LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Charlie, because I still believe in magic, and you.

      MARIE FERRARELLA

      This RITA^® Award-winning author has written over one hundred and forty books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Epilogue

      Prologue

      June 1, 1864

      Amanda Deveaux closed her hand around the cameo. For three years now she’d worn it, never removing it from her neck. She’d promised to wear it until he returned to claim her for his wife. The cameo had become her own personal badge of courage. Embossed on the delicate Wedgwood blue oval was the profile of a young Greek woman, carved in ivory. Penelope, waiting for her Ulysses to come home to her.

      Just as she was waiting for her Will to come home to her. Will, who had asked her to wait for him. Will, who had promised to return, no matter how low the fortunes of this miserable, misbegotten war between the states laid him.

      He’d sworn it and she’d believed him. She still believed. Because Lieutenant William Slattery had never lied to her.

      They had known each other from childhood. Loved one another since childhood. Will had withstood her mother’s sly, cutting remarks and her father’s sharp, delving scrutiny because Will’s people were not as rich as hers. He’d put up with both parents because he’d loved her. He’d been her brother Jonathan’s best friend. Jonathan, who was gone now, one of the brave who had fallen at Chancelorsville.

      At least they knew Jonathan’s fate. She didn’t know Will’s.

      There’d been no word from Will since Gettysburg. Not since his name had been listed among those who were missing.

      These days, her heart felt leaden within her breast. It was hard clinging to hope all this time, hard holding her breath as she looked down the long road leading back to her family’s plantation, now all but in ruins, waiting for him to ride up. Just as he’d promised he would.

      “It’s a sin, wasting away like that over a man who was only two steps removed from white trash.”

      Coming out onto the decaying porch, Belinda Deveaux looked accusingly at her older daughter. Her oldest child now that Jonathan was in his grave. She raised her head, anger and impatience permanently etched into a face that had once been regarded as the most beautiful in three counties.

      Her small lips pursed. “Frasier O’Brien would marry you.”

      Amanda’s eyes widened in surprise. Frasier O’Brien had returned from the war—some said he had deserted—to take over his ailing father’s emporium. Shrewd and always able to turn a situation to his advantage, Frasier had found a way to turn a healthy profit in the midst of a time beset with need and despair. He was easily now the richest man in the county. And her mother clearly favored him. Money had always drawn her mother’s attention.

      “Frasier is Savannah’s intended. He’s asked for her hand in marriage,” she reminded her mother, indignant for her younger sister.

      “Yes, but he wants you,” her mother told her, a dark knowledge in her eyes. “This could be your last chance to marry, girl. Think. You’re almost twenty-one. If you do not marry Frasier, what will become of you?”

      “Don’t worry about me, Mother. Worry about Savannah, who, according to you, is engaged to a man whose heart she doesn’t possess.”

      “I do worry about you,” her mother reiterated. “I worry about you because you, my empty-headed daughter, are in love with a dead man.”

      Anger flared in Amanda’s breast. “Will is not dead,” she cried. “If he were dead, I would know it, Mother. I would feel it inside. Here, where my heart is.” She struck her breast like an penitent sinner asking for forgiveness. “I would know. But he’s coming back to me. He promised.”

      Belinda drew herself up. Small, gaunt and draped in black since Jonathan’s death, the woman resembled a wraith.

      “William Slattery is dead,” she pronounced. “As dead as your brother and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you will come back to your senses.”

      Amanda walked away from her mother. Away from the house that was so badly in the need of care. Away to wait by the side of the road the way she did every day.

      “Wait for me,” Will had whispered before he’d released her from their last embrace. And she would, because she was his. Forever. And nothing would change that.

      Chapter One

      Present Day

      “You’re glowing! My God, you’re really glowing. Do you realize you’re glowing? I had no idea that was actually possible. Pablo, I don’t want you to touch her with your makeup brush. Nothing you can do would improve on this look. Is our camera set for ‘glow’?”

      The last question was fired over assistant producer MacKenzie Ryan’s shoulder in the general direction of the set where their afternoon show …And Now a Word from Dakota was being shot. The rest of the words rushing out of MacKenzie’s mouth as she quickly crossed the threshold into Dakota Delaney’s dressing room were aimed directly at her best friend.

      Offstage, the latter’s name was now officially Dakota Delaney Russell due to her recent marriage to Ian Russell. The star of the popular daytime talk show had just returned from her two-week honeymoon and the only one who had missed Dakota more than her audience was MacKenzie.

      To her left, MacKenzie was aware that the tall, gaunt makeup artist who insisted on being called Pablo was scowling at her for preventing him from doing his work. For the moment, she ignored him. It wasn’t as if Dakota were one of those

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