Peregrine's Prize (10 page)

"Who is she? Why is she here?" He
swallowed and took hold of Maggie's hand in a tight grip as if the contact
would give him the answers.

"You tell us." On his other side, Nash took
his other arm and helped guide him down the rest of the stairs to the lounge.
"The sawbones will have my guts for garters if he sees you like this.
We're supposed to be keeping you calm, not letting you get agitated. Here, sit
down and be quiet." Perry found himself pushed into a large, squashy
armchair, and a mug of watered down ale pressed into his hands. He closed his
eyes to try to stop the room wavering, and drank gratefully, somewhat annoyed
at the lack of flavor.

"Cat’s piss," he said and opened his eyes.
"Am I a bigamist?"

The response wasn't what he expected. The other
three occupants of the room burst out laughing.

"Why would you say that?" Nash asked
eventually, after Perry wondered if he'd inadvertently strayed into Bedlam.
"Lud man, even in our f … in my employ that's not acceptable, and some say
I run a remarkably lax household. Love, get him some undiluted ale, and if it
fells him, so much the better. We'll have obeyed the good doctor by following
his orders to keep him quiet."

Perry snorted. "May I say I prefer this way
than laudanum. I have this feeling something is very wrong here. I know I love
my wife." He grinned at Maggie who smiled back at him, even though her
eyes clouded over like a shadow across the moon on a starlit night. "But
this other lady seems familiar."

Maggie made a noise, which sounded like a cross
between a snort and a growl.

Perry harrumphed. "No, stop scowling, not to
the extent that sounds but also as someone I know, and who I supposed to be
important to me. Now how do I know that? And about alcohol as a drug to smooth
away pain? I fell out of a tree—no, someone—you." He pointed at Nash, who
inclined his head without apology. "You pushed me, and the damned leech
tried to give me the stuff. Mama was horrified and papa gave me a slug of
whisky instead. It made me as sick as a dog, but my leg was set in record time.
What?" All three of them were standing in front of him.

Maggie shook her head, and looked toward Nash.

"It seems your memory is selecting what to
remember," Nash said. "I wonder why you chose to remember that?"

"It seems a broken leg inflicted by my brother
is an occasion
to
remember,"
Perry said. Then he replayed his words in his mind. "Brother? You're my
brother?"

Nash inclined his head. "For my sins, one of
which
was
pushing you out of the
tree. In my defense you confiscated my catapult not long before."

"You were a hoyden, a wild child who needed
direction. Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do I think you needed direction? Why did I
remember that specific even? You
are
my
brother?"

"Oh yes, what else do you remember?"

"Nash," The lady whose name Perry didn't
know, but who seemed so familiar spoke in a warning tone to his brother. "He
has to remember by himself. You do not lead him or drop hints."

Nash looked not one whit abashed. Perry turned to
the lady.

"And you are?"

"Felicity. Nash's wife. That much I can tell
you."

Perry mulled over her words. Something was missing
from that sentence. "In so far as it goes, that sounds right," he said
slowly. "However, I know there is more. Yes all right, you won't tell me,
but dammit, why can't I remember things from now instead of things that aren't
relevant?"

"Perhaps somehow they are relevant,"
Maggie said quietly. "It's just that you don’t know why yet. When your
mind thinks you're strong enough to cope with the here and now, it will unlock
that door for you. But remembering the catapult incident helped you remember
Nash."

Perry saw the sense in that. "So you're not my
employer?"

"No, thank the lord."

"Well what do I do?"

"Ask too many questions, it seems." Doctor
Nicholls entered the room unheard. "I let myself in, but might I suggest
you keep the doors barred until we find out who masterminded the attack. Am I
right in thinking your memory is selecting information to impart to you?"

"Evidently." Perry looked the doctor up
and down. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t familiar. As Nash ushered the
ladies out of the room, the doctor began to question Perry closely. He answered
his questions as Dr. Nicholls listened intently.

"Then," he said as Perry stopped speaking,
"All we can do is wait. You need to watch your back."

Perry gasped, and grabbed the doctor's arm. "She
said that, my attacker. Get Nash, please, as fast as you can."

 
To his
credit, the doctor didn't ask any more questions but opened the door and walked
out. Within seconds Nash followed the doctor back inside the room. Both women
slipped in behind him and stood quietly, by the window. Nash slumped into a
chair identical to the one Perry occupied. Doctor Nicholls stood next to the
door, in deceptively realized pose. Perry decided he looked like a terrier on
guard duty.

The doctor's straw colored hair sat somewhat wiry, and
his build sturdy rather than elegant. Perry wondered if they all thought he was
about to bolt for freedom? Where they thought he would go was a mystery, as he
didn't know exactly who he was, where he was, or why he was wherever he was. It
was enough to confuse anyone, memory loss or not.

"Lord, this is like doing one of those giant
dissected map puzzles with the important pieces hidden. Nigh on impossible to fathom
it out." Nash stretched his arm high above his head. "I'm weary. It's
been a long few days."

"Never mind that," Perry spoke, and winced
as he heard the impatience in his voice. It wouldn't help. "Well I have fathomed
one thing, three people attacked me, and one of them spoke the same words as
the doctor did a few moments ago. 'You need to watch your back'."

"Did you recognize him?" Nash leaned
forward to ask.

Perry bit his lip. "As I remember no one apart
from what I have told you, it's not likely is it?
 
More to the point, it wasn't a he, it was a
she."

Chapter Ten

"Gussie Gravesend," Maggie burst out, and
then colored as three people turned to look at her. One with a question in his
eyes, and the other two with different degrees of condemnation.
Ah well.

"Gussie who?" Doctor Nicholls asked.
"A female you know might have done this?" he sounded scandalized.
"A gentlewoman?"

"Not much gentle about her," Nash said
grimly. "She's a hard headed determined virago, with a temper to strip the
lead off the church roof if crossed. And The Grettons have done rather a lot of
that lately." He paused and rolled his eyes. "Crossing her, not
stripping lead. Oh hell, the tell all tongue seems to have infiltrated me as
well."

The doctor pushed himself off the wall. "Well
as he hasn't screamed, passed out, or foamed at the mouth, I daresay telling
him a bit more won't do any harm now, even if it doesn't do any good. The mind
is a mysterious thing, which we know little about. I've seen it before, this
blankness of the mind."

"Does the blankness lift?" Perry asked
him, with the strain in his voice evident.

Doctor Nicholls touched his shoulder.
"Sometimes. Sometimes not. With each person it's different, and never let anyone
tell you otherwise. It is my considered opinion that as you are getting
snippets, and it seems they come due to trigger words, I see no reason why, if
you ask a question, it isn't answered." He walked across the room and
picked up his cloak. "You know where I am if you need me, but somehow, I
don't think you will. I can see myself out."

The silence in the room once he departed seemed as
heavy as an autumn fog blanketing the countryside. After a long minute Nash stirred.
"I'll just go and check all the doors are locked. We need to plan."
He walked out of the room.

"Bring food and drink," Perry called after
him. "Planning on an empty stomach never works."

Maggie sniggered. "As you say. Are you
comfortable in here, love? Do you want to go back to bed?"

Perry shook his head, and Maggie was overjoyed to
note he didn’t wince at the movement. "Only if you join me, and we get rid
of the others."

Felicity rolled her eyes. "He was never like
that with me," she whispered in Maggie's ear. "Stuffy, prosy, 'I know
what's best', and no deviations. You are so right for him."

"And you for Nash," Maggie whispered back.

"Ahem." Perry tapped
his chair arm. "It's rude to whisper. What are you plotting? And why do I
think Felicity was important in my past?"

"She's my wife," Nash
strolled back into the room and answered before either Felicity or Maggie
could. He set down the loaded tray he carried on a convenient table adjacent to
the chair Perry sat in, "Your sister by marriage."

"I know that," Perry
replied and ran his hand over his chin and tapped his teeth with his fingernail.
The familiar gesture made Maggie well up. She brushed at her eyes with the back
of her hand, annoyed at her weakness. It was so like him, and usually preluded
something hot and heavy. That wasn't probable this time, and she cursed the
heavy lump of disappointment that lodged in her stomach. It would be so perfect
to lift his cock from its nest of hair, take it in her mouth and feel it grow
and harden as she laved it until he shuddered and spilled. So involved in her
dreams, and the way her juices made their presence known to her, she almost
missed Perry's next question.

"Why did I think I was
involved in bigamy?"

No one answered. Felicity nibbled
her lip and looked at Maggie who shrugged.

"Well? Nash? As the women
seem to have developed my affliction and have memory loss perhaps you can
enlighten me?"

"I could, but will I?"
Nash raised one eyebrow and laughed as Perry made his hands into fists. "You
know we used to call you Prosy Perry? You seem to have lost that part of you
thank god, however it is almost too much to ask of me not to realize I could
tell you anything and you would have no way of disproving it. For instance you
owe me the one hundred guineas I won off you when Satin whelped eight puppies.
You wagered she would have but three."

"Five," Perry shot back
without a pause. "And we wagered twenty five guineas only. Not only that,
it seems your memory is also at fault, for I paid you when I came to sort Harry
out."

The room became quiet again and
then slowly, Nash began to clap.

"Bravo, so that is the way
to help you remember. Goad you and tell you lies."

"Nash Gretton, stop
it," Felicity said and shook her husband. The effect was like a butterfly
on the branch of an oak tree but it was enough for him to smile at her, in what
Maggie decided was a particularly mawkish manner.

I'm
jealous.
She
also accepted she was scared she and Perry would never regain all they shared
before his assault.

"What, what have I
said?" Nash asked in an over-innocent voice. To Maggie's delight, Perry
mimed vomiting noises.

"It's not what you said,
which somehow I think we left behind when we donned long trousers, but how you
looked. To someone who can't remember the delights of the flesh," he
turned and winked at Maggie who felt her quim begin to shake and her cunt
contract. "Then it is cruel indeed to act thus."

Nash possessed the intelligence
to look contrite, but Felicity giggled.

"That is a very limited
memory, my lord."

 
Maggie groaned. No one as yet mentioned Perry's
title, or their family name. She couldn't believe Perry hadn't picked up on it.
However neither did she think Felicity would have used either without
consulting Nash beforehand. "Look, stop messing and let's try to sort all
this out. I want to spend time with my husband without fear of a bullet in my
back, or a knife at my throat. Can we recap what Perry knows, and what he and
we need to sort out?"

Nash nodded, and Maggie went to
sit on a low stool next to Perry.

 
He bent his head to stroke her ear.

"Earrings, and you know how
I like you in that position. Bent over it would be better, but I can
wait." Once Nash and Felicity seated themselves in much, Maggie realized,
the same way as she and Perry, Perry raised his voice. "Shall I recap all
I remember? I seem to have lots of fragments coming to me, but I have no idea
in what order they are meant to be."

"If you will." Nash
handed him a wedge of pie and a tankard. Perry nodded his thanks and took a bite
of pie and ate it before he started to speak. He only used one hand, and left
the other one to toy with Maggie's hair and ear. Strands came out of the loose
knot she twisted it into, and he tugged on them. Perry always hated her hair
tied up.

"I remember an old house,
and that blasted tree you threw me out off," he began. "It was
summer, and according to Papa—now I can't see a face but I know it must have
been he—only my thick skull and the heavy foliage saved me from more than a
broken leg."