Lord of Temptation (27 page)
“I’m not lost anymore, Anne,” he said quietly. “After fourteen years of wandering, I’ve finally found home. You are my safe harbor.”
“And you are mine, my love.”
She didn’t delude herself into thinking that their life would be without storms, but they would weather them, because they would have each other.
Always.
Off the Yorkshire Coast
Some Years Later
“M
ummy, look! I’m steering the
Princess
all by myself!”
Anne glanced up from the two-year-old daughter on her lap to the six-year-old one standing at the helm, her father protectively behind her, his legs braced, his hands covering hers. The sturdy yacht, its sails filled with wind, sliced through the open water without a care. At least once a week Tristan brought the family out on the sea.
“I can see that, darling. You’re doing a marvelous job.”
“I’m going to be a ship captain when I grow up.”
“I have no doubt.”
Tristan laughed, before signaling to Mouse—who more often than not went by Martin these days—to keep watch over his eldest girl. He crossed the deck and scooped up his four-year-old daughter from where she was playing with the wooden blocks he’d carved for her. “You’ll be sailing the ship next, Princess.”
“Papa! I’m the princess,” their eldest shouted.
“You’re all princesses,” he assured her, before sinking into the chair beside Anne. He leaned over toward her and whispered, “You’re my favorite.”
Laughing softly, she said, “Don’t let them hear that. You’ll have a mutiny on your hands.”
They’d purchased a lovely house near the sea. They went to bed every night with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. At first after he acquired the yacht, he often took it out for the day. But over the years, his solitary sojourns had become fewer. He designed luxury yachts. Mr. Peterson oversaw the craftsmen hired to build them. They sold them for a princely sum. The
Princess
had been the first. Below deck were comfortable accommodations that rivaled many homes.
Once or twice a year, they would travel to a distant port. Their three daughters were seeing small portions of the world and feared nothing. She suspected that someday they would provide quite a challenge to any young man who wished to court them.
Of course any such young man would have to be brave enough to face their father first. He would be far worse than her brothers when it came to protecting his princesses.
“Why don’t we leave the girls with the nannies and go below?” he suggested.
“Are you really going to leave your daughter at the helm?”
“Mouse will guide her. He won’t let anything happen to them.”
“He’s almost their big brother, isn’t he?” Tristan had hired him to care for the boat, to keep it in top shape. He lived in a small cottage near theirs. For a child who had been deemed worthless, he had a good life. As a young man now, he charmed the ladies. A talent Anne knew he’d picked up from Tristan.
She signaled for the nannies and when their two youngest were safely in their care, she rose and walked to the railing with Tristan.
“The sea doesn’t call to you as much anymore, does it?” she asked.
“No. An hour here or there suits me just fine.”
“Do you ever miss it, the life of adventure you led?”
He turned her in his arms, and she gazed into the pale blue eyes that she’d loved for so long now.
“You’re all the adventure I need,” he told her before lowering his mouth to hers, sweeping her away on the tide of his love.
L
ORRAINE
H
EATH
wrote her first story at seven, and it involved a fisherman who
fell in love with a mermaid. She has since moved on to writing about sexy
cowboys and dashing English lords (and sometimes, cleverly, in the same
book!).
Publishers Weekly
says she is a “master
of her craft.” She is, indeed, and along with being a
New
York Times
and
USA Today
bestseller, she
has won the RITA
®
Award, three
Romantic Times
Reviewer’s Choice Awards, and a Career Achievement Award.
Visit her website at
www.lorraineheath.com.
Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive
information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Lord of Temptation
She Tempts the Duke
Waking up with the Duke
Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman
Passions of a Wicked Earl
Midnight Pleasures with a Scoundrel
Surrender to the Devil
Between the Devil and Desire
In Bed with the Devil
Just Wicked Enough
A Duke of Her Own
Promise Me Forever
A Matter of Temptation
As an Earl Desires
An Invitation to Seduction
Love with a Scandalous Lord
To Marry an Heiress
The Outlaw and the Lady
Never Marry a Cowboy
Never Love a Cowboy
A Rogue in Texas
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LORD OF TEMPTATION
. Copyright © 2012 by Jan Nowasky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition OCTOBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062093561
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062100023
FIRST EDITION
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