Page 12 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

I have a son! Lawrence Benedict. He is a fine, healthy babe, and Damaris has fared well through her labor; I cannot complain that my wife has not done her duty.

My heart leaves my chest at the sight of him in his mother’s arms, yet I am plagued with strange dreams these last few nights.

Dreams that linger in the daylight. Dreams that disturb me.

I cannot shake the conviction that I have been through this experience before. Which is insane, yet the feelings persist. When I hold Lawrence in my arms, I am assailed by the sensation of familiarity.

There is another child. I’m sure of it. Yet how? How could I forget such a thing? It is lifechanging to hold one’s child in one’s arms. I cannot credit that I could lose the memory of such a thing.

Did the child die? Is that why I can’t remember? The notion of losing Lawrence tears my heart out. I could not bear it.

19th November 1792

I pace the nursery with him when he cries. The nurse is shocked, but I will not leave him in distress. Only when he is quiet do I leave and sit in the library with a glass of whisky and try to recall.

My memories are coming back in fragments. There is a woman. There must be, of course, if there is a child.

When I first recalled her face, my skin became gooseflesh, and such joy filled my heart that I was reduced to tears. For I know that I love her, that she makes me happy. And such a longing to see her and our child consumes me that I sob uncontrollably even now at the thought.

I shall only call her J, here in this diary, for I must protect her identity. At least until I can find her. For I have left her alone to fend for herself all these months, and she knows not what happened to me.

My mind is a sieve, full of holes. I can see the house we lived in, yet know not the name of the place. From what I can recall, it must be a small village, certainly not the metropolis or even a large town. Somewhere small and bucolic. But that leaves thousands of villages anywhere in England.

I shall begin my search tomorrow.

24 November 1792

I have searched and searched, but I am no nearer to finding my J.

I do have more memories, however. The child is a little girl.

A sweet, beautiful babe, my little A. I ache to hold her in my arms again.

I take some solace from Lawrence, but it is not enough.

I have two girls who need me as much as he does, possibly more, and I am beside myself with worry for them.

What could have happened to them in my absence?

I know now that I left my ring with her, the one father gave me when I reached my majority.

I always meant to have it engraved and never got around to it.

Father assumed someone robbed me of it when they found me without it in the accident.

But J. has it. I am sure she will have kept it. How much I miss her!

Damaris thinks I have run mad, for I am barely home for more than a few hours’ sleep before I am off again to search. She has no idea why I am doing this, what I am searching for. I must tell her the truth eventually, I suppose. But not until I have found my J. and A.