Until You by Judith McNaught Page A

serenely sweet smile, however, this madonna was wearing an expression that looked bewildered, accusing, and distinctly unhappy, all at once. She did not make him wait to find out the cause.
    "Either you're extremely unobservant, my lord, or else your eyesight is afflicted."
    Caught completely off-guard, Stephen said cautiously, "I'm not certain what you mean."
    "I mean my hair," she said miserably, pointing an accusing finger to whatever was concealed beneath the towel.
    He remembered that her hair had been matted with blood, and assumed the wound to her scalp had bled even after Whitticomb had stitched it. "It will wash right out," he assured her.
    "Oh, I don't think so," she said ominously. "I already tried that."
    "I don't understand…" he began.
    "My hair is
not
brown—" she clarified as she swept the towel away and picked up a fistful of the offending tresses to illustrate the problem. "Look at it. It's
red
!"
    She sounded revolted, but Stephen was speechless, completely transfixed by a heavy mass of shiny, flaming strands that tumbled in waves and curls over her shoulders and the bodice of her robe and down her back. She released the handful she was holding, and it ran through her fingers like liquid fire. "
Jesus
…" he breathed.
    "It's so… so brazen!" she said unhappily.
    Belatedly realizing that her real fiancé wouldn't be standing there, staring at something he would have already seen, Stephen reluctantly withdrew his gaze from the most magnificent, and unusual, head of hair he had ever seen. "Brazen?" he repeated, wanting to laugh.
    She nodded and then impatiently shoved aside a glossy panel of coppery locks that slid away from her center part and draped itself over her forehead and left eye.
    "You don't like it," he summarized.
    "Of course not. Is that why you didn't want to tell me its real color?"
    Stephen seized the excuse she'd inadvertently handed him and nodded, his gaze shifting back to that exotic hair. It was a perfect frame to set off her delicate features and porcelain skin.
    It began to register on Sheridan that the expression on his face wasn't revulsion at all. In fact, he looked almost… admiring? "Do
you
like it?"
    Stephen liked it. He liked every damn thing about her. "I like it," he said casually. "I gather that red hair isn't quite the thing in America?"
    Sheridan opened her mouth to answer, and realized she didn't know the answer. "I… don't see how it could be. And I don't think it is in England."
    "What makes you say that?"
    "Because the maid who helped me admitted after I pressed her that she had never seen a head of hair this color in her
entire
life. She looked perfectly appalled."
    "Whose opinion matters most?" he countered smoothly.
    "Well, when you put it that way…" Sheridan said, feeling shy and overheated beneath the warmth of his smile. He was so beautiful—in a dark, manly way—that it was difficult not to stare at him and even more difficult to believe he'd actually chosen her above all the women in his own country. She loved his company, his humor, and the gentle way he treated her. She counted the hours between his visits, looking forward eagerly to each one, but the visits had all been very brief and completely uninformative. As a result, she still knew nothing about herself, or about him, or about their past relationship. She was no longer willing to exist in limbo, waiting for her capricious memory to return at any moment and provide the answers.
    She'd understood Lord Westmoreland's point of view, which was that she shouldn't jeopardize her health by overtaxing her mind, but her body was healed now. She'd gotten out of bed, bathed, and washed her hair, and then put on the dressing robe, in order to prove to him that she was well enough now to ask questions and hear answers. Her legs felt wobbly, but that might be due to a lingering weakness from her ordeal or, more likely, it was another symptom of the flustered nervousness she sometimes felt in his presence.
    She