid a hand on his arm. “What is it?”
He looked at her, refocused on her face. “The mess-I remember. I used to be in the officers’ mess.”
“You’re a cavalry officer.” She didn’t make it a question; the guise fitted him all too well.
Slowly, he nodded. “In the Guards-I’m not sure what regiment.”
She patted his arm. “Come and sit by the fire, and tell us what you can.”
Somewhat to her surprise, he fell in with that plan. He sat in the armchair to one side of the hearth, the one opposite hers, with the children sprawled on the floor between them.
Logan looked at the eager, innocently inquiring faces looking up at him. “I’m a cavalry officer in the Guards.” Or was, yet he felt the occupation was still his. “I don’t know what my current rank is, but I was a captain during the Peninsula Wars.”
“Did you fight at Waterloo?” Will asked.
He nodded. He could remember that terrible day, still hear the screams of men and horses, the obliterating roar of cannon. “I can’t remember all the details yet.” He felt sure he eventually would. “We were, at one point, caught up in the defense of Hougomont, but otherwise… it was a very… messy day. Most major battles like that are.”
“Were you in Spain?” Brandon’s eyes were huge.
Logan nodded. “Both early on-before the retreat from Corunna-and later, when we returned.”
Linnet stirred. “My father captained one of the ships that helped with the evacuation at Corunna.”
Logan glanced at her. “It took a lot of ships to get the army-what was left of it, at any rate-away.” Without prompting, he drew them a word sketch of what it had been like-the panic and confusion, the horses that had had to be left behind.
Recalling and retelling it embedded the memory more firmly in his mind-back into the slot where it belonged. Encouraged, he told them of subsequent battles, after they’d returned to hold Portugal, then fight their way across Spain-Talavera, Cuidad Rodrigo, Badajos, Salamanca, Vittoria, the crossing of the Pyrenees, the battle outside Toulouse. “We returned home after that, but then went back for Waterloo.”
He frowned, then shifted as Muriel handed him a cup of tea. Thanking her, he sat back and, grateful, let Linnet, who had noticed his sudden halt, distract the children.
Once the children had gone upstairs, and Muriel and Buttons had followed Edgar’s and John’s lead and left, too, Linnet arched a brow at him.
He grimaced. “I don’t know if it’s simply that Waterloo was a hellish nightmare-that the day was disjointed, with us being sent first here, then there-but…” He drew in a breath, let it out in a frustrated sigh. “I can’t see the faces. I know I fought alongside men I knew-who I knew well, comrades for years-yet I can’t see their faces, not clearly. And I can’t remember any names.”
Linnet studied him for a moment, then rose. “As you’ve just proved, your memory is returning. The details may be hazy and incomplete, but with time they’ll come clear.”
When he didn’t respond, just frowned at the floor, she inwardly sighed. “I’m going to do my rounds. I’ll be back in a moment.”
She headed for the dining room.
When she returned from checking the windows and doors on the ground floor, he was sitting where she’d left him, but was now turning the wooden cylinder over and over in his hands.
He glanced up, then returned to studying the cylinder. “I’ve run into another black wall. What the devil does this thing mean? What have I been doing since Waterloo? And with whom? For whom am I carrying this”-he waved it-“and what does it contain? Or is it just mine, for storing valuable papers?”
He was like a dog worrying a bone. And the intensity driving him was starting to worry her.
“Nagging at things rarely helps.”
When he sent her a black look, she laughed. “Yes, I know, easier said than done, but it’s time to go upstairs. After all our riding, you’ll need your rest.” Or at least distraction.
Grudgingly, he rose, carried the cylinder back to the sideboard, then followed her from the room.
At the top of the stairs, she paused, through the shadows met his eyes. “I’m going up to check on the children. I’ll join you shortly.”
He nodded. As she climbed the next flight of stairs, he walked slowly toward her room.
Logan stood by the window looking out on the wintry dark. A gap between two of the encirling trees offered a glimpse of moon-silvered sea rippling beneath an obsidian sky.
The more he remembered, the more he recalled of himself, of his past, the better he sensed what manner of man he was. Which, here and now, left him in a quandary. He was an honorable man-tried to live his life by that overriding precept-so was sleeping with his hostess, a beautiful, gently bred female with no effective protector- taking advantage of her, as most would deem it-the action of an honorable man?
To the man he now knew himself to be, the answer was a clear-cut no.
Last night… he didn’t know what he’d been thinking. In truth, he hadn’t been thinking; he’d responded to the challenge, the intrigue, the necessity of learning whether the night before had been dream or reality. But in satisfying his curiosity, he’d started something else-something he didn’t understand-for Linnet wasn’t just any woman, not to anyone, but most especially not to him.
The door opened. He turned. He hadn’t bothered to light the lamp.
The soft glow of the candle Linnet carried preceded her into the room. She entered, looked around and saw him, turned to set the candlestick on the tallboy and close the door. Then she walked toward him, the skirts of the fine green woollen gown she’d donned for the evening swaying enticingly about her long legs. The fabric clung lovingly to the sleek curves of breast and hip, reminding him of how those firm curves felt undulating beneath him.
Fisting one hand, he pushed the tantalizing memory aside. She’d made up her mind to be unattainable and, bastard-born, he had his own road to follow-wherever it might lead. There was no benefit to either of them in allowing whatever it was that had flared between them to deepen, to evolve.
He knew that, recognized and acknowledged that, knew that simply ending the budding liaison here and now was the honorable thing to do, yet…
