Privateer

Lucas had to know if there was any chance Miss Sinclair still felt anything for him.

If she could still feel anything for him.

It had been almost seven years, and while he had thought of her every day, she had thought him dead.

Though she had never married another.

There was hope. And he had done more with less.

Now that he was “alive” again, Lucas’s father wanted him to wed.

To produce the heir and spare the duchy so desperately needed.

But Lucas didn’t want to marry any of the ladies on the list his father had given him.

There was only one who face haunted his dreams.

It was easier than he’d suspected being reinstated to the living.

It helped his father, the Duke of Montinyard, agreed he was his son.

And it helped more that Whitehall vouched for him.

He was once again Lord Lucas Deverell.

But what did that mean?

Miss Sinclair was, indeed, still unwed.

And was rumored to have a vicious wit that matched her beauty.

Good.

Any man that claimed her should earn her affections. Should be worthy of her.

He hoped he was.

He still wasn’t certain he was ready to reclaim his old life.

He had been Captain McGregor for so long… But Captain McGregor was not worthy of Miss Sinclair.

After all he had done for England, he would do this for himself.

He prayed all the Countess of Marquardt had told him was true.

He did his reconnaissance as he would before any mission.

Gathering information.

And reacquainting himself with those whose opinions mattered in the haute ton and those he could ignore.

Never safely, but then fighting the French hadn’t been safe either.

Though sometimes it seemed safer than moving among his own class.