My name is Nicolas Benedict Redmayne, and I have lost ten months of my life...
Annis read the first entry and then the subsequent ones until she reached the end of the entry for the 24th of November 1792, when she stopped to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
Emrys rubbed her arm comfortingly.
Annis flicked forward. “There are only four more entries, and they are very brief.” She glanced at Emrys. “He must have died soon after this. Didn’t your grandmother say it was in January of 1793?”
“Yes.” Emrys rubbed his nose. “It doesn’t seem as if he found you. Do you want to read the last three entries?”
“I suppose I should.”
“You’re afraid of what they might say?”
“Not exactly. It’s more that I had hoped to have more written in his voice. It’s almost as though I can hear him speaking as I read, and being inside his head like this—it gives me a glimpse of him. Although it’s quite obvious he is not the man Mama fell in love with. The accident changed him, robbed him of so much...”
“Yes, that is true, yet the essence of him is there, I think. He loves his children. He would have adored you. Speaking as a father, I can tell you that daughters play havoc with your heart. I can’t even express how much I love Lizzie and Charlie and the lengths to which I’d go to protect them.”
Annis squeezed his hand with a wry smile. “Yes, he does seem as if he would have been a devoted husband and father, doesn’t he?”
Emrys nodded and kissed the top of her head as she leaned it against his chest.
She sat up and turned the page to the next entry.
5th December 1792
I’ve exhausted my search of the county and widened it to the neighboring one. I will work outward from here. I will not rest until I have found them.
25th December 1792
It’s Christmas day and we are snowbound. I am forced to remain at home until the snow eases. It is Lawrence’s first Christmas; I should be paying attention.
5th of January 1793
I went to MC today. I recognized it as soon as I arrived. I even found the house where we lived and the church we were married in. I remember now. Everything. As I stared at the record of our marriage, I realized with horror that I was a bigamist. My marriage to Damaris is invalid and Lawrence is a bastard.
The poor vicar thought I was going to collapse, I went so pale. He gave me a drink and I left, my brain in a whirl. How could I forget that I was married? And where was she, my precious J.?
My questions elicited the fact that she left MC some weeks after I returned to my home, but no one here knows where she went. We had lived here under a different name, Benedict, my second name, for fear my father would find us.
And now there is an even more pressing reason that he not find my dear J. and A., for he would be horrified to discover our Lawrence, the much-needed heir to the earldom, is a bastard. I shudder to think what he might do should he find out. I must find J. with all haste and protect her and my daughter.
I shall spend the night here and continue my search in the morning. I am weary, and my throat is scratchy. The weather is beastly cold, and my feet are frozen in my wet boots.
7th January 1793
I have been forced to return home, for I am running a fever and coughing my lungs up. I feel wretched. Stay safe, my loves, until I can find you. I will come as soon as I am recovered.
The last word was scrawled and blotched, as if the writer had lost control of the pen.
Annis thumbed through the rest of the book, but there was nothing else. She wiped her eyes and sniffed.
“Well, at least we know the whole story now,” said Emrys hugging her close. He hated it when she cried.
“Yes. I wonder what would have happened had he survived his illness? Would he have found us?” She sighed. “I wish Mama could have read this. She would have known he loved her and was prevented from coming to her by his loss of memory.”
“She did know. She said so in her letter. She believed in him to the last. That’s devotion.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Annis looked up, still sniffing. “I wonder if I would be that strong?”
