The Shadowed Heart

“I’m afraid.”Letter to ReaderTitle PageDedicationAbout the AuthorACKNOWLEDGMENTSChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeEpilogueCopyright

“I’m afraid.”

Even as Chiara spoke, she wondered that the words slipped off her tongue so easily. Never in her life had she opened herself this way to another. Never in her life had she confessed a weakness to another.

“Of me?” Luca asked.

“Of you. Of myself. Of the confusion in my mind.” She lowered her head into her hands. “Everything used to be so clear. I knew my path. I knew what I had to do.” She pulled in an unsteady breath. “Now nothing is clear. Nothing.”

That wasn’t quite true, she thought. It was clear that there was something between them. Something deep and real, far beyond her fears, her visions.

Something she was afraid to look at more closely....

Dear Reader,

Next month, Harlequin Historicals^>® turns ten years old! But we have such a terrific lineup this month, we thought we’d start celebrating early. To begin, longtime historical author Nina Beaumont returns this month with The Shadowed Heart, set in eighteenth-century Europe. In this suspenseful story, our beautiful gypsy heroine seeks revenge against the man she believes harmed her sister. She finds him, only she senses that he can’t be the one, especially when she finds herself falling in love with him....

Also out for revenge is Jesse Kincaid, of MONTANA MAVERICKS: RETURN TO WHITEHORN fame, when he kidnaps his enemy’s mail-order bride in Wild West Wife, by bestselling Silhouette^>® author Susan Mallery. In A Warrior’s Honor, the next medieval in Margaret Moore’s popular WARRIOR SERIES, a knight is tricked by a fellow nobleman into abducting a beautiful lady, but, guided by honor—and love—vows to rescue her from his former friend.

Laurie Grant, who is known for her stirring Medievals and gritty Westerns, returns with a delightful new story. The Duchess and the Desperado. Here, a rancher turned fugitive inadvertently becomes a bodyguard to the very visible Duchess of Malvern when her life is threatened during a goodwill tour of the American West.

Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historical^>®.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Shadowed Heart

Nina Beaumont

To Kathy Ketonen Clark, my “Dearest Roommate.”

Thanks for making life in Room 423 easy and for all the years of friendship since.

NINA BEAUMONT

is of Russian parentage and has a family tree that includes Count Stroganoff and a Mongolian Khan. A real cosmopolitan, she was born in Salzburg and grew up in Massachusetts before moving to Austria, where she lived for twenty-five years.

Although she has relocated to the Seattle area, her European ties are still strong, so she plans to stick with the exotic settings she has had the opportunity to get to know firsthand.

Books and music are her first loves, but she also enjoys painting watercolors and making pottery.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to Karen David of Cleveland, OH,

Maria Lujan de Peralta and Phoenix of Seattle, WA, and Rita Louise of Everett, WA, for the information they shared with me regarding clairvoyance.

Chapter One

Venice, October 1767, the first day of Carnival

Chiara’s hand stole toward the slim dagger concealed at her waist as the man who held her arm tightly turned her away from the brightly lit Piazza San Marco. Her breath quickened shghtly as he steered her down a shadowy passageway, which was just wide enough for three people to walk abreast, but the handle of the weapon dug comfortingly into the palm of her hand and kept panic at bay.

If he noticed her apprehension, the man ignored it as he hurried her along. Finally he stopped in front of a door, the wood faded and cracked with age and moisture. Raising his hand, he knocked twice with his fist.

“We’re here,” he announced, giving her a fleeing look.

“You told me that you would take me to the house of a great lady.” Chiara wrenched her arm out of his grasp and shifted away, prepared to run or to use her dagger, whichever seemed more expedient. “I do not believe that a great lady would go near such a miserable place.”

The man looked down at the girl. The flickering light of the single lantern that hung above the door gave her skin a sallow cast, but he had seen it in daylight and knew that it had the golden color of a ripe apricot. The eyes of a startling blue were wary but held no fear.

She had spirit, he thought. He would keep her for a while and she would make him a nice sum. And when he was done with her, there were plenty of back-alley pimps who would take her off his hands. He felt a small flash of guilt, but it was easy to suppress it with the image of his daughter, who lay still in her bed no matter what new and expensive treatments the doctor invented for her.