Secret Heart Read online

  “She claims that she cannot recall her own name,” Sir Roarke explained.

  “What?” Garit cried. “No, that’s impossible. Chantal, my love—”

  “Look at her,” Sir Roarke commanded. “She has obviously been in the sea. She says her head aches. I would guess she was shipwrecked and washed ashore.”

  “Chantal, where have you been all these months?” Garit asked.

  His latest repetition of that name was not so disturbing to her as his first exclamation had been. A spurt of bitter amusement cut through her thoughts, banishing the last of her lingering confusion and reminding her just how dangerous her every word and action was going to be until she reached her final goals of revenge and justice. She was amazed that she had survived her long ordeal and then her immersion in the sea. She hadn’t expected to survive. Telling herself she could not fail, for if she was still alive then, surely, she was destined to complete her perilous quest, she looked into Garit’s eyes.

  The warmth with which he was regarding her told her that he was the very person she needed to help her fulfill her heart’s most secret desire. Using him would be risky, but it could be done if she was very careful.

  She was not at all certain about Sir Roarke, though, for he was regarding her with a mixture of perplexity and suspicion. Clearly, he was not as tenderhearted about Lady Chantal of Thury as was his friend.

  “The name Chantal means nothing to me,” she said. She frowned, pretending to be thinking deeply, and she dared to hope that both men would assume she was wending her way through a slowly returning memory. “But that name does conjure up another: Jenia. It seems oddly familiar to me. In fact, it is so familiar that I think it must be my name. Do you recognize it? Or me?”

  She waited for Garit to respond, hoping he’d not recall the name. She had never in her life spoken to Garit of Kinath before the present hour, though she knew very well who he was. Half Sapaudian, half Kantian, he was a private emissary from Audemar, king of Kantia, to King Henryk of Sapaudia. Garit ought to be in Calean City, attending King Henryk at the royal court. She didn’t think it was wise to inquire what he was doing on the very same beach where she had washed ashore, but all of her senses were by now fully alert.

  “Who? Who?” As if to punctuate her concerns, a large white owl flew low over them, its cry and shape out of place in the hours before nightfall. Within the next heartbeat the bird was gone, leaving the sky empty once more.

  “You look so much like Chantal,” Garit said.

  “How can you be sure?” It was a terrible question to ask a lover. She decided to try humor to soften the pain he must be feeling. She did know how he felt; she understood his grief as few others could. How she wished she could tell him so. She offered a weak smile in place of the truth he deserved. “I think it’s far more likely that I look like a half-drowned cat, rather than your Lady Chantal,” she said.

  “Garit is correct, you know.” Roarke had remained silent, his gaze fixed on Jenia’s face during his friend’s eager assertions and Jenia’s denial. He spoke slowly, as if he was working through a murky, yet tantalizing puzzle. “Your hair is the same reddish-brown color as Lady Chantal’s. Your nose, the oval shape of your face, even your height are all identical to hers.”

  “I am sorry to disappoint you,” Jenia said, “but I don’t think I’m Lady Chantal. I’m certain I’d know if I were.”

  “Not if you hit your head somehow,” Garit insisted. “Not if you are confused after being shipwrecked.”

  She’d been worse than shipwrecked, but she wasn’t going to tell him so – at least, not until she could be absolutely certain that telling him would aid her cause and not harm it.

  “I am desperately thirsty, and hungry, and very tired,” she said, allowing herself to sway. “I long for a cup of water that’s not salty.”

  “Of course you do,” Roarke agreed. “Fresh water we can easily provide. Come along, then.”

  He reached for her and this time she did not flinch from his outstretched hand. Perhaps foolishly, she was beginning to trust him. Or perhaps her Power was returning. Whatever the cause, she let him take her elbow to guide her off the beach and over a sand dune to the swath of rough grass that ran behind the dunes. When she winced as her bare feet crushed the stiff, autumn-dry stalks, and Roarke swept her up into his arms, she made no protest at all. Instead, she wound an arm around his neck and let him take her wherever he would.

  She really was a bit lightheaded, though her continuing weakness could have been in part the effect of being so close to a man who was making no attempt to hurt her or to dominate her. He must have shaved that morning, for no trace of stubble showed on his lightly tanned face. His mouth was firm but not hard, not cruel, just manly. All in all, he was physically very different from the unwashed, sour-smelling males she had dealt with recently. Whether he was unlike them in mind and heart remained to be seen, she thought, struck by a resurgence of the distrust that had kept her alive so far.

  Roarke did not set her down until he reached the clump of trees and bushes for which she had been heading when he found her. Two horses waited nearby, their reins looped over one of the bushes to prevent them from wandering. A Sapaudian lance was fastened next to the saddle of one horse. Jenia shuddered to see it. Years ago, just such a lance had killed her father in battle – or had been used to murder him in a way that appeared to be a battle death.

  “Sit here,” Roarke suggested.

  As she had guessed, a tiny stream meandered past the clump of trees. It was little more than a trickle of water, but it was enough to allow her to rinse her mouth and then to drink from the wooden cup that Roarke pulled out of his saddlebag. She splashed more water onto her face, trying to remove the caked-on salt and sand.

  “Are you feeling better now?” Roarke asked, squatting beside her. He offered her a chunk of bread. “This isn’t much, but I think you ought not to eat a large meal at first. You will want to keep down whatever you eat or drink.”

  “Thank you.” She took the bread. It was hard, probably more than a day old, but she didn’t care. Her stomach was so hollow that she knew what he’d said was true. She’d be wise to eat slowly, in small amounts, until she had grown accustomed to the kind of meals that were served outside dungeon walls.

  “Have you no squires, Sir Roarke?” she asked in an effort to divert him from his concentration on her.

  “Garit and I are traveling alone at present.”

  His narrowed eyes and renewed scrutiny warned Jenia that she had made a mistake in revealing her familiarity with the habits of knights and nobles, who usually traveled with squires and servants. She would have to be more careful in future.

  Roarke was still squatting next to her, watching her much too closely, when Garit approached with his outstretched hands cupped together.

  “Here,” he said, offering a mound of autumn berries. “The bushes are full of them.”

  She looked at the ripe, red berries, then looked up into Garit’s blue eyes. The tenderness she saw in his gaze nearly broke her heart. For just a moment she wished she could be what he wanted her to be. But she couldn’t. Garit of Kinath was not her love and never would be.

  With a murmured word of thanks she accepted the berries and ate them slowly, while Roarke continued to observe her every movement.

  “If you know your name, Jenia,” Roarke said at last, “then you must recall other facts about your life. Who are your parents? Are you married, and to whom? Where do you live?”

  “I am sorry,” she answered him, choosing her words with great care. “I believe my name is Jenia because it came into my mind without any effort on my part, and because it seems so familiar and comfortable to me. But when I try to think of people, or of places, all I perceive is a thick mist. You may trust me, Sir Roarke, when I say that since I first woke upon the beach, I have been trying to answer the very questions you are asking me now. I want to remember, but I cannot.”

  “Leave her alone, Roarke,” Garit advi
sed. “Perhaps after she’s had a decent meal and a good night’s sleep, she will be able to tell us what we want to know.”

  “Perhaps,” Roarke said.

  Roarke did not agree with Garit, and he didn’t believe that Jenia – or whoever she really was – couldn’t remember her own life. The woman was lying. He knew it in his bones, in his heart, and in his mind.

  He did not doubt that she was a noblewoman. Her low-pitched voice, her accent, and the elegant way she carried herself even when stumbling along the beach, all proved as much. The first moment he’d seen her, even before she spoke, he had known she was no peasant girl or fisherwoman.

  He had met Lady Chantal of Thury only a few times. Garit had been far more intimate with her, so Roarke accepted his friend’s declaration that the woman who called herself Jenia was so remarkably like his lost love that they could easily be the same. He regarded her more closely, committing each detail of her features to memory, in case he ever met a woman who claimed to be Lady Chantal – or who actually proved to be her.

  Certainly, Jenia was attractive. If she were bathed and combed and properly dressed, she would be lovely, though not the courtly ideal of beauty, which required straight black tresses and blue eyes like Queen Hannorah. Jenia possessed thick, reddish-brown hair and creamy skin. Beneath the layer of dried salt water and sand that her efforts at the stream had not removed, Roarke detected a pale sprinkling of freckles across her straight, little nose. Those freckles alone would disqualify her from the court’s admiration as a beauty. Roarke, always independent, thought otherwise. As he watched, her tongue came out to snare a drop of bright red berry juice from the corner of her mouth. The sight sent a completely unexpected pang of longing through him.

  He warned himself to beware. For all he knew, the woman was a trap, sent to entice him – or Garit, who was far more susceptible to feminine wiles. She could be a spy who was only pretending to be a castaway. Roarke had noticed no signs of a shipwreck scattered on the beach. And yet, just looking at her sent an odd lightness into the dark in which he lived, easing the black emptiness inside him, where once his heart had dwelt.

  Over the rim of the wooden cup he’d provided she studied him with silent gravity. Jenia’s eyes were the color of fine amber. No other word would adequately describe their golden-brown brightness. At one moment her eyes looked as if all of the sun’s gold was caught in them. In the next moment they glowed with the deep brown of a stream in autumn, when crystal-clear water runs over fallen leaves. Those ever-changing eyes suggested layers of meaning, of intelligence – and of mystery, of unanswered questions.

  “What do you intend to do with me?” she asked him.

  “Just now, for a little while,” Roarke answered, forcing his thoughts back to the secret mission that had brought him to southern Sapaudia, “I will leave you here with Garit while I search along the beach.”

  “What?” Garit exclaimed. “No, you can’t do that. I object most vigorously. Jenia needs immediate shelter, a comfortable place to rest, and decent clothing that befits her obvious rank.”

  “A ship apparently foundered in last night’s storm,” Roarke said, watching for Jenia’s reaction to his words. “Other survivors may have washed ashore. I am going to search the beach.” He broke off, having noted the flash of fear in Jenia’s amber gaze. The emotion was quickly gone. She lowered her remarkable eyes and assumed a bland expression. Seeing the change in her, Roarke wondered what a well-bred lady could have to fear if her shipboard companions were found.

  “Aye, Roarke, you are right,” Garit agreed with a sigh. “We cannot leave any poor souls untended on the sand if there is aught we can do to help them. And if they are dead, we need to find an official and arrange to have them buried. Only, don’t take too long, I beg you. Chantal – I mean, Jenia – you are welcome to use my cloak for a pillow if you would care to rest.”

  “Thank you, Garit, but I do not wish to sleep. However, I would like another cup of water, if you will be kind enough to fetch it for me.”

  She settled herself with her back against the largest of the trees, her knees drawn under her, and Roarke’s cloak wrapped around her like protective armor. In that pose she did resemble a lost and lonely survivor of a shipwreck.

  Seeing her like that, Roarke almost cautioned Garit not to ply her with questions. Immediately, his natural skepticism asserted itself and he thought better of the idea. Let Garit say or do whatever he wanted; he’d keep the lady safe from harm and if he was able to learn anything more about her, that could only be to their advantage. With a nod to Jenia, Roarke headed back to the beach.

  The tide was coming in, waves foaming and swirling over sand that just a short time ago had stretched a good quarter of a league to the water. The beach was strewn with seaweed and shells, a few dead fish, and even one piece of driftwood, but Roarke’s careful search detected no evidence of a ship’s wreckage or of bodies.

  He located the spot where Jenia had lain, recognizing it by the gouges in the sand where she had pushed herself to her feet and by the footprints leading westward. At least that much of her story was true, though the incoming waves had already eliminated any trace of her emergence from the sea. He found no personal belongings that could have been hers, nor did he see evidence of any other survivors.

  He retraced his steps to find Jenia still propped against the tree, apparently sound asleep. Beckoning to Garit, Roarke drew his friend aside to speak in a lowered voice that he hoped would not disturb the lady.

  “I discovered nothing of interest,” he said before Garit could ask. “Did you learn anything from her?”

  “No.” His face somber, Garit stared over Roarke’s shoulder toward Jenia. “I keep asking myself if it’s possible that she is mistaken, that she really is Chantal, but she just cannot remember.”

  “You love Chantal,” Roarke said. “You have told me that you and she were making secret plans to marry, so you above all men ought to recognize her.”

  “As the Heavenly Blue Sky is my witness, I cannot be certain. She is much thinner and quieter than I recall, but she has been missing for more than half a year and who knows what happened to her during that time? Changes or not, you’d think my heart would tell me yes or no at once, wouldn’t you? If she had looked at me there on the beach and said, ‘Yes, Garit, it’s me,’ I’d have been absolutely sure. But she says she doesn’t know, and that makes me doubt. I wish you had known her beyond a formal introduction. You could view her dispassionately, which I cannot. I’d trust your opinion.”

  “I didn’t have time to know the lady,” Roarke told him. “While you were wooing Lady Chantal, I was working for King Henryk. In any case, I wasn’t looking at women; I was avoiding them. You know why.”

  “Aye.” Garit heaved a heavy sigh. “That’s understandable after what my sister did to you. I’m sorry I can’t answer your questions, Roarke, but I cannot be sure that the lady is Chantal.” Seeing the grief on Garit’s face, Roarke decided to jolt his friend out of a sorrow that he considered had lasted too long. “In all these months I’ve hesitated to ask, out of consideration for your feelings and in hope that we’d find your Chantal alive and well. But now that we are dealing with a woman so similar to her, who possibly is her, I must put to you the question I should have asked last spring. Did Lady Chantal have any marks or blemishes on her body that might help us to identify her? A peculiar mole, a scar, a birthmark, perhaps?”

  “Certainly not! She was without blemish!” Garit exclaimed, rather too loudly. At Roarke’s quieting gesture he lowered his voice and continued. “I never saw her unclothed. That’s what you’re implying, isn’t it? I love Chantal with all my heart and will until the day I die, but I never knew her carnally. She was chaste; she understood what she owed to her family name. Not that her guardian deserved her loyalty.”

  “I agree with you about Lord Walderon,” Roarke said quickly, to forestall the complaints he was sure Garit wanted to utter. Over the last half year he had heard those same comp
laints with depressing regularity. “Walderon is vain, ambitious—”

  “And unscrupulous,” Garit finished. “He married a great heiress, but that wasn’t enough for him. Oh, no; he had to arrange an alliance for his niece and ward that was advantageous to him. Chantal told me that she loathed the man she was to wed. She loves me, not Lord Malin. That’s why we planned to run away and marry in secret.”

  “I know.” Roarke rested his hand on Garit’s shoulder in a gesture of sympathy. “We’ve been through the story many times, and we’ve never found a sensible explanation for her disappearance.”

  “She could be Chantal,” Garit said, looking toward the sleeping woman. “Perhaps something was done to her to alter her memory. A mage could have done it.”

  “For what purpose? Mages don’t expend their Power without a very good reason. No, Garit, I believe we must accept that we may never know the answers to many of our questions about your Chantal.” Roarke spoke slowly because a scheme was beginning to unfold in his mind. Perhaps Garit’s confusion over Jenia’s identity and the lady’s professed memory loss wouldn’t matter. It was possible that the resemblance alone would be sufficient. “Unless, of course, we can devise a clever way to prove beyond any doubt exactly what happened to Lady Chantal.”

  “We have been trying to discover the truth for half a year,” Garit said. “Ever since Chantal disappeared and you were assigned to locate her.”

  “If you will recall, I was given the mission only after you raised such a clamor that King Henryk had to do something,” Roarke said, adding with a faint smile, “As emissary for the king of Kantia, you, my friend, are too important to ignore.”

  “Much good my so-called importance has been to Chantal,” Garit grumbled. “I’ve had to steal a few days here and there from my duties at the royal court to join you in the search. Despite our best efforts, we know no more now than we did the day Chantal vanished.”

  “That’s not entirely true.” Roarke glanced at the unmoving figure beside the tree. “We have a few suspicions.”