LITMIR.BIZ

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come back soon with the things you need. I promise.”

      He gazed at her as if he were trying to memorize everything about her. As if he didn’t believe her. As if he expected never to see her again.

      “I promise,” she repeated, and retreated toward the door. His broad shoulders sagged in defeat, and she knew there was no more she could say to him now; he would not trust her until she returned.

      Her stomach taut with foreboding, she picked up the chair, moved it back to its place in the antechamber and continued through the door. The prisoner made not a sound. She poked her head out the second door, saw no one, left the chamber and hastily locked the door.

      She leaned against it for a moment, breathing fast, until she was certain of her composure. Then she assured herself that there was no observer in the vicinity, replaced the key under the stone and set out for the house.

      He hates Donnington, she thought, sickened by the implications of the prisoner’s reaction. Why? And what if he knew that I am Lady Donnington?

      It didn’t bear thinking of. And it didn’t really matter. She would do exactly as she said. Help him, as she hadn’t been able to help Mama.

      Perhaps that would be enough to save her.

       D O YOU KNOW who you are?

      He had understood the question, but he had not been able to answer it, just as he had been unable to tell the female what he wanted above all else.

      Freedom. Memory. All the bright and beautiful things that had been stolen from him, though he had no recollection of what they had actually been.

      She had not known him, though he had seen her before. She had been present on that day of pain and turmoil, when he had tried to escape his captors. The female.

      Woman, he reminded himself, pronouncing the word inside his mind. The woman who had been with the man, his tormentor, in that time he couldn’t remember.

      She had been afraid then, as he had been afraid. She had fallen and grown quiet, so quiet that he had believed her dead. Then Donnington had taken her away, and he had been compelled to endure this numb emptiness of captivity.

      Until today. Until she had come to him with her soft voice and a warm, half-familiar scent gathered in the heavy folds of her strange garments.

      And asked him who he was.

      He backed against the wall and slid down until he was crouching on the cold floor. He had greeted her with rage, for that was all he had known for so long. He had flung himself against the bars, ignoring the pain searing into his flesh, and sought to drive her away even as the silent voice within begged her to stay.

      And she had stayed. She had told him her name.

      Mariah. He rolled the name over his tongue, though it emerged as a moan. Ma-ri-ah. It was a good sound. One that he might have spoken with pleasure if his mouth would obey his commands.

      I want to help you.

      He grunted—a sound of amusement he had heard in some other life—and remembered the first thought that had come to him then. He had wanted her to open the cage door, but not merely to release him. He had wanted her to come inside, remove the heavy weight of fabric that bound her, open her arms to him and kneel beside him. He would place his head in her lap, and then … and then.

      With a shudder, he flung back his head and plunged his fingers into his hair. There was still so little he grasped, so little he understood, yet he knew why she drew him. Male and female. It had been the same in that long-ago he had only begun to put together in his mind.

      But never like this. Never like her.

      Once more he tried to remember the events that had brought him to this cage. He pieced together terrible images of being violently reborn in this world, finding himself horribly changed, hearing a harsh and unlovely voice that made no sense. Men had taken him and carried him to this place where the taint of iron held him prisoner as surely as the bars themselves.

      For the first while after he had been locked inside, he had staggered about on his two awkward legs, bumping into the high curved walls and fighting for balance. When at last he was able to walk, he had circled the room again and again, looking for a way out that did not exist.

      They had left him alone for two risings of the sun, though he could see nothing but filtered light through the holes in the roof high above. Then another man, ugly and bent, had brought him food, water and a scrap of cloth to cover the most vulnerable part of his body. The man hadn’t spoken to him, and after a few days he had realized that his keeper was as mute as he. When the man had returned, he had flung a slab of flesh, saturated with the smell of newly shed blood, into the cell.

      Stomach churning with disgust, he hadn’t touched it. It wasn’t until after another sun’s rise that the men had brought him things he could eat. Fruit. Bread. The same things the girl had promised him.

      Girl. Mariah. She had seen only a man in him, not what he had been.

      He had been mighty once. No one had dared.

       Who am I?

      There must be an answer. Mariah had promised to help him. He had believed her, until she had spoken the word he hated with all his heart.

      Donnington.

      He leaped up again, clenching and unclenching his fists, those useless appendages that could do nothing but pull at the bars until his palms were burned and raw.

      And yet she had let him hold her hand.

      He struggled to compose a picture of her eyes, far brighter than the sky lost somewhere above him. Captivating him. Holding him frozen with need.

      Donnington. She spoke as if she knew him well; she had asked if he knew the man, and she was not afraid of him. He could not trust her, despite all her gentle speech.

      No. He must learn to understand her—and himself. And until he could speak in her tongue, there could be no further communication.

      He returned to his corner and began to memorize every word she had spoken.

      MARIAH REACHED THE house in ten minutes, shook the worst of the wetness out of her skirts and strode into the entrance hall. As always, it was dark and grim, with its heavy wood paneling and mounted heads, daring the casual visitor to penetrate the manor’s secrets. She walked at a fast pace for the stairs, hoping to avoid the dowager Lady Donnington.

      She was out of luck. Just as if Vivian had anticipated her return, she swept out of the main drawing room and accosted Mariah at the foot of the staircase.

      “Lady Donnington,” she said, a false smile on her handsome face. Her gaze swept down to Mariah’s hem. “I see that you have been out walking again. How very industrious of you.”

      Mariah faced her. “I must contrive to keep myself occupied somehow, Lady Donnington,” she said, “considering my current state of solitude.”

      “Yes. Such a pity that my son felt the need to leave so suddenly after your wedding.”

      It was the same unpleasant veiled accusation the dowager had flung at her immediately after Donnington had left. You were never really his wife, Vivian’s look said. You drove him away.

      Mariah lifted her chin. “I assure you,” she said, “he was not in the least displeased with me.”

      If her statement had been truly a lie, she might not have been able to pull it off. But it was at least half-true, for Donnington had shown no more disgust for her than he had affection. He’d simply ignored her, remained in his own room and left the next morning.

      He’d said he loved her. Had it been the money, after all? Plenty of wealthy men could never be content with what they had, and she’d brought a large marriage settlement, in addition to her own separate inheritance.

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