Shipwrecked With The Captain
All she remembers… …is feeling safe in his arms! Part of The Governess Swap: Shipwrecked governess Claire Tilson wakes in Captain Lucien Roper’s arms – with amnesia! Her handsome rescuer believes she’s a member of the aristocracy he detests yet he risks all to see her ‘home’, where she learns she’s betrothed to a wealthy stranger. Claire is convinced she doesn’t belong here…and Lucien is the only man she trusts to uncover her past and claim her future!
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All she remembers...
...is feeling safe in his arms!
Part of The Governess Swap: Shipwrecked governess Claire Tilson wakes in Captain Lucien Roper’s arms—with amnesia! Her handsome rescuer believes she’s a member of the aristocracy he detests, yet he risks all to see her “home,” where she learns she’s betrothed to a wealthy stranger. Claire is convinced she doesn’t belong here...and Lucien is the only man she trusts to uncover her past and claim her future!
DIANE GASTON’s dream job was always to write romance novels. One day she dared to pursue that dream, and has never looked back. Her books have won romance’s highest honours: the RITA® Award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, the HOLT Medallion, Golden Quill and Golden Heart®. She lives in Virginia, USA, with her husband and three very ordinary house cats. Diane loves to hear from readers and friends. Visit her website at: dianegaston.com.
A Pregnant Courtesan for the Rake
The Scandalous Summerfields miniseries
Bound by Duty
Bound by One Scandalous Night
Bound by a Scandalous Secret
Bound by Their Secret Passion
The Governess Swap miniseries
A Lady Becomes a Governess
Shipwrecked with the Captain
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
ISBN: 978-1-474-08878-7
SHIPWRECKED WITH THE CAPTAIN
© 2019 Diane Perkins
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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To Jane Austen,
who briefly lived in Bath and in whose footsteps
I was honoured to walk.
Contents
June 1816
Lucien Roper stood at the rail of the packet ship, watching the Dublin harbour recede into the distance. He inhaled the salty breeze and felt the bracing wind on his face. Voices of the sailors tending to their tasks rang in his ears.
Only a few more days, then, with luck, he’d be back on the deck of a ship of his own, with his old crew, and back to the life from which he’d received so much. A fortune in prize money. Recognition and respect. A place he belonged.
A woman’s laugh sounded over his shoulder, its sound so joyous, so unlike his restless mood that he turned, startled. She wore a grey cloak, shrouding her face.
What pleased her so? he wondered.
This was the sacrifice the navy life demanded of him. He was not free to court a young woman with a joyous laugh. Not for him to marry a woman and leave her for his mistress, the sea. He’d seen what happened when a navy man married and he and his wife spent most of their days apart.
As his own parents had done.
It had been a long time since he’d suffered the effects of having an absent naval father. Lucien himself had been at sea for more than twenty years now, since the age of twelve. This was his life and before it, a mere memory.
He was eager to get back to it. His beloved Foxfire had been sold for breaking up, no longer needed now the war was over, and the Admiralty had promised him a new ship. Of course, there were dozens of captains like him, clamouring for a ship, but he’d earned a spot near the top of the list. At least with the wind this brisk they could count on making it to Holyhead by the next afternoon and he’d be in London a few days later.
