“You are incorrigible.”

“Do you ever say anything nice about people?”

That hurt. “I was only trying to make a point. Your family leans on you far too much.”

“They do no such thing. Doesn’t your family mean anything to you?”

Of course it meant something to him. He had a family—a very close one, in fact. He couldn’t imagine life without them. But he was beginning to be aware that part of his problem was that they had taken perhaps too good care of him. Their motives had been pure, of course—love and concern. But their actions hadn’t always turned things for the better.

Now that he thought about it, whenever things went wrong, his brothers were always there and not just to support him, but often actively fixing things so that Chase didn’t have to. Perhaps that was why he’d been unable to face his problem—until that one instant, he’d never had to.

He shook his head. “You aren’t doing your brothers or sisters a favor when you run around correcting every difficulty they might face.”

She pressed her hand against his chest. “I hate to be rude, but could you step back a little. The smell…”

“If I have to smell the sheep ointment, then you should have to smell the sheep ointment. After all, you’re the one who slathered it all over me.”

“Piffle! You had blisters. What else was I to do?”

“Not a damn thing. Fortunately for you, I’m too tired to argue with you more.” He stepped back and allowed her room to escape.

She moved in a rustle of fresh muslin. “I’ll ask Jane to have a bath drawn for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Mother will expect you at dinner since Lady Cabot-Wells is on her way. Besides, I, for one, have no desire to sit next to you while you smell like a sick sheep.” With that, she turned to the stairs and made her way up.

Chase watched her go, her trim backside perfectly outlined under her skirts. His body, tired and aching as it was, reacted instantly. Bloody hell, what was it about her that heated him as flame to tinder? He’d had so many women…more than he cared to count. But Harriet Ward, prim and proper and totally unlike any woman he had ever met, inflamed him to uncomfortable heights just by the simple act of walking up a flight of stairs. Damn it, he would not think about that. Not now.

Meanwhile, he’d slip into the library and retrieve the tome he’d been reading about the sea captain. He’d need some fresh “memories” of life at sea if he was to feed the rumor mill yet again.

Besides, it would be a while before his bath was ready, and it would be nice to relax with a book before he had to don his official Captain Frakenham garb and entertain the community. Chase turned to the library door through which Harriet had come, and pushed it open.