Chase shrugged. She was a sharp one, Miss Harriet Ward. He hadn’t meant to say anything so specific, but Gower’s pompous certainty had needled him. “Details make the lie all the more believable.”

“You seem to know a lot about lying for someone who has no memory to lie about. In fact, you do it so well it seems to be a natural-born talent.”

“Don’t all sailors tell sea yarns?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t know about all sailors, just one. And that one is one too many.”

That did it. Chase was hungry and his head ached abominably. Worse yet, he was being harangued by a tiny sprout of a woman with a mouth so soft and full that it was all he could do to keep from tasting her then and there. “You don’t seem to hold me in a very loverlike esteem. Did we argue like this before I hit my head?”

“I can’t think of a time we didn’t argue.”

“How depressing.”

Her lips quivered, then widened into a grin, a deep chuckle tickling the air between them. It was the most sensuous laughter he’d ever heard. A heated shudder raced through him and he vowed to hear that chuckle more often.

Her gaze drifted slowly over him. “Did Mother show you all of the clothes we gathered from the forest?”

“Yes.”

“Did you recognize anything?”

“Recognize?”

“Your belongings.”

He opened his mouth to answer when he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to remember who he was. “No. Of course I didn’t recognize anything. Not that there was anything of value left other than my clothing. The thought rankled, and he had a sudden memory of his mother’s ring, flashing in the sun.

His heart sank. How could he tell his brothers that he’d lost Mother’s most prized possession? Perhaps he could return to the spot of the attack and look for it?

“Did the thieves take everything of value?”

“So it seems.”

A flicker of a smile touched her lips. “Wait here a minute.”

She spun on her heel and left the room, the sound of her skirts swinging around her filtering back through the open door. Chase listened as her footsteps crossed the hall. A door was opened; silence followed, but only for a moment until she returned.

“That was quick.”

“I had this in the library. I almost forgot about it.” She walked toward Chase where he stood by the settee, her hand held out before her.

Chase glanced down, then froze. There, lying in the center of her palm, was the St. John talisman ring. The silver circlet gleamed as if it had been polished.

His heart thundered in recognition. His mother’s ring. Safe. It was more than he’d dared hope. Thank God it hadn’t been lost. Chase reached for the ring, but then he caught Harriet’s knowing gaze.

He paused. “Oh. Isn’t…isn’t this mine?”

She lifted her brows, daring him to make a claim. “Is it yours?”

Damn it! She was playing games with him. Chase dropped his hand back to his side. “I thought it must be mine, or you wouldn’t have offered it in such a manner.”