Wife To A Stranger

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Copyright

“You don’t want to take this further?”

She stared numbly at him, hectic color burning her cheeks. “N-not now,” she said.

“What are you afraid of? It’s not like you.”

Capri tried to smile, but her lips trembled. “Isn’t it? I wouldn’t know.”

“You don’t remember ever making love?”

“No,” she admitted. “I suppose that seems silly, when you…”

Her voice trailed off. He knew her intimately, had for more than two years.

“No…it’s not silly,” Rolfe said. “Kind of bizarre, but I find it rather intriguing.”

DAPHNE CLAIR lives in subtropical New Zealand, with her Dutch-born husband. They have five children. At eight years old she embarked on her first novel, about taming a tiger. This epic never reached a publisher, but metamorphosed male tigers still prowl the pages of her romances. She has won literary prizes for short stories and nonfiction, and has also published poetry. As Laurey Bright she writes for Silhouette. Daphne welcomes letters to Box 18240, Glen Innes, Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Wife To A Stranger

Daphne Clair

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS a small room. The man standing at the window with his back to her looked big by contrast. His broad shoulders hunched slightly under a crumpled white linen shirt, and his hands were thrust into the pockets of navy trousers, tautening the fabric over lean hips.

From the bed she could see only a washed-denim sky, the pale, peeling trunk of a gum tree, and a dusting of opaque clouds between the green cotton curtains. She wondered what he was looking at.

Pulling her gaze from him, she examined the room. There was a hard-looking tan leather chair, with a burgundy tie draped carelessly over its back as though the man had discarded it there some time ago. On the plain cream wall opposite the bed hung a cheap print of an English country cottage. A white-painted locker by her bed held a water jug and a glass.

It was a hospital room.

Perhaps she made some faint sound, or he heard a stirring of the bedclothes. The man turned, starkly silhouetted against the light from outside.

‘Capri,’ he said, his voice deep and unsurprised. ‘So you decided to come back.’

‘Back?’

Her voice sounded strange, scarcely more than an uncertain whisper in the quiet of the room.

Taking his hands from his pockets, the man crossed the narrow space to the bed. ‘To the land of the living. You’ve been out for some time.’

‘Out’

His quickly checked movement might have denoted impatience. ‘Unconscious. Do you remember what happened to you?’

She started to shake her head, winced. ‘No.’

He leaned forward a little—brown, enigmatic eyes raking her face, a strand of nearly-black hair falling onto his forehead. ‘I’ll call a nurse.’

He reached across her, finding the electric signal button with a decisive thumb. A whiff of his masculine scent entered her nostrils, a mixture of warmth, soap, sweat and shirting. She saw he hadn’t shaved lately; his cheeks were fuzzed with shadowy growth.

One hand on the metal bed frame behind her, he paused, his face only inches from hers, his nostrils flaring as if he in turn had been caught by her scent. She looked into his eyes, dark and lustrous, with gold flecks about the irises. His mouth, firm and hard despite the generously chiselled curve of the lower lip, momentarily quirked at one corner, and then he withdrew, standing tall and aloof and thrusting his hands back into his pockets.

She took an unsteady breath, and her parched lips began to frame a question, but then a woman in a white uniform came hurrying on rubber soles, and made for the bedside. ‘Well, well. So you’ve finally woken up!’

The nurse’s fingers closed about her wrist, found the pulse. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Not…so good.’

The man moved again, very slightly. The nurse studied her watch as she counted, then placed the hand she held back on the coverlet. ‘You’ve been knocked about a bit. But we’ll soon have you right as rain.’

‘Knocked about—how?’

The woman studied her with a shrewd professional gaze. ‘You don’t remember?’

This time she was careful not to shake her head, but before she could get the words out the question was answered for her in a curt masculine voice. ‘She doesn’t. And I think she has a headache.’

The nurse’s eyes lifted to him, then returned to her patient. ‘You had a nasty whack on the head,’ she explained cheerfully. ‘Plus bruising and mild hypothermia. How bad is the headache?’

‘It only hurts when I move.’ She felt languid, every word an effort.

‘Can you tell me your name?’

‘My name?’ She blinked.

‘Her name’s Capri Helene Massey.’ He was definitely impatient this time. ‘If you people hadn’t known it, you wouldn’t have been able to get hold of me.’

The nurse glanced up. ‘It’s standard practice to check after a concussion, Mr Massey,’ she said calmly. ‘Just in case there’s been some damage.’

‘Sorry. I’m not familiar with medical procedure.’ After the curt apology he retreated again to the window.

‘When were you born?’ The nurse returned to her inquisition.

Automatically she recited her birth-date.

‘Good. And do you know what year this is?’

Again the answer was easy, requiring no thought.

‘Do you remember your present address?’

Panic gripped her, making her temples cold, her breathing irregular. ‘I…I’m not sure…’

The nurse looked across her, raising her brows at the silent man who now came back to the bed. He said, ‘She’s been moving about lately.’

The nurse patted her hand. ‘You might have a bit of a memory gap—it’s not unusual. Do you remember this gentleman here?’ Smiling up at him.

‘Well, Capri?’ he said when she didn’t answer immediately. His voice held irony. ‘Have you forgotten me?’

‘You’re Rolfe,’ she said clearly, positively. ‘Rolfe Massey.’

He nodded. ‘Your husband.’ He didn’t smile, although he was looking at her.

The nurse said encouragingly, ‘You recognise him. Well, that’s all right.’

He lifted his head. ‘Satisfied?’

The woman beamed at him. ‘You’ll be relieved. The doctor will check her over again, though, and tell you if we need to keep her for another day or two.’

‘Right. Thanks.’ He nodded dismissively, and after a moment’s hesitation the nurse left.

Rolfe seemed to be studying the pattern on the bedcover. When he raised his eyes again they appeared almost black. ‘I suppose it wasn’t for lack of trying,’ he said.

‘What?’ She stared at him. ‘I’m sorry?’

His gaze narrowed, and his head jerked sharply as if he’d sensed something unexpected in the air, but the movement was quickly checked. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘You’re not well enough for this discussion.’ There was a short pause, and then he said on an oddly intense note, ‘Shall I take you home, Capri? Is that what you’d like?’

Home. The word conjured up warmth, comfort—love. ‘Of course,’ she said, and saw a startling flare of some potent, primitive emotion in his eyes. ‘As soon as the doctor says it’s all right.’ She had the feeling that if she’d said, Yes—now, he’d have picked her up and bundled her off with him then and there.

As it was, he took a breath that lifted the fabric of his shirt for seconds before he audibly released it. ‘Of course,’ he echoed her. ‘I meant…when they’ve cleared you.’

Her eyelids drooped, and he said, ‘You look tired… darling. Why don’t you go to sleep?’

She should be asking questions, like what had happened to her, and what her last address had been, and why…why…

Thinking was too difficult. She drifted, thought she felt her hand taken in a large, warm one, and another kind of warmth, bristly and underlaid with hard bone, briefly rubbed against the back of it. Then she slept.

When she woke Rolfe was gone. A different nurse took her pulse, read her blood pressure, poked a thermometer into her mouth, and later other people bustled about her with charts and stethoscopes, asked how she felt, and gently prodded and kneaded her body, which was tender with bruises.

They told her that New South Wales had been lashed by spring storms, and a landslip caused by heavy rain had derailed a train, sending several carriages sliding into the Hunter River. She’d been lucky. Some of the other passengers were on the critical list in this hospital, the nearest to the crash site, while a few needing specialist care had been flown to Sydney. She’d had a brain X-ray on admission, and later a CT scan because she had been taking her time to come round, but they had shown no cause for concern.

‘Anything worrying you?’ someone asked at last.

She looked at him gratefully. ‘The nurse said…I might have memory gaps.’

The doctor nodded. ‘That’s right. You don’t remember the accident?’

‘It’s not only the accident I don’t remember.’

‘Oh?’ He sounded almost casual. ‘How much have you lost?’

It was a relief to confide in someone. ‘I think…an awful lot.’

Another doctor came, shone lights in her eyes, and asked more questions, some of them general, others personal. At the end of it all he assured her again that there was no sign of physical damage, suggested she rest and try not to worry, and departed looking thoughtful.

She begged to be allowed to shower, and a nurse was detailed to monitor her.

‘Not much of an end to your holiday,’ the woman commented, ‘getting involved in that crash.’

‘No.’ She took the soap the nurse handed her and stepped into the blessed warmth of the shower.

Afterwards, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the bathroom basin and was reassured at the familiarity of jade-green eyes fringed by thick, dark lashes, and a slightly long but straight nose in an oval face. Her skin was too pale and her lips bloodless and cracked, but apart from that she looked herself.

Shivering despite the steamy fug of the bathroom, she wished she felt it.

Just showering had exhausted her, and she was too listless to read the magazines a nurse found for her, instead staring out the window at a view of low tawny hills and, nearer, the gum tree with its narrow leaves twisting in the yellow sunlight.

Rolfe returned bearing roses and carnations in sparkling florist’s wrap, and a parcel that he told her was toiletries he’d been advised by the nursing staff to buy for her. He had shaved and changed into jeans and a casual shirt.

The bouquet filled her arms, and perhaps that was why he didn’t kiss her. His glance was sharply enquiring. ‘How are you feeling?’

She inhaled the scent of the flowers. ‘The headache’s gone.’

‘Good.’ Walking round to take the tan chair between the bed and the window, he sat down and leaned forward, his clasped hands between spread knees, but then shifted back, coolly surveying her. ‘You still look… fragile.’

She gave him a cautious smile. ‘That’s how I feel. What about you?’

He arched a black brow at her. ‘Me?’

‘You weren’t with me in the train?’

‘No.’

His face looked hollowed about the freshly shaved cheeks, his eyes tired, and he had a taut air of strain, as if he couldn’t relax.

She said, ‘I suppose I gave you a fright, getting hurt, and then…you’ve been waiting for me to wake up. Since yesterday, they said.’

He shrugged absently. ‘I’m just glad you did wake. They told me you would, but…’

‘So am I,’ she said softly, ‘glad.’ She removed one hand from the flowers and stretched it towards him. ‘Thank you for being with me.’

Rolfe hesitated before placing his fingers over hers, holding them. His gaze stayed on their linked hands. ‘I couldn’t not come,’ he said.

‘Of course. You’re my husband.’

He looked up then, his eyes scanning her face. She moved to stretch her other hand to him, somehow needing that warm personal contact, and the flowers slipped, rolling down to the side of the bed.

Rolfe rescued them and stood up, releasing her. ‘I’ll see if I can rustle up a vase or something,’ he promised, and left the room.

He returned with a big glass vase that he filled with water from the room basin, plunging the bouquet straight into it.

‘They’re lovely,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

He looked down at her and his hand lifted almost as though he couldn’t help it, his knuckles lightly brushing her cheek as he fingered her hair that had dried to a thick honey-brown bob with lighter streaks, the ends just level with her earlobes. ‘Suits you,’ he murmured.

She reached up to clasp his hand, but already he had withdrawn it.

‘They said after you woke that if there are no obvious problems you may be discharged tomorrow,’ he said. ‘The accident has stretched the hospital’s resources. Do you want me to book us into a hotel for a day or two, or shall we fly straight back to New Zealand?’

‘New Zealand?’

‘You did say you wanted to come home.’ His voice had turned gravelly. ‘Or have you changed your mind?’

‘I haven’t changed my mind.’ The reply was automatic. Her heart thudded uncomfortably. She turned her head, staring out of the window, where darkness was creeping over the hills.

He said, ‘You do know you’re in Australia, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do.’ She looked back at him.

‘So where were you staying?’

She opened her mouth to reply, then paused. Finally she said, ‘You must know that.’

He was gazing at her curiously. ‘You don’t remember.’

‘No.’

‘Do you remember anything that’s happened to you in the past two months?’

‘No…I don’t.’ She moistened her lips and said huskily, ‘I seem to have forgotten…most of my life.’

Rolfe stared down at her, his eyes going nearly black. ‘You knew me when you woke.’

Rolfe. She had known him, known his name. Just as she had known her birth-date without having to think. It had been reassuring, that familiarity. ‘Yes, I recognised you.’

‘How much do you remember about…us? About our life together?’

She looked away, running her tongue across her lips. ‘I knew your face,’ she confessed finally. ‘Your name. That’s all.’

‘That’s all?’ Rolfe repeated.

She said helplessly, ‘I know that must be a shock.’

He gazed down at her with frowning speculation. ‘And now?’ he enquired. ‘Has anything more come to mind?’

‘No.’

This time there was a lengthy silence, as if he had trouble taking that in. ‘If you don’t remember anything about me,’ he said slowly at last, ‘anything about our marriage, then for all intents and purposes I’m a stranger to you.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, her hands twisting painfully together on the bedcover. ‘Yes, you are. A total stranger.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHAT exactly do you remember?’ Rolfe demanded.

She swallowed. ‘Not much. I remember things when I’m asked directly, or when something reminds me…’

His mouth compressed and his cheeks grew taut. ‘Do the doctors know this?’

‘They say it’s probably temporary. And I feel fine, really…just a bit tired.’

Rolfe regarded her broodingly. ‘I’ll talk to them.’

‘They’ve already examined me thoroughly. I just need to be…home.’ In familiar surroundings where she was safe and loved. Then surely this surreal feeling of existing in a vacuum would be dispelled. All she needed was the right trigger to fill the inexplicable void.

‘Still…’ Rolfe looked at a loss. That probably didn’t happen to him often. He had the air of a man who knew his way around his world. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said abruptly, swung round and left the room.

When he came back she’d been dozing. He leaned down to kiss her cheek, said he’d leave her to sleep and was gone.

Throughout the night she was dimly aware of being regularly checked on, and in the morning she was examined by a neurologist, then sent for another scan and more tests because Rolfe, she was told, had insisted.

Late in the day the neurologist told her, ‘The good news is, all the tests have come up negative. A knock on the head can do strange things to people, but the amnesia is probably temporary. Your husband says you want to go home, back to New Zealand?’

‘Um…yes…’ Aware that she sounded less than positive, she said more firmly, ‘Yes, I do.’

He smiled. ‘Of course.’

She repeated her theory that familiar surroundings would surely solve the puzzling problem of her memory.

‘You’re probably right,’ he agreed. ‘Take it easy for a little while, and don’t try to force anything. I’ll give you a letter for your own doctor. If things don’t start coming back to you spontaneously pretty soon, you’d better see someone.’

When she asked about her belongings, the nurse said, ‘We gave your shoulder bag to your husband for safety. Your passport and money are there, but your makeup is in the locker. Things were a bit wet but there didn’t seem to be much damage. The police sent along a box of passengers’ effects soon after you came in, stuff that had been found in the wreckage, and we identified you from your passport photo.’

Next day Rolfe brought in a stack of wrapped parcels and shopping bags, put them on the bed and began opening them. ‘They tell me if I look after you I can take you home. I bought three bras—I hope one of them fits.’

‘I don’t have any clothes?’ she queried.

‘The ones you were wearing were ruined. Even the undies were pretty bedraggled, and one bra strap was broken. You may have had a suitcase but it hasn’t been found. And as you don’t know where you were staying…’

‘But don’t you? Weren’t we together?’

He gave her a quick look. ‘No, we weren’t.’

She’d assumed that they’d been holidaying together, that she’d only been on a short trip without him, perhaps shopping or visiting someone. ‘Where were you?’

‘In New Zealand. I came as soon as I could get a flight. Look…’ he touched her arm ‘…why don’t you get dressed and we can talk properly later?’

‘All right.’ She looked at the things scattered on the bed, some still in their wrappings.

‘Do you want some help?’ he asked her. He reached out to undo the tie on her hospital gown.

‘No!’ She shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’

Still she hesitated, and after a moment he said, ‘I’ll…go and see if I can find the charge nurse.’

She picked up a bra—cream satin and lace. When she eased it on and did up the hooks it fitted quite well. She found matching panties, then shook out a jade-green cotton dress, low-necked with tiny front buttons and a gently flared skirt. She slipped the dress on and found it an easy fit.

A smart-looking boutique bag with handles and a zipper-type closure contained a primrose-yellow lined cotton jacket that she didn’t think she’d need.

Rolfe had even bought dark green soft shoes with a medium wedge heel. And stockings and a suspender belt that she looked at with faint surprise. The sun was shining outside, giving no hint of the recent storms, and she decided to go bare-legged.

She unzipped the makeup bag that had been in her locker, applied sunscreening foundation, used soft olive shadow on her eyelids, touched a mascara wand to the tips of her lashes, and coloured her pale lips a warm coral.

Among the bags and wrappings she’d almost missed a small tissue-wrapped box, containing a phial of perfume. She was applying some to her inner wrist when Rolfe tapped on the door and then came in.

‘Thank you.’ She lifted her wrist to sniff at the slightly musky scent. ‘You thought of everything.’

‘Even your favourite perfume.’

‘Really?’ She dabbed the scent on her other wrist, then behind her ears, before she stoppered the bottle.

‘You missed a spot.’

‘What?’

Rolfe walked over to her and said, ‘You usually put some here.’ A lean finger touched the shallow little valley between her breasts, and his eyes darkened as her startled gaze flew to his face.

He quickly withdrew his hand. ‘You look nice,’ he said. ‘The dress fits.’

‘Yes.’ She could still feel the intimate imprint of his finger on her skin.

She put away the bottle and moved to gather up the wrappings on the bed. ‘I only tried one bra. Do you want to return the others to the shop?’

‘No.’ He slanted her a look of amused surprise. ‘You may be able to wear them later. They’re all the same size.’ He stuffed the used wrappings into the rubbish bag near the basin while she folded the spare bras into the boutique bag along with the unused stockings and suspender belt.

She said, ‘They told me you have my shoulder bag and passport.’

‘In the hire car with my things. All your ID was in there, including a medical card listing me as your next of kin.’

After they entered the car he handed her the shoulder bag. The soft honey-coloured leather was stained with muddy water-marks.

‘I’m afraid it’s rather the worse for wear,’ Rolfe commented. ‘I’ve dried everything out, but some stuff was beyond saving. Fortunately your passport was zipped into the inner pocket and didn’t come off too badly.’

As they left the car park she opened up the bag and went through the contents. The lining was still damp and smelled musty. Several credit cards were tucked into a card pocket, and she found a silver ballpoint pen, a Bank of New Zealand chequebook looking sadly crinkled, two keys on a ring, and a coin-purse containing Australian money, the notes crumpled but dry.

In the centre pocket of the bag she discovered a slim flower-patterned plastic folder designed for two photographs, and opened it to see her own face as a child looking back at her, formally posed and smiling in front of a man and a woman and beside a younger girl who must surely be her sister.

She stared at the photograph for a long time, and then like a faint echo a name came to mind. ‘Venetia.’

As sisters they were only superficially alike. Both girls had long fair hair, but Venetia’s eyes were blue, her face more square than Capri’s.

Curious, she turned her attention to the adults in the picture, her eyes flicking from one to the other.

Divorced. The word entered her consciousness as she looked at the smiling couple behind the two children. They were divorced. It was like someone else saying the words inside her head, except that the voice was her own.

Opposite the family group was another photo—a classic head-and-shoulders wedding picture of herself and Rolfe. Her hair was long and piled into an elegant knot under a veil secured with a pearl coronet. Rolfe was gazing down at his bride, smiling, while Capri’s eyes, her smile, were directed at the camera.

Rolfe glanced at the folder. ‘Luckily that was in the zipped pocket with your passport. All I had to do was wipe a bit of water off the plastic.’