Until You by Judith McNaught

studying the thin trail of white smoke curling off the cigar in his hand, "I found our patient thrashing about in bed, moaning."
    Alarm sent Stephen partway to his feet before the physician held up his hand and added, "She was sleeping, Stephen. Dreaming. But she felt a little feverish," he added, dishonestly, to help attain his goal. "I was also informed that she's not eating well, and that she's so lonely, and so desperate for answers, that she talks to the chambermaids, the footmen—anyone at all who might be able to tell her about this house, about herself, or about you, her own fiancé."
    Stephen's guilt tripled at this vividly drawn picture of Charise Lancaster's suffering, but that only made him more adamant. "I am
not
her fiancé. I am the man who is responsible for his death! First I murder him, and then I take his place," he gritted caustically. "The whole notion is obscene!"
    "You did not murder him," Hugh said, astonished by the true depth of Stephen's guilt. "He was foxed and he ran out in front of you. It was an accident. These things happen."
    "You wouldn't be able to shrug it off as easily as that if you'd been there," he shot back savagely. "You weren't the one who pulled him out from under the horses. His neck was broken, and his eyes were open, and he was trying to whisper and trying to breathe. Christ, he was so young, he didn't look like he ought to be shaving yet! He kept trying to tell me to 'Get Mary.' I thought he was asking me to find someone named Mary. It didn't occur to me until the next day that, with his dying breath, he was talking about getting married. Had you been there and seen and heard all that, you wouldn't find it so goddamned easy to excuse me for running him down and
then
lusting after his fiancée!"
    Hugh had been waiting for Stephen to end his guilty tirade so he could point out that Burleton reportedly had a penchant for recklessness, drunkenness, and gambling, none of which would have made him a decent husband for Miss Lancaster had he lived, but Stephen's last revealing sentence banished everything else from his mind. It explained Stephen's uncharacteristic cruelty in leaving her alone upstairs.
    The forgotten cigar clamped between his teeth, Hugh leaned back in his chair and regarded the angry earl with amused fascination. "So, she appeals to you in
that
way, does she?"
    "In exactly 'that way,' " Stephen bit out.
    "Now I understand why you've been avoiding her." Narrowing his eyes against the smoke, Hugh considered the situation thoughtfully for a moment, then continued. "Actually, it's little wonder you find her irresistible, Stephen. I myself find her utterly refreshing and completely delightful."
    "Excellent!" Stephen said caustically. "Then you tell her
you're
really Burleton, and then
you
wed her. That would set everything to rights."
    That last sentence was so subtly revealing, and so interesting, that Hugh carefully withdrew his gaze from Stephen's face. He removed his cigar from his mouth, held it in his fingertips, and studied it with apparent absorption. "That is a very interesting line of thought, especially for you," he remarked. "I might even say a
revealing
line of thought."
    "What are you talking about?"
    "I am talking about your statement that if someone were to marry her, 'that would set everything to rights.' " Without waiting for a reply, he continued, "You feel responsible for Burleton's death and her memory loss, and you're physically attracted to her. Despite that—or because of all that—you're adamantly opposed to doing something as simple and therapeutic as pretending to be her fiancé, is that right?"
    "If you want to put it that way, yes."
    "That's it then," Hugh said, slapping his knee and smiling with satisfaction. "That's the whole puzzle, all nicely put together." Without waiting for his annoyed adversary to demand an explanation, Hugh provided it: "Miss Lancaster has no fiancé because of an accident for which you were unavoidably responsible,