Norwyck's Lady. Margo Maguire

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      “So. You have no idea who you are, or from whence you came,” he said. “What, exactly, do you remember?”

      She hesitated long enough that he was just about to turn to her, but then she murmured, “I remember…only s-snatches of things. A face, a garden…children. I…I—”

      Bart pushed away from the wall and turned to her. “You’ll pardon me if I find your story difficult to believe,” he said derisively. He crossed the room, looking back at her only when he’d reached the chamber door. “You will need clothes. I’ll have a maid bring something suitable to you. When next I see you, mayhap you’ll have a more believable tale to tell.”

      With those parting words, he was gone.

      She turned away from the door and blinked back tears. Not only was she unable to remember anything of substance, but something was terribly wrong with her eyes. The lord’s attitude was quite obviously hostile, as if her turning up at Norwyck had somehow offended him or caused him undue hardship.

      Well, she would just remove herself from this place. There had to be someone who could direct her to a more hospitable dwelling, a place with a less frightening master. As soon as she had clothes to wear, she would get as far from Norwyck as possible.

      If only she could remember. She wracked her brain trying to place the images that came to mind, but was unable to make anything coherent of them. The face of a woman…some blond children…a field of flowers…

      Someone entered the chamber, and she looked up to see the shadowy form of a child. A child with bright red hair, certainly not one of the children she’d seen in her mind.

      “My lady?” the girl said as she approached the bed.

      She cleared her throat. “Yes…”

      “I am Eleanor,” the child said, “sister to Bartholomew.”

      She must have looked quizzically at the child because the youngster clarified, “Bartholomew Holton, Earl of Norwyck.”

      “Oh,” she replied numbly. Bartholomew was the bad-tempered man who’d just left her.

      “I’ve brought you some…What is it?” the child asked.

      “My eyes.”

      “Your eyes are beautiful, my lady,” the girl said as she placed something on the bed. “So clear and bright.”

      She shook her head, sending sharp spears of pain through her skull. Lying back on the bed, she swallowed back a wave of nausea. “Nay, they are not clear. I cannot see.”

      “You are blind?” the child asked, astonished.

      “Not quite,” she replied, “but I might as well be. Everything I see is hazy. Blurred.”

      “Like when I squeeze my eyes almost closed and look at you?”

      “Something like that.”

      “How terrible,” the child replied, placing a small hand on her forearm. “How do you manage? I mean if you’re—”

      “I do not know,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ve always been like this, or if…Nay. This malady seems too unfamiliar. I could not have suffered it before….”

      “I do not understand, my lady.”

      She hesitated. Would a child—even this child, who seemed so bright, so interested—ever understand?

      “I—I seem to have lost my memory.”

      Silence filled a long, empty interval, and she could feel the little girl’s eyes upon her. Finally, the child spoke, her voice alight with wonder and puzzlement.

      “You’ve lost your…You mean you cannot remember—”

      “I cannot remember anything,” she whispered in reply.

      “Did the wreck take your memories away?”

      “I suppose so, though I have no way of know—”

      “Your name! You do not even remember your name?”

      She fought back tears. “Nay. I do not know who I am. Or where I belong.” She did not even know if English was her own language. It seemed familiar to her in an odd, distant way.

      Eleanor made a small sound, then walked around to the other side of the bed. “Will you ever remember it?” The girl’s voice was full of astonishment and sympathy.

      She felt the child’s interested gaze upon her.

      “I do not know.”

      “What will we call you, then?” the child asked.

      She bit her lip and tamped down the panic that threatened to overwhelm her again. Who was she? She tried to think of a name that seemed to fit, but could not. Naught seemed familiar, and trying to force the memory only made her head hurt more. “I have no idea.”

      “Then we’ll just have to give you a new name,” the child said excitedly. “I will share my name with you. We’ll call you Eleanor…. Nay.” It sounded as if the girl was frowning. “That would be too confusing, with two of us. I know!” The voice brightened. “We’ll call you after King Edward’s wife—Marguerite!”

      “’Tis as g-good a name as any, I suppose,” she replied, though it, too, sounded utterly unfamiliar.

      “Oh, I forgot!” Eleanor said. “I brought you some clothes. Bartie sent a maid to do it, but I came in her stead.”

      “I thank you, Lady Eleanor,” Marguerite replied, somewhat buoyed by the girl’s exuberance. “Tell me, is there a shift or chemise I can put on now? I seem to have…lost all my clothes somehow.”

      Eleanor sorted through the stack that she’d brought, and held up something long and white. “This will do,” she said. “Shall I help you?”

      “Yes, please,” Marguerite said. The friendliness of the child continued to surprise her, especially after her brother’s antagonistic behavior, and Marguerite felt fortunate that there was at least one gracious person at Norwyck Keep. She did not know if she’d ever needed a friend before, but ’twas clear she needed one now.

      Bart took a long swallow of ale as he stood by the fire in the great hall. He’d finished removing his armor, but still wore the soaked and stained undertunic and hose he’d had on all through the night of battle. The rain had not let up, and still there were bodies lined up under a tarp on the beach. Huge piles of debris as well as valuables were under guard down by the sea, and a half-blind woman with no memory lay wounded in his tower.

      If she could be believed.

      He doubted it. He had to give her credit for a gifted imagination, though. Who would ever have thought of such a ploy? A lost memory.

      He shook his head and laughed grimly. She would not be able to keep up the farce for long. ’Twas likely her ship was a Scottish one, and she was СКАЧАТЬ