A Lady's Code of Misconduct (Rules for the Reckless #5)(21)

She did not appear to be particularly . . . affectionate. She had the posture of a woman bracing herself: shoulders squared, hands locked together at her waist.

He remembered her curious manner at his sickbed two nights ago. His recall was hazy; he could not remember her exact words. But he’d had a clear impression of her fear. And she had not come to see him since then. What kind of marriage had they made?

A furtive one, by all accounts. He had eloped with Jane Mason using a special license vouchsafed to him by the archbishop. They had kept the marriage secret—perhaps would have continued to do so, had he not been felled by random cutthroats.

He wanted to know the reason for it. “Will you sit?”

She moved elegantly, her step light and gliding. Today’s gown, like the one before it, was high necked and unadorned, a dull gray silk that ate the light. It was the choice of a woman who wished to go unnoticed. It could not conceal the swell of her bosom, though, or the narrowness of her waist.

The plump curves of her arms suggested that she was generously molded all around. A man’s hands would feel full of her. Crispin would have enjoyed filling his hands with her; he felt certain of that. But he could not remember doing so.

She settled onto the very edge of the wing chair opposite, gripping the arms as though in preparation for a quick leap away.

He could not remember mistreating a woman. But none of them had ever looked at him as this one did—aslant, so warily.

He did not like it. He had hoped for . . . an ally, he supposed. His relationship with his family had always been strained, but a wife, he had hoped, would make a natural confederate.

He searched himself for a remark that might set her at ease. But he had no idea how to address her.

“Forgive me,” he said, “but what shall I call you?” Some husbands addressed their wives intimately. But her manner toward him . . . “Shall I call you Mrs. Burke?”

She flinched. “Jane. Jane will do.”

“Jane,” he said with relief. So perhaps there had been affection between them, after all. “Jane, I imagine this must be as strange for you as for me. If you have any questions, I will gladly answer them.”

She spoke instantly. “Exactly how much have you forgotten?”

Crispin’s father had asked the same. But the tenor of that conversation, his father’s weighted silences and watchful looks, had felt so familiar that Crispin had not hesitated before answering. No matter what he had forgotten, he still knew exactly how every conversation between them was meant to go. Being ambushed by criminals was only a new variation on the old pattern in which Crispin failed to live up to his brother’s example, failed to exemplify dignity and self-possession.

This time, he’d gone so far as to lose his own memories, and nearly his life.

Yes, he knew how to speak to the resigned skepticism in his father’s look. How much had he forgotten? “Not enough,” he’d replied.

But with his wife, he stumbled on the impulse to glibness. He studied her now, with a thoroughness that his shock had not permitted during their first conversation at his sickbed.

What had drawn them together? Not her fortune, despite what his father claimed. Money had never been Crispin’s aim. Despite himself, he’d imbibed enough of the family’s self-importance to dismiss wealth as a goal far beneath him.

Power, then? Power often required money, and a man who controlled the Commons would certainly covet it. But Crispin knew himself. He would not have made a marriage solely for bloodless advantage.

Passion, maybe. Yes, he could imagine it. She was not dressed to her best advantage, but her husband had been ill—not an occasion for vanity. She wore her dark hair slicked viciously against her skull, twisted into submission in that painfully tight but practical braid. The hairstyle emphasized the perfect oval of her face, the straight, thick lines of her dark brows. It also tugged up the corners of her eyes, which were . . . lovely. Large and penetrating, shades of bark brown stippled with amber and mossy green. He stared into them until her gaze dropped again, and a slight flush pinked her cheeks.

Her nose was too bony and pronounced for classic beauty. But it lent her an air of hauteur, which paired well with the penetrating quality of her eyes. She was intelligent, he sensed. He would not have wed her otherwise.

He crafted his tone as an apology. “I’m not certain of precisely where my memories falter. After speaking with my father, it seems I am missing roughly five years. I have no memory of my campaign for the seat, or my friendship with your uncle, or . . .” You.

She seemed to hear that unspoken word, for her mouth flattened. “Yes,” she said. “You and my uncle were great friends.”

“Don’t lose heart,” he said gently. “The memories will come back.”

A pulse beat in the hollow of her throat. “Are you certain?”

None of the doctors had guaranteed it. But for her sake, he lied. “Of course. It may take some time, but there is no question.”

“How long, do you think?”

How tense she sounded. How miserable. “I’m afraid no one knows.” For a brief moment, he imagined never knowing. Never understanding what had led him into politics, or from the brink of failure to success.

You have hopes for the prime ministership, I believe, his father had said. Had anyone else claimed so, Crispin would have thought it a poor joke.