Page 23 of Make Mine a Marquess

“In some ways, yes.”

There was something dark within the depths of his gaze. Feminine instinct told her that she should be wary. Then why am I not mounting my horse and riding far, far away?

It was as if her riding boots were filled with sand. His magnetism caused a shiver down her spine, not from fear, but excitement.

“Perhaps if you share what happened?” She shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t want to know.

“I don’t like to talk of my past, but for you I don’t seem to mind. What would you like to know?”

Her curiosity could not be contained. Her mother had warned her to never ask a gentleman uncomfortable questions. But when it came to the marquess, she did not want to heed her mother’s advice. “How were you rescued?” she asked.

He let out a slow breath. “I’m not entirely sure. The fire started below deck and by the time we realized what was happening, the flames were ravaging. I was standing beneath the mast when I heard a thunderous crack. I looked up to see it come crashing down. I must have lost consciousness at some point. When I woke, I was floating at sea on a piece of that mast. Whether someone dragged me upon that splintered wood or I managed it on my own, I’ll never know. I looked frantically about, but the ship was no longer in sight. I was confused and thought it had sailed off, then realized it had sunk. No one was in sight. I was alone, floating, with no direction for three full days. Just as I almost became delirious from dehydration, a ship came into view. When I woke once again, Aram was at my bedside.”

She listened in dismay, her heart squeezing in her chest. He told the basic facts, leaving out the pain, the fear, and the description of his injuries. Yet the facts were enough to convey his strong will to survive.

She considered herself a survivor of a bad experience, but nothing close to his horrendous experience.

“And what of your memory?”

He shook his head. “I did not remember anything. Not my name, my family, my purpose for being on that ship. That was the most frightening thing of all—not my physical injuries. I was at the complete mercy of strangers.”

She couldn’t imagine. Her throat ached for him.

“How long did it take to remember?”

“Things came back to me in bits and pieces. Flashes sometimes. Until, finally, my full memory returned.”

“I cannot imagine.”

“The mind is a wondrous thing. I believe it shielded me. If I’d recalled everything that had happened on that ship, or when I’d first been found, with my injuries, I believe I would have gone mad.”

“Your story of survival is incredible, and I see why you are such good friends with Mr. Adian.” She thought of her own past and how difficult it had been to pull through. Landon’s experience was much, much worse. Both physically and mentally. What must it have been like to not remember his identity?

“I owe Aram my life. His family is in trade, and he ships desirable items from the Middle East to the West. He happened to be on his way back from Lebanon.”

“Why were you on the ship?”

“To sell a piece of family property.”

“Your family is from Jerusalem?”

“Not exactly. My mother was of noble blood, not English nobility, but Lebanese, Syrian, and Armenian. Her family often traveled for business and pleasure and owned vast properties throughout the Middle East, including Jerusalem. She met my English father in Jerusalem when they were on a pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to visit the tomb of Jesus. They married soon after.”

Phoebe was fascinated. She’d love to travel and to see the world outside England. However, as Lord Willard’s wife, she would live out her days in London, never to venture to the Continent, and certainly, never to see the Egyptian pyramids like she’d spoken of with Mr. Adian, nor set off for a pilgrimage in Jerusalem like Landon’s parents.

“Was it a love match between your mother and father?”

“They were in love, yes. Their families not as much. You see, the heir of a marquess was expected to marry a highborn English lady. My paternal grandmother was a coldhearted woman and never fully accepted my mother. And the beau monde whispered behind my mother’s back and said she must have learned harem tricks to bewitch my father into marriage. My mother was accustomed to being an outsider in England. She said she didn’t care, but I know how the barbs must have hurt. I also know things worsened for her after I was born.”

“How so?”

“I shared her dark looks, and even the firstborn son of a marquess cannot completely avoid the prejudice of others. When I was a skinny boy there were older bullies at Eton. I suffered a black eye more than once, and it broke her heart. A mother can suffer insults to herself, but when it comes to her child, the barbs cut deeper.”

Phoebe was horrified. She couldn’t fathom others teasing a young boy just because of his background. She admired his mother.

She knew about the cruelties of the upper class. Her mother, as the wife of a merchant (no matter how wealthy her father had become), wasn’t accepted by the ton. It wasn’t the same as the prejudice Landon’s mother had experienced, of course, but still disconcerting.

“It wasn’t until I grew from a small boy into a stronger one that things changed,” he said.