by Gaelen Foley
“I played with the doggies!”
“Did you? Tell me all about them,” he invited, letting Thomas wriggle his way into a cuddly spot between the two of them. Careful of his wounds, Jordan put his arm around the boy he’d raise as his own.
Thomas proceeded to babble cheerfully about the guard dogs of Dante House, apparently mistaking his new friend, Rohan, for one of them.
“A common mistake,” Jordan informed Mara in a low aside.
She laughed, but the more excited Thomas got about his subject, the less coherent was his speech.
Jordan had no idea what the boy was saying, but it didn’t really matter. That chirpy little singsong voice was music to his ears.
As Thomas prattled on, Mara and he gazed at each other in tender amusement, eager to start their new lives together…a family at last.
Epilogue
Far away across the Channel, Emily moved confidently through the Alpine forest, never letting her quarry stray too far ahead though she dared not let him realize she was following him.
Drake had gone into the castle farther up the mountain with the old man he now protected as staunchly as if Falkirk were his own father.
But soon, Emily thought, she would send a message to the Order and tell them where she was. She was rather sorry about throwing that rock at the one man, but it wasn’t as though she could have let him shoot Drake. Still, she might need help in the future. It might prove too difficult to coax Drake home herself.
Meanwhile, in the castle’s great hall, Drake stood behind James’s chair in dark vigilance, eyeing each of the Promethean Council members who had gathered to see what James had to show them.
None of them could be trusted, but James was doing all he could to persuade the others to follow him in overthrowing Malcolm.
“Behold, one of the greatest treasures our forebears ever created. I present to you, gentlemen, the Alchemist’s Scrolls…”
Drake didn’t bother listening to the rest, uninterested in their occult superstitions. His only concern was keeping James safe so he, in turn, could accomplish his goal of defeating Niall’s father.
But after scanning the hardened faces of these powerful, shadowy men handpicked from among Europe’s elite, Drake’s gaze strayed toward the open window and the starry allure of the Alpine night.
Surely he must be at least in part a lunatic, for he could swear he felt her—as he always had—but no longer now as a mere angelic ideal, a private vision keeping him going. An innocent secret tucked away in his heart.
No, this time, she was out there—a flesh-and-blood woman with capable, healing hands and a level head and more courage in her heart than most men he’d ever met—and she was coming after him.
Drake was in some curious way afraid of her.
He had not actually seen her following since they had left London, that night he had saved James from Niall at the Pulteney Hotel. But although he had not laid eyes on her, he could still feel her, indeed, stronger than ever, could almost taste her on the wind.
The rustling of the night breeze through the pines, the scent of the mountain air, and sound of the brook outside the castle. All of it whispered her name to his deepest animal senses…
Emily.
About the Author
GAELEN FOLEY is the author of sixteen rich, sexy, and dramatic Regency historicals. Her books have won many awards, are published in numerous languages, and appear regularly on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. She lives in Pennsylvania with her college-sweetheart husband, Eric, and a spoiled bichon frise named Bingley. To learn more about Gaelen, her novels, and the romantic Regency period in which her books are set, please visit her on the web at www.gaelenfoley.com.
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By Gaelen Foley
MY IRRESISTIBLE EARL
MY DANGEROUS DUKE
MY WICKED MARQUESS
Copyright
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.
MY IRRESISTIBLE EARL. Copyright © 2011 by Gaelen Foley. 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.
First Avon Books mass market printing: April 2011
EPub Edition © February 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-207879-7
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