Page 49 of Wild Highland Rose
She nodded, waiting.
"In my mind's eye, I can see what I looked like before I came here, Marjory. Even with the memory block, I can still see my face."
"So…"
"So, when I looked in the shield, the face that was reflected there wasn't mine. It was your husband's."
"That sounds…"
"Crazy," he finished for her. "I know, but it's true."
She struggled with the enormity of what he was telling her. "So you're saying that you're trapped in Ewen's body?"
"Yes."
"Holy mother of God." The implications sent her reeling. Who had she kissed then? The shell of her husband or a stranger she had never seen?
The small seeds of contentment that had been sprouting so hopefully inside her withered and died. She looked at him, pushing her fragmented emotions deep inside her, focusing on his face. There was more, and she already knew she wasn't going to like it.
"And your memory loss?"
"I don't know. Maybe it was caused when I came here. Maybe I was supposed to have lost all memory of before. Hell," he raked his hands through his hair in frustration, "I don't understand this any better than you. I've just had longer to think about it." He looked up, staring at the sky, almost as if he was pleading for answers.
She reached out and tentatively placed her hand over his. Whoever he was, he was gentle and good. She knew it in her heart and nothing her head had to say could completely erase the knowledge.
He turned his hand over, enveloping hers with his strong fingers. He looked down at her, his tortured gaze holding hers. "I do know one thing for certain."
She held her breath, waiting.
"I have to go back."
Her belly lurched and she wondered if she was going to be sick. "Back?"
"Yes, back. I need to find out who I am."
"Who you are?" She couldn't seem to do anything but echo his words.
"Yes. Marjory, don't you see, I have to know. I can't go through life with another man's identity. If I don't face who I really am, how can I ever be anything more?"
"But you're no' Ewen. You've just told me so. 'Tis possible others will accept it in time." She spoke quickly, her words tumbling over one another, knowing full well he was talking about more than not being Ewen. Her eyes pleaded with him. "Maybe you can remember here."
He shook his head. "Amnesia is a funny thing. When it's caused by trauma, which I think mine was, then the best way to bring it back is to be stimulated by familiar things."
"And there are no familiar things here."
"Right." He took her other hand in his.
"And when you go, you willna be coming back, will you?"
"No."
The word hung between them. Marjory felt her heart ripping in two. How had this man come to mean so much to her in so short a span of time? Tears threatened, but she held them at bay. This was not the time for weakness. Nothing had been lost. She'd lived without him before, she'd just have to live without him again when the time came.
Her heart rebelled at the thought, and her chest tightened in unspoken agony.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking on the words.
"I know." And she did. He'd not meant to hurt her. What was happening must be as strange and frightening for him as it was for her. More so, really. And it certainly wasn't his fault that she had begun to open her heart to him. Only a very young or a very foolish girl threw herself at a man. Marjory could almost hear her mother saying those very words. She had no one to blame but herself.
