Will Marsden is a man on the run from his memories and his past. Steward of Denton Manor was a good position until Captain Dearne, the owner, lost the manor on the turn of a card. When the feckless Dearne is dumped unconscious and near death on his doorstep, Will grudgingly accepts an enormous sum of money to care for him.<br><br>Dearne regains consciousness but has no memories of how he came to be in the bed of a dark-haired, angry, but gorgeous man or how he came to be so badly injured.<br><br>When nightmares drive Dearne into Will’s arms every night, the attraction between them explodes. As Dearne battles with lost memories, he is forced to accept the fact that someone in his family wants him dead, and Will is forced to confront his past head on. Will the revelations uncovered manage to tear them apart?

Memories

“I’ll clean it and dress it again just to be sure,” Will said. “I used the old housekeeper’s salve. She used to swear by it for keeping infection at bay.”


“You put your housekeeper’s salve on it?” Dearne felt distinctly dubious about the housekeeper’s remedy. He would far rather have been able to see his physician in York.


Will shot him a look. “Well, it’s worked, hasn’t it? You’re not dead, nothing’s dropped off, and you don’t seem about to succumb to the fever.”


Will glared at him and then headed for the door. “I will get the things.”


As he walked out of the room, carrying the full chamber pot, Dearne watched him go. He probed his memory again, and was rewarded with a vague, but warm memory of being held with tenderness, of being…cared for. Will walked back into the room carrying bandages and what looked like some kind of ointment as another memory dropped into Dearne’s head.


Chapter 14