Emma Richmond - A Husband For Christmas

And she didn’t think she could bear it. Not his mockery, not his harshness, nor the consequences if she told him what else he was responsible for. Shoving back her chair, she tried to escape. He grabbed her arm, forced her back down. Oblivious of the stares, the whispers, he repeated, ‘What did I do?’

‘Nothing,’ she denied hollowly. ‘Nothing at all.’ And because she didn’t want to talk about what he had done—what it had done to her—because she didn’t even think she believed this was happening, she asked numbly, ‘How did it happen? An accident?’

‘Definitely lovers,’ he murmured with a twisted smile. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have changed the subject, would you? Well, at least I had good taste. Yes,’ he finally agreed, ‘it was an accident.’

‘Where?’

‘South America.’

‘South America?’ Snatched out of her lethargy, she demanded blankly. ‘What were you doing in South America?’

He gave a mocking smile.

‘Oh,’ she murmured foolishly. ‘You don’t remember.’

‘No. So, when did we last meet? And where?’

Thinking back over the last dreadful months, she closed her eyes in pained defeat. ‘August,’ she stated softly. ‘In France.’

‘And how long were we—lovers?’

Lovers? Yes, they had been lovers. Looking down, the ache in her heart enormous, she whispered, ‘Over a year.’

‘And then I left you? Or did you leave me?’ he asked mockingly.

Eyes bleak, she stared blindly at the scarred wooden table. What to say? That he had broken her heart? Destroyed her faith in human nature? And she needed to know why? And until she knew that... ‘It was mutual,’ she finally murmured.

With a sceptical little smile, he shrugged. ‘But you know what I did? Where I lived? All about me?’

‘Yes.’ Or thought she had.

He didn’t say anything more for a while, but she could feel him watching her, and she wanted to get up, run away, go and think about this in private. Shaken to the roots of her being by this unexpected encounter, she didn’t know what to say, feel, think.

Because it hadn’t been mutual. He’d said he was going away for a few days, some business venture he wanted to investigate—and he hadn’t come back. He had sent a terse little note. And for the past four months every moment that hadn’t been taken up with other things had been spent trying to find him. Trying to find out why. And now he was here, and she didn’t know what to do.

Looking up at him at long last, her dark brown eyes full of distress, she stared at him in utter helplessness.

‘Mutual for the sake of pride?’ he asked quietly.

‘Yes, I can see that it was. I hurt you, didn’t I?’

An understatement, she thought bitterly, and perspicacity she could have done without. But, yes, he had hurt her. Hurt her so badly she had just wanted to die.

Those first few weeks had been a waking nightmare. Trying to find him, feeling sick and anxious, frightened—but it had been as though he had vanished into thin air. His bank wouldn’t tell her if he had drawn any money from his account. Airlines and boats did not have his name on their lists, or, if they did, wouldn’t admit it. She’d checked hospitals, the police, even funeral directors.

And as the weeks, and then months, had passed with no news hurt and despair had turned to hatred. Or so she had tried to tell herself. But there had always been that hope that one day she would find out the truth. Find out why he had done what he had. That it was all some sort of ghastly mistake. And now here he was, a harsh-faced stranger with no memory of her at all.

‘Yes,’ she finally admitted, ‘you hurt me very badly.’ And it was he who looked away. Stared through the window into the busy high street.

‘What was I like?’

‘Kind.’ she murmured sadly. And loving and exciting, with an accent to curl her toes. But even the accent was harsher now. Grating. And she’d expected to hate him if ever she saw him again. And she some-how—couldn’t.

‘Kind,’ he scoffed bitterly. ‘Dear God, I don’t feel as though I’ve ever been kind in my life. You don’t only lose your memory, you lose the feelings that went with it.’

‘You don’t remember anything?’

‘No.’ Flicking his eyes back to hers, he gave a mocking smile. ‘What did I do when you knew me? Was I gainfully employed, as they say?’

‘No. You were taking time off, looking round for something to do,’ she added quietly. ‘You’d had a string of restaurants you’d sold just before we met.’

‘Which was?’

She gave a sad little smile. ‘Eighteen months ago.’

‘Which means we parted just before I went to South America.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you didn’t know I was going? Or why?’

‘No.’

‘So if I didn’t spend the money from the sale of the restaurants in South America I presumably still have some.’

‘Yes.’

‘Relatives?’

Relatives? She felt a little bubble of hysteria rise up in her throat. Relatives? Oh, yes, you have relatives, Sébastien. You have a wife and a son. A son that you delivered and then abandoned. But she couldn’t tell him that, could she? Because he didn’t remember. And if she did tell him he might want to come—home. So until she knew why he had left...

Staring at him, her gentle face harder, firmer, she shook her head. ‘No. Not to my knowledge.’ Just close friends, intimate friends—like Nathalie, she thought bitterly. Nathalie, who had completed the horror that Sébastien had started. But he had presumably also forgotten Nathalie, and she wasn’t about to reintroduce her.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she denied quickly. Making an effort, trying to think what she should do, she asked instead, ‘What are you doing in Portsmouth?’

‘Disembarking. I was a deck hand on the Pilbeam. Cargo ship.’

‘Oh. You remembered you liked the sea?’

‘No—did I?’

‘Yes, you used to go out sailing quite a lot.’

A rather bleak expression in his eyes, he gave a brief laugh. ‘It was—expedient. The easiest way out of South America. No papers, no money; someone took me on as a deck hand. And, in between trying to find out who I was, deck hand I’ve been ever since.’

‘Why did you have no papers or money?’

‘Because someone presumably “lifted” them whilst I was unconscious after the accident.’

‘Car?’

‘Truck.’

‘Then how have you managed since?’ She frowned. ‘With no papers...’

He reached into his pocket, tossed a passport down in front of her.

Taking it in a hand that still shook, she opened it. It was his picture, but the name was William Blake.

‘You didn’t know you were French?’

‘Yes—or assumed, anyway. I think in French,’ he explained. ‘But it wouldn’t have mattered if I was Chinese. Beggars can’t be choosers, can they?’

‘No,’ she agreed, and didn’t know how she could sit here and talk about incidentals with a man who had betrayed her, disappeared from her life, and had now come back. Still feeling numb, disbelieving, she asked foolishly, ‘Is it...?’

‘Forged? What do you think?’

‘But surely the authorities could have helped you?’

‘Could they?’

‘Yes! In South America...’

He shrugged. ‘They did their best. But with no paper, no memory, no knowledge of what I was doing there, no missing persons reported...’ he added bitterly as he remembered those frustrating, fruitless days.

‘But when you got out,’ she persisted weakly. ‘Surely the French authorities would have helped?’

‘Why? I couldn’t prove I was French. According to them, I was just another illegal immigrant. And suppose I wasn’t French but French Canadian? From somewhere else that speaks French? You think I didn’t try?’