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…
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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.
Unless she dared to create a different outcome.
Her stomach tightened with nerves. She turned to study her reflection in the mirror. Her dress flowed over sweeping petticoats that emphasized the tapered curve of her waist. The rich, green crêpe de chine matched her eyes and contrasted well with the paleness of her skin and brown hair.
The bodice, however, dipped around her bare shoulders and showed an expanse of skin that Talia was unaccustomed to revealing. She had always worn modest evening gowns, particularly after her mother’s scandalous affair had prompted gossips to doubt Talia’s own virtue.
She pulled a silk shawl around her shoulders to conceal the swell of her bosom, which seemed rather prominent due to the heart-shaped neckline. She took a breath and gave her reflection a firm nod.
While she had questioned the wisdom of her bold approach numerous times since learning of James’s impending departure, the time was long overdue for him to see her as a desirable woman rather than the Hall brothers’ younger sister.
She glanced at the clock. She had to do this before her father and Sebastian came in for supper, and before Alexander and his sweetheart, Lydia, returned from their excursion to the village. Talia couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Alexander, her rigid eldest brother who had so obviously been conquered by Lydia and still didn’t know it yet.
Talia was determined to have the same effect on James Forester, except he would most certainly know