She caught at his fingers and pulled his hand so that she could see his palm, her gaze widening. “Your poor hands! Why didn’t you say something?”

He looked at his blistered palms and shrugged. “They are better today.”

“They are bleeding!” She turned and marched toward the wagon.

“It’s nothing, really,” he said, following her. “They don’t even hurt that—”

“Do you know what could happen if this got infected?” She reached under the seat of the wagon to pull out a small box. “Hold out your hands. Both of them.”

Chase did as instructed, a little amused at how determined she seemed to be.

Harriet opened the box and took out a small vial. “This should do the trick.” She uncorked the vial and a strong whiff of something indescribable hit Chase.

He took an involuntary step back but she was too quick. She caught him and poured an oily substance into his hand. Then she capped the vial. “Rub that in.”

His nose curled of its own accord. “You have to be jesting—”

“Rub it in.”

“I don’t want to.”

“It will make your blisters heal faster.”

“But it smells atrocious.”

She dropped the vial back in the box and replaced it under the seat. “Captain Frakenham, I—”

“John.”

She turned to face him, hands on hips. “John, then. It is very important that you don’t get an infection. Rub that in.”

Holding his hands at arm’s length, he briefly rubbed his hands together, then bent to wipe them on the grass. It hurt, but he’d have done much worse to get rid of the nasty stuff. “That is the most vile-smelling stuff.”

“Yes, it is. You should have seen poor Derrick when he slid out of the loft and scraped his entire back nearly raw. Mother practically bathed him in it.”

Chase lifted one of his hands and then rapidly held it away. “Bloody hell! This smells worse than the potion my mother gave me when I was twelve.” He grinned at the memory. “I pretended to have a fever so that I wouldn’t have to take a bath.”

The words hung in the air between them.

Chase closed his eyes. He’d just given himself up. In one lousy unguarded moment, he’d lost the game.

He sighed, then opened his eyes.

Harriet stood stiff and immobile, regarding him with a frosty rage. “Who are you?”

Chapter 17

A short courtship is the way of it. If you let things drone on and on, then you’ll have spent all your topics of conversation before the wedding day and will have nothing more to say. Marry within two months of proposing, then you’ll still have something left to talk about at the breakfast table.

Mr. Lembert Standish to his friend and mentor, Edmund Valmont as the two stood outside of Hell’s Door, a fashionable gaming establishment

Harriet didn’t know whether to slap the stranger for his audacity or crow with triumph at his slip of the tongue. Her mind swirled with emotions—shock, exuberance at being right, confusion at the realization that he’d knowingly misled them—misled her. Her brow lowered at that. The man had lied.