Catherine Archer - Winter's Bride

Unexpectedly stung by the insult, Lily swallowed and replied with defiance. “Why would I be bound by my word to the blackguard who took me by force from my fiancé’s men?”

She watched in surprise as his lids flickered at her words. It was almost as if he was disturbed by them.

His rebuttal only served to confuse her even further, and the emptiness in his voice reminded her of the sense of despair she had felt on the day she had woken to discover that she did not recall her own life. “Your fiancé’? So you are not yet married.”

“Nay, not yet. I was on my way to be married when you took me.” She glared at him. “And have as yet no explanation for why those who care for me must wait in fear of my safe return.”

Two deep furrows appeared between his eyebrows as he snapped, “Lily, I have had quite enough of this. You will cease pretending that you do not know me. And you will do so now!” Yet in spite of his anger there was no mistaking the shadow of anguish that darkened his eyes.

The sudden sense that this man was acting from a place of deep pain made her pause and bite back the heated reply that sprang to her lips. Something was wrong here, for there was no mistaking that this man felt she was deliberately antagonizing him.

There must be some explanation. Perhaps he had mistaken her for some other woman, and hearing him out would clear up the confusion. Perhaps then she could use reason to help him see that she was not the woman he sought.

A woman named Lily who bears your own likeness, said the same inner voice that had plagued her earlier. This time it had an incredulous edge.

Lily scowled. It was possible.

Unexpectedly, the memory of how she had reacted to her first sight of him on the steps at the inn rose up to haunt her. In that first brief moment it was as if he were no stranger, as if…

Could her strange reaction, that inexplicable sense of familiarity, be clouding her judgment even now? Could it be making her more willing to try to understand this disturbing man’s point of view?

Nay, she would not think on it. She did not know this man. ‘Twas impossible.

He interrupted her thoughts. “Well, what say you?”

She replied with more care this time, remembering her decision to use reason to help him understand that she was not the woman he believed her to be. “I know not what to say, sir. You have me at a disadvantage. I do not recall where or how we might have met.” She met his angry gaze directly and openly, not wavering as he seemed to search the very depths of her soul with those all-too-adamant eyes.

What he saw in her gaze made him frown, but she glimpsed the first hint of uncertainty in his wellsculpted face. He studied her for another long moment, then shook his head with a bitter laugh as he sat down on the bed near her. She was not concerned about his sitting on the bed now. Ravishing her seemed to be the furthest thing from his mind as he replied with deliberate care, his voice filled with amazement, “At last I see. You do not know me.”

Lily felt slightly encouraged by this seeming acceptance of her position. She nodded eagerly. “I do not. I can see that you are most eager to find the woman you seek, and for your sake I am very sorry that I am not she. Lily is indeed my name, but that is nothing more than an extremely unlikely coincidence.”

He did not look at her, and his tone was so low she could barely hear as he said, “A coincidence.”

Relief at his finally understanding made her voice brighter than it might otherwise have been. “Yes, yes, now you see.”

Before she even knew what was happening he had whipped around to grasp her shoulders in his two large hands, his face so near hers she could feel the hot brush of his breath on her face. “Oh aye, I see. I see everything. You are not the Lillian Gray I met and loved with every fiber of my being, would have given the last breath in my body to spend even a mere instant with. That was not you but another woman who bears your name, whose soft skin covered fragile bones that feel as yours do beneath my fingers, whose mouth spoke to me in her sweet voice, the same voice that comes from your lips. You would have me accept that you are she in flesh and bone, but you are not my Lily.”

Even as she tried to push away from the hard wall of his chest, Lily felt her own heart thud in reaction to the depth of misery and loss in his voice. Even in her trepidation she could not help thinking, God, to be loved as this man loved his Lily.

This man, who was not ill favored by any means himself, had been driven mad by the pain of his loss, mad to the point of wanting his Lily so desperately that he had taken another woman with the same name to replace her.

Suddenly she wondered what had befallen this other Lily. For surely something had. No woman could turn aside from such a deep and true devotion.

Unexpectedly she was overwhelmed by the depth of her own sympathy for that long lost woman. And, surprisingly, for this man.

What was she to do to help him? She had no understanding of how to do so. In the past three years it was she who had been the recipient of the devotion of others, a devotion she did not quite know how to return. Not once in that time had she ever felt that anyone truly needed her, as she felt this man did now. The sense of being needed was at once frightening and exhilarating, calling up reserves of compassion she had not even known she possessed.

Though he had not loosened his grip on her, Lily felt her fear dissipate as quickly as it had come, she knew not why. She also sensed with a strange unquestioning certainty that in spite of his seeming lack of control, he would never harm her.

Without understanding why she did so, Lily reached up and put a gentle hand to his cheek. “I am so sorry, so very sorry that I am not she.”

At her touch his hold on her loosened and he slumped against her, his forehead pressing to hers. “Oh, God help me. I know not what to do, Lily. The wrong words continue to come from your lips, yet I cannot sustain my anger, not when you touch me. Not when I thought never to be touched by you again.” His arms closed around her.

Lily was instantly, yet utterly and completely suffused with warmth and well-being. She gasped with shock at her own reaction. There was no denying how right it felt to have him holding her, his hard chest pressed to hers. This hurting man and his nearness were more real than anything she had experienced since waking from the long sleep that had robbed her of her past.

How could that be? He was a stranger, totally unknown to her. Surely it was only sympathy for his anguish that made her feel this way.

Still, she said nothing, overcome and unable to understand her own responses.

When he buried his face in her throat, drawing in a deep breath as if taking the scent of her into himself, she knew she should pull away. Inexplicably Lily found she could not, for his action made a wave of dizzying weakness sweep over her, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

His breath was hot on her exposed nape as he whispered in hoarse desperation, “Lily, Lily.”

She closed her eyes as a shudder of some indefinable sensation raced down her spine. The feeling was terrifying and oh so very alluring all at the same time.

The next thing she knew, his mouth, so hot and strange, yet achingly familiar, was pressed to the sensitive flesh he had just grazed with his heated breath. Again she gasped, even as she was racked by a shudder of reaction that left an odd heaviness in her limbs and chest. The sound seemed to encourage him, for his arms tightened and he shifted so that she lay more fully in his arms.

She turned her head, trying to breathe, to think, to get hold of her scattered senses. He pressed his mouth to her own.