“Could she have run away? Eloped?” I asked. “A young girl has gone missing and no one seems to know where she can be.” “The village is in an uproar,” she told me. Lucy sat at my bedside, her nimble fingers flying across the shirt she was darning. The fever had retreated, my limbs had stopped trembling and, for the first time in a long time-since a magical, rainy Paris night when I had been held close in a strong pair of arms, able to temporarily forget that the rest of the world existed-I felt safe. But, as my eyelids drooped, I felt an overwhelming sense of well-being. I was bone tired my psyche as battered, bruised and defeated as an old prizefighter after an encounter with a young contender. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.I lay back on the pillows, my disordered mind trying to make sense of what had I had just seen. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. I also write historical romances, set in the Georgian era.Īll rights reserved. The atmospheric settings, dark secrets and heightened sensuality send a shiver down the reader’s spine. Gothic romance (with a dash of horror) is my preferred genre. I am a teacher, married to a lovely man, mum to two grown-up children and slave to a cat. Venice, Dubrovnik and Vienna are among my favorite places. I live in England and enjoy reading and traveling to romantic European cities. “I know.” Her next sentence answers the twenty-year-old question my lips have never dared to ask. Flat, devoid of the emotion they deserve. “Eddie is not dead.” My words are a statement, not a question.

When we finish reading, Lucia Jago, Dowager Countess of Athal, turns to look at me with eyes that are still as blue as sunlit cornflowers.

Echoes in the Darkness by Jane Godman