And as for her face…
At first he thought it rather plain. Its shape was oval, with a very slight squareness to the chin, and broad, high cheekbones. Her hair was a common light brown, drawn close in a simple style at the back of her head. Her brows were straight, without the provocative arch that might have lent her greater feminine allure. Her lips were, at the moment, set in a prim line, though they might be full enough when relaxed. Her nose was quite ordinary. And her eyes—her eyes were blue, the brightest thing about her, sharp with intelligence and purpose.
The eyes alone made her attractive. That, and the way she carried herself. Like a queen. Rather like his own twin sister Rowena, in fact… except that this doctor was human, and Quentin doubted she carried an ounce of aristocratic blood in that sturdy frame.
She strode into the room and closed the door behind her.
“You should not be out of bed,” she said immediately. “Sit down, please.”
Quentin obeyed. Her voice—low, a little husky, with just the trace of an accent—demanded instant obedience, and he found himself intrigued. More intrigued by a human being than he’d been in a very long time.
She pulled the chair up beside the bed and laid her palm on his forehead. It was the touch he remembered—that his body remembered. He shivered as if with fever, the tremor radiating south from her hand to his extremities like an electric current. The charge gathered in his groin and lingered there, even when she withdrew her hand. His arousal was immediate and formidable. She might as well have bared her luxurious breasts, within such easy reach of his hands, and offered them up to his exploration.
He swallowed and closed his eyes. His mind was conjuring up these visions because he literally couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a woman to his bed. He was burning up with lust, and he was afraid.
“You aren’t warm,” Johanna said, as if to herself. She bent to her black bag and removed a gauze packet, unwrapping a glass thermometer. “Please open your mouth—”
If you’ll open yours, he thought. Yes; make a joke out of it. That had always saved him before. “Don’t you think we ought to be properly introduced before engaging in such intimacies?” he asked with a grin.
She paused as if genuinely surprised, her thermometer suspended in midair.
“My name,” he said with a slight bow from the waist, “is Quentin Forster. You must be the famous Doctor Johanna. I understand that I have you to thank for my presence in this very comfortable bed.”
She raised one straight eyebrow. “I am Doctor Schell,” she said. “I am pleased to see that you remember who you are.”
Quentin started. Did she know about his lapses in memory? Had he been here long enough for her to learn so much?
She set down the thermometer and placed her thumb and forefinger above and below his right eye, pulling open his lids. “Very good,” she said. “Do you remember how you came to be here?”
He considered lying. No, not with this one. And why bother? He’d be gone soon enough.
“Unfortunately, I do not,” he said. “I wish I did, considering the state in which I found myself when I woke up.”
She must have understood his intimation, but her expression remained tranquil. It was really quite striking, that face—or would be, if it could be made to smile. Without any good reason at all, Quentin wanted to make her smile.
Maybe then she’d actually see him. Remind him that something of the old Quentin was still within him, unsullied—the devil-may-care rogue beloved by the Prince’s set in England, the gambler, the jokester who never took anything seriously.
“Your state,” she said, “was extremely poor when we brought you here. You’re very lucky to be alive, young man.”
Young man? He was entering his third decade, and she couldn’t be so much as a year older than he was, if that. He laughed. It hurt his chest, but he let it go with abandon.
“Do you find that amusing, Mr. Forster?” she said coolly.