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To my best friend, Janet Hafner, Who's a mite partial to Ben Paradise.
A LEISURE BOOK
December, 1991
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 276 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001
Copyright 1991 by Elizabeth Daniels-Henderson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Page 7
Chapter I
April 1848
Society titled her "the untouchable heiress," a misnomer William Quire felt Lillian Marie Phalen courted out of pure viciousness. If her heart was untouched, he doubted the same could be said of her exquisite body. He'd often witnessed her disheveled appearance after a turn in the shadowed garden with one of her admirers, Caleb Innes. And he had noted how her soft red lips, bruised with passion, often curved invitingly for that young seaman.
Harrison Kilmartin also received special attention, Quire thought. As her current partner on the ballroom floor, Kilmartin was the recipient of those secret, seductive smiles, of her calculated blushes and rash, unfulfilled promises. Quire watched them as the movements of their dancing brought her full ivory skirts swaying intimately
Page 8
against Kilmartin's ebony pantaloons. He drew her close, closer than propriety allowed, and Quire imagined that his rival feasted on the sight of her white, full breasts rising from the low neckline of her gown. Quire could almost feel the yielding softness of her tiny waist, feel the tumult of desire that inevitably rose in the pit of his stomach. He pictured her dark-lashed, gypsy eyes luring her victim on with glimpses of forbidden delights in their Lorelei depths.
Kilmartin bent closer, his cheek nearly brushing her pale ash-blond curls as they clustered in attractive disarray at her temples and along her graceful throat.
She was etheral, breathtakingly beautiful, angelic.
Angelic? Quire smirked. She was a daughter of Satan with her free ways. The woman was too open, too familiar with the employees of her father's shipping concern, illiterate swabbies, all of them. She encouraged the advances of men like Innes and Kilmartin despite their reputations as womanizers. She was an opinionated bitch who took pleasure in crushing a man's reputation, of destroying a man's ego. What grated most was her intent to run the Puritan Shipping Line in Captain Phalen's absence, a resolve Quire found far from proper or feminine. Sometimes he felt she acted more like a damned suffragette than his intended bride.
Once she bowed to fate, accepted his proposal and married him, her trips to the docks would end. He would not have his wife clambering aboard the scrupulously maintained triple-masted Puritan
Page 9
barques anchored in the harbor. The mere memory of the day she'd accepted a wager to scale the rigging of the Puritan Paramour, the newly launched clipper, made him furious. The fact that she'd done so effortlessly, in spite of her skirts, had not made him proud of her unusual accomplishments. She should have been practicing the pianoforte or needlework as other young ladies of her status did, not scrambling the ropes like a common seaman. Once they wed, she'd leave the shipping business in his hands and content herself with raising a family.
Quire gulped at the goblet of brandy in his hand. No matter how many times he repeated the litany of changes he'd make in her life, he couldn't actually picture Lacy reforming.
Lacy. Her father's pet name suited the girl far better than her given name. She'd been exquisitely feminine, frail in build, fragile in appearance even as a gangly chit who exasperated the captain's attempts to keep her out of boys' clothing. She'd scrapped with the cabin boys, her thin legs poised in a fighter's stance, her tiny fists raised menacingly, determined to prove to her male peers that she was their equal. The tomboy had evolved into a temptress without losing any of that earlier determination. She'd never hand over control of the Puritan Line to any man. Lacy considered no one more capable of running the Line than herself. She was certainly far more capable than Harry Phalen, her cousin and his brother-in-law, Quire admitted. As long as Lacy kept her thumb in the pie, it meant profits could never be siphoned into Quire's own pockets. Gaining her as a wife would be only a
Page 10
temporary success. It was the fortune the Line represented that was his long-term goal. Money could open doors, could save face.
The last, of course, was the most important. Pride for the family name demanded he marry money. His sister, Abigail, had failed to secure the Line in marrying Harry Phalen and producing a son. Who would have expected old man Phalen to slight his male relative and deed controlling interest in the business to his daughter? Abigail believed adamantly in her plan to wed her brother to Lacy Phalen thus securing the inheritance to rebuild the deteriorated Quire estate. As Lacy's chaperone, Abigail had discouraged a number of suitors already, leaving the field clear for William. Only Caleb Innes was immune to her hints.
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