Chase caught her eager gaze and sighed. He wasn’t hallucinating. This was really happening. Bloody hell, what am I to do now?

Surely she didn’t expect him to believe such a faradiddle. And even if he really had lost his memory and had fallen for her lame story, what did she think would happen when his memory returned?

When Chase had been ten, his younger brother, Devon, had fallen off his horse while taking a particularly brutal fence during a mad hunt. When Devon had awakened, he hadn’t known who he was for almost a day.

For Chase and his older brothers, once they saw that Devon was fine, only confused, the incident had been cause for great merriment. Undetected by their parents, they had sneaked into the sickroom and attempted to convince Devon that he was, in fact, the illegitimate son of the head groomsman, a huge burly fellow with an askance eye and a horrible scar down his face.

There had been hell to pay when they’d been caught, and they’d all been sentenced to muck out the stables under the stern presence of that very head groomsman, but it had been worth it.

Mrs. Ward went to the window, where a low chair stood in the swath of slowly growing sunshine. She pulled the chair to the side of the bed, angled it toward Chase, then sat down, her skirts billowing about her, her gaze fixed on his face.

Chase wished she hadn’t done that. The bed was rather high, and she was not the tallest of women. With the help of the chair, she was now staring him right in the eyes, her gaze wide and unblinking, as if she’d determined never to look away again.

He cleared his throat, wondering how to begin.

“Madam, I believe there has been some sort of mistake—”

“Oh, no! You are Captain Frakenham, though you don’t remember it.”

“Am I indeed?”

“Oh yes!” She nodded so hard her lace cap seemed in imminent danger of taking flight. “I’ve known you a long time myself.”

Chase lifted his brows. “How long?”

“Very long! In fact, you might say that I’ve known you longer than anyone.”

She seemed so secure in her belief that she could convince him that he was the admirable captain that Chase almost felt guilty for knowing who he really was. It was odd, but despite the fact that this woman was attempting to bamboozle him, Chase couldn’t help but feel that she wasn’t a truly untrustworthy individual—at least, not usually. She possessed far too serene a spirit to be anything other than guileless. And in all honesty, she wasn’t a very good liar, either.

But what in the world did she hope to gain by this deception? “Madam, perhaps we had best speak plainly.”

Mrs. Ward blinked once. Twice. Then she cleared her throat. “Plainly?”

“You say I am this…Captain Frakenham?”

“Yes.”

“Who is engaged to your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Then why does your daughter act as if she’s never met me before?”