His gaze flickered just an instant, but his smile remained in place, as did his hand about her wrist. “That’s because I know my memory will return soon.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “How?”

He paused, and she could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. Something wasn’t right here.

The patient pursed his lips, his thumb rubbing intimately along her wrist. “I know because,” he said with great deliberation, as if trying to explain some thing to a person of lower understanding, “I remember some things. Like how to put on my boots. And how to kiss a woman.”

“Useful talents.”

He ignored her dry comment. “I know I’m going to get my memory back the same way I know that doing this”—he nodded toward where his thumb was rubbing a spate of delectable tingles through her entire body—“can make you do that.” His gaze shifted to her arm, where gooseflesh danced across her skin. As warm as the cloth in her hand had been, it was nothing compared to the feel of his fingers clasped about her bared skin.

Heavens, what was wrong with her? She tried to free herself, but his hold tightened, and he looked up at her, his glance issuing a distinct challenge. “Afraid?”

“Of what? A man with no memory? Piffle.” She cast about for something witty to say, but all she could find was, “So. You believe for some inexplicable reason that you’re going to regain your memory. That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard.”

He raised a brow. “Have you ever lost your memory?”

“No, but—”

“Then how do you know what it’s like?”

“I know because—” She clamped her mouth closed, realizing she really had no idea why his reaction struck her as false. The patient’s smug air irritated Harriet to death.

She opened her mouth to argue her point, when her patient tightened his grip on her wrist and yanked her to him.

Her legs hit the side of the bed, and she pitched forward, once again in his lap.

“There,” he murmured, his arms holding her prisoner. “I’m feeling better already.”

Harriet struggled to right herself, tossing the wet cloth onto the floor so that she could use both of her hands. “That is quite enough—”

The door pushed open, and Mother’s soft voice said breezily, “Harriet dear! Dr. Blackthorne says—Oh my goodness!”

Harriet sent a glance of triumph at the infuriating man who held her prisoner as she waited for her mother to take him to task for his reprehensible behavior.

“Harriet!” Mother said in a scandalized tone. “What on earth are you doing to our poor patient?”

Chapter 5

Women are really simple creatures. Simply indecipherable, that is.

The Duke of Wexford to the Duchess of Wexford, while driving home from church on a Sunday afternoon

“Mother, I—I’m not—he just—I didn’t—Oh, piffle!”

Elviria Ward blinked at her usually staid, calm daughter—the very same daughter who now lay red-faced and prone across the lap of their patient.