Neither of them spoke.
Finally Shane said, ‘What’s happened to your face?’
‘I fell. It’s nothing.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came looking for you. Randolph told me where you were. I came to ask you something, Shane.’
‘Yes?’
‘Would you please give me the ring…the ring Blackie gave to Emma?’
‘You can have it if you want, Paula. She should have left it to you in the first place.’
‘No. She meant you to have it. She never made mistakes like that. And I wasn’t asking you to give me the ring as…you know, as a gift.’ She hesitated only for the briefest second. ‘I want you to give it to me as your future wife.’
He gaped at her.
She smiled at him.
Paula’s uncanny violet eyes grew enormous in her pale face. ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Shane. If you still want me.’
He was incapable of answering. He put his arms around her and held her close to his shaking heart. And then he began to kiss her hair, her eyes and finally her soft and tender lips. The kiss was deep and passionate yet there was tenderness in it and a depth of feeling that sprang from the recent pain they had both endured.
They sat for a long time on the ruined wall of Middleham Castle, their arms around each other. They did not speak, lost for a while in their own thoughts.
Paula felt safe at last now that she was with him. She would never leave him again. They would be together always until the end of their days. They belonged together, were part of each other.
Shane, his eyes scanning the gaunt bleak silhouette of the castle, was filled with a sense of timelessness that he always experienced here. And then slowly he was enveloped in a new and wondrous peacefulness and he knew it would never leave him now that she was to live with him for the rest of his life.
Paula murmured, ‘If only Blackie and Emma knew…if only they could see us together.’
He looked into her face and smiled, and then he lifted his eyes to the dark hills, resplendent in that extraordinary supernatural light, his glance sweeping across the sky.
Then the Celt in him rose up and he reached out and touched her face with gentleness. ‘Perhaps they can, Paula,’ Shane said. ‘Perhaps they can.’
About the Author
Barbara Taylor Bradford was born in Leeds, and by the age of twenty was an editor and columnist on Fleet Street. Her first novel, A Woman of Substance, became an enduring best-seller and was followed by sixteen others, most recently The Triumph of Katie Byrne. Her books have sold more than sixty-one million copies worldwide in more than eighty-nine countries and thirty-nine languages. She lives in New York City with her husband, producer Robert Bradford.
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By the same Author
A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE
VOICE OF THE HEART
ACT OF WILL
TO BE THE BEST
THE WOMEN IN HIS LIFE
REMEMBER
ANGEL
EVERYTHING TO GAIN
DANGEROUS TO KNOW
LOVE IN ANOTHER TOWN
HER OWN RULES
A SECRET AFFAIR
POWER OF A WOMAN
A SUDDEN CHANGE OF HEART
WHERE YOU BELONG
THE TRIUMPH OF KATIE BYRNE
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by Granada Publishing 1985
Copyright © Barbara Taylor Bradford 1985
Barbara Taylor Bradford asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 © JANUARY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-36369-8
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Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Family Tree
Matriarch
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Heiress
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Tycoon
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
About the Author
Other Books by
Copyright
About the Publisher
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