“Do you ever think you’ll remarry?” asked Margaret pensively. “I see how much you adore babies. Isn’t that right, little one?” She waved her son’s hand at Artemisia. He gurgled wetly.

  “I cannot see that happening, no. I have the luxury of independent wealth. My time is my own.” She ignored the pinch in her middle and fondly smoothed the baby’s fuzzy head. “I don’t like all children,” she lied. “Only yours.”

  There was no use mentioning the fact that she was barren. The facts were plain to anyone who thought about them for five seconds—three years of marriage and not once had she fallen pregnant. She’d been grateful at the time. Had she known her husband was going to get drunk and die in a carriage wreck, she might have made a more concerted effort to have a baby with him. Raising a child without his interference would have had its challenges, but on balance, it would have been worth it.

  She wouldn’t have felt so lonely all the time.

  There it was. The ache that had driven her to sleep with a man she hardly knew. To fall in love with him—or at least, with the image she had built up in her mind.

  Henry hadn’t written to her. Not once. Clearly, he did not feel the same about her as she had about him. She must have hallucinated the yearning in his eyes when he handed her into her carriage and drove away that morning.

  “You’re sure you’re alright?” her cousin asked, startling Artemisia out of her thoughts.

  “Of course. I’m only thinking about how much I will miss this sweet boy.” She kissed his cheek. The infant smelled of sour milk and a nappy that needed changing.

  “You must come back and visit us again next year,” Margaret insisted. “Maybe by then he will have a little sister or brother.”

  An entire year. He would be so different by then. Walking. Babbling as he learned to speak words. He would have forgotten her.

  “I appreciate that,” she said, fighting the hot press of tears. “Do keep me apprised of his progress.”

  “I will.”

  A blur of motion from the periphery of her vision startled Artemisia into peering down the road.

  “What on earth is that?” Margaret breathed, following her.

  “I believe that is a rider.” Artemisia gasped when the horse bucked, a wild kick to try and unseat the man clinging to its back.

  “He’s coming too fast up the road.” She covered her mouth with one hand. “The horse has bolted. Someone try to catch him!” Margaret’s husband darted off, doing the most unhelpful thing imaginable and waving his arms while running straight toward the frightened beast. Too quickly—so fast Artemisia could hardly comprehend what she was seeing—the horse dodged the oncoming man, kicked viciously, and unseated the rider. He went flying comically into the air, his hair a crown, his eyes wide and startled. He landed with a sickening roll into the gutter.

  “Henry!” Artemisia screamed, and ran to his prone body.

  Nine

  HENRY

  He had died and gone to heaven. One minute he’d been airborne. The next, he fell to earth with the sickening force of Icarus. He didn’t mind being deceased—at least he had found her again.

  Who? Henry racked his aching brain for the woman’s name. She was sobbing and patting his cheeks. Wet warmth trickled down his temple. Blood. Overhead, a puffy cloud drifted by.

  “Artie?” he croaked.

  “Don’t move. Your neck might be broken.”

  He tried wiggling his toes. They worked. So did his fingers. Apart from a headache—another concussion, probably; the pain felt familiar—he was intact. He grabbed the widow and pulled her down.

  “What are you—mmf.” After a beat of resistance, she kissed him back. “What are you doing here, Henry?”

  “I came to find you.” He winced. “They did warn me the horse wasn’t fully broken, but I was in such a rush I didn’t care.”

  “Now look at you,” she said with exasperated fondness. “A mess, all over again.”

  “At least this time, I’m not naked.” He grinned. A reluctant chuckle shook her shoulders.

  “You’re incorrigible,” she scolded. “You could have written me a letter, you know.”

  “It’s complicated,” he said. “This will take a while to explain.”

  Two servants helped him into the house, where he was put to bed with a cold cloth. Mr. Gibbs sent for a physician. There was no explaining anything until he had been cleared by the doctor. All afternoon, while he was supposed to be resting, memories came flooding back.

  By the time they allowed him to join the family for dinner, he finally had his preposterous story straight. He eschewed the wine and tried to explain himself to his hosts.

  “I met your cousin, Mrs. Longwood, when she found me naked by the side of the road.”

  “Naked?” Mr. Gibbs sputtered.

  “You didn’t tell us that part,” Margaret said sternly to Artemisia.

  “It didn’t seem relevant.” Her cheeks burned bright-red. “What? I could hardly leave him lying there in the ditch.”

  “In point of fact I was lying on a slight grade in the bushes. ’Twas the sight of my posterior that your cousin found so arresting.” He grinned. Artie kicked him beneath the table. “But we didn’t know who I was. I had lost my memory. I had no clothes and no known identity. No one locally recognized me. As I later discovered, I am Lord Hendrik Hancock, the duke of Voss, and until six weeks ago, I was a hunted man.”

  “Do go on,” Margaret insisted. Even Artemisia looked intrigued. He had better make this story good. He had one chance to convince her to be his wife. If she said no…

  He couldn’t bear to contemplate that outcome.

  “I ran away from my own wedding,” he blurted out.

  “Naked?” Artemisia blurted out. Her cheeks turned crimson.

  “That part came later. I admit it wasn’t well done of me, leaving Lady Awellah Boyle at the altar. I agreed to the match out of duty, but when I realized how ill-suited we were, I panicked. I stole a horse and rode hell for leather, only to realize I had gone the wrong direction and that turning around would take me back to the very same people I was trying to get away from.” He grimaced. “I made such a hasty departure that I managed to leave without money or even a coat.”

  “That sounds like a spectacular failure of a wedding. Might I inquire what the problem was?” asked Margaret.

  “Lady Boyle is deeply religious.” He winked at Artemisia. “Whereas I am something of a libertine. My bride-to-be was convinced she could change me into a devout man of faith. I was equally determined not to change anything. We had butted heads several times in the course of marriage negotiations, but I believed, erroneously, that she would soften with age. Hence, our long-delayed nuptials. The match had been arranged by our parents in the cradle. Despite this, I hardly knew the woman I was set to wed.”

  “This isn’t to your credit, Henry,” Artemisia said primly. He hadn’t forgotten her insistence upon keeping up public morals. She might bend in private, but she was fundamentally a morally upstanding lady. The difference was that she wasn’t a pedantic hypocrite about her beliefs. Artemisia accepted a certain degree of joyful indecency in private, something Lady Boyle was incapable of.

  “I am not proud of my behavior. I fled when it became clear that she could never make me happy, nor I her.” Awellah had been rigidly religious yet her faith was all surface-level. He found her piety pompous and self-serving, her supposed good deeds always accompanied by sneering arrogance he could not abide. “I knew that breaking the marriage contract would cost me, but I was willing to pay the price. Still, I needed help to extricate myself from the predicament I found myself in. Are you aware of a loose group called the Wayward Dukes?”

  “No,” all three of his dinner companions answered as one. “A duke!” exclaimed Mrs. Gibbs. “Can you believe such an esteemed person sits at our table?”

  “Indeed I can. Why shouldn’t we welcome a duke?” answered Mr. Gibbs, clearly chuffed. “I take it you are one of these Wayward Dukes, sir?”

  “You guess correctly. The alliance is a group of dukes who may call upon one another for aid. I daresay most of us have been ensnared in one kind of problematic business or another. This time it was my turn.” Henry shifted in his seat. “Not long after you left me with Viscount Prescott, Artemisia, the gentleman returned home. He recognized me immediately. Naturally, I was stunned to learn that I was a duke.”

  “Have your memories returned at all?” asked Artemisia. Unlike their host, she didn’t appear to be impressed by his title. He’d been afraid of that. She was going to blow this all out of proportion. He was going to have to be extra convincing.

  “Yes, they have, very slowly. I believe falling off that horse and suffering a second head injury has rattled free the remaining memories that I was previously unable to recall. Apart from a slight headache, I feel fine.”

  “Why didn’t you write to me?” asked Artemisia, arching one brow at him. Henry had the sinking feeling that he was losing her the more he spoke.

  “I wanted to. I had a mess to clean up in London, which required all of my attention for several weeks. The real reason for my silence was that I did not know how you would take the news that I am a peer. I decided the best way to tell you was in person, so as soon as I was free of my entanglement with Lady Boyle, I started for Cornwall. Unfortunately, my carriage broke an axle this morning. I rented that barely-trained horse from a farmer and rode ahead. I was too impatient to wait any longer.”

  Please tell me you still want me. The prolonged absence had only heightened his longing for the widow. He had gone so far as to inquire about her, and once he found her direction, he sent word to her home near Bristol. Only to be informed that she was still away visiting family. That was when he had—rather impulsively—set out to find the widow who had captured his heart.

  Now that he was here, he felt the distance between them lengthening with every word he spoke. Did she think he was a cad? He could hardly blame her if she did. This entire summer he had acted with rash impulsivity that did not speak well of any man, let alone a duke.

  “I suppose I should be flattered,” the widow said in a small voice.

  Her understated reaction did not seem like a very good sign. His heart sank. He had pinned his hopes on finding her and explaining the situation, yet she grew more withdrawn with every syllable he spoke.

  Artemisia’s gaze flicked to her cousin. That tiny pleat of worry appeared on her forehead. Henry caught Mr. Gibbs’ eye and jerked his head in a not-very-subtle request to be left alone. The man did not catch on.

  “I think we should leave you two to have a private conversation,” said Margaret, who signaled to her husband. Both rose and exited the dining room together.

  “I want you to know that I have missed you every hour of every day since we parted ways,” he began when they were alone, while Artemisia said bluntly, “I cannot believe you are a duke.”

  He chuckled and reached for her hand. She permitted him to take it. He was not giving up on his chance of happiness.

  “Not a day has gone by when I did not think of you. It is a preposterous tale, is it not?”

  “Impressively ridiculous,” she agreed. “You still haven’t told me how you ended up naked and unconscious, though.”

  “Ah,” Henry’s ears warmed at the tips. “It’s very embarrassing. I was waylaid by a comely lady on the road when I was running away from my wedding. Seeing as I had no coin on my person, nor any sense of where I was headed, I stopped. She brandished a pistol and forced me to remove all my clothes, which she then proceeded to steal. Then this woman thief bashed me over the head with the butt of her pistol, whereupon I assume I stumbled into the bushes. I can only hope she got a good price when she sold them.”

  Artemisia chuckled. “Quite a misadventure. I suppose you earned such poor treatment for running away from your own nuptials.”

  “Which I would not do if you were to do me the honor of becoming my wife.” He slid out of his chair and dropped to one knee, producing a velvet box from his pocket. “Please, Artemisia. Make me the happiest man alive?”

  Ten

  ARTEMISIA

  Artemisia stared at the ring. Then at Henry’s earnest, handsome face. The same rogue who had thrown her into bed when she tried to maintain a modicum of propriety by sleeping on the floor. The same man she had missed every night for weeks in the snatches of rest she was able to get in between caring for Margaret’s infant.

  A duke.

  She could not possibly remarry anyone, let alone a peer. She had independence, wealth, and she was content with her life.

  Except.

  She yearned for what Margaret had. Even if her cousin’s husband, Mr. Gibbs, was sometimes foolish and cowardly as when he had fled the scene of his wife’s labor, he still loved her. He hardly knew what to do with the baby, but he changed diapers and was learning to care for his son. They weren’t perfect, but they were happy.

  And she was…not.

  She was lonely. She had tried to cover up her longing for a family by indulging in the occasional discreet affaire, yet that had only been a temporary solution each time. Until Henry. Until she had gone and fallen in love with a man who didn’t remember his own name…

  “How dare you be a duke?” she sobbed, and was horrified to find herself bursting into tears. What was wrong with her lately?

  “Is that a yes?” he asked in puzzlement.

  “No it is not a yes!” she exclaimed.

  “That sentence doesn’t make sense.”

  “Henry, I cannot marry a peer. I am not even a lady! I am a reasonably well-off widow who failed to give her husband an heir. You are a duke! You will need heirs!”

  This was a disaster. Her inability to bear children had caused endless rancor in her first marriage. She could not possibly consign herself to decades of misery, not when the stakes were so high. Artemisia tried to collect herself but it was like trying to grasp water—she couldn’t hold it. Emotions slipped through her fingers and eddied in her stomach. A whirlpool, sucking her down.

  Suddenly nauseous, she lurched out of her chair and lunged for the nearest chamber pot. Thank God it was clean. She emptied the contents of her stomach—very little, fortunately; her appetite had been off for days—into the ceramic basin. When she was done retching, she sat on her heels and pressed her forehead to the cold porcelain.

  You just puked in front of a duke. He asked you to marry him, and you vomited.

  There was no coming back from this. She was going to have to sell everything she owned, move abroad, and change her name.

  “Artie,” he said softly. A large hand stroked her back. “I didn’t intend for my proposal to make you sick.”

  He sounded chagrined. Artemisia couldn’t stop a hopeless chuckle from overtaking her. What a terrible feeling, to be ill and laughing at the same time.

  “It’s not you.” She closed the lid and slumped against the wall, her skirt hiking up. What was the point of modesty when he had already seen everything? “Babies are so much work. I’m exhausted after only six weeks, and I am not even his mother.”

  “Mrs. Gibbs was fortunate to have you with her.”

  “But I will never have that experience. We would never have that, Your Grace.” She squeezed his forearm, wishing he understood instead of brimming with obstinate optimism. How flattering that he was determined to win her over; how foolish of him to want her in the first place.

  “First of all, you cannot be certain about your inability to conceive. Second, while I would like to have children with you, Artemisia, I do not require heirs. I have four younger brothers and two sisters, both of whom have children of their own. The title shall pass down within the family regardless of whether or not I directly sire a son or not. Thirdly, even though you were physically ill at the mere prospect of becoming my wife, I am undeterred. You might not say yes now, but I am not giving up.” Henry cupped her chin and lifted it. Artemisia’s vision swam.

  “That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, Your Grace.”

  He kissed her forehead fondly. “Stop calling me that, unless you want me to start calling you Artie all the time.”

  An airless chuckle took her by surprise.

  “I spent most of my adult life avoiding marriage, Artemisia. But ever since meeting you, I have realized that it wasn’t the institution I objected to, it was the woman I was expected to wed. Once I met you, I was no longer opposed to the idea. If finding you required sacrificing my dignity to a lady thief and running away from my own wedding like a coward, then it was all worth it. We may have only had two days together in Cavalier Cove, but that was all I needed to know that I could love you for the rest of my life.”

  Artemisia sucked in a harsh breath, and started bawling.

  “I can’t, Henry. This is the worst thing ever to happen to me. I finally met someone I could love. I do love you. I hardly know you, but I think about you all the time. Yet I know what it’s like to endure disappointment every month for years on end. I’d hate for the real affection we have for one another to turn sour.”

  “So that’s a maybe?” he said hopefully.

  There was one thing worse than being sick and laughing uncontrollably, and that was not knowing whether she was laughing or crying.

  “I’ll consider the idea if you accompany me during the journey home.” That was as much as she was willing to give him. For now.

  They departed from Margaret’s a day later than Artemisia had planned to, but riding together in her carriage. Henry’s second head wound wasn’t nearly as serious as the first. Apart from a tender bump, he swore he had slept soundly and felt up to the journey.

  “More than up to it,” he murmured in her ear as they waved goodbye to Artemisia’s kin. They were barely out of the drive before he was pulling her into his lap to demonstrate precisely what he meant.