“Although,” Cecilia said, giving the matter more thought than she’d done the day before, “you’d have to have been in a boat, wouldn’t you? How else would you have got to Manhattan? There’s no bridge to this part of the island. And I don’t think you swam.”
“True,” he murmured.
Cecilia watched him for a moment, then could not help but giggle.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You get this look,” she said. “Every time you try to remember something.”
“Oh really?” He made a look like he was trying to be sardonic, but she knew he was teasing.
“Yes, you go a bit like this—” She drew her brows together and let her eyes go blank. She had a feeling she was not getting it quite right, and in fact a more prickly man might think she was poking fun at him.
He stared at her. “You look unhinged.”
“I believe you mean you look unhinged.” She waved one of her hands near her face. “I am your mirror.”
He burst out laughing, then reached out and tugged her toward him. “I am fairly certain I have never seen anything so delightful in the mirror.”
Cecilia felt herself smiling, even as warning bells went off in her mind. It was so easy to be happy with him, so easy to be herself. But this wasn’t her life. And she wasn’t his wife. It was a role she’d borrowed, and eventually she’d have to give it back.
But no matter how hard she tried to keep herself from growing too comfortable in her role as Mrs. Rokesby, it was impossible to resist his smile. He pulled her closer, and then closer still, until his nose rested on hers.
“Have I told you,” he said, his voice warmed with joy, “how very happy I am that you were at my side when I awakened?”
Her lips parted, and she tried to speak, but every word sat uncomfortably in her throat. He had not said this, as a matter of fact, at least not so explicitly. She shook her head, unable to take her eyes from his, drowning in the warmth of his bright blue gaze.
“If I had known,” he continued, “I’m sure I would have told you not to come. In fact I am quite sure I would have forbidden it.” His mouth twisted into that wry spot halfway between a grimace and a smile. “Not, I imagine, that that would have swayed you.”
“I was not your wife when I boarded the ship,” she said quietly. Then she died a little when she realized this might be the most honest statement she would utter all day.
“No,” Edward said, “I suppose you were not.” He cocked his head to the side, and his brow drew together the way she’d been teasing him about, but his eyes stayed sharp. “Now what?” he asked, when he saw how she was studying him.
“Nothing, just that you were almost making the same expression as before. Your brow was the same, but your eyes didn’t glaze over.”
“You make me sound so appealing.”
She laughed. “No, it’s interesting. I think—” She paused, trying to figure just what she was thinking. “You weren’t trying to remember something this time, were you?”
He shook his head. “Just pondering the great questions of life.”
“Oh stop. What were you really thinking about?”
“Actually, I was thinking that we need to look into the laws of proxy marriages. We ought to know the exact date of the union, wouldn’t you agree?”
She tried to say yes. She couldn’t quite manage it.
Edward tugged on his cuffs, smoothing out his sleeves so that his coat lay smooth on his body. “You went second, so I imagine it was whenever you got the captain to perform your side of the ceremony.”
Cecilia gave a tiny nod—all she could manage with the boulder in her throat.
But Edward did not seem to notice her distress, or if he did, he must have thought she was just being emotional over the memory of her wedding, because he dropped a quick kiss on her lips, straightened, and said, “Time to greet the day, I suppose. I’m meeting with Colonel Stubbs downstairs in a few minutes, and I can’t be late.”
“You’re meeting with Colonel Stubbs, and you did not tell me?”
His nose wrinkled. “Did I not? An oversight, I’m sure.”
Cecilia did not doubt him in this. Edward did not keep secrets from her. He was remarkably open, all things considered, and when he asked for her opinion, he actually listened to her response. She supposed that to some degree he did not have much choice; with such a large hole in his memory he had to rely on her judgment.
Except . . . she could not imagine many other men doing the same. She’d always been proud of the fact that her father had left the running of the house in her hands, but in her heart she knew that he had not done so because he’d thought her especially capable. He just didn’t want to bother with it himself.
“Do you wish to join me?” Edward asked.
“For your meeting with the colonel?” Cecilia’s brows rose. “I cannot imagine he will wish to have me there.”
“All the more reason for you to come. I learn far more when he’s in a bad mood.”
“In that case, how can I refuse?”
Edward opened the door and stepped aside, waiting for her to precede him into the hall.
“It does seem odd that he’s not more forthcoming,” Cecilia said. “Surely he wants you to recover your memory.”
“I don’t think he’s trying to be secretive,” Edward said. He took her arm as they descended the stairs, but unlike the week prior, it was to be a gentleman and not because he needed her physical support. It was remarkable how much he had improved in just a few short days. His head still pained him, and of course there was the memory gap, but his skin had lost the grayish pallor that had been so worrying, and if he was not ready for a fifty-mile march, he was at least able to go about his day without needing to take a rest.
Cecilia thought he sometimes still looked tired, but Edward just told her she was acting like a wife.
He smiled when he said this, though.
“I think,” Edward said, still on the topic of Colonel Stubbs, “that it is his job to keep secrets.”
“But surely not from you.”
“Perhaps,” Edward said with a small shrug. “But consider this: He does not know where I was or what I did these last few months. It is almost certainly not in the interest of the British Army to entrust me with secrets just yet.”
“That’s preposterous!”
“I appreciate your unwavering support,” he said, giving her a wry smile as they reached the ground floor, “but Colonel Stubbs must be assured of my loyalties before revealing his hand.”
Cecilia was not sold. “I cannot believe he would dare to doubt you,” she muttered. Edward’s honor and honesty were so clearly intrinsic to his nature. She did not understand how anyone could not see this.
Colonel Stubbs was standing by the door when they entered the dining room, his face skewed into its usual scowl. “Rokesby,” he said upon seeing them, followed by: “Your wife is here too.”
“She was hungry,” Edward said.
“Of course,” the colonel replied, but his nostrils flared with irritation, and Cecilia saw his jaw clench as he led them to a nearby table.
“They make a fine breakfast here,” Cecilia said sweetly.