A Passion for Pleasure(112)

“I can’t believe we have him back.”

“I can.” Sebastian brushed his lips across her temple. “Nothing would have stopped you from saving him. Nothing. You have no idea how strong you are. Not even I could withstand you.”

Clara smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yet I surrendered my heart to you.”

“And I will not return it.” He turned her toward him and lowered his head for a proper kiss, heat coursing through his blood at the touch of her soft lips. “But you are welcome to keep mine in exchange.”

“Gladly.”

Clara’s body arched against his, her arms sliding around his waist. Another gust of salt-fresh air glided in from the ocean, winding long strands of hair around Clara’s neck. Sebastian lifted his right hand and curved it around her nape.

Hope filled his veins alongside the realization that she had been right when she told him the core of his being would never change. He had just needed her to remind him how much joy there still was to be found in the world.

Although Rushton had settled Sebastian’s medical debts and begun investigating possible doctors and treatments that might be able to help with his infirmity, Sebastian knew he would never regain full use of his hand. The thought didn’t distress him nearly as much as it would have even a month ago, because so much more had filled the void of his loss.

And he was beginning to find his way back to music. He would find pleasure in teaching piano again. He would also continue his efforts to create compositions for the left hand only, a challenge that was already generating interest and speculation among his fellow musicians. Another pianist had requested a demonstration of the composition, but Sebastian had declined. Soon enough he’d share his findings, but for the moment he wanted only to work alone and to be with Clara and Andrew.

He pressed his mouth to Clara’s again, breathed in her orange-spice scent, and let her remind him of all they had together. All they would continue to have.

The rest of the world could wait.





Lady Talia Hall has a reputation for being sweet and demure. But when her eldest brother’s best friend—and the only man she has ever loved—announces he is about to leave England, Talia has just one night to show him what he will be missing…





Please enjoy a preview of

the third book in Nina Rowan’s sensual

Daring Hearts series.





Chapter One

May 1854



He was leaving. Again.

Lady Talia Hall watched from her bedroom window as James Forester, Baron Castleford, crossed the gardens of Floreston Manor. Waning sunlight gleamed on his dark brown hair. He moved with a long, easy stride, his body relaxed, at home in the glow of late afternoon with bluebells, daffodils, and lilacs blooming at his feet.

A faint hope lit within Talia at the sight of him. She allowed a deep-rooted, precious dream to surface. Perhaps when James returned to London six months from now…or a year…or, God forbid, two years…he would look at her and finally see the woman she had become. A rich, powerful love would surge through his heart, startling him with its intensity. In that wondrous moment, he would dare to unleash the desire he had suppressed for so many years. He would take her in his arms and kiss her with tumultuous passion…

Or not.

Very likely not.

Talia sighed when the certainty of that thought broke the dream apart, as it always did. She watched James climb the terrace steps and enter the drawing room, disappearing from her view.

Gone again.

Talia pressed a hand to her aching chest. At least this time, he was just downstairs. Far less comforting was her recent discovery that this summer, James would board a ship destined for Australia. And when he returned to London—if he returned—he would do so with a warm smile lighting his eyes, full to bursting with tales of stormy seas, snapping crocodiles, dangerous floods, and mosquito-laden treks along muddy river passages.

He would embrace Talia with brotherly affection, inquire after her health, her friends, her charity work, and then he would saunter off to a ball or a dinner party. There he would enchant the numerous guests, particularly the ladies, with more riveting accounts of his adventures.

He would swoop in and out of Talia’s life for a few weeks or a few months, entirely ignorant of her abiding love for him. And then he would leave again.

That was what had happened countless times before. That was what would happen this time as well, unless Talia dared to tempt the fates into creating a different outcome.