Judith Stacy - Written In The Heart

“Nothing’s wrong.” She turned away. Nothing, except that her pulse was racing from what she’d just seen.

“Why are you out here?”

He stopped beside her. She felt the heat from his body and knew he was close.

“I just…”

She glanced back at him, and that one tiny glimpse drew her uncontrollably. His hair was ruffled. Whiskers darkened his chin. He’d closed the center button on his shirt, but that was all. The tail flapped in the breeze. The cuffs were open. Black crinkly hair covered his chest. His broad, bare chest.

“What are you doing out here?” Stephen asked.

Never—ever—in her entire life, in all the countries she’d lived, in all the circumstances she’d found herself, had Caroline once wanted to press her hands against a man’s chest. Until now….

Dear Reader,

This month our exciting medieval series KNIGHTS OF THE BLACK ROSE continues with The Rogue by Ana Seymour, a secret baby story in which rogue knight Nicholas Hendry finds his one true love. Judith Stacy returns with Written in the Heart, the delightful tale of an uptight California businessman who hires a marriage-shy female handwriting analyst to solve some of his company’s capers. In Angel of the Knight, a medieval novel by Diana Hall, a carefree warrior falls deeply in love with his betrothed, and does all he can to free her from a family curse. Talented newcomer Mary Burton brings us A Bride for McCain, about a mining millionaire who enters a marriage of convenience with the town’s schoolteacher.

Whatever your taste in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historicals novel. We hope you’ll join us next month, too!

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell,

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Outlaw Love #360

The Marriage Mishap #382

The Heart of a Hero #444

The Dreammaker #486

Written in the Heart #500

To Judy and Stacy—thanks for always listening

To David—thanks for always being there

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

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Los Angeles, California

April 26, 1896

Surely there was an easier way for a woman to get work.

Caroline Sommerfield shifted on the leather seat of the hansom cab, mentally rehearsing the speech she’d prepared. She’d waited weeks for this chance. She wasn’t about to waste it. Even if it meant sneaking around and lying about her whereabouts tonight.

“Who is it you’re visiting, Caroline?”

Across the darkened hansom Caroline heard her cousin’s voice. She hadn’t wanted Sophie to come along with her tonight. But since they’d both been leaving their aunt’s at the same time she couldn’t reasonably protest.

“A friend,” Caroline said. “A sick friend.”

“I didn’t realize you knew anyone in the city but family,” Sophie said.

“I’ve met a few others,” Caroline said.

Sophie was quiet, so Caroline figured she’d accepted her lie as fact. Which was good, because Caroline wasn’t particularly adept at telling less than the truth, even to someone she hardly knew, like her cousin.

“How did you meet this friend?” Sophie asked.

Caroline cleared her throat. “All those parties Aunt Eleanor arranged invitations for.”

“Really? Which party?”

“Last Saturday night’s.”

“And whose was that?”

Caroline tightened her grip on her handbag to keep from wrapping her hands around her cousin’s neck. This thing of having family, of answering to other people, was getting on her nerves. It was all so strange. And inconvenient.

Still, Caroline had no one but herself to blame for her uncomfortable circumstances tonight. This wasn’t what her father had had in mind when he insisted she travel to Los Angeles and move in with her aunt a month ago.

“The Latham party,” Caroline said. “We met there.”

“Oh, yes, the Lathams,” Sophie said. “That’s where you showed off your—what is that thing again?”

The thing that had nearly sent Aunt Eleanor into a faint.

“Graphology,” Caroline said. She’d repeated the word dozens of times since arriving in Los Angeles.

“Oh, yes. Quite…interesting,” Sophie said. “Aunt Eleanor was…”

“Surprised?”

Sophie managed a polite laugh. “Yes, something like that.”

Despite Aunt Eleanor’s embarrassment, Caroline had been the hit of the party. The craft of analyzing handwriting was a novelty here, but Caroline had studied it from masters in France and Germany, where the skill was taken more seriously. After only a few minutes of studying a handwriting sample Caroline could interpret the character of the writer. Only a few people in this part of the world could do that.

“Did your father know about your…talent?” Sophie asked.

“Of course,” Caroline said. “He encouraged me.”

Caroline wished her father were here with her now. Instead he was happy and contented in Europe—where Caroline wished she were—while she’d been exiled to the States.

To find a husband, of all things.

She’d been annoyed with him for weeks but now she just missed him. He meant well. After all, at twenty-four years of age Caroline was more than old enough to be married. That’s why she’d agreed to come, why she hadn’t protested this husband-hunting expedition, why she let Aunt Eleanor parade her from party to party.

Besides, Aunt Eleanor wasn’t as smart as her father and didn’t know her as well, so she wouldn’t catch on to Caroline’s real intentions until it was too late. She didn’t want or need a husband. She had plans of her own.

Caroline gazed out the window of the hansom, forced to admit that those plans weren’t turning out as well as she’d like. She’d been a little surprised by the reception she’d gotten two weeks ago at the Pinkerton Detective Agency—even after she’d dropped her father’s name.

They recognized Jacob Jackson Sommerfield as the renowned detective on the Continent, the man who’d solved some of Europe’s most intricate, puzzling crimes. But how, exactly, did that apply to his daughter?

No one at the Pinkerton Detective Agency knew what a graphologist was. She’d explained it, presented her references, even offered a demonstration, but they simply weren’t interested.

Undaunted, Caroline had trotted out her skills at all the parties she’d attended these last weeks. Parlor tricks were hardly what Caroline had intended when she’d studied the craft, but it looked as if they had finally paid off. She’d been approached by a Mr. Richard Paxton on behalf of his employer, who had offered her a job. A real job.