lips moved, quivered actually, but no words came forth.
“What seems to be the problem?” the woman asked. “What seems to be the problem! I awoke to see this man leaning over my bed! That’s the problem! And why are you asking him? And who are you? You’re not even dressed, for pity’s sake. What has the world come to when a lady can’t get some sleep without all the world creeping into her bedchamber, with only the good Lord knows what on their minds, that’s what I want to know. Well, don’t just stand there with your mouths at half cock. You both have some explaining to do!”
“Hartley, you may retire now,” Pierre offered kindly as the elderly butler looked about to expire from mingled shock and indignation. “And please accept my congratulations. I didn’t know you were still considered to be such a danger to the ladies.”
Leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, his arms folded against his chest, one bare leg crossed negligently over the other at the ankles, Pierre then allowed his gaze to take a slow, leisurely assessment of the young woman occupying the bed.
She was still as beautiful as his initial impression of her had indicated, with her small features lovingly framed by a heavy mass of coal-black hair, her pale skin made creamy where her slim throat rose above the fine white lawn of Eleanore Standish’s nightgown. His first sight of her long-lashed, blue-violet eyes only reconfirmed his opinion. However, she might not be quite as young as he had first thought, for the light of intelligence burned brightly in her eyes. “Unless it’s fever,” he hedged aloud, knowing his wits weren’t usually at their sharpest this early in the day. His early morning wits or the lack of them to one side for the moment, Miss Penance was still a most remarkably beautiful young woman.
“Well?” she asked, pushing her hands straight out in front of her, palms upward and gesturing toward him. “Have you somehow been turned to marble, sir? Perhaps I should remind you of your current situation? You’re in a lady’s bedchamber without invitation. I suggest you retire before I’m forced to do you an injury.”
Pierre smiled. “Oh, Father’s going to adore you,” he said silkily. “What’s your name, little Amazon? We can’t go on calling you Miss Penance, although my spur of the moment christening now seems to border on the inspired. Please, madam, give me a name.”
“My name?” she croaked, wincing.
“Your name,” Pierre repeated. “As you’re sleeping in my father’s house, I don’t believe it is an out-of-the-way demand.”
Miss Penance slumped against the pillows, suddenly appearing to be even smaller than she had before, her chin on her chest. “So you don’t know who I am, either,” she said in a small voice, all her bravado deserting her. “I had hoped—”
She sniffed, a portion of her spunk reasserting itself. “I should have known I’d be looking for mare’s nests, asking for some spark of intelligence from a man who has that much hair on his legs and is vain enough to consider showing it off to strangers.”
“Eight to five you’re a parson’s eldest,” Pierre was stung into replying. “And a Methodist parson to boot. Only the worse sort of strumpet or a holier-than-thou old maid would even dare utter the word ‘leg’ in front of a gentleman. Somehow, I can’t quite picture you in the role of strumpet. You dislike men entirely too much. Which leaves us with only the other alternative. Now, are you really trying to tell me that you have no recollection of your own name?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I know my own name! Everyone knows his own name,” she shot back at him. “I just—” Her voice began to lose some of its confidence. “I just seem to have, um, momentarily misplaced the memory. It’ll come to me any time now. I’m sure of it.”
“How reassuring,” Pierre soothed, slowly advancing into the room. “And, of course, once you succeed in locating this truant name, you’ll doubtless inform me as to why you were lying unconscious in the middle of the roadway just north of here, obstructing traffic and upsetting my coachman no end. It’s the merest bagatelle—no more than a trifling inconvenience—this temporary lapse.”
The violet eyes shot blue-purple flame. “Oh, do be quiet, Mr.—”
“Standish,” Pierre supplied immediately, lowering himself into a seated position on the bottom of the bed. “Pierre Standish. See how easy that was. Now you try it. How utterly charmed I am to meet you, Miss—”
She nodded her head three times, as if the movement would jog her memory. “Miss…Miss…oh, drat! I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Quietly, my dear Miss Forgetful, quietly,” Pierre scolded absently. “We shall abandon this exercise momentarily, as it seems only to annoy you, and speak of other things. How is your head? You sustained a rather nasty bump on it, one way or another.”
She reached up to gingerly inspect the lump she had discovered earlier upon awakening. “It’s still there, if that’s any answer,” she told him. “Your guess is as good as mine as to how I came to have it. And, even though I am sure it matters little to you, it hurts like the very devil.”
Pierre frowned at her use of the word “devil.” Tipping his head to one side, he commented, “I believe we can dispense with the notion that you are a parson’s daughter. Your language is too broad.”
“Then I am to be the worst sort of strumpet?” she asked, narrowing her eyes belligerently. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Pierre shook his head, “No, not a strumpet, either. You’re much too insulting. You’d have starved by now.”
“Perhaps I am a thief,” she suggested, pulling the blankets more firmly under her chin. “Perhaps you should be locking up your family silver at this very moment, for fear I shall lope off with it the instant I find my clothes. I may assume that I have some clothing somewhere? Not that I’m likely to recognize it any more than I recognize this nightgown I have on now.”
“There’s no reason for you to recognize it. It was my mother’s,” Pierre told her. “She died several years ago.”
“I’m surprised.”
“Surprised that my mother is deceased?” Pierre questioned, looking at her oddly.
“Surprised that she lived so long, with you for a son,” she answered meanly, for even a fool could see that she was feeling very mean.
“Touché, madam. I believe that evens up our insults quite nicely.” Pierre rose from the bed and turned from her before he spoke again. “I’ll send a maid with some breakfast,” he said just as he reached the doorway to his own bedchamber. “That is, if I recover from the wounds your tongue has inflicted. Later, when you are more rested, my father will doubtless wish to interview you. Pray don’t repeat your latest attempt at nastiness to him, for he loved my mother very much.”
“I’m sorry,” she called after him. “Really, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just…it’s just that I’m really very upset. I mean, I don’t even know where I am, let alone who I am. Please—forgive me.”
Pierre turned to look at the young woman now sitting up in the bed, her violet eyes drenched with tears. “Neither of us has been very nice, have we?” he said. “It happens that way with some people, I’ve heard. We have already decided not to like each other, no matter how little Dame Reason is involved in the decision. Let us agree to forgive each other,
