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, madam, and have done with it.”
“Agreed!” she said smiling for the first time, the unexpected beauty of it making a direct hit on Pierre’s senses, so that he blinked twice, said nothing, and left the room, suddenly uncomfortable at being dressed in nothing more than his banyan.
A HOT BATH HELPED to ease the soreness she had felt over every inch of her body from the moment she had first awakened in the beautiful, sunlit bedchamber.
The young maid who had introduced herself as Susan had carefully washed her hair, massaging away some of her tension and banishing the headache that had been pounding against her temples.
The meal of poached eggs, country bacon, toast, and tea had erased the gnawing hunger that had made her believe her stomach must have been worrying that her throat had somehow been cut.
But nothing could ease the terrible, blood-chilling panic that shivered through her body each time she attempted to remember who she was, or where she lived, or how she had come to be lying unconscious in the middle of a roadway.
“I just don’t remember!” she said out loud as she sat at the dressing table in the nightgown and robe Susan had brought her after her bath, glaring at her unfamiliar reflection, her chin in her hands. “I don’t remember anything; nothing before waking up here this morning.”
“There are many who would not curse such a lapse, but rather rejoice in it. Good afternoon, Miss Penance. I’m André Standish, your host. Forgive me, but I did knock.”
“You—you look just like him,” she was stung into saying as she stared into the mirror, where André’s reflection smiled back at her. “If it weren’t for the color of your hair, I’d swear—”
“Ah, you’d swear,” André interrupted. “I see my son has not exaggerated. You are an enigma, aren’t you, Miss Penance? You have the look and accent of a lady, but your conversation is sprinkled with words most well-brought-up young females have been taught to shun. Of course, there was a time, more years ago than I care to recall, when all the best ladies were shockingly frank in their speech, but that time has since passed, more’s the pity. Perhaps you were raised solely by your father, or a doting uncle. That would explain it, wouldn’t it?”
She sat quite still, listening to the sound of his voice more than his actual words. His tone was so gentle, so reassuring. “No,” she answered, suddenly sleepy, and wondering why she felt she could lean her head against his arm and doze, secure in the knowledge that he’d never hurt her. “No, I don’t think so. Men seem to frighten me—except you, that is. I was very afraid of your son this morning. I don’t think I’ve been around men very much.”
“Pierre can be most formidable, even in his banyan. Especially in his banyan, I imagine.” André laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re frightened, and with every right. Forgive me for trying to prod you into memory. There’s no rush, you know. We shall take this thing one day at a time. Now, come lie down on the bed for a while. You must be exhausted. I’ve already sent for the doctor, but he is busy with someone who is really ill and not merely confused by a bump on the head. He sent along a note assuring me that you’ll remember everything in time. He will be here tomorrow to answer any questions you might have.”
She allowed herself to be helped into bed. Looking up at André, she said, “You’re not at all like your son after all. You’re very nice.”
“Pierre’s a beast, I’m ashamed to say. Quite uncivilized,” André confessed with a smile and a slight shake of his silver head. “Were I you, I should stay as far removed from him as possible. Now, get some rest while I go downstairs and cudgel my brain into coming up with a female companion for you. It isn’t correct for you to be the lone young woman in a masculine household.”
She was very sleepy, but she didn’t miss the meaning of his words. “Then—then you think I’m a young lady?”
“Was there ever any doubt?” André replied, winking at her as he closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE YOUNG LADY Pierre had dubbed Miss Penance walked aimlessly along the twisting gravel paths of the substantial Standish Court ornamental gardens, idly swinging a yellow chip straw bonnet by its pink satin ribbons, her feet dragging only a little in the soft, too-large kid slippers that had once belonged to Eleanore Standish.
The gardens were glorious, a fairyland of flowers and evergreens and whimsical statuary, all bathed in the warmth of a sunny late summer’s afternoon. It was a perfect place to spend a few quiet moments, which was the reason André Standish had suggested it to her earlier, after she had risen from her nap.
So far, neither her nap, the walk, nor the peacefulness of her surroundings had jogged her memory. She had been without it for only a few hours, but she measured its loss minute by minute, and the gravity and scope of that loss were gnawing at her, causing the still tender bump on her head to throb most painfully.
She could be anybody—or nobody. It would be awful to be a Nobody.