You Only Love Twice by Elizabeth Thornton Page B

must have seen there were no females there when you entered the taproom.”
    “There were women there. They were waiting on tables.”
    He snorted. “Aye, women, and that’s putting it politely.”
    She breathed slowly, seething. “You would know more about that than I.”
    Her angry words were met by silence. Lucas was staring at her oddly. Finally, he looked away and said, “About Millie Jenkins …”
    “What about her?”
    He cleared his throat. “It’s not what you think, that is, I know the girl by sight, I mean, I’ve met her …” His brows came down. “Hell and damnation, Jess, I know what you’re thinking, and you’ve got it all wrong. At any rate, I’m sorry she accosted you like that, sorry for what she said to you, and that’s the only apology you’re going to get from me.”
    It was her turn to stare. Why he thought he owed her an explanation for Millie Jenkins was beyond her comprehension. Did he think that just because she had allowed him to kiss her she would care? She wasn’t so naive.
    “There’s no need to apologize,” she said. “I’ve had worse things said to me in the taverns of London. Nuns are not so sheltered as you seem to think. As for your relationship with Miss Jenkins, that means nothing to me.”
    He grinned wickedly. “Are you sure about that, Jess?”
    “Perfectly.” Her tone was frigid.
    “You’re not still in love with me?”
    Jessica was speechless. When she could find her voice, she said hoarsely, “When was I ever in love with you?”
    His eyes narrowed on her face. “If you’re trying to convince me that you’ve lost your memory, you’ll have to do better than that.”
    It took her a moment to think this through and when she did, she saw red. “You’ve been to see the attorney,” she said. “He told you that I’d lost my memory.” She breathed deeply. “I find that appalling. It’s highly unethical for an attorney to gossip about one client to another, and if it isn’t, it ought to be.”
    In contrast to her impassioned tone, he spoke slowly and reasonably. “Rempel does not gossip about one client to another, so don’t get your bowels in an uproar over nothing. It was the sisters who told me that you’d lost your memory. All Rempel did was warn me that your next stop was likely to be the Swan.”
    She bristled with hostility. “You were at Hawkshill?”
    “Just after you left.”
    “You have no business spying on me!”
    She glanced at his face, then glanced away. He wasn’t looking at her as though she’d sprouted another head, and she couldn’t detect pity in his expression, either. She didn’t know why his opinion of her mattered so much, but it did.
    In a more moderate tone, she went on. “If you wanted to know anything, you should have come to me.”
    “I’m here now, and I’m asking you outright—is it true what I’ve been told? Have you lost your memory, Jess?”
    She asked incredulously, “Do you really think I could fool the nuns for three years?”
    He shrugged. “I’m not saying you weren’t injured in the accident, but when you came to yourself, it’s possibleyou decided that a life of contemplation with the nuns was much easier than the life you had here.”
    He obviously knew nothing of her particular order of nuns or what was involved in looking after children. Did he think they had an army of servants to do all the work? And what did he know of a life of contemplation, especially for someone in her situation? A blank mind, a blank past, a blank name. Her throat closed as she remembered her first few months in the convent, when she’d lived in hope that someone would claim her—a father, a mother, a brother, a sister. Someone. Hopes and dreams, that’s what had kept her going, and when hope faded, the awful despair.
    Things were different now. She was a real person, with a real name. She had a history. Maybe her memory would never come back to her, but she could at least try to fill in the blanks. And in