Peregrine's Prize, page 7
And I her front, sides and rear. Before then though, he needed to eat, and try to wheedle some more facts out of Maggie. Perry moved his head in a circular motion, pleased that his minor headache grew no stronger. Perhaps he was over the worst? The purple and orange bruise on his cheek and down his left side gave out a mere throb, not the hard pulsing pain he experienced the day before, and he was able to almost ignore them. If he really thought his name was Perry Cotton, then all would be right with his world.
He whistled softly under his teeth as he left the bedchamber and headed for the stair. Some ale and eggs would go a long way to assuaging his hunger for food.
On the third tread down of the staircase, the whistle changed to a hiss. In front of him, his wife was in a close embrace with not only a man, but a woman. How dare she?
"Even though I'm indisposed, I thought last night showed you I'm well able to attend to your every needs when I'm incapacitated." To his annoyance he sounded wounded and hurt, not angry as he should be. The sight made his head spin and flashing images bombarded him so fast he couldn't decipher what was what. "However I didn't realize this. You enjoy a threesome, Maggie? Why did you never tell me?"
The man looked up and tightened his hold on the women.
"Well you always were prosy, Peregrine, but I never thought you were an ass as well."
Peregrine? Who would call me that? That is a prosy name.
Maggie disengaged herself and walked to the bottom of the stairs. Her clear blue eyes looked up at him, with exasperated emotion.
"Perry, now open your eyes properly and think. Your brain may be addled, your memory patchy, but do we really look as if we were about to have unbridled sex a la trois in the hallway, where the world could see if they chose to look through the open door? Not only that, look at us. Look at us." She ran her hand over her crumpled dress. I may look rumpled and untidy, but that my … that is down to you. They however are dressed for riding. Horses, not me or each other." She turned and glared at Nash who sniggered, and Perry could have sworn Nash muttered "Hmm little you know," under his breath.
The third member of the hug-huddle shut the door and walked across the hallway, her shoes clicking on the flags. Something about her triggered a faint and dusty memory. She titled her head toward him and smiled. Perry swayed and grasped the banister for support. Stars whirled in front of his eyes, and a roaring noise filled his ears. Maggie's voice came at him through a long cobwebby tunnel and he could only pick out the odd word. Her face swam in and out of his vision, anxious and pale, as she raced up the stairs, her dress in her hands and caught hold of his shoulder to steady him.
"Who is she? Why is she here?" He swallowed and took hold of Maggie's hand in a tight grip as if the contact would give him the answers.
"You tell us." On his other side, Nash took his other arm and helped guide him down the rest of the stairs to the lounge. "The sawbones will have my guts for garters if he sees you like this. We're supposed to be keeping you calm, not letting you get agitated. Here, sit down and be quiet." Perry found himself pushed into a large, squashy armchair, and a mug of watered down ale pressed into his hands. He closed his eyes to try to stop the room wavering, and drank gratefully, somewhat annoyed at the lack of flavor.
"Cat’s piss," he said and opened his eyes. "Am I a bigamist?"
The response wasn't what he expected. The other three occupants of the room burst out laughing.
"Why would you say that?" Nash asked eventually, after Perry wondered if he'd inadvertently strayed into Bedlam. "Lud man, even in our f … in my employ that's not acceptable, and some say I run a remarkably lax household. Love, get him some undiluted ale, and if it fells him, so much the better. We'll have obeyed the good doctor by following his orders to keep him quiet."
Perry snorted. "May I say I prefer this way than laudanum. I have this feeling something is very wrong here. I know I love my wife." He grinned at Maggie who smiled back at him, even though her eyes clouded over like a shadow across the moon on a starlit night. "But this other lady seems familiar."
Maggie made a noise, which sounded like a cross between a snort and a growl.
Perry harrumphed. "No, stop scowling, not to the extent that sounds but also as someone I know, and who I supposed to be important to me. Now how do I know that? And about alcohol as a drug to smooth away pain? I fell out of a tree—no, someone—you." He pointed at Nash, who inclined his head without apology. "You pushed me, and the damned leech tried to give me the stuff. Mama was horrified and papa gave me a slug of whisky instead. It made me as sick as a dog, but my leg was set in record time. What?" All three of them were standing in front of him.
Maggie shook her head, and looked toward Nash.
"It seems your memory is selecting what to remember," Nash said. "I wonder why you chose to remember that?"
"It seems a broken leg inflicted by my brother is an occasion to remember," Perry said. Then he replayed his words in his mind. "Brother? You're my brother?"
Nash inclined his head. "For my sins, one of which was pushing you out of the tree. In my defense you confiscated my catapult not long before."
"You were a hoyden, a wild child who needed direction. Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do I think you needed direction? Why did I remember that specific even? You are my brother?"
"Oh yes, what else do you remember?"
"Nash," The lady whose name Perry didn't know, but who seemed so familiar spoke in a warning tone to his brother. "He has to remember by himself. You do not lead him or drop hints."
Nash looked not one whit abashed. Perry turned to the lady.
"And you are?"
"Felicity. Nash's wife. That much I can tell you."
Perry mulled over her words. Something was missing from that sentence. "In so far as it goes, that sounds right," he said slowly. "However, I know there is more. Yes all right, you won't tell me, but dammit, why can't I remember things from now instead of things that aren't relevant?"
"Perhaps somehow they are relevant," Maggie said quietly. "It's just that you don’t know why yet. When your mind thinks you're strong enough to cope with the here and now, it will unlock that door for you. But remembering the catapult incident helped you remember Nash."
Perry saw the sense in that. "So you're not my employer?"
"No, thank the lord."
"Well what do I do?"
"Ask too many questions, it seems." Doctor Nicholls entered the room unheard. "I let myself in, but might I suggest you keep the doors barred until we find out who masterminded the attack. Am I right in thinking your memory is selecting information to impart to you?"
"Evidently." Perry looked the doctor up and down. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t familiar. As Nash ushered the ladies out of the room, the doctor began to question Perry closely. He answered his questions as Dr. Nicholls listened intently.
"Then," he said as Perry stopped speaking, "All we can do is wait. You need to watch your back."
Perry gasped, and grabbed the doctor's arm. "She said that, my attacker. Get Nash, please, as fast as you can."
To his credit, the doctor didn't ask any more questions but opened the door and walked out. Within seconds Nash followed the doctor back inside the room. Both women slipped in behind him and stood quietly, by the window. Nash slumped into a chair identical to the one Perry occupied. Doctor Nicholls stood next to the door, in deceptively realized pose. Perry decided he looked like a terrier on guard duty.
The doctor's straw colored hair sat somewhat wiry, and his build sturdy rather than elegant. Perry wondered if they all thought he was about to bolt for freedom? Where they thought he would go was a mystery, as he didn't know exactly who he was, where he was, or why he was wherever he was. It was enough to confuse anyone, memory loss or not.
"Lord, this is like doing one of those giant dissected map puzzles with the important pieces hidden. Nigh on impossible to fathom it out." Nash stretched his arm high above his head. "I'm weary. It's been a long few days."
"Never mind that," Perry spoke, and winced as he heard the impatience in his voice. It wouldn't help. "Well I have fathomed one thing, three people attacked me, and one of them spoke the same words as the doctor did a few moments ago. 'You need to watch your back'."
"Did you recognize him?" Nash leaned forward to ask.
Perry bit his lip. "As I remember no one apart from what I have told you, it's not likely is it? More to the point, it wasn't a he, it was a she."
Chapter Ten
"Gussie Gravesend," Maggie burst out, and then colored as three people turned to look at her. One with a question in his eyes, and the other two with different degrees of condemnation. Ah well.
"Gussie who?" Doctor Nicholls asked. "A female you know might have done this?" he sounded scandalized. "A gentlewoman?"
"Not much gentle about her," Nash said grimly. "She's a hard headed determined virago, with a temper to strip the lead off the church roof if crossed. And The Grettons have done rather a lot of that lately." He paused and rolled his eyes. "Crossing her, not stripping lead. Oh hell, the tell all tongue seems to have infiltrated me as well."
The doctor pushed himself off the wall. "Well as he hasn't screamed, passed out, or foamed at the mouth, I daresay telling him a bit more won't do any harm now, even if it doesn't do any good. The mind is a mysterious thing, which we know little about. I've seen it before, this blankness of the mind."
"Does the blankness lift?" Perry asked him, with the strain in his voice evident.
Doctor Nicholls touched his shoulder. "Sometimes. Sometimes not. With each person it's different, and never let anyone tell you otherwise. It is my considered opinion that as you are getting snippets, and it seems they come due to trigger words, I see no reason why, if you ask a question, it isn't answered." He walked across the room and picked up his cloak. "You know where I am if you need me, but somehow, I don't think you will. I can see myself out."
The silence in the room once he departed seemed as heavy as an autumn fog blanketing the countryside. After a long minute Nash stirred. "I'll just go and check all the doors are locked. We need to plan." He walked out of the room.
"Bring food and drink," Perry called after him. "Planning on an empty stomach never works."
Maggie sniggered. "As you say. Are you comfortable in here, love? Do you want to go back to bed?"
Perry shook his head, and Maggie was overjoyed to note he didn’t wince at the movement. "Only if you join me, and we get rid of the others."
Felicity rolled her eyes. "He was never like that with me," she whispered in Maggie's ear. "Stuffy, prosy, 'I know what's best', and no deviations. You are so right for him."
"And you for Nash," Maggie whispered back.
"Ahem." Perry tapped his chair arm. "It's rude to whisper. What are you plotting? And why do I think Felicity was important in my past?"
"She's my wife," Nash strolled back into the room and answered before either Felicity or Maggie could. He set down the loaded tray he carried on a convenient table adjacent to the chair Perry sat in, "Your sister by marriage."
"I know that," Perry replied and ran his hand over his chin and tapped his teeth with his fingernail. The familiar gesture made Maggie well up. She brushed at her eyes with the back of her hand, annoyed at her weakness. It was so like him, and usually preluded something hot and heavy. That wasn't probable this time, and she cursed the heavy lump of disappointment that lodged in her stomach. It would be so perfect to lift his cock from its nest of hair, take it in her mouth and feel it grow and harden as she laved it until he shuddered and spilled. So involved in her dreams, and the way her juices made their presence known to her, she almost missed Perry's next question.
"Why did I think I was involved in bigamy?"
No one answered. Felicity nibbled her lip and looked at Maggie who shrugged.
"Well? Nash? As the women seem to have developed my affliction and have memory loss perhaps you can enlighten me?"
"I could, but will I?" Nash raised one eyebrow and laughed as Perry made his hands into fists. "You know we used to call you Prosy Perry? You seem to have lost that part of you thank god, however it is almost too much to ask of me not to realize I could tell you anything and you would have no way of disproving it. For instance you owe me the one hundred guineas I won off you when Satin whelped eight puppies. You wagered she would have but three."
"Five," Perry shot back without a pause. "And we wagered twenty five guineas only. Not only that, it seems your memory is also at fault, for I paid you when I came to sort Harry out."
The room became quiet again and then slowly, Nash began to clap.
"Bravo, so that is the way to help you remember. Goad you and tell you lies."
"Nash Gretton, stop it," Felicity said and shook her husband. The effect was like a butterfly on the branch of an oak tree but it was enough for him to smile at her, in what Maggie decided was a particularly mawkish manner.
I'm jealous. She also accepted she was scared she and Perry would never regain all they shared before his assault.
"What, what have I said?" Nash asked in an over-innocent voice. To Maggie's delight, Perry mimed vomiting noises.
"It's not what you said, which somehow I think we left behind when we donned long trousers, but how you looked. To someone who can't remember the delights of the flesh," he turned and winked at Maggie who felt her quim begin to shake and her cunt contract. "Then it is cruel indeed to act thus."
Nash possessed the intelligence to look contrite, but Felicity giggled.
"That is a very limited memory, my lord."
Maggie groaned. No one as yet mentioned Perry's title, or their family name. She couldn't believe Perry hadn't picked up on it. However neither did she think Felicity would have used either without consulting Nash beforehand. "Look, stop messing and let's try to sort all this out. I want to spend time with my husband without fear of a bullet in my back, or a knife at my throat. Can we recap what Perry knows, and what he and we need to sort out?"
Nash nodded, and Maggie went to sit on a low stool next to Perry.
He bent his head to stroke her ear.
"Earrings, and you know how I like you in that position. Bent over it would be better, but I can wait." Once Nash and Felicity seated themselves in much, Maggie realized, the same way as she and Perry, Perry raised his voice. "Shall I recap all I remember? I seem to have lots of fragments coming to me, but I have no idea in what order they are meant to be."
"If you will." Nash handed him a wedge of pie and a tankard. Perry nodded his thanks and took a bite of pie and ate it before he started to speak. He only used one hand, and left the other one to toy with Maggie's hair and ear. Strands came out of the loose knot she twisted it into, and he tugged on them. Perry always hated her hair tied up.
"I remember an old house, and that blasted tree you threw me out off," he began. "It was summer, and according to Papa—now I can't see a face but I know it must have been he—only my thick skull and the heavy foliage saved me from more than a broken leg."
"And me a harder thrashing," Nash said ruefully. "Even then Papa could wield a mean crop on one's arse when necessary. For one who didn't believe in corporal punishment there were times he deemed it necessary, and used it."
"Anything else?" Maggie looked up at him, appalled at the picture he'd painted. Her papa was stern, yes, but never ever flogged or chastised her so. He thought a period of solitary reflection much better, and as Maggie hated the idea that she thought him correct in his assumptions. Perry tightened his fingers tightened on her ear.
"Some. However I don't think it is repeatable in company," Perry said, and Maggie reckoned her blush spread as fast as the incoming tide in The Wash.
"Yes, well," she said in a hurry. "What that is repeatable can you recall?"
He rubbed his chin. "It is so frustrating. To my chagrin, I can't remember our wedding." Maggie was glad she'd already blushed, because if she hadn't the telltale color would surely have him questioning her demeanor. "Nevertheless I know you as my wife."
Now she felt the color drain from her. So many lies and deceits, would he ever forgive her? It was lucky Perry wasn't looking in her direction; he'd turned his face toward Nash.
"And you for my sins as my brother. I remember another young woman, and she was in danger?" He wrinkled his nose. "A ring, a ruby ring that I was to give to someone. It was something that needed to be done and neither of us wanted it? Lord, now my head aches."
"Then stop worrying," Maggie said firmly, once her breathing returned to normal. "Eat and let Nash tell you what he thinks fit." She passed Perry a knife and indicated the pastries on the tray.
"One minute, a ruby ring. The woman who hit me, she wore a ruby ring the size of a duck egg. Someone else mentioned it. Oh sweet Jesus." He dropped the knife and it missed Maggie by inches. It was a measure of Perry's agitation he didn't even notice. "Dye, what happened to Dye? It was a woman who led the attack on him."
"Dye? I thought him in London?" Nash asked. He passed his plate to his wife and stood up. "If not, then where?"
Perry shook his head in frustration and gasped. "I don't know. Argh, the pain." Sweat beaded his face, and his hands shook. Maggie grabbed hold of them as Nash came to their side. Even in those few seconds Perry blanched as white as the cloth covering the tray. Maggie dipped a serviette into the jug of ale and wiped Perry's face with it.
How long he shivered and shook, Maggie had no idea. Felicity slipped out of the room unnoticed, and returned within minutes carrying a basin of cold water, which she placed on the floor next to Maggie.
"It has to be better than ale," she said quietly, and moved away.
Nash nodded. "Look he's stopped shaking." But Maggie noted he didn't let go of his brother until Perry opened his eyes.
"Water, please," Perry's voice wasn't much more than a whisper, but Felicity heard and passed a beaker of the cool liquid to Maggie who held it to Perry's lips. He wrapped his hand around hers and drank deeply. With a half-smile he handed the empty vessel back. Maggie was relieved to see that although he was still pale he'd stopped shaking and his diction was clear.
