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Informationen zum Autor Catherine Coulter is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the FBI Thrillers featuring husband and wife team Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock. She is also the author—with J. T. Ellison—of the Brit in the FBI series. She lives in Sausalito, California. Klappentext An exhilarating Regency romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author. The second novel in Catherine Coulter's acclaimed Legacy trilogy.ST. AGNES HEAD, CORNWALL AUGUST 1814 FREDERIC NORTH NIGHTINGALE looked down at the huddled woman at his feet. She was bowed in on herself, her knees drawn nearly to her chest, her arms over her head, as if she’d tried to protect herself as she fell from the cliff above. Her once stylish pale blue muslin gown was ripped violently beneath her arms, the bodice and skirt stained and filthy. One blue slipper dangled by twisted and torn ribbons from her right foot. He came down to his knees beside her and gently pulled her stiff arms away from her head. She’d been dead for some time, at least eighteen hours, for her muscles were beginning to slacken again, the rigor lessening. He lightly pressed his fingers to her dirty neck, where the collar of her gown was ripped away. He didn’t know why he was feeling for a pulse, perhaps he was hoping for a miracle, but of course, there was no beat, just cold flesh and death. Her pale blue eyes stared up at him, not calm with acceptance, but bulging with the terror, with the knowledge that death was here and this was her last instant of life. Even though he’d seen too many men die in battle or after battle from infection, this touched him differently. She wasn’t a soldier wielding a sword or a musket. She was a woman, thus frail by a man’s standards, helpless in the face of a fall as violent as this one. He closed her eyes then pressed against her jaw to close her mouth, open wide on a last scream. It wouldn’t close, and her terror was there to see if not to hear. It would remain there until she was no more than stripped white bone. He rose slowly and stepped back, not too far back or else he’d go careening off the narrow ledge into the Irish Sea some forty feet below. The smell of the salt water was strong, the sound of the waves striking against the ageless tumbled black rocks was loud, but the rhythmic tumult was still curiously soothing to him. It had been since he’d been a boy, bent on escape. She was no stranger to him. It had taken him a moment to recognize her, but he’d soon realized it was Eleanor Penrose, the widow of the now long-dead Squire Josiah Penrose of Scrilady Hall, just three miles or so north, very near the Trevaunance Cove. He’d known her since she’d arrived in the area from somewhere in Dorset and married the squire when North had been a boy of ten years or so. He remembered her as a laughing young woman with big breasts and a bigger smile, her soft brown hair falling in ringlets around her face that bounced about when she jested and poked the staid squire in his ribs, drawing a tortured smile even from that pinched mouth. And now she was dead, drawn in like a baby on a narrow ledge. He told himself she must have fallen. It was a tragic accident, surely that was all that it was, but he knew in his belly that it wasn’t possible. Eleanor Penrose knew this land as well as he did. She wouldn’t have been strolling out here by herself, far from home, and simply slip and fall over the cliff. How had it happened? He made his way slowly back up the cliff, some thirty feet to the top, his fingers fitting into the familiar handholds, his feet slipping only twice. He pulled himself over the top onto the barren jagged edge of St. Agnes Head, rose and looked down as he dusted off his breeches. From this height she again became the patch of bright blue that had caught his attention and drawn h...
About the author
Catherine Coulter is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the FBI Thrillers featuring husband and wife team Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock. She is also the author—with J. T. Ellison—of the Brit in the FBI series. She lives in Sausalito, California.
