Lover Be Mine: A Legendary Lovers Novel by Nicole Jordan Read Free Book Online Page A

his mother’s sad experience. Skye was like
     a burr when she wanted something, burrowing under the skin and refusing to be dislodged.
     She’d been that way from an early age.
    She wasn’t even born when he’d arrived in England with his uncles all those years
     ago, newly orphaned and grieving and afraid. But her birth had given him something
     to latch on to. She was so tiny and helpless, he’d appointed himself her protector.
     Later as a toddler, she had followed him everywhere, calling him “mine.” He couldn’t
     get rid of her.
    She had stubbornly wormed her way into his heart, the first of his cousins to do so.
     Skye had dragged him into the loving family fold, kicking and screaming. Because of
     her keen sensitivity, she more than anyone had an instinctive understanding of the
     torment he had gone through as a child, even if she didn’t know the excruciating details.
     In return, he’d guarded and cared for her as if she were his flesh and blood sister.
    A special bond still existed between them, which she unfairly called upon now:
    “If you won’t try and save Miss Fortin for your own sake, then do it for mine.
Please
.”
    And that was the rub, Jack knew. He was rarely able to resist Skye. Few people could,
     especially men. She could wrap them around her finger and sweetly persuade them all
     to do her bidding.
    Yet he wouldn’t base a decision of such import on his cousin’s whims alone. If he
     were to pursue his legendary lovers tale, it would be for his own sake. His and Sophie
     Fortin’s.
    It was true, though. Miss Fortin did need rescuing. And perhaps
he
needed rescuing from the self-imposed blandness of his life as well.…
    Coming to a decision, Jack drained the last of his ale while shaking his head. He
     couldn’t believe he was about to entangle himself in an age-old feud and complicate
     his life immeasurably by trying to save a near stranger from a loveless marriage to
     a middle-aged duke.
    Apparently Skye misjudged his gesture. “So are you just giving up?”
    “I did not say that.” He wouldn’t, couldn’t turn his back on Miss Fortin. Not now
     that he’d had a taste of her. His protective instincts had been inexorably aroused.
    Skye appeared to lose patience at his silence. “Drat you, Jack, you are being annoyingly
     stubborn.”
    Crossing his arms over his chest, he grinned at her. “So what else is new?” At her
     glare of frustration, however, he ended his teasing and held out his hand. “Give me
     the damned journal.”
    A brilliant smile spread Skye’s mouth as she slid the volume across the table.
    “Don’t raise your hopes too high,” he warned. “I’m not promising to court her. And
     you vastly underestimate the effort it will require to save her from wedding her duke
     at this late date.”
    “But you will at least investigate the possibility that she is your ideal mate?”
    He indeed wanted to answer that fundamental question for himself. “Yes.”
    Jumping up, Skye came surging around the table and wrapped her arms about his neck
     from behind.
    Half smothered by her fierce hug, Jack chuckled. “If you strangle me, I won’t be alive
     to rescue her.”
    “I am sorry. It is only that I am thrilled beyond words.” Skye planted an effusive
     kiss on the top of his head before releasing him. “What will you do first? You cannot
     get near Sophie. Her parents won’t allow it.”
    “Leave the details to me. For now you need to take yourself home.”
    “Very well,” Skye grumbled. “But I expect regular reports on your progress.”
    “If so, you will wait in vain.”
    Picking up the journal, Jack stood, then escorted his intrusive though well-meaning
     cousin out of the kitchens and upstairs to his front door, where she collected her
     pelisse and reticule. Skye had her own carriage and coachman and two strapping footmen
     to attend her, so Jack had few qualms about sending her home at this late hour. She
     would have protested his concern in