Remembrance Read online

  He didn’t respond in any way, didn’t look at me, didn’t react to the sound of my voice. At this close range, I could see that he wasn’t one hundred percent English. It was my guess that he was from somewhere in the Mediterranean, for his skin was dark and his eyes dark and he had a mop of black hair. Maybe he didn’t speak English.

  “Excuse me, but you—” When he still didn’t look at me, I said, “Oh, the hell with it” and turned around to walk off. What did I care if he did or did not speak English? I had more important things to do than pant over the gardener.

  But as I turned away from him, he then…I can hardly believe this even now. He dumped the contents of his wheelbarrow on my feet. On my feet, on the bottom of my pretty dress, up the front of my dress.

  I just stood there and looked down at the mess that was me. Of course there was no question of what was in the wheelbarrow. Manure. What else? Only it wasn’t good American manure that you buy at the nursery in plastic bags. This manure hadn’t been baked to take bugs as well as the smell out of it. This manure had been hauled out of the stables, thrown in a heap, and allowed to “ripen” for a few years. It was now “ripening” around me.

  “Look what you have done to me,” I managed to say. “Look at my dress.”

  That man just stood there and looked at me. I could see that he wasn’t deaf, and if he didn’t speak English it didn’t matter because manure is manure in any language. His black eyes were twinkling and he had the tiniest bit of a smile playing on his mouth.

  He had done it on purpose! I knew it as well as I knew…Well, better not go into that, since lately I didn’t seem to be too sure of much of anything. Contact through hostility, I thought. He’s some redneck foreigner, fresh off the boat, who has no idea that I am the lady of the house and should be treated with respect. From the look of him he might be from a country where the men think any woman out of the harem is worthy of a man’s abuse. Wherever his origins he seemed to think that his looks allowed him to get away with anything.

  When he just stood there looking at me, saying nothing, I decided to forgo my manners. Forget that this was Edwardian England and I was called Lady Something or other. After a quick glance about to see that no one else was within hearing distance, I let him have it. I told him what I thought of him. I used language I’d only heard on cable TV comedy routines and never said out loud before.

  From the light that left his eyes, I was sure he spoke English, and I don’t think he knew all the words that I did. I was willing to bet that no woman had ever said anything to him but the word “yes.”

  When I felt that I’d told him what I thought of his manners and his ancestors, I finished with a little lesson in democracy. “You’re in England now and this country is almost as free as America. You cannot treat a woman any way you want.” Even to myself this sounded wimpy but I was weak from hunger and fatigue.

  To tell the truth, I felt like crying. I was hungry and I was alone, not only in a foreign country but in a foreign time period and I wanted to go home. Where was Jamie? Where was my beautiful Jamie I had written about and had loved for centuries? Why wasn’t he here to rescue me? All my paper heroes were there to rescue the heroine when she needed him.

  To my utter horror, I could feel tears prickling behind my eyes. The smell of horse manure wafted around me and this dreadful man was still staring at me in silence. Another second and my tears would be running down my cheeks.

  “I’m going to tell my husband about you,” I managed to whisper, knowing I sounded like a child. With my chin held high, I turned away and started to leave.

  I’d gone about two and a half steps when the man’s voice stopped me.

  “I, madam, am your husband.”

  For the second time in one day, I fainted.

  10

  What happened next was something I don’t want to remember. The horrible, silent man who said he was my husband tossed me over his shoulder and carried me up the stairs. I couldn’t help remembering that Scarlett got carried in Rhett’s arms and he made love to her later. I was up for that. This man was a throwback to a Neanderthal but he was rather sexy. And he was my husband and he was Jamie—I think.

  But he tossed me on the bed, left the room, locking the door behind him, and minutes later the gray-haired doctor appeared again and I got to see what an Edwardian gynecological exam was like. I wanted to hobnob with the king but instead I get a historic pap smear.

  Let’s just say that it was done under the covers with as much politeness as such a thing can be done, with as little embarrassment as possible. I knew what the problem was. Fainting twice in one day probably meant that Lady de Grey was pregnant. Now I knew why she’d disappeared. I somehow didn’t think she and her dark, hostile husband spent lazy afternoons in bed, so if this Catherine was pregnant, it was by another man.

  When the doctor, with his hands involved in the examination, gave me a startled look, I knew I was on the mark. No doubt everyone knew of Lady de Grey’s approaching divorce and here she was pregnant with another man’s child.

  I’m sure I turned red with embarrassment but the doctor said nothing as he closed his bag and left the room.

  My maid came to me, took off my corset (thank you, Lord), and put me in a lush dressing gown. Then she brushed my hair down my back and left me to wait, no doubt for him.

  So what was I to say to a man who had just been told that his wife who hadn’t slept with him in heaven knows how long was pregnant?

  By the time he came to my room I am ashamed to say that I was very nervous. I don’t like promiscuity. I always believe in one man at a time, both in my books and in my life. Maybe what happened to me in this life is what taught me that lesson.

  “You have made me the laughingstock of England. Why?” he asked, his dark eyes glaring at me for a moment before he turned away to stare out the window.

  I must say that he did funny little things to the inside of me. I always believe in keeping control with men. With Steven I made certain that I analyzed everything; I wanted to do what was good for me. But this man made me feel emotion. That’s the best way I can describe his effect on me: emotion. Now if I could just figure out what that emotion was, I’d feel a great deal calmer.

  I swallowed. “I take it you mean all the men. I was…I was lonely. You’re always in the garden and—”

  He whirled around to glare at me with his piercing eyes. “I mean there have been no men—as you know.”

  It took me a moment to understand that one, and when I did understand, I could hardly believe it. There was only one way he could know that there had been no men. “You mean I’m a—” I smiled. “I’m a virgin?” At that thought I couldn’t help but laugh. A thirty-nine-year-old American woman transported back in time into the twenty-seven-year-old body of a virgin!

  “This is a matter of jest to you?” he asked with anger.

  “Just sort of,” I answered, then looked up at him. “If I’m a virgin, why do you want to divorce me?”

  “As you well know, I am going to marry Fiona.”

  How very modern, I thought, with more anger than I should have felt. Should I invite the harlot to tea?

  While I was digesting this disgusting bit of news, Catherine spoke up, using what I had come to regard as my mouth. “But a divorce will make me an outcast. No man will want me if you divorce me.”

  “Then you should have thought of that before you made all of England laugh at me.”

  “And how did I do that?” I asked, growing more angry by the second. He had already chosen his next bride, his wife was a virgin and I was the one to be punished.

  “With your lascivious letters!” was his enraged answer. “By telling the world you’d slept with every man in England from the king down. I will not be a cuckold.”

  “A cuckold! Are you crazy? I didn’t sleep with any other men. You heard the doctor say I’m a virgin. You could tell everyone the letters weren’t true. Tell them you have proof that I’ve never slept with any man.�