He sighed, but said nothing.
She stood and said in the kind of voice she used on the children when she was trying to exert her authority, “If you don’t tell me, I’ll have no choice but to inform the authorities. So who are you?”
There was a long silence before he said reluctantly, “I don’t know.”
Five
“What do you mean you don’t—” She broke off. “You mean you don’t remember who you are?” Was this another ploy to avoid telling her his name?
“No.”
“You truly have no idea?”
“None at all. It’s all a blank.” His brow furrowed. “Are you saying you don’t know me, either?”
“I never saw you until two days ago, when you fell off your horse outside my house.”
His mouth twisted. “But I thought . . .”
“Thought what?”
He patted the bed. “You slept here, with me.”
Her cheeks heated and she gathered up the things on the tray and jumped off the bed. “Only because you were unconscious—or so I thought—and because the alternative was freezing on the floor. And I put in Hadrian’s Wall to keep us separated, but somebody”—she narrowed her eyes at him—“removed it. Both times.”
“Hadrian’s Wall?”
“It was a wall the Roman Emperor Hadrian built to keep out the wild Scot—”
“I know what Hadrian’s Wall is. But how could you put it in our bed?”
“Mybed,” she said instantly. “And this is Hadrian’s Wall.” She gestured to the still rolled-up quilt, then blinked as she took in what he’d just revealed. “You know what Hadrian’s Wall is? And yet you claim you can’t remember your own name?”
“I don’tclaimit—it’s true!” He made a frustrated gesture. “And don’t ask me how I can remember a Roman emperor but not who I am or where I was going, because I can’t explain it. I only know that it’s true.”
He sounded both angry and bewildered, and strange as it sounded, Maddy was inclined to believe him. “But I’mcertainI knowyou,” he finished.
“You don’t. We’ve never met before.”
“No. I recognized your scent in the night. Even in the darkness, I knew it was you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t wear scent.”
“I know that. I’m not talking about something out of a bottle. It wasyouI recognized, your own womanly scent.” The look he gave her scorched her.
She opened her mouth to say something, some withering remark that would put this too-familiar stranger back in his place, but no words would come. Her mouth was open with no sound coming out, like a baby bird whose cheep had dried up.
She turned away, her face—her whole body—burning.Her own womanly scent. How mortifying! She was scrupulous in her bathing habits, washing herself and the children every morning and night. But if he could smell her, well! She obviously needed to take a bath—immediately! With a different kind of soap.
That probably explained his overfamiliarity. He had a wife or a mistress who used the same kind of soap. Maddy made her own soap using beeswax and other ingredients. It would be expensive to buy, but not when you kept bees and could make it yourself.
“And now I’ve made you cross,” he said.
She shot him a narrow glance. “Have you?”
He grinned. “Definitely cross.”
She started washing dishes, hoping he would go back to sleep. She could feel his gaze on her the whole time.
