Bewildered, she gestured to his drawings spilled across the floor. The ridiculous lie rolled like a spent breath past her lips. “I wanted to see who you were in the event you didn’t recall—”
“I don’t have amnesia, despite the blow to my head,” he whispered against the rim of the glass, his emerald eyes dazed but sharper than the blade of a knife when they met hers. “I know exactly who I am.” Then he laughed for reasons she couldn’t gauge, collapsing to the bed with a ragged sound, the glass falling from his hand to the mattress. “And exactly who you are.”
“My grooms found you on the post road.” Thinking quickly, Alexandra grabbed the glass before it tumbled to the floor. “With your haversack beside you.”
“My horse?”
It pleased her that he’d ask this right off, as she would have. “Being stabled here. He’s uninjured. As for you, the village physician placed five stitches on your brow.”
Reaching to touch, he grimaced, then dropped his arm to his side. Opening those exquisite green-as-mint eyes, he thankfully kept them off her as he made a thorough study of the chamber. He pointed to the crutch propped against the hearth. “What’s that?”
Alexandra gestured to his foot, wrapped tightly with a bandage and propped on a goose down pillow. “It appears you turned your ankle when you lost your seat.”
He snorted, clearly disgusted with the situation. “So, I’m stuck here with an aching head and a bum foot. And a clock situated at half past three.”
Alexandra smoothed her hand down her bodice. She hadn’t expected him to wake until morning, and her gown, besides being wrinkled beyond measure, was one she normally kept for gardening. Her hair, too, had to be a fright. “The doctor recommended bedrest for at least two days. The ankle…” She shrugged and patted the chignon drooping at her nape. Her locks were too heavy to be contained for long. “You may not be able to put weight on it for a bit.”
His lips tilted, the internal conversation he was having with himself showing on his face. “And the clock?”
She glanced to the mantel. “Oh, that hasn’t worked since—”
“You were a girl,” he interrupted, his gaze meeting hers. “I recall her, as a matter of fact.” He flicked his hand, his long fingers dancing on the sheet. “Before the viscountess business.”
Alexandra allowed herself to examine him as he was examining her. A widow’s freedom again providing benefit. She’d never had the opportunity to look upon a man, aside from her husband, with so little clothing on. He didn’t blink or twitch so much as a pinkie, merely met her, gaze for gaze. A slight flush lit his cheeks and his hand curled into a fist atop the counterpane but other than that, he permitted her exploration.
The air in the room thickened, awareness bringing a dull ache to her chest. Pressing heat between her thighs, ah, there, as if he’d touched her.
How fascinating. How extraordinary. How frightening.
“Alex,” he finally said, his voice rusty.
“Cort,” she returned faintly, no game left to play.
Blinking hard, he groaned, his lids lowering. “As much as I’d like to continue this little dance, my vision is spotting.”
“It’s not a dance.”
His lips parted on a gentle sigh. “Just wait.”
CHAPTER 3
WHERE LIFE TAKES A TURN
Life was amusing as all hell, Cort thought, as he surveyed the parts of the broken clock spread across the scullery’s butcher block. A setting, a woman, he’d avoided for years, and here he was, right smack in the middle because he’d tumbled off his bloody horse.
He glanced to the intriguing creature kneeling in the flower garden outside the kitchen window. She held a pair of scissors and was selectively snipping what he believed were daffodils, tidying them into a crooked posy she clutched in her fist. The setting sun burrowed through her hair, drawing out auburn highlights in the dusky strands. She’d given up on the sadly constructed knot from the night before, one that hadn’t been up to the task of controlling her heavy tresses.
Resting back, she scrubbed her hand across her cheek, likely leaving a dirty smudge. Her next stop was probably the stable to assist Seamus with shoeing horses. A flicker of amusement lit Cort as he imagined what the ton would think of the widowed viscountess’s hobby—because it could be no more than a hobby.
This is the way he remembered the girl—not that he wanted to remember.
Unfussy, clever, exquisite Alexandra Mountbatten.
And, even if she still trifled with horses, she was no longer that chit, no longer holding that name. As for him, Cort didn’t quite know who he was anymore. Retired soldier, potential inventor, devoted brother, onetime Lothario. A man in the midst of change. A bloke traveling from one side of his world to the other, sight-unseen.
Some days, a ghost among the living.
The sands were shifting, noticeable even as he disregarded them.
