The previous night she had been fleeing as if for her very life, would it not be just as logical for her to now pretend to have lost her memory, as a way of avoiding the explanations he now asked for? She might fear he’d return her to her abusers.
‘Perhaps,’ he allowed coolly. ‘But that does not explain what you were doing in the woods in your nightclothes.’
‘Perhaps I was sleepwalking?’
‘You were running, not walking,’ Griffin countered dryly. ‘And you were bare of foot.’
The smoothness of her brow once again creased into a frown. ‘Would that explanation not fit in with my having been walking in my sleep?’
It would, certainly.
If she had not been running as if the devil were at her heels.
If it were not for those horrendous bruises on her body.
And if she did not bear those marks of restraint upon her wrists and ankles.
Bruises and marks of restraint that were going to make it difficult for Griffin to make enquiries about this young woman locally, without alerting the perpetrators of that abuse as to her whereabouts. Something Griffin was definitely reluctant to do until he knew more of the circumstances of her imprisonment and the reason for the abuse. Although there could surely be no excuse for the latter, whatever those circumstances?
He straightened to his fullness of height. ‘Perhaps for now we should decide upon a name we may call you by until such time as your memory returns to you?’
‘And if it does not return to me?’ There was an expression of pained bewilderment in her eyes as she looked up at him.
If her loss of memory was genuine, then the collision with his carriage was not necessarily the cause of it. Griffin had seen many soldiers after battle, mortally wounded and in pain, who had retreated to a safe place inside themselves in order to avoid any more suffering. Admittedly this young woman had not been injured in battle, nor was she mortally injured, but it was nevertheless entirely possible that the things that had been done to her were so horrendous, her mind simply refused to condone or remember them.
Griffin did not pretend to understand the workings of the human mind or emotions, but he could accept that blocking out the memory of who she even was would be one way for this young woman to deal with such painful memories.
For the moment he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
For the moment.
‘Bella.’
She blinked her confusion. ‘Sorry?’
‘Your new name,’ Griffin said. ‘It means beautiful in Italian.’
‘I know what it means.’ She did know what it meant!
Could that possibly mean that she was of Italian descent? The hair flowing down her shoulders and over her breasts was certainly dark enough. But she did not speak English with any kind of accent that she could detect, and surely her skin was too pale for her to have originated from that sunny country?
And did the fact that the Duke had chosen that name for her mean that he thought her beautiful?
There was a blankness inside her head in answer to those first two questions, her queries seeming to slam up against a wall she could neither pass over nor through. As for the third question—
‘I speak French, German and Italian, but that does not make me any of those things.’ The Duke was obviously following her train of thought. ‘Besides, your first instinct was to speak English.’
‘You could be right, of course,’ she demurred, all the while wondering whether he did in fact find her beautiful.
What would it be like to be the recipient of the admiration of such a magnificently handsome gentleman as Griffin Stone? Or his affections. His love...
Was it possible she had ever seen such a handsome gentleman as him before today? A gentleman who was so magnificently tall, with shoulders so wide, a chest so muscled, and those lean hips and
long and elegant legs? A man whose bearing must command attention wherever he might be?
He was without a doubt a gentleman whom others would know to beware of. A powerful gentleman in stature and standing. A man under whose protection she need never again know fear.
Fear of what?