“Nanny Stowe is so looking forward to meeting you.” Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Copyright
“Nanny Stowe is so looking forward to meeting you.”
No more than he was, Beau thought darkly.
As he stepped into the majestic stairhall, his gaze automatically traveled up the flight of broad steps that gradually narrowed to the landing. A woman stood poised there, the light beaming in behind her seeming to set her hair aflame. This woman would have to be the most stunningly gorgeous, sexiest creature he’d ever seen in his life.
And she was Nanny Stowe?
A sharply unsettling question darted through the fog in Beau’s brain.
What had his grandfather been doing with her?
Two years she’d been under this roof and his grandfather, according to Wallace, had definitely not fallen into his second childhood. The more Beau thought about the situation, it became disturbingly clear that Nanny Stowe was mistress of the house.
Dear Reader,
We hope you’ve been enjoying Harlequin Presents®’ NANNY WANTED! series, in which some of our most popular authors have created nannies whose talents have extended way beyond taking care of children!
Emma Darcy’s novel brings you a nanny with a difference. She’s a woman of mystery—and incredible good looks—who is part of the household Beau Prescott inherits. Is she genuine in her reasons for being there, or is she the scheming woman he imagines? Read on as the startling truth is revealed.
Remember—nanny knows best when it comes to falling in love!
The Editors
Look out next month for:
THE NANNY AFFAIR by Robyn Donald (#1980)
Inherited: One Nanny
Emma Darcy
To Sue—for flaunting her fortieth birthday with a brilliant party where my friends Dr. Nick Smith, Dr. Geoffrey McCarthy and Dr. Harvey Adams happily informed me of the etiquette in delivering the results of a pregnancy test and insisted I acknowledge their contribution to this story.
CHAPTER ONE
A NANNY?
The question had niggled Beau Prescott on and off throughout the fourteen hour flight from Buenos Aires to Sydney. It had reared its tantalising head from the very first reading of his grandfather’s will, pertinently included with all the other official notices sent to him in the solicitor’s packet. Now that his journey home was almost over and he was about to get answers, it pushed once more to the forefront of his mind.
Why on earth had his grandfather employed a nanny for the last two years of his life? And why was she listed in the will as another responsibility to be inherited by Beau, along with the rest of the family retainers?
A nanny made no sense to him. There weren’t any children living in his grandfather’s household. None he knew of anyway. Certainly none had been named in the will. There seemed absolutely no point in including a nanny—whoever she was—amongst the staff who were to remain as his dependents for at least another year, if not for the rest of their lives.
It was different with the others. Beau was completely in sympathy with looking after Mrs. Featherfield who was virtually an institution as his grandfather’s housekeeper. Sedgewick, the butler, and Wallace, the chauffeur, had almost equal longevity. As for Mr. Polly, the head gardener, tipping him out of his beloved grounds was inconceivable. Each one of them deserved every consideration. But a nanny-come-lately without any children to mind?
Beau turned her name over in his mind...Margaret Stowe. Margaret sounded rather old-fashioned, spinsterish. For some reason he linked Stowe with stowaway. She could be a lame-dog nanny, fallen on hard times. His grandfather had a habit of taking in the occasional oddity, putting them on their feet again. But two years of largesse and an inclusion in the will seemed a bit much.
“We will be landing at Mascot on schedule,” the pilot announced. “The weather is fine, current temperature nineteen degrees Celsius. Forecast for today is...”
Beau looked out his window and felt his stomach curl, hit by a wave of grief he’d been holding at bay since he’d received the news of his grandfather’s death. The distinctive features of Sydney were spread out below, the predominance of red roofs, the harbour, the bridge, the opera house. This view had always meant coming home to him. But home had also meant Vivian Prescott, the man who’d taken in his orphaned eight-year-old grandson and given him the world as his playground.
Not so much of a grandfather as a grand person, Beau thought, keenly feeling the huge bite that had been taken so abruptly, so shockingly out of his life. Vivian Prescott had lived on a grand scale, had cultivated a grand approach to everything he’d done. His heart should have been grand enough to last a lot longer.
Vivian...now there was a name that would make most men cringe. The Prescott family had a history of bestowing eccentric names. Beau had often winced over his, but his grandfather...never! He’d rejoiced in having one he considered uniquely his. “It means life, my boy. And joie de vivre is what I’m about.”
He’d carried it with such panache, he’d made it perfectly acceptable, a natural extension of his highly individual personality, a positive expression of artistic flair and style, a provocative emphasis to the wickedly teasing twinkle in his ever-young eyes. It was almost impossible to believe he was actually gone and it hurt