© 2008

Dear Reader,

Palaces, princes and the sheer indulgence of having someone else run the bath can be the basis of a fabulous, indulgent read. But-and here I confess to a sad lack of firsthand knowledge-some aspects of royalty aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. My heroine knows this. She marries one prince in haste, and it takes another-the fabulous, sexy Prince Rafael-to transport my lovely princess and her child to her own personal happily-ever-after.

I do love a royal romance, and I’m hoping you do, too. I’m sorry if you’re forced to run your own bath, but needs must. Hop in and do what I do-be a truly royal princess within the pages of this book.

Enjoy.

Marion

With love and grateful thanks to the Maytoners.

True friends are gold.

Or should that be opals?

IT WAS the end of a long day in the goldfields, and Kelly had personally found almost a teaspoon of gold. The slivers of precious metal were now dispersed into scores of glass vials, to be taken home as keepsakes of a journey back in time.

Her tourists were happy. She should be, too.

But she was wet. She was dressed in period costume and raincoats hadn’t been invented in the eighteen-fifties. As the day had grown colder Kelly had directed her tour groups down the mines, but she’d been wet before she’d gone down and the cold had stayed with her. Now she emerged from underground, desperate to head to her little cottage on the hill, strip off her dungarees and leather boots and sink into a hot bath.

She might be a historian on what was the re-creation of a piece of the Australian goldfields but, when it came to the offer of a hot bath, Kelly was a thoroughly modern girl.