Jack had not been able to tell Chelsea who Elizabeth was because he had no idea. Despite great efforts, he could not place the name. Nothing about it rang a single bell in his mind, and in the end he concluded that Elizabeth was probably a recent lover.
“Your wife, perhaps?” Chelsea pressed, her insides squeezing with angst. “Or a fiancée?”
He got out of bed and quickly yanked on his trousers. “I don’t know.”
His voice was curt, almost angry, as he kept his back to her and hastily fastened the buttons and searched for his shirt.
“I wonder how many lovers you’ve had,” she said distantly, struggling not to be hurt by this. She had to push such feelings away.
But of course he could not answer that question either. She therefore had no choice but to accept his explanation—and his apology for calling her by another woman’s name at a most inopportune time.
That did not mean she could forget it, however, for the awkward incident reestablished that self-protective instinct she had felt the day before, and reminded her how important it was to keep her heart out of this, no matter how glorious and romantic these days seemed. Because it was very likely that one day she, too, would be regarded as a recent lover. He would go back to where he came from and rejoin the people who were his friends and family. Perhaps he would say her name when he was with another, and remember this bizarre, abnormal experience with a sense of guilt and remorse.
Thus, she could not forget that none of this was real and it would not last long. No matter how intimately they behaved with each other, no matter how romantic and fanciful it all seemed, he would eventually return to his life, and she, in turn, would be required to keep secrets from him.
So, if she was going to succeed with this plan, she must remember to stay detached, because when all was said and done, all contact between them would be severed.
Chelsea’s mother decided to serve lunch outdoors that day, for it was a calm, clear afternoon. The servants carried white-clothed tables onto the lawn, adorned them with flowers and fruit in large pewter bowls, and the family enjoyed an extravagant feast of cold meats and fresh vegetables, with frosted pound cake for dessert.
All the while, Chelsea failed completely at remaining detached.
After the meal, Melissa took her by the arm to walk with her across the lawn to the rosebushes, where they could look out at the sea.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You look miserable.”
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Chelsea flatly replied.
There was an echo of surprise in Melissa’s voice. “Why not?”
“It’s not as simple as I thought it would be. I was so cavalier about it before, but now I’m having so many thoughts and feelings. I’m thinking about the future—his future—and I fear he might have a lover or even a wife. He called me by another woman’s name this morning when we were in bed.”
“Oh dear. Did he remember anything? Could he tell you who she was?”
“No, and still, he remembers nothing. He was half asleep when he said it. But aside from that, I am finding the guilt over this deception to be worse than I imagined it would be. I thought I could be matter-of-fact about it all, and I am trying very hard to keep my heart out of it, but I am not sure I can be the mercenary soldier I wanted to be. If there is a child, I don’t know how I will be able to keep it from him. It will be the worst lie of my life. Why did I not think of this before? Why did I think it would be simple?”
“Are you falling in love with him? Is that the problem?”
She looked up at the sky. “I think maybe…yes, a little. I’m not sure. But whatever my feelings are, they are making everything very complicated.”
Melissa touched her arm. “I was afraid this would happen. It’s not easy to be intimate with a man and keep your heart covered up. It goes against our natures as women.”
Chelsea withdrew, but continued to hold Melissa’s hands. “Not for all women. What about the ones who sell their bodies to strangers? Surely they don’t fall in love every night. Why can’t I be like them?”
She had never imagined she would wish for such a thing, but there it was.
Melissa considered it. “That would be a very different experience from this. You have yourself a handsome and charming gentleman who appears—from what I can see—to be more than a little enamored with you.”
“Do you think so?” She glanced uneasily at Jack, who was sitting at the table with her mother, engaged in conversation.
They said nothing for a long time, then Melissa spoke with compassion. “We will not ask you to continue this if you are not comfortable, Chelsea. I will be honest and tell you that Sebastian would be greatly relieved if you ended it. He is not handling any of this well. It has taken all my energies to keep him from intervening, and I am not always sure I am doing the right thing.”
Chelsea took a deep breath and let it out. “Sometimes when I think about giving up the plan, I also think of the alternative—marrying Lord Jerome. But mostly I think about how impossible it will be for me to say goodbye to Jack, when all I want to do is be with him.”
“I promise, if you find yourself with child, Sebastian and I will be here for you, no matter what you decide to do. And if we go ahead with things as planned, we will be in your debt forever. We will spend the rest of our days making sure that you get the happiness you deserve.”
She looked at her sister-in-law. “I wasn’t doing this just for my own happiness,” she confessed. “Your happiness means a great deal to me as well. I know how badly you want to be a mother. I wanted to do this for you.”
Melissa pulled her into her arms and held her. “You are my best friend,” she said.
“And you are mine.”
Which made all of this so very, very difficult.
“You’ve been distant today,” Jack said, offering his arm to Chelsea as they strolled along the row of azaleas on the sunny side of the house. “Is it because of what happened this morning?”
Chelsea tried to find a way to explain how she felt, without sounding wounded or heartbroken. She tried also to remember what she and Melissa had just been discussing. She had not entered into this to fall in love. She’d had a very specific purpose. She must think of her fate with Lord Jerome, and try to stay rational.
“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “Your calling me by another woman’s name was a healthy dose of reality, don’t you think?”
So much for staying rational. She’d just spoken harshly. Her breaking heart had revealed itself.
“It introduced nothing we did not already know.”
“It introduced another woman,” she corrected him.
He stopped and tilted his head to the side, and with a slight scowl in his dark features, studied her expression.
“Yes,” he said, a clear note of warning in his voice, “but the notion of my having a past is hardly unexpected or out of the ordinary. I am a grown man, Chelsea, and you know my situation here. Of course, I would have had lovers, and you and I are hardly committed to each other. You are betrothed to another. You came to me for one thing, and one thing only, and I played my part. I have not misled you or taken advantage of you. And correct me if I am wrong, but you’ve been enjoying yourself, so I will not stand here and be treated as if I have betrayed you.”
“No, of course not,” she said, kicking herself for behaving in such a way when she had just resolved to be level-headed. “I did not mean to imply that.”
They walked on in silence for a moment.
“You are right,” she said, laboring to convince herself more than him. “We are not committed to each other. I am not your wife, or even your mistress. For all we know, you may be gone from here tomorrow, and if that is the case, we shall part as friends. And I will be grateful for the time we have spent together and all that you have taught me about the marriage bed. It has been wonderful.”
There. She had said all the right things.
“Well,” he said coolly, “that sounds very…expedient for both of us. No strings, no duties. How perfectly decadent.”
“Yes, exactly.” She began walking again, and tried to behave like the carefree lover she wanted to be. “Because clearly we both have an aversion toward the duties we must fulfill. We shall therefore be happy to know that we have each rebelled in this very enjoyable way, by seeking pleasure for pleasure’s sake while we had the chance.”
They walked around the house to look out at the sea, which sparkled brightly like thousands of diamonds in the sun.
“And yet,” Jack said, his voice becoming quiet and low, “there is a part of me that will not want to say goodbye to you.”
The remark did nothing to help her stay focused on her purpose, or to remain detached. Instead, it caused her heart to tremble ever so cautiously with hope.
For the longest time she said nothing. She simply stood at the edge of the property with these unwelcome emotions flooding through her. She thought about her life and everything she wanted, as well as everything that had hurt her in the past.
She had not been lucky in love. She had made poor decisions. For years she’d been a social outcast, yet never felt alone or unhappy. Why? Because she’d always had her imagination and her writing. She could create fictional worlds and live vicariously through her characters, without ever risking her own heart.
In addition, she had her family. There was her mother, who no one would deny could be beastly sometimes, but she never meant any harm. And she had Sebastian and Melissa, who were both so dear to her.
Despite everything, she had achieved a certain kind of happiness in recent years. She had learned to rely on herself, and though she could not deny being somewhat bored on certain occasions, she’d become content here on the island, with her solitary life.
But everything was different now, since Jack had washed up onto her shore. Her contentment was slipping away. She was aware now of what she’d been missing, and she almost wished that she had never discovered it.
She wished Jack—or whatever his real name was—had never come here.
“Let me guess,” she said, responding to his subtle declaration of affection. “You will not want to say goodbye to me because I am all you have.”
He needed her because he felt alone. That was all it was. She was the last woman on earth, so to speak.
“It’s a heavy responsibility,” she added, “to be the sole provider of your happiness.”
She spoke with bite, cognizant of the fact that she was trying to push him away. She wanted to pick a fight. She did not want to be in love, and she certainly did not want to feel jealous of whoever had made love to him before she had.
“You may not like it,” he replied, frowning at her, “but until I remember my old life, or begin a new one, you are my everything.”
‘ “Until I remember my old life,’” she repeated, trying desperately to focus on those words, instead of the way it made her feel to know that at the moment she was his everything. “It is something we would both do well to remember, Jack, because as soon as you venture out into the world, you will no longer need me, and this will be over.”
He would replace her with other friends, other activities, and other women, because right now he was just using her to fill his sense of emptiness. He had told her so more than once.
But she was using him, too, she realized, and for far more deceitful purposes, and therefore had no right to be arguing with him or punishing him. She had started all this, so she would have to cope with the chaos of her emotions. She could not take it out on him.
“If you will excuse me,” she said, deciding it was not a good day for coping, and that it would be best to end the conversation. “I am feeling tired, and I don’t really want to talk about this anymore.”
He bowed his head politely, and did not object to her departure. She crossed the lawn, walked around the house, and nearly collided head-on with her mother.
“What have you been up to, Chelsea?” she asked accusingly.
“Nothing, Mother.”
Chelsea did not stop to elaborate. She continued on, but felt her mother’s disapproving gaze burning a hole into the back of her head as she entered the house.
Ten minutes later a knock sounded at her door, but before she had a chance to respond, her mother barged in.
“I am not a fool,” she said, slamming the door behind her. “What is going on?”
“Nothing,” Chelsea replied, feeling as if she were six years old again, taking a scolding for climbing trees. But then she remembered she was a grown woman, and lifted her chin. “I don’t appreciate being interrupted like this, Mother. You cannot just walk in here as if these were your rooms.”
She quickly picked up her pencil to give the impression that she had been writing, though she hadn’t. She’d been staring at the wall.
Her mother strode closer. “You’re not fancying yourself in love with him, are you? He is handsome and charming, no doubt about it, but we still don’t know anything about him, and you have a responsibility to this family. You are as good as promised to Lord Jerome, and I will not tolerate a repeat performance of the last time, when you ran off with an unsuitable young man because he knew how to flatter you and you became infatuated.”
Chelsea strove to keep her voice under control. “How many times must I repeat this? The performance you are referring to happened when I was eighteen. I was young and foolish. Since then I have been living here in exile with you, without complaint, for seven years. I have not once asked for anything for my own happiness. I have been dutifully paying the price for my mistakes. Does that not count for anything?”
“I tried to talk to Melissa just now,” her mother said, ignoring everything Chelsea had just said, “and she was hiding something. I could see it in her eyes. You’re not scheming to make him fall in love with you and propose, are you? So that you might get out of marrying Lord Jerome?”
“Of course not.” But then her back went up, for she was tired of paying for that mistake she made all those years ago, and wanted her mother to know it. “But what if I were? And what if he did propose to me? If I wanted to marry him, I would.”
Good Lord, what was she saying?
Her mother’s face went white as stone. “You insolent girl. Clearly you have not learned a thing. You have no sense at all.”
“Why? Because I might want some joy for myself? It is not fair what you ask me to do. Lord Jerome is more than twice my age, and he is a horrid, self-regarding, repulsive man.”
“You must do your duty, as we all must.”
“You might speak differently if it was you who had to marry him.”
“He doesn’t want me,” she said. “He wants you, because you will be able to give him heirs.”
Chelsea recoiled in disgust at the thought of sharing a bed with him, especially now that she knew what would occur—and when she knew how enjoyable lovemaking could be with a man like Jack.
“I will be miserable, Mother.”
Her mother scoffed. “Well, if you think the handsome stranger in our midst has just washed ashore to save you from your fate, you are a fool. He could be a fish merchant for all we know, in which case a match would be completely inappropriate. You are the daughter of an earl. You will not marry beneath you.”
“Beneath me? I am the lowliest of the low, according to you.”
Her mother said nothing to refute her claim, which only incensed Chelsea further.
“And you must know he is not a fish merchant,” she argued. “He may even be a duke or a prince. Surely you would not oppose it then. Or would you? Just to see me miserable?”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “If he is a duke or a prince, you are even more a fool than I thought, to think that he would propose. Tsk tsk, Chelsea. You forget sometimes that you are ruined. No man of such eminence would ever have you as a wife. You would be lucky if he were inclined to use you as a mistress, which would never happen, of course, because I would not permit it. That is why you must settle for Lord Jerome.”
“Settle? Like you did?”
Her mother pressed her lips into a hard line. “I loved your father.”
“You loved that he was an earl. That’s what you settled for. You resigned yourself to a marriage without love, and therefore a life without joy or laughter or passion.”
“Passion fades. A title does not.”
“So while you were married, you had a title and what else? Boredom? Resentment? Contempt, even? That’s what I remember most about you and Father, which is why I ran away with that ‘unsuitable’ man in the first place, and why I would do it again in a heartbeat—with that equally unsuitable man outside in the garden.”
There. She had said it. The truth.
Her mother’s cheeks flushed with fury. “You just say these things to spite me.”
Then she walked out and slammed the door behind her.
For a fleeting second Chelsea thought she was off the hook—until a key slipped into the lock and turned.
She gasped. Leaping out of her chair, she ran to the door, grabbed hold of the knob and rattled it frantically. “Let me out of here, Mother! You’re behaving like a child!”
“You are the child, Chelsea, not me,” her mother said from the other side. “I will not let you run off again and leave us all here to rot. I am writing to Lord Jerome today, and I will tell him to come and collect you as soon as he is able.”
“But you won’t rot!” she shouted, suddenly desperate to save her future by any means possible. “I have a plan. I am trying very hard to do my duty at this moment. I might have already succeeded.” But she would not know for sure for at least a few weeks.
There was a long silence on the other side of the door. “What plan?”
Chelsea let go of the knob and took a step back, certain that if she tried to explain, it would come out all wrong, and her mother would faint out there in the hall, or worse—do exactly what she said she was going to do and tell Lord Jerome to come right away.
“Why don’t you talk to Sebastian?” Chelsea suggested. “He will tell you everything.”
“Sebastian knows?”
“Yes.”
There was another long silence on the other side of the door.
“Go and see him, Mother, I beg of you,” Chelsea pleaded.
The only response was the sound of her mother’s shoes, treading heavily down the hall to the stairs.