They ate in silence, unanswered questions hovering over them, like the spectre at the feast. Even Amy was silent and anxious. The stranger watched the tableau, his eyes narrowed, going from one to the other, taking in everything.
Finally the porridge was finished, though Ellie doubted if anyone had enjoyed it. She began to collect the bowls, but Mr. Bruin stopped her with a gesture. He was nervous, Ellie knew. She sat down beside him again and took his hand.
The stranger noticed. She felt his disapproval and a sliver of ice slipped into her heart. It meant something, that look. It meant he thought she had no right to be holding this man’s hand, this dear, battered hand, beloved in such a short time. He knew who her Mr. Bruin truly was. She hung on to the hand tighter, knowing it might be the last time.
She felt him squeeze her hard in response. He was as worried as she was. Amy came around the table and leaned against him. He put an arm around the little girl. Ellie felt a half-hysterical bubble of emotion rise in her throat. It was as if the three of them were a family, ranged defensively against the stranger, when, in fact, the opposite was true. This small spare man had come to take their beloved Mr. Bruin back to his true family.
“So, you say you know me. Then who am I?”
The stranger stared disbelievingly back at him.
Ellie explained in a flat voice, “He arrived here having been robbed and injured. His head was bleeding profusely and he slept like the dead for a night and a day. When he awoke, he had no recollection of anything—who he was, where he lived—nothing.”
“Head injury, eh? That explains a lot.”
At Ellie’s look, he explained, “I’ve seen it before ma’am, in the army. Man gets hit on the head and loses it all for a time. Knew one bloke what never recovered all the memories, but most of ’em does.” He turned. “You’ll be all right, Capt’n Ambrose. Soon as I get you home, it’ll all come back to you.”
“Captain Ambrose? It doesn’t sound the least bit familiar. What is my full name?”
“Capt’n Daniel Matthew Bramford Ambrose, late of the 5th Regiment.”
Daniel
. Ellie thought. It suited him.
“And you are?” said Daniel.
The small man leapt to his feet and saluted. “Sergeant William Aloysius Tomkins, sir!” He waited a moment, then shrugged and sat down again. “Thought it might bring something back, sir. I was your sergeant for nigh on seven years. You call me Tomkins when you’re with the nobs and Tommy when we’re on our own.”
Daniel smiled faintly. “So, I am…I was a soldier…”
The sergeant grinned. “Indeed you was, Capt’n, for the last seven years—all but a month or two—and a mighty good one, at that. Best man in a scrap anyone could ask for.”
Daniel glanced down at his big battle-scarred hands and glanced up at Ellie, a rueful look in his eyes. She thought he’d been a fighter and he was, just not the sort of fighter she’d imagined. He wasn’t a gutter brawler—he was possibly a hero.
Ellie found herself fighting a battle between wanting to hear more about him—and wanting to know nothing more, for with every word the sergeant spoke, her Mr. Bruin and the fragile dreams she’d built around him drifted further away from her…
“Where do I live?”
“Until recently, all over the Peninsula, fighting Boney, sir, but when your brother died a few months back, you sold out and came home. To Rothbury. Ring a bell, sir?”
Ellie knew it. It was a town about a half-day’s travel to the north-west of her.
Daniel shook his head.
“No? Oh, well, it’ll come, don’t you worry.” The sergeant paused, then said deliberately, “You have family responsibilities at Rothbury, Capt’n.”
Family responsibilities
. Ellie felt the sliver of ice slide deeper in her heart.
“Family responsibilities?” Daniel said at last. He was squeezing Ellie’s hand so tightly it was painful, but she couldn’t bear to have him let go of her. It would happen all too soon.
“I have a wife, then?”
Say no, say no, say no!
Ellie prayed silently. She could not breathe.
The stranger took an age to answer. He glanced at Ellie, then at Amy and then back at Daniel. And then said in the most ordinary of voices, “Yes, Capt’n, of course you have a wife. And a fine, beautiful lady she is, too.”
Ellie could not breathe. Something was blocking her throat.
Of course he had a wife
. She had known it from the start. Stupid, stupid Ellie, to have let herself fall in love in a matter of days with a mysterious stranger.
He was strong and rugged and handsome, he was honourable, he was protective of women, he loved children. Of course he had a wife. He was altogether lovable.
And of course, his wife would be a fine, beautiful lady and probably sweet-natured and intelligent as well. She certainly wouldn’t be a poverty-stricken, shabbily dressed widow. Stupid, stupid Ellie, thinking she had found love at last. Foolish, woolly-headed widgeon for forgetting that even when she had been a carefree young lady, passably pretty and very well dressed, she hadn’t found love. She had needed her late father’s money to buy her a husband. And not a very good one at that.
She’d long ago learned that fate was not her friend. She’d just forgotten the lesson.
The sergeant continued, “And, of course, your, um… Mrs. Ambrose has been terribly distressed by your disappearance.”
Daniel nodded vaguely. He was still gripping her hand so hard Ellie knew it would come up in a bruise later. Even so, she hung on to his hand for all she was worth. If a bruise was all she was going to have of him, then a bruise was what she would have. She could take that to bed with her instead. That and her dreams and memories. And regrets.
Regrets.
How she wished he hadn’t been such a gentleman this morning.
“Mr. Bruin, you’re squeezin’ me too hard,” complained Amy.
“Sorry, Princess,” he murmured and gave her a gentle hug. “You run and play with your dolls while your mother and I talk to Ssergeant nt Tomkins, here.”
“I can’t. The squire smashed them up and kicked them in the fire.” Amy touched him, hesitantly. “Are you going to leave Mama and me, Mr. Bruin?” Her voice quavered.
That was Ellie’s signal. Amy needed her mother to be strong. She wasn’t going to fall apart. She wasn’t going to be ruled by her instincts, those instincts which shrieked inside her to weep and cling and rage at fate, the instincts which had made her fall in love with a married man. He wasn’t her Mr. Bruin; he was a Mr. Daniel Ambrose, with a loving wife awaiting his return. She had pride. She had her daughter to think of. She refused to disgrace herself.
Ellie wrenched her hand out of Daniel’s, jumped to her feet and said brightly. “Yes, darling, isn’t that wonderful for Mr. Bruin? Although he isn’t Mr. Bruin any more, he’s Mr. Ambrose. And Sergeant Tomkins is his friend and has come to take him home to his family, who is waiting for him and who love him very much and miss him terribly. Isn’t that exciting? Now come and help Mama wash these dishes and let the gentlemen talk.” She gathered up the bowls, knowing she was babbling, smiling so hard she thought her face would split.
But Amy didn’t move. She fixed big blue eyes on Daniel and asked in a tragic little voice, “Have you already got a little girl of your own, Mr. Bruin?”
He stroked her curly head with a big, gentle hand. His voice was deep and husky and it seemed to catch in his throat as he said, “I don’t know, Princess. Have I got a little girl, Sergeant? Or any children at all?”
The sergeant tugged at the neatly tied stock around his stiff collar. He cleared his throat. “Er…not yet, sir. Though…er, hrrumph, your mother has…er, expectations of…of being made a grandmother…soon. She speaks of it often.”
Oh mercy, his wife must be expecting a child
. Ellie closed her eyes and swished the bowls and water frantically, appearing busy. “Oh! So you are anticipating a happy event! How splendid! No wonder your wife is so anxious about you, Mr. Ambrose. A woman is always more emotional at that…delicate time. What delightful anticipation for your mother. To be a grandmother must be marvellous. A child has a special relationship with a grandmother. If she has one, that is. Amy never had a grandmother. They both died before she was born.”
Foolish, babbling Ellie
. She forced herself to take a deep breath and added brightly, “It’s so amazingly lucky that Sergeant Tomkins managed to find you in such an out-of-the-way place. How did you find him, Sergeant? Tell us the whole story.”
The sergeant regarded her thoughtfully for a moment and then explained to Daniel, “You’d decided to go to Newcastle to order some new clothes, them that you’d come home from the wars with bein’ unfit for company, so your mother said, an’ nothing in the house to fit you, your late brother bein’ a smaller man than you, sir.”
That explained the worn and shabby clothes, thought Ellie sadly as she rubbed apathetically at the dishes. They’d been to war with him.
“You’d decided to stay for a few weeks, to get out of your m—” The sergeant stopped and cleared his throat. “You were feeling a little restless at Rothbury, sir. So you sen me on ahead to find lodgings and set up a few appointments. But when you didn’t arrive in the lodgings I got worried—you being a man what keeps to your word, sir.”
Oh, yes, he kept to his word
, thought Ellie regretfully, thinking of those few glorious moments when she’d woken in his arms. And he’d told her to go. On his honour.
“So then when they sent word that your horse had been found but no sign of you, I came a’lookin’. I asked in every village between here and town, lookin’ in every ditch and gully and clump of trees, headin’ for Rothbury. And then I saw a pair of boots, sir, on sale in the market place, and I thinks to myself, I’ve seen them boots before.”
There was a pause and the sergeant said a little throatily. “I don’t mind saying the sight of them boots gave me a right nasty turn, Capt’n, because I figured the only way you’d give up your boots was if you was dead.”
He loved Daniel, too, thought Ellie sadly. And he’d grieved when he thought him dead.
“So then I went to the church, to see if the minister had buried anyone lately. He told me you were alive and in the care of a local widow…” He glanced at Ellie and then back at Daniel. “I bought back your boots. And there’s a change of clothes for you, sir, in the bag there.”
An awkward silence fell in the cottage.
“Ah, right,” Daniel finally said. “Good thinking, Sergeant.”
Ellie forced herself to say it. To get it over with. “So, Mr. Daniel Ambrose, you’d better put on your boots and change your clothes. With any luck this mild weather will hold and you will be home to your wife by this evening.” She smiled, a wide, desperate smile that stretched her lips and made her jaw ache. Could a smile shatter a person? She hoped not.
“Oh, Ellie,” he said softly and put out a hand.
She wanted to grab it, to cling and never let him go, but she turned away instead. “Hurry up, then.” She felt her eyes fill and blinked furiously to keep them from spilling down her cheeks. “You don’t want to keep the sergeant waiting. Your wi—” Her voice cracked. “Your family is waiting to hear the news that you are alive.”
Daniel watched her turn away. He felt ill.
He had a
wife!
Dammit! How could he have forgotten that? The sergeant seemed to think this wife loved him, too. Had he loved her, this unknown beautiful lady who was expecting his child?
And if he had, how could he go on loving her, now that he had found Ellie?
Because he didn’t believe it was possible to love anyone more than he loved Ellie. He might not remember any details of his life, but right at this moment he knew, deep within himself, in his bones and his blood, that he loved Ellie with every shred of his being.
Had he loved another woman in this same way, with this intensity of feeling, before he was hit on the head by footpads?
This wife meant nothing to him now. Would Ellie mean nothing to him once his memory was regained? The thought terrified him. He didn’t want his memories. He wanted Ellie.
He looked at her. She turned away, her mouth stretched in a travesty of a smile, her eyes brimming with tears. She was trying so hard to be brave and cheerful, not to make him feel bad. Oh Ellie, Ellie… How was it possible to love someone so much in such a short time? How was it possible to lose so much with one blow?
And how was he ever going to leave her?
The sergeant handed him his boots.
Ellie watched Daniel trudge up the stairs to her bedroom for the last time. Her hands were busy wiping the table down, but her mind was with him, imagining every move he made. The way he pulled off his shirt, the look and feel of the broad, hard chest underneath, his beautiful sculpted shoulders, the way he bent his head when—“Here y’are, Mrs. Carmichael. This should cover everything.”
Ellie blinked. The sergeant was holding something out to her. Without thinking she extended her hand and took it. Then she glanced down. It was a small leather pouch. It was heavy and the contents clinked. “What is this?”
“Payment.”
“Payment? For what?”
“For looking after Capt’n Ambrose, of course. What else?”
It was as if he had slapped her. She gathered her dignity together and laid the pouch gently on the table. “No, thank you.”
The sergeant frowned. “Ain’t it enough?”
Ellie stared at the man incredulously. Her heart was breaking and he thought she wanted to haggle over a few coins? “No payment is necessary, Sergeant.”
The sergeant jutted his chin mulishly. “Capt’n Ambrose always pays his shot.”
Ellie just looked at him. He shifted, uneasy under her gaze.
“Ellie, could you help me with this for a moment?” Daniel called from upstairs.
“Coming,” she called. “Put your money away, Sergeant Tomkins,” she said wearily. “It’s not wanted here.”
The moment she entered the upstairs room he pulled her into his arms. He hugged her hard against his body and she could feel his need and his pain. “I don’t want to leave you,” he groaned and covered her mouth with his, tasting her hungrily, devouring her.