You Only Love Twice (6 page)

The attorney had half risen from his chair and she made an effort to collect herself. “No. Thank you.” She managed a smile. “I’m fine.”

He sank back in his chair.

She swallowed hard. “Who did it?”

“No one was ever apprehended.”

“When did it happen?”

“In the late summer of 1815.”

“What date?”

“August sixteenth. I remember the date because it was my wife’s birthday.”

And on the eighteenth, two days later, she had been knocked down by a carriage in front of the convent. She sat there staring mutely up at him as the thought sank into her mind. “And where was I?”

“Where were you? Don’t you know?”

He was looking at her curiously, almost suspiciously. There was no way out of it. She had to tell him the truth.

“I don’t know because I’ve lost my memory as the result of an accident. I remember nothing before I awakened in the convent of the Sisters of Charity. And that was three years ago.”

“You’ve lost your memory?”

“I didn’t even know my own name until a few weeks ago. A patient in the infirmary recognized me. Until then, I was Sister Martha. Now I’m Jessica Hayward, but I know nothing about my life before I was a nun. I don’t even know what I was doing in London, or how long I’d been there before the accident.”

His mouth was agape and he was staring at her as though she’d sprouted another head. It was exactly the reaction she had feared, and it made her squirm.

He closed his mouth. “By damn!” he said. “I think you’re telling the truth! No wonder no one could find you. Who would have believed that Jessica Hayward would have ended up in a nunnery?”

She didn’t allow herself to become diverted. “Mr. Rempel, when exactly did I leave Chalford?”

He hesitated then said, “My memory is uncertain about the exact sequence of events. Constable Clay is the person you should ask.”

“But surely you can tell me whether it was before or after my father’s death?”

“You disappeared the same night your father died,” he said. “Your bed had not been slept in. That’s all anyone knows.”

She stared at him blindly as a confusion of thoughts raced through her brain. “The same night,” she said faintly.

He leaned forward, clasping his plump hands on the flat of his desk. “Listen to me, Miss Hayward. Start afresh somewhere else. You have the funds to do it, oh not on a grand scale, but modestly if you’re careful.”

“Why should I do that?”

He shrugged. “People gossip, you know how it is. You’ve been away for three years. There’s been a great deal of speculation about you.”

She waited expectantly, and when he remained silent, she said, “You must see how it is with me. Without my
memory, I feel lost. Anything you can tell me can only help me to get my bearings.”

“I know very little,” he said, “and most of what I know is based on hearsay. No, Miss Hayward, I’m not the person to ask.”

She was sure he could tell her plenty if he had a mind to. Ignoring that for the moment, she said, “But you do know about my father’s death. How did it happen?”

“He’d been drinking at the Black Swan. He was on his way home when he was set upon and was shot to death.”

“Why should Lucas Wilde feel guilty—that is what you said, isn’t it?”

“Lucas has no need to feel guilty. Anyone could have killed your father. It might have been poachers or footpads.”

“Then what did you mean when you said that Lucas blamed himself for what happened to my father that night?”

“They quarreled, just before the tragedy happened. Your father wasn’t armed when he left the Black Swan, so he wasn’t in a position to defend himself. Lucas had taken his pistol away from him. You need not look like that. Lucas was completely exonerated at the inquest.”

Her breath came quick and fast. “Oh, I don’t doubt it. The noble Earl of Dundas would have many friends in high places.”

He spoke abruptly. “He wasn’t an earl then. He was plain Mr. Wilde. Miss Hayward, let me give you a word of advice. Don’t go around casting aspersions on Lucas’s character. He’s well liked in and around Chalford, and you’ll only make enemies for yourself.”

She bit back an angry retort. The attorney was right. She had to tread carefully here.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what to think, but I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. Tell me about my father. Where did the attack take place?”

He sighed and shook his head, obviously impatient
with her persistence. “He took a short way home, by the bridle path that goes through Hawkshill’s woods. If you want to know more, I suggest you ask at the tollbooth. Constable Clay was on duty that night.”

“And what did Lucas and my father quarrel about?”

He stood up, abruptly bringing their interview to an end. “Constable Clay will be able to tell you more about that, too, but if I were you, I’d talk to Lucas first.”

She could see from his expression that he would not answer any more questions. Smiling to mask her frustration, she allowed him to usher her to the door. She held out her hand. “Thank you for taking care of my affairs, Mr. Rempel.”

He clasped her hand and held on to it, preventing her from leaving. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Miss Hayward, and it’s not my place to tell you. The more I think of it, the more convinced I am that you should talk to Lucas before you come to any decision about your future.”

When she stepped onto the pavement, she began to tremble. Everything was coming together. It was her father’s murder she had seen over and over again. That explained her connection to her Voice. Her father’s murder, not some stranger’s. And two days afterward she was run down by a carriage in London.

Nothing would convince her that these events were unrelated. She didn’t believe in coincidence, not on this scale. Then what had happened? Where was she when her father was murdered and how had she got to London?

Her next thought had her reaching for the door lintel to steady herself. Perhaps everyone in Chalford believed that
she
had murdered her father and had run away to escape the consequences. And what could she say in her own defense? That her
Voice
was responsible? What
Voice
? Where was he?
Who
was he?

Many minutes passed as she groped in her mind for something, some memory to guide her. There was nothing.
All she had to go on were cold facts. And the most significant thing she had learned so far was that Lucas Wilde had quarreled with her father just before the murder. And she could not forget Lucas’s expression when she’d told him she’d come back to find a murderer. He had something to hide, that’s why he had warned her away.

He wasn’t the only one who had warned her away. The attorney had advised her to start afresh somewhere else. It seemed that neither she nor her father had had many friends among the good people of Chalford. In the last three days, no one had come to call. No former friends had descended on Hawkshill to welcome her home. This wasn’t how she’d imagined it would be. Maybe she hadn’t fitted in here any more than she’d fitted in at the convent.

When she realized where her thoughts were leading, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. She didn’t have the time or energy to waste on useless self-pity. She’d returned to Chalford with a purpose and she would do well to remember it.

She had taken only a few steps away from the solicitor’s door when a horse and rider turned the corner of Waterside Street into Sheep Street. It was Lucas. He had yet to see her, and she quickly stepped into the doorway of a draper’s shop where she could watch him unobserved.

On this occasion, he was equal to his horse, more than equal. His loose-limbed grace was pleasing to the eye. In fact, everything about him was pleasing to the eye. He was immaculately turned out in a dark gray coat and doeskin breeches. The powerful muscles in his legs and thighs rippled as he directed his horse. Today, he was wearing a hat, and beneath its broad brim his clean-shaven, handsome face was wreathed in smiles.

The smiles were for various townspeople who had business in Sheep Street. There were many who called out
a greeting to him as he walked his horse up the hill. There was no question in her mind that Lucas Wilde fitted in. He was the last person anyone would suspect of murder. But that’s exactly what her Voice had told her during vespers.

People were such fools. They looked at him and saw exactly what he wanted them to see. No one had ever suspected him of murder. He was too clever for them
.

A fierce determination suddenly seized her. She would unmask him. As God was her witness, she would unmask her Voice! He had shot her father in the back, as if he were vermin. No one deserved to die like that. Her Voice was a monster.

For just a moment, she felt such a pang of grief that she wanted to cry. She’d never given much thought to the victim in the vision her Voice had passed on to her. All she’d felt was the natural regret and horror she would feel for anyone who’d met a violent end. But now she wondered what was going through her father’s mind at the moment of death. Was he afraid? Had he suffered? Were his last thoughts of her?

Blinking rapidly, she turned on her heel and struck out toward Chapel Street. It wasn’t the way she wanted to go, but she had no wish to come face-to-face with her landlord. A short detour would take her to the Black Swan. She’d passed it on the way to the attorney’s office when she’d stopped to watch the Morris dancers on the banks of the river Thames. The Black Swan was the tavern Mr. Rempel had mentioned, where Lucas and her father had quarreled.

It was market day, and in the Black Swan’s inner courtyard, what seemed like a regiment of horses were tethered to hitching posts. Jessica passed the entrance to the courtyard and boldly entered the inn by the front door. Finding no one at the desk in the hall, she followed the sound of voices to a glass door on her left. She took one step into
the room and abruptly halted. Though the place was crowded, there wasn’t a lady in sight except for the young women who were waiting on table.

Someone at her back exclaimed her name and a sea of faces turned to stare at her. Jessica did not hear. She was intent on visualizing the quarrel that had taken place between Lucas Wilde and her father all those years ago.

The room couldn’t have been well lit. This was a Tudor building with small windowpanes and dark crossbeams supporting the low ceilings. The bar was at one end with tankards of ale set out for the barmaids to serve. Some gentlemen were drinking at the counter.

She had the scene well impressed on her mind, but something intruded, something that startled her. She was here, too, not as she was, but as she’d been as a very young girl. She was desperately unhappy about something. Lucas left his friends and came toward her.

“You shouldn’t be here, Jess.”

She didn’t know if it was a memory or simply her imagination.

“You shouldn’t be here, Jess.”

A hand on her arm turned her around. Lucas Wilde was glowering down at her, not the Lucas of her reverie, but someone infinitely more menacing. It took her a moment to come to herself, to distinguish reality from fantasy. Then she was puzzled. She had left him on Sheep Street. How had he got here?

“You followed me!” she said furiously.

He ignored her outburst. “In the name of God, Jess! What the devil do you think you’re doing here?”

“I have business here,” she said sharply.

“Believe me the kind of business you’ll find here won’t be to your taste.”

A movement on the stairs caught his eye and he stepped in front of her, blocking her vision. She circumvented his maneuver by standing on tiptoe to peek over his shoulder. A couple were descending the stairs. The
girl was adjusting the drawstrings on her bodice. The man’s arm was draped around her shoulders, and he was nuzzling her ear. When they passed into the taproom, Lucas turned on her. “See what I mean?”

Jessica did, and her face was red, but she held her ground. “I’ve been in worse places than this when I was a nun, looking for parents who had abandoned their children.”

“I don’t care what you did as a nun. You’re not a nun now, and this is Chalford. Let’s go.”

She stuck out her chin. “I’m not leaving here till I talk to the landlord.”

Whatever Lucas was about to say was forestalled when one of the barmaids caught sight of him and hailed him by name. “It’s me,” she said, smiling broadly as she set down the brandy cask she’d obviously just brought up from the cellar. “Millie Jenkins. ’Ave ye time for a quick one, luv? This one’s on me. I owes you, and Millie Jenkins always pays ’er debts.” Her eyes flickered to Jessica. “You must be the new girl. Come to take Flora’s place, ’ave ye?”

Jessica didn’t know whose face was redder, hers or Lucas’s. He stood stock-still for a moment, darted her an uneasy glance, then bared his teeth in a pathetically false smile. “Some other time, Millie,” he said. “My friend and I were just leaving.”

He grabbed Jessica’s arm and propelled her to the rear of the building. “We’ll go out the back way,” he said curtly. “Perry has his curricle waiting.”

Jessica was sorely tempted to put up a struggle, but her memory of the last time she had struggled with this man was still too vivid for comfort. Humiliated beyond words, she allowed him to have his way.

CHAPTER
5

P
erry had positioned the curricle close to the back door and was standing by the horses, holding them steady. Lucas didn’t give her time to climb into the curricle, but swept her up in his arms, tossed her in and sprang up beside her. When he had the reins in his hands he said, “Perry, mount up.”

Fuming, Jessica watched as the nice young man who had greeted her effusively on her first day in Chalford quickly mounted Lucas’s great black stallion. Perry Wilde obviously found the situation humorous. His eyes were twinkling and he was grinning even more broadly than the barmaid in the taproom. Millie Jenkins, she thought, and sniffed.

“This should give us a semblance of respectability,” said Lucas, and ignoring Perry’s disbelieving laugh, he flicked the reins and urged the matched chestnuts through the arch that gave onto Waterside Street.