He seemed to understand, for something flickered in his eyes.

“Can you speak?”

He didn’t attempt to answer, just looked at her as if he would never stop, his gaze so direct, so compelling that Harriet found herself leaning forward. She was pulled toward those eyes, toward his handsome, carved mouth. Drawn inexorably onward until—

His lips parted—perfectly formed lips that spoke of a sensuous nature and a firm resolve.

Harriet found herself watching his lips. “What’s your name?” she whispered. “Who are you?”

His brow lowered, and he tried to form a word.

Harriet leaned even closer. “Yes?”

“I…don’t…know.” Then he was gone, his eyes sliding closed, his head turning to one side as his tenuous hold on consciousness slipped away.

“Careful, missus,” Cook said, dusting her hands on her apron, flour drifting into the air in a shimmery cloud. “The water’s hot, ’tis. I don’t want you spilling it like that porridge you dropped all over the new rug.”

Since the porridge incident had occurred over twenty years ago when Harriet was all of four years old, Harriet was reasonably certain she was in no danger of spilling the hot water she was getting ready to carry upstairs to their patient.

They’d brought the poor man to Garrett Park. Though they’d looked for some proof of who he was, he didn’t have a single paper on him—and no money either, which led Harriet to believe that he was the victim of a brutal robbery.

Harriet glanced up at the ceiling. He was upstairs in their guest chamber, still unconscious. A shiver of something amazingly like excitement traced through her. If he’d been handsome lying in the forest floor, covered in blood, he was breathtakingly beautiful lying in the large bed upstairs.

It really was a pity, but Harriet was certain that once the stranger awoke and opened his mouth, all vestiges of handsomeness would disappear. That’s the way it usually happened, anyway.

Harriet caught Cook’s admonitory gaze and adjusted her grip on the bowl. “I’ll be very careful. I promise.”

The old woman’s narrow face softened a bit. “I know you will, Miss Harriet. It’s a pity the gentleman didn’t have no letters or nothin’ on him when you found him. ’Tis a mystery, ’tis.”

“The constable believes the poor man was attacked and left for dead.”

Cook clicked her tongue. A thin, sparse woman with stern gray hair and a practical attitude, she possessed a quick smile and an iron-willed loyalty. “’Tis not safe to walk out of doors anymore. Go on wid ye, now. Tend to the patient. The doctor’s just left, and I’m certain yer mother will have some news fer us.”

Harriet paused. “When did the doctor arrive?”

“When you went to the garden to gather some goldenrod fer the tonic. I was goin’ to tell you, but I forgot it in the excitement.”

“Thank you, Cook.” Harriet turned and hurried out the door, carrying the bowl down the narrow hallway from the kitchen and into the main hall. Just as she lifted her foot to climb the stairs to the guest room, Mother swept into the landing and made her way downstairs, Harriet’s younger brother following absently behind, his head buried in a book.