seduce me.”
She smiled at him, and all he could think about was how very wrong she was, and how mayhap he was a bad man. A scandalous rogue. An incorrigible scoundrel. An out and out rakehell. Because he did want to seduce her. Since he’d grown well enough to manage a cockstand, he had lain awake at night thinking of little else.
“What if I were to say I do?” he asked, feeling bold.
And stupid.
Likely, it was the warmth of the water. The abating of the pain in his arm now that he was holding still. Or mayhap it was just her eyes, trapping him. She was the loveliest woman he had ever seen. Hell—since he had arisen from the abyss, she had been the only woman he had seen, but he understood instinctively he had not known one who affected him in the same manner. She was uncommonly warm and caring, and he understood that instinctively as well.
Caro Sutton took his breath and made his heart beat fast.
“What if you were to say you have a secret desire to seduce me?” she echoed, color tingeing her cheekbones as she repeated the question.
He wished he had more strength. He wished he knew his bloody name.
“Aye,” he told her. “What if I were to say that?”
Her lips parted. Full, tempting, pink lips. Riper than a summer berry. Had he ever eaten a summer berry? If he had, he could not recall.
“I would tell you that you are bound to be disappointed,” she told him primly, dashing his hopes. “I do not allow my patients to be so bold.”
“Patients?” Now that was intriguing. He had taken note that Caro was a deft hand when it came to tending to a man on his sickbed. But now he realized how little he knew of her. How little they had spoken since he had been well enough to engage in conversation. “Have you many others then, Miss Sutton?”
He did not like the notion. It made his gut clench. Somehow, over the course of his sojourn to regain his strength, he had become enamored of her. He had come to think of her as his. However, there was a world beyond this chamber of hers, though it was one he would not recognize. He would do best to remember that.
“You are my only patient at the moment,” she said softly, seeming to relent. Her gaze dipped to the water and then moved away with haste. “However, I am the healer here at The Sinner’s Palace. You are by no means the first to whom I have tended.”
Of course he would not be. She was far too skilled for him to be her first patient.
He studied her, noting she looked as if she wanted to run. “You needn’t stay here with me. I promise I ain’t going to drown.”
As the words left him, he frowned. For there it was again in the imperfection of his speech, the hint that he was not a gentleman at all. Frustration rose, along with impatience. He had hoped his loss of memory would have been temporary—the result of the blows he had taken to the head. But it had been some time since he had initially been attacked. Far too long…
“You had better not drown, sir,” she said crisply, still wringing her fingers in the drapery of her serviceable gown. It was an uninteresting shade of gray, but even the unattractiveness of her dress did nothing to detract from her allure. “I have fought quite hard to make certain you survive.”
“And I am grateful to you for your efforts,” he returned, meaning those words. “I am a stranger, and you have been going to great lengths to protect me. I worry about the burden I am to you. Even this bath must attract some notice in your household, no?”
Her lips thinned, and her shoulders stiffened. But then she smiled that radiant smile of hers, and he forgot all about her initial reaction. Forgetting came deuced easy to him these days.
“You must not fret over me.” She turned away, hastening to the tray she had brought and fussing with the contents once more. There was the distinctive sound of an upending vial. “Damn it all.”
He had made her uncomfortable, he supposed. But he was not certain if his gratitude or his nudity were the cause. Mayhap both.
“I do fret over you, Caro,” he said, wishing he were not naked in the bath just now, despite the pleasant warmth of the water licking