Even before he turned, Ian knew what he would find, whom he would see. He knew it, felt it, and yet he couldn't believe it. Very slowly, he followed Maeve's gaze.

152.

153.

She was on the beach below, squatted down on a barnacle-covered rock, her face hidden by a thick ma.s.s of damp, stringy hair. She was wearing an oversized man's shirt and baggy pants that completely concealed her shape.

"Selena." He whispered her name in awe. She was out of bed, walking, moving.

Almost normal. His mother's words came back to him, stunning him with their seductive power.

Selena pressed a drinking gla.s.s over her right eye and tilted forward, plunging her face in the icy water.

Her hair splayed out around her, floated on the surface of the water, then slowly sank.

Ian turned to his mother. "Jesus! She's going to drown."

Maeve peered over the ledge. "I don't think so. It's only a few inches of water."

Selena came up, flipping her soggy hair away from her face like some ancient mermaid. For a split second, he saw her profile, then the curtain of her hair descended again. Sparkling droplets flew behind her in a shimmering, sunlight-brightened veil.

She collected an armful of trinkets and sh.e.l.ls, then looped a thick, slimy strand of kelp around her neck and turned toward the beach.

She splashed through the ice-cold Atlantic water as if it were the sun-drenched Caribbean Sea. With one hand, she shoved the tangled brown hair from her face.

For the first time in his life, Ian's knees went weak at the sight of a woman. She was exquisitely, unexpectedly beautiful. Long, mahogany-hued hair cascaded over her arms, dripping plump, silvery tears down the white lawn of her shirt. Her face was a pale oval, dominated by the largest, most liquid brown eyes Ian had ever seen. Her full lips looked ready to smile at any second.

She moved like the G.o.ddess he'd named her for, in flowing, graceful steps that seemed in rhythm with the

154.

movement of the tides. Her hips swayed in a gentle, feminine motion that mesmerized him.

When she reached the beach, she hitched up the baggy pants and skipped barefooted across the cold outcropping of stone to the spot where her stockings and half boots lay discarded. Setting down her treasures, she bent to put on her shoes.

Ian's heart was pounding so fast, he was certain she could hear it. He thought suddenly-irrationally-that G.o.d had answered his prayers, given him a seductive, beautiful woman steeped in mystery.

But it wasn't possible. She had to be damaged inside, she had to be. No brain could come through such a trauma unscathed. There was no hope that she could be normal. No real hope.

He thought of Elizabeth, sitting in the chair by the window, still beautiful... still broken and childlike and damaged.

Look at her, his mind taunted him with insidious, killing hope. Believe what you see.

But too many years of despair made such belief impossible. He couldn't believe in something without proof that it was real.

Regathering her sh.e.l.ls and seaweed, she turned toward Maeve and Lara. She took one step, then stopped.

The rock was empty except for the easel. Maeve and Lara were gone. He saw the panic move across her face, fill her eyes. She bit down on her lower lip in a childlike expression of fear.

"Maeve?" Her full, throaty voice vibrated. "Maeve? Lara?"

He stared at her, a dozen questions circling through his mind. He tried not to care, tried not to have any expectations at all.

He stepped forward. "I'm here, Selena." She spun toward him. The sh.e.l.ls and pebbles she'd collected fell to the rocks with a clatter.

155.

"Ian?" She said his name on a whisper, as if she weren't sure he was there at all.

"h.e.l.lo there, Selena."

Her face split in a wide grin and she ran for him. Just in front of him, she skidded to a stop and fell into a deep curtsy. Rising slowly, her gaze fastened on his, she extended her hand.

He felt a moment's hesitation to touch her, then cautiously reached out. Their fingers brushed, twined.

Her hand felt small and soft in his. No visions came to him, no images slammed through his mind. As before, there was nothing in her mind for him to see.

"I suppose the queen taught you to curtsy."

She positively beamed at him. "Yes."

"You do it very well."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

He couldn't take his eyes off her face, the way her full pink lips quirked in a smile, the brightness in her gaze. She was gloriously alive, so vibrantly animated.

It was a miracle.

No, not a miracle. A scientific phenomenon.

The old excitement moved through him. He understood all at once the implications of her recovery and what it meant to him. Just standing here, smiling at him in defiance of the odds, of science, she gave him everything. The fantasy came rushing back.

He could study her, begin to understand what no doctors before him had ever truly understood.

He could be a G.o.d again.

He grinned, letting the questions wash through him, exhilarate him. How was her mind? How far had she recovered? Could she think, understand, reason? Her mind was impaired-it had to be-but how much?

What lobes were damaged and what behavior did the damage impact?

Jesus, he couldn't wait to study her. "You are pleased with my face," she said.

156.

He touched her cheek, felt the silkiness of her skin against his roughened fingertip. "You're beautiful."

"I see in the miner that it is much b.u.t.ter. Better. Now you will stay 'with me?" "I don't understand." "Now I am not so ugly."

His smile slowly faded. He considered the selfishness of his departure and was ashamed. "I did not leave because you were ugly, Selena. I left because I was ugly." She stepped closer, turned her face up to him.

A slow, stunning smile crept across her face. "You are beautiful, Ian."

It was surprising, the warmth her naive words caused. "Women are beautiful, Selena. Men are handsome."

She frowned briefly. "Oh." Then her smile came back full force. "You will test me again?" He nodded. "If you'll let me." She laughed. It was a low, throaty purr that didn't match her angelic face at all. A wh.o.r.e's laugh, whiskey-soft and seductive. "I shall let you do anything you wish to me, Ian. I have been waiting for you."

Such simplicity, such innocence. She clearly had no idea of the s.e.xual innuendo of her words. He wondered what level her mind operated at-was she like Lara, a child in a woman's body, or was she still amnesiac?

"And I have been waiting for you, Selena," he said softly, realizing how true the words were. For six long years he'd been waiting for a patient, someone who needed him, someone who could give him back the promise of his past. And she was here, at Lethe House, smiling up at him with the guileless joy of a child.

Understanding her would change medical history.

"I am pleased at the thought of more tests. I shall pa.s.s this time most certainly."

He smiled and offered her his arm. Together they strolled through the forest back toward the house.

For the first time in years, he couldn't wait for the next minute to take place, the next moment.

157.

The medical mystery was inside her, waiting for him to discover. Him and him alone.

Selena sat on the edge of the overstuffed settee, her small feet pressed tightly together, her hands in her lap. She clamped her fingers together in a damp, sweaty ball to keep from fidgeting. Fidgeting was not ladylike, and she wanted desperately to be a lady for Ian. Rules circled through her head in an endless, mushy litany. Sit still ... don't speak until spoken to . .. don't fidget... crying is for babies and ye're no baby, Selena ... eat like a bird ...

Selena tried to remember the rest, but Edith's words drifted in and out of her mind. Sometimes she remembered and sometimes she didn't. Sometimes she couldn't even remember what she was trying to remember.

"Would you like something to drink?"

Selena's head snapped up, her heart raced. He'd said something to her, asked a question, perhaps. She wasn't sure, couldn't remember. She tried to recall the appropriate word to express her confusion, but nothing came to mind. She gazed up at him, her mind an utter blank.

Tears burned behind her eyes. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. She wanted to impress him. She'd been practicing for weeks now, every day, pushing herself to the very limit to improve. And for what? So that she could blink up at her G.o.d like a dead fish and breathe too quickly?

He motioned to the china teapot on the ornate silver tray. "Would you like a drink, Selena?"

Drink. Tea. He was offering her something to drink. She grinned in relief. "I am most thirsty. Yes, thank you, I would enjoy to drink tea."

He gazed at her a second longer than she expected, his eyes narrowed and a.s.sessing. "Good." Turning, he poured her a cup of steaming tea and offered it to her.

She smiled. "Hot," she said, proving to him once again that she was smart.

158.

"Yes, it is hot. Do you take cream or sugar?"

"Where?"

"What?"

"Do I take them where?"

He laughed, a quiet, happy sound that made her feel like floating. "In your tea."

His laughter was contagious. "Oh," she giggled. "It does not matter to me, such things as cream and sugar and salt and pepper. I have no taste."

His smile died. Very slowly, he placed his teacup on the frilly piecrust table beside the settee and reached inside his coat pocket for a small book. Pulling the thin, leather-bound volume from his pocket, he slipped his spectacles on. "What do you mean you have no taste?" She tried to marshal the words necessary to make her point. Finally she saw the salt shaker on the tray beside the watercress sandwiches. Grabbing it, she tilted her head back and poured a huge amount of the granules on her tongue. Then she swallowed and smiled at him. "No taste."

His eyes lit up. "You can't taste anything?"

"Nothing."

"How did you first notice this?"

"When I ate."

He smiled. "Let me rephrase that. How did you come to understand that you were different than other people?"

"Johann caught me drinking seawater."

He wrote furiously for several moments, then looked up again, an expectant light in his eyes. "And what about memories? Have you gotten any of them back?"

"No."

He frowned. His gaze burned into her with an intensity that made her vaguely uncomfortable. Then he started writing again. The quiet scratching of his pen on the paper seemed suddenly too loud. She started to shift her weight on the cushion, then froze. Don't fidget.

"You don't remember your name?"

159.

"No, but I do not think-"

"Where you're from?"

She blinked in confusion at the sudden change of topic. He was going too quickly. Her mind could not keep up. "I do not know where I was from. Could you perhaps-"

"Family?"

"I do not know of them. It would help if-"