Catherine Archer - Winter's Bride

She shook her head. “I do not, though what you must think of me…having realized that now…after we…” Obviously she could not go on, and Tristan had to look away from her guilt-filled eyes.

Even as he was trying to find the words to help her, to wipe the sorrow and shame away, she said, “I do not understand what is between us, my lord, why this happened, but I know something is wrong. I have no memory of having known you in any way, yet you do seem very familiar to me…to my body. Else…” She blushed scarlet, her gaze dropping to her hands as they clutched the coverlet against her bosom. “Else I would never…”

Taking pity for her embarrassed state, Tristan nodded. “As I said, I have realized your sincerity in thinking you do not recognize me. There is no need to convince me further.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What I do not understand, though, is how you came to this state. How could I—and Sabina—have been so very effectively wiped from your mind?”

Her gaze flew to his. “How do you know that name? Sabina—”

Tristan grimaced, interrupting her. “Sabina was your maternal grandmother. You were close to her when you were quite small.”

She shook her head. “How would you know that? What I know of it has been told to me by my mother. I have no actual memory of that time.”

“I know because you told me, Lily, with your own lips. I do not know what has made you forget all, but you have.”

“’Tis not possible. My parents have told me how I came to lose my memory. They would have told me if I had loved a man—loved you.” Her eyes pleaded with him to agree with her, to put her mind to rest. “It is a mistake. I cannot be the same woman.”

He shook his head, not believing there was anything to be gained in telling her exactly how he felt about her parents. “There is no mistake, Lily. It was you and no other. You said that if you were ever to have a child you would wish to call her by that name…” Tristan grimaced again, this time even more deeply, realizing that in his frustration he had given away more than was wise. How could he have been so foolish as to mention their child? His doing so could only make matters worse. Lily remembered nothing of their time together, of Sabina’s birth, the accident in which he’d believed she had died.

His long pause made her frown. “Go on, finish what you were saying.”

He studied her for a moment. He was tempted to ignore her directive, to make up a tale that would prevent her from knowing the depth of their bond. He knew that it would be easier for her to walk away and never look back. Yet something would not let him. No matter how deeply buried her memory of him might be, there was still a connection between them, had been from the moment they looked at one another across a greensward dotted with May revelers some four years gone by.

Even more than that, did she not have a right to know? He took a deep breath. “Sabina is our daughter.”

She gasped with shock. “Our daughter. How could we have a daughter?”

Tristan could not resist a wry but pointed glance about the rumpled bed.

Lily spoke hurriedly, clearly trying to ignore her own embarrassment, but that did not keep Tristan’s attention from following the blush that graced her lovely white neck. “I know how. I mean how could I not know?”

He dragged his attention from where it had no right to stray and considered her words. How could she not know? Ah, there was the dilemma indeed. He shrugged with resignation. “That I cannot tell you. Surely you would know better than I.”

She shook her head in helpless frustration. “I do not know what to make of any of this. I recall nothing of what you say, yet my reaction to you, the things I have felt this day—done this day—make me know that something is very wrong. I do realize that there could be much that is truth, but foreign to me. I recall only what has occurred in the past three years, since I woke from a terrible illness. That and what my own gentle family has told me of the past.”

Without thinking, he leaned toward her, his gaze intent on hers. “You were ill three years ago?”

“Yes, dreadfully. I was struck upon the head during a carriage accident and fell into a deep and unremitting slumber for many days. My mother and father feared I would be taken from them. When at last I did awaken, I was as a child. It is only by the great love and care of my own parents that I am today able to go on with my life.”

Tristan could only stare. “They told you you were hit upon the head in an accident?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He shook his head in derision. “You may very well have been hit upon the head in the accident, but they have left out some relevant details. You were with me when it happened, Lily. We were running away together. We had met at a fair at a location not far from this very hunting lodge.” His eyes met hers for one long and potent moment. “We fell in…love, but your parents would not hear of a match between our families, as the Grays and the Ainsworths were on opposing sides of the war between the houses of York and Lancaster. We…met in spite of their disapproval. You became pregnant with my child in this very chamber, and when they discovered your state, they forbade any further contact betwixt us, making sure there would be none by keeping you locked in your rooms.”

Taking the coverlet with her as she leaped from the bed, Lily moved to stand before him, her gray eyes flashing in outrage. “Now I know you lie, for that cannot be. They would not keep such things from me. Would never keep me locked away in that manner.”

He looked at her, his gaze unwavering. “How then do you explain what has happened here? You said yourself that I seem familiar to you.” Again he cast a sweeping glance over the bed. “Familiar enough that you would react to me as you did just minutes ago. If I did not know you, why would I have so overcome my own sense of decency that I would forcibly bring you here? Why would I risk my own neck to take you from the protection of several armed men? What could I gain?”

She shook her head. “That I cannot answer, and I do believe that you somehow know me, sir. That much is clear. You are simply mistaken—” she took his measure carefully as she finished “—or lying.”

He looked at her with pity and a hint of anger that he attempted to disguise. “You know that is not true. I am mistaken about nothing. And I certainly have no cause to lie. Make no mistake, I know you—every inch of you, Lily. I would recognize you were I blind, deaf and dumb.”

She blanched, raising a trembling hand to her face. “I do not know. I cannot explain it. I only know that my parents love me. They would never deceive me that way, would never keep the fact from me that I had a child.”

He shrugged. “So be it. Disbelieve the truth of your own instincts.”

Spinning away from him, she moved to the tall windows and stood staring out of them. “Please, I must think and try to make some sense of all this.”

“Very well then, think away, although I do not know of what use it will be to you. I have been thinking the whole night through and have resolved nothing.”

She stood very still for a long time, then rubbed a hand across her forehead as she said, “If only there was a way for me to see this child. Perhaps then—”

He interrupted her. “But that is a wonderful idea.”

She spun around to face him. “You cannot mean that?”

He met her incredulity with reason. “Why not?”

Lily seemed to come to some resolution within herself. “Then you must take me to her now, before my courage is lost.”

Tristan knew this was mad, that there would be complications to such a brash scheme. He knew they must think this through carefully.