Her Counterfeit Husband (11 page)

Once her feet hit the ground, he offered her his arm, which, to his relief, she accepted.  Her grip was still tight around his elbow, but at least the feeling had returned to his fingers.  He followed the other couples to the entrance, slowing his steps to accommodate for Anna’s hesitation.

As they walked up the steps, someone called out to them.  Her hand clenched even tighter—something he didn’t think possible—before he turned to see who it was.  He didn’t recognize the couple, of course, but he smiled a greeting.

“Jason
,” the gentleman said with a bow, “I heard you made a f
ull recovery.”

Jason encouraged Anna to face the couple and bowed to the gentleman in return.  “Yes, thanks to my wife who took care of me.  Unfortunately, I took a fall down the stairs, and I lost my memory.”

“
Mason stated as much,” he replied.  “
You don’t remember it, but we’re good friends. 
I am
Ian Daniel,
Lord
of
Hedwrett, and this lovely lady is
Candace,
Lady
of
Hedwrett.”

“It’s a pleasure to,” he stopped himself before he said ‘meet’ since technically he already knew the
m, “see you in attendance at this
dinner party.”

“You wouldn’t fare well to miss one of
Mason’s dinner parties,”
Ian
said in a tone Jason suspected was part amusement and part warning.  “We shouldn’t dally outside when there’s wine and food waiting.”

With a nod, Jason urged Anna to turn around
,
and they
entered the manor
where the butler
took their cloaks and
l
ed them to the drawing room.  Jason
scanned the room where his brother was telling
jokes to three couples and a lady who laughed. 
Jason and Anna
followed
Ian and Candace
into the room and sat on a settee
.

Mason
chuckled and waved his hand dismissively
to the group
.  “That’s nothing, I assure you.  Her sister was even more dreadful.”
Mason turned his gaze to Jason and clapped his hands.  “My dear, dear brother!  I tell you,” he told the others, “he was on the verge of death.  In fact, you could say Death was knocking on his door, but my brother defied Death and sent him back to where he came.  Death’s loss is our gain.”

The others nodded their agreement, but even so, Jason sensed his brother wasn’t sincere.  Beside him, Anna clenched her hands in her lap
but showed no emotional reaction on her face.

“We are fortunate indeed,” one of the gentlemen said, giving Jason a polite nod.

“However, it’s not all good news, I’m afraid,” Mason added with a regretful sigh.  “My brother doesn
’t remember any of us, even me.  A
nd to think I gave him the best years of my life while we were growing up.”

The group chuckled, and Jason couldn’t tell if they laughed because they wanted to or if they had to.

“Fortunately, you have Lady Templeton to comfort you,” Ian said.

Mason glanced at the lady sitting behind him and smiled.  “And what a privilege it is to be comforted by someone so lovely.”

“You flatter me, my lord,” she replied, shooting him a coy smile as she waved her fan in front of her face.

“Not unnecessarily so.”

Anna sighed softly. At first, he thought she wished he would talk to her in the same way Mason was talking to Lady Templeton, but
as he noted
her clenched hands and gritted teeth, he realized it was a sigh of impatience or irritation.  If he’d been alone with her, he’d ask her which one it’d been.  Perhaps it’d been both.  Whatever the cause, she wasn’t as happy to be here as the others in the room were.

The butler entered the room and announced that dinner was ready.

Jason joined the others and stood up.  When he realized the gentlemen
offered their arms for their ladies, he turned to Anna and did likewise.  She remained sitting for a long moment before she stood and slipped her arm around his.  As they headed for the dining room, he couldn’t help but notice her steps were slower than the others.  If she hated coming here so much, why didn’t she refuse to come?  Surely, she could have written no and had him sign it, especially since he
could
now write his name.  But she’d been insistent they come.  Now it was his turn to sigh.  Whether he’d lost his memory or not, he doubted that he could understand the way a lady’s mind worked.

Once everyone sat around the dining room table, Mason proceeded
to tell everyone
about his
venture to
British India.  Jason tried
to pay attention, thinking that since he was
Mason’s
brother, it was his duty to take an interest in what he did, but as Mason droned on, his mind kept w
andering to the oddest things.

He noticed the way one of the lady’s feathers kept coming loose from her hair.  She had to keep putting her fork down to put it back in its proper place.  Then there was Ian who made it a habit of stealing glances at one of the ladies who wasn’t his wife.  To her credit, the lady ignored him
,
but
she
snickered when the other ladies to
ok a second portion of the veal when the footman offered it to them.  Jason didn’t know what to make of her, but he supposed it didn’t matter.  A gentleman
across from him
had some food stuck
between his teeth, which wouldn’t have been bad if
he
hadn’t
laughed at every joke Mason made.
Jason made eye contact with him at one point and motioned to his teeth, but the gentleman shrugged and turned back to Mason.

“My kind brother!”

Startled, Jason took his eyes off the food in-between the gentleman’s teeth so he could address Mason.  “What
is it
?”

Mason took a sip of sherry and set the glass on the table.  “Will you be going to British India?”

Jason glanced at Anna to see if it was something he had planned to do before he lost his memory.  She gave a slight shake of her head.

Mason laughed.  “I don’t believe it.  You’re not basing your decision
on
the opinion of a lady, are you?”

Unsure of how to respond to that, especially since everyone was watching him, he cleared his
throat and shrugged.  “I don’t remember if British India interested me or not…before I lost my memory.”

“You could have asked me that.  We are brothers, and considering how close we
were, I kno
w
your interests more than her.”

He wanted to look at Anna to see whether or not this was true, but he didn’t dare.  Not with everyone watching him.

“You needn’t be shy about asking me questions,” Mason continued.  “I grew up with you.  I know things about you she doesn’t.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jason finally replied, not sure what
else
he was supposed to say.

“Please do.  I want to help you.  We’re blood.  Family.  That’s what matters most.”

He nodded
but decided to keep quiet.

“And yes, you were very interested in going to British India.  In fact, we discussed
going together before you lost your memory
.”

Since Mason waited for him to respond, he said, “In light of the situation I find myself in,
I think it’s prudent I stay
home.  I don’t want a relapse.”

“Of course not.  No one wants that.  But maybe in the future you will feel well enough to go.  I promise you it’s worth the trip.  They don’t call it ‘the Jewel of the Crown’ for nothing.”

Ian set his fork on the plate with a loud clatter and wiped his mouth with his napkin.  “I hear
it includes a great amount of land
.”

“It does.” Mason turned his attention to Ian and started listing off the territories the British Empire controlled in India.

Jason breathed a silent prayer of thanks that Ian spoke up when he did.  He didn’t care for the way Mason was prodding him, as if he was testing him.  What did Mason expect?  He lost his memory.  He wouldn’t remember if he wanted to go to British India or not.

He turned his attention to the dessert
as the footman served it
, grateful he could focus on something pleasant.  He glanced at Anna who refused the dessert and gripped the
cloth
napkin in her lap.
  She hadn’t relaxed once since they stepped out of the carriage.  For the first time that evening, he hoped they could go home soon.  Whether it was Mason’s annoying questions or Anna’s anxiety, he couldn’t help but think that he should have insisted she write the letter declining the invitation to this dinner party.  Next time, he would insist on it, even if he had to ask Appleton to write it for him.

A
nna didn’t want to leave Watkins when the dinner was over, but considering the gentlemen and ladies had separated, she didn’t have a choice. 
S
he bit her tongue on her protest and joined the ladies to the drawing room.  As long as she didn’t arouse anyone else’s suspicions, she might manage through the rest of the dinner party unscathed. 
It was bad enough that Lord Mason insinuated Watkins needed her in order to say whether or not he wanted to go to British India.  It had
n’t been her intention to put Watkins
in such an awkward situation, but he’d looked over at her and she’d hoped the silent shake of her head would be subtle enough
for Lord Mason to miss
.  But it hadn’
t been.  To her dismay,
very little got past him, and that worried her.

There was nothing she could do now but hope Lord Mason wouldn’t notice anything else
that was amiss about her husband
.  She stopped her thoughts and took a deep breath.  No.  The stranger wasn’t her husband.  He was filling a role, pretending to be her husband.  Her real husband was buried in an unmarked grave beneath the forest floor.
  She must think of him as Watkins and nothing more.

“Anna
, is something troubling you?”

Anna jerked and turned her attention to Candace who sat next to her on the settee.
  Across the room, the other ladies hovered over something and giggled.  From where she was sitting, she couldn’t make out what it was because the piano hid it from view.

Anna
swallowed
and turned to face Candace
, praying her voice would be steady when she spoke.  Of all the people she would lie to, Candace would be the hardest
since she
knew her better than the other ladies did. “I’m fine. I’m just…overwhelmed,” she finally managed.

“
Overwhelmed yo
ur husband still lives?” Candace
softly asked, her sympathetic tone bringing back all the t
imes she had confided to her
about how awful her marriage had been.

Here it came.  If she wanted her lie to be believable, she needed to get it over with.  “I would have said yes before he lost his memory, but since he d
id lose his memory, he’s
a different
person.” There.  She said it.  With any luck, Candace would accept it.

Candace seemed to consider Anna’s words before she spoke.  “I did notice something different about him at dinner.”

Heart racing, Anna nodded.  “Yes, he’s a lot nicer now.”

“Very much so.  I can’t imagine he’d let Lord Mason speak to him in such a way before.”

“No, he wouldn’t.”
And that was another strike against Watkins.  She wondered if she had any chance of pulling the ruse off.  Watkins was innocent of any wrongdoing, so it’d be on her head if the lie was exposed.  Forcing the possibility aside, she said, “I like the person my husband is since he lost his memory.  It was the best thing that’s happened to him.”
And
to
me.