And kissing him when he’d been an awkward, adolescent boy.

He shook the thought away, thankful that at least some of his memories remained. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.” With an overbright smile, she added, “Don’t you remember your wife?”

Her revelation stunned him into silence. His wife? What was she talking about? He wasn’t married.

“You must be joking.” He wasn’t an impulsive man. He planned every moment of every day. Getting married to a woman he hadn’t seen in years wasn’t at all something he would do. Unless he’d gotten extremely deep in his cups one night, she had to be lying. And by God, if Emily Barrow thought to take advantage of him, she would be sorry for it.

“I would never joke about something like this.” She held out the cup of tea, but he dismissed it. He had no intention of drinking anything she gave him. His vision swam, and a rushing sound filled his ears.

Closing his eyes, he waited for the dizziness to pass. When the world righted itself, he studied the room. Heavy blue curtains hung across the canopied bed, while bookcases overflowing with books filled another wall. The pieces of remembrance snapped together as he recognized his bedchamber within Falkirk House, one of the country estates. For the life of him he didn’t know how he’d arrived here.

“How long have I been at Falkirk?”

“Two days.”

“And before that?”

She shrugged. “You left for London a week after our wedding. I haven’t seen you since February. Why don’t you tell me where you’ve been?”

He tried to reach for the memory, but nothing remained, not even the smallest fragment of a vision. Like a gaping hole, he’d lost a part of himself. It frustrated the hell out of him, having pieces of his life gone. He could remember most of his childhood and adolescence. He even recalled working upon a list of accounts for one of the estates in January. But after that…nothing.

“What day is it?” he asked, trying to pinpoint the last memory he had.

“The twentieth of May.”

He clenched the bedcovers. February, March, April, almost all of May…three and a half months of his life were entirely gone. He closed his eyes, trying to force himself to remember. But the harder he struggled, the worse his head ached.

“Where were you?“ she asked. There was worry inside her tone, though he found it hard to believe she cared. Not after she’d threatened to poison him.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But I certainly don’t remember getting married.”

“You might not remember it, but it’s true.”

Something was wrong, something she wasn’t telling him. There was a desperate air about her, as though she had nowhere else to go. Likely he’d caught her in the lie.