Malia Martin (31 page)

“Excuse me,” a woman interrupted her.

“Yes?”

The woman pointed to a closed door. “I am sorry, Miss Phillips, but I was wondering, what is behind that door?”

“Oh, that is the hall that goes to the private apartments of the Phillips family. No one is in
residence today, but the Eighteenth Duke uses Rawlston still. And he has four brothers and a sister who each use different wings of the home when they wish to.”

“Oh.” The lady blinked. “That certainly is a big family.”

The tour guide grinned, her brown eyes sparkling and her blonde hair glinting in the sunbeam that shone through a high window. “Gypsy blessings will do that.”

Raised on Hawaii,
MALIA MARTIN
grew up listening to stories rich in culture and history. From the moment she could read and write she has been doing both in great abundance. She majored in English just so she could read her way through college. And she married a man who loves to cook and can do his own ironing so she could spend every spare moment writing. When the children came she found that the hours she spent pushing swings, watching ballet classes and driving carpools lent themselves marvelously well to plotting.

Malia now lives in California with her three small children and extremely supportive husband. When she is not reading, writing or plotting, she loves to ski, play tennis and take her children to the beach.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

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T
HE DUCK’S RETURN
. Copyright © 1999 by Malia B. Nahas. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First Avon Books Printing: August 1999

AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGIS-TRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-94778

ISBN: 0-380-79898-0

EPub Edition March 2013 ISBN 9780062276155

WCD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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