His Forgotten Fiancée. Evelyn Hill M.

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ that their respective positions were not exactly proper. He sat up, backing away from her until he reached the wall, and ran a hand through his hair. His fingers found the bandage, and his frown deepened. His head throbbed. So. He had been injured. Someone had bandaged him and put him to bed. He looked at the woman. “Who are you?”

      She sat up, brushing herself off. She tried to smile, but it looked stiff, awkward. She stopped. “Good morning,” she started again. “I am Liza Fitzpatrick.” She looked at him, clearly waiting for some kind of reaction.

      “You will pardon me if I do not introduce myself.” It was irritating to have to admit his ignorance. Gingerly, he got his feet under him and stood, extending a hand to help her up. “Are you hurt? Please accept my apologies, madam. I do not make a habit of accosting strange women first thing in the morning.”

      “Do you usually wait until the afternoon before you accost women?” She evidently regretted the flippant impulse as soon as she saw him turning red. In more contrite tones, she added, “I should be the one apologizing. I’m sorry I startled you. Shall we sit?” She dragged a barrel chair over to the bedside. He looked around for another chair. When he saw there was none, he sat on the very edge of the bed, muscles tensed.

      Tentatively, she began, “You must be as uncomfortable as I am.”

      If that’s the case, then you must be uncomfortable indeed. Not that it showed. The young woman—Liza—spread the skirt of her blue dress out as she sat, then she folded her hands in her lap. With her light blond hair framing her lovely face, she looked like the picture of a modest young lady, poised and neat. He felt unsure of everything about himself, and he hated it. Then he noticed that the tip of her shoe just showed at the edge of her skirt. She was tapping her foot, where she thought he could not see. The discovery made him feel a bit better. He wasn’t the only one who was unsettled by this conversation.

      “Your name is Matthew Dean.”

      Not even a twinge of familiarity at the name. “You have the advantage of me. How is it you know my name and I do not?”

      “I know you. Or at least,” she amended, “I used to. You came to see me last night. You were ill and fainted.”

      He wrinkled his brow. “I think I remember...something about that. It’s rather vague. I hope I was polite.”

      “What do you remember?”

      He started to shake his head, then stopped, his fingers going to the bandage at his forehead again. “Nothing. Nothing that makes sense, at any rate. It was dark. Men jumped me. I think... I think there might have been a woman there as well, but that hardly seems likely.”

      “What else?”

      “There is nothing else!” He stopped. “I beg your pardon. This is extremely frustrating. It’s as if—it’s as if part of my mind is a locked room and I’m on the outside trying to break down the door. I don’t know the first thing about myself.”

      “Well,” Liza said, “I can help with that, at any rate. Yes, you do know me. You come from Illinois. We traveled out west in the same wagon train, and we used to walk together. We started to talk and became friends. Then we became more than friends. You asked me to marry you. Then you left me to go to California to look for gold.”

      A dry recital of words, sticking to the bare facts. He struggled to take it all in. “I recall none of those actions, madam.”

      Without any memories, he felt like half a man. He was engaged to this woman? It was hard to imagine. She was so close to him that if he reached out his hand he could touch that lovely face, run his fingertip down the curve of her cheek. His fingers longed to do just that. It was as if he knew her on some level that ran deeper than rational thought. But his mind kept listing objections as if he were arguing a case in court. “You mean I just showed up in your doorway last night after not seeing you for months? It seems wildly coincidental.”

      “Not if you were coming to see me.” The tapping foot accelerated its tempo. “Honestly, you are acting like I am offering you a nice, fresh rattlesnake for breakfast. I am not making this up.”

      He didn’t know what to think. Nothing felt real; he could find no solid ground underfoot. He was blundering about, a man out of his depth trying to find his way. He had no way of knowing if she was telling the truth. Some part of him kept insisting that beautiful women were not trustworthy. At the same time, an instinct deeper than all reason urged him to trust this one.

      He spread out his hands in a gesture of apology. “Please don’t misunderstand me. I do not mean to offend you. It’s just—I can’t begin to explain how unsettling it is not to remember such basic facts about oneself. Proposing marriage to a woman is the sort of thing that should stick in a man’s memory.” His smile was hesitant, but it seemed to put her at ease. The toe tapping stopped. She smiled back at him—not a polite, social smile but with the full force of her relief.

      Matthew’s smile faded. For a moment, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to take her in his arms. He had to stop himself from reaching out to her. This was hardly the sort of thought he should be entertaining in this situation. “Well.” He cleared his throat, turned aside, pulled the folded clothes onto his lap. “I should get properly dressed.”

      She blushed and stood up. “I’ll see to breakfast.”

      “Thank you.” He could feel his own face heating up under the beard.

      * * *

      In the front room, Liza folded up the quilts and started setting the table for breakfast. She could cope so long as she had something to do.

      She was aware of every sound of movement she heard from the next room. Her nerves were stretched taut, like fiddle strings keyed up for a concert.

      As she was sweeping the floor, she saw a mouse scurry past, keeping close to the wall. She reacted instantly, whacking the broom down fiercely. She missed and whacked again. Peered down at the crack between the wall and the cupboard. “Where are you? You better get out of here if you know what’s good for you.”

      “I think you made your feelings clear,” came the dry voice from behind her. “He’s probably halfway to St. Joe by now.”

      Matthew appeared in the doorway, dressed in his own clothes. He stood in the same position that he’d been in when he had walked through the front door last night, but one quick glance showed that he looked much better now. There was a healthy flush in his cheeks. He’d even introduced his hair to a comb, though it didn’t look like they’d had much of a conversation. It was oddly endearing.

      “The whole of the Oregon Territory is plagued with these varmints.” She put the broom back in its place with a determined thump.

      “It’s still a large reaction for such a small nuisance.”

      She busied herself with putting food on the table. It was hard to meet his gaze directly. She needed to put some distance between the two of them, to come to terms with the reality of Matthew being back in her life. It was a relief to seize upon a neutral topic. “I can’t abide mice. Over the winter, vermin like that got into my father’s grain stores, ruined near half of it. I have no plans to buy wheat this winter.” No funds to do so, either, but there was no reason to mention this. Matthew nodded, and somehow she had the feeling that he understood what she hadn’t said out loud. She gestured at the table. “Sit. I’ve made biscuits, and there’s some smoked salmon. Granny Whitlow СКАЧАТЬ