Temptation is the Night

Marguerite Kaye

England, 1924

It had been love at first sight when Jack Darnell, the Eighth Earl of Crieff, and American artist Lindsey van der Maier met on the steamer to England. Their marriage had been filled with white-hot passion—until Jack's dark memories of the trenches drove them apart.

Now Lindsey has returned, and Jack has resolved to exorcise her from his heart with one final night of lovemaking to prove that reality couldn't possibly live up to his memories. But can Jack hold onto his conviction when their sensual encounter exceeds his imagination?

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

About the Author

Chapter 1

England, Summer 1924

He was late, deliberately so. And alone. Another deliberate choice, driving down from London in one of his own sports cars. Jack Damarell, the Eighth Earl of Crieff, eased his long legs out from behind the wheel. He’d designed the four-cylinder engine himself, a commercially modified version of the one he’d raced at Brooklands. Listening with quiet satisfaction to its ticking as it cooled under the sleek bonnet, he made a mental note of some minor adjustments before making his way up the shallow flight of steps into the house. Handing over his driving coat and gloves to the butler, he glanced into the crowded drawing room from the cover of the doorway.

It was exactly as he had expected. All the usual crowd had flocked to Lady Eleanor Kilpatrick’s Saturday to Monday. The latest cocktails, the latest jazz and the latest party games, Lady Eleanor was famous for being the first with them all, and the Bright Young Things who filled her drawing room were eager to be the first to sample them. There was about the place a manic air of desperate people partying just a little too hard. It was not Jack’s scene at all. He much preferred the sanctuary of his club, one of the few all-male bastions left in London, where no one gave a damn about the latest swim party, black and white party, bottle party or treasure hunt, and the only games played were cards, albeit often for outrageous stakes.

As a rule, he refused all such invitations as this one, knowing that the illicit thrill of swapping sexual partners lay at their root. Despite his famed reclusiveness, Jack had no shortage of willing conquests, and he preferred to choose them for himself. He certainly had no wish to rely on such whims as the turn of a card, the fall of a die or even the floating of a feather to make the selection for him. He wondered disinterestedly what Lady Eleanor had planned as this evening’s jeu de jour. Not that he had any intention of joining in. He had a game of his own to play out.

His arrival caused a stir. Tall, dark and handsome, the phrase could have been invented for Jack Damarell. His dinner jacket fit tightly across those broad shoulders of his. A military cut. Almost six years after the end of the war, when he had served as Captain Damarell, he still had a military stance. The crisp white shirt and plain silk waistcoat seemed stretched taut over his chest. The tailored black trousers clothed legs which were long and muscled. An athlete’s legs. The body of a Greek statue, one smitten young lady had once declared as she positively drooled over him in his tennis whites. Jack’s love of sport was almost as legendary as his hatred of socialising.

As he stood in the doorway, idly surveying the scene before him, every woman in the room, young and old, seemed drawn towards his brooding figure. Who could resist the challenge of breaching such defences? Many tried but remarkably few succeeded, and not even those select few who did could claim to know him. An enigma, was Jack Damarell. An illicit secret. A brooding god. A deliciously sinful- looking angel. An infuriatingly aloof one.

“Darling, so thrilling to see you, we’d quite given you up.” Lady Eleanor Kilpatrick appeared at his elbow. Dressed in her trademark silk pyjamas and black pearls, she enveloped him in a perfumed embrace and a cloud of pungent smoke emanating from the cigarette at the end of the long ivory holder she waved like a wand.

Jack disentangled himself politely, and kissed her hand. The emerald she’d extracted from Iain Kilpatrick was so large that it overlapped the fingers on either side. As husband number three, Iain no doubt thought himself in need of such an anchor. Poor fool.

“I knew you’d come,” Lady Eleanor said. “Naughty boy, you usually turn down my invitations, but I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist this one, not when I dropped you the hint about our intriguing visitor from across the pond. It was I who recommended her work to Archie Davenport who owns the gallery, did you know?” As she spoke, Lady Eleanor led him into the room, making for the bar which had been set out in the corner. “Shall I introduce you? Or should that be reintroduce you,” she asked maliciously.

“Why not,” Jack replied carelessly. She could fish all she liked but he’d be damned if he’d give his hostess any satisfaction. Not that she hadn’t begged him to give her exactly that on their last meeting. He smiled inwardly. Lady Eleanor was not accustomed to being spurned.

As he waited for her pink gin to be replenished, Jack eyed the crowd. A sea of women with shingled hair and Clara Bow pouts, but he spotted Lindsey instantly. He always could, right from that first time he’d seen her in the Oyster Bar at Grand Central. Her presence drew his eyes towards her like a magnet. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

He’d forgotten. No, he hadn’t forgotten, he’d just chosen not to remember. He was good at that. He’d had plenty of practice.

She’d had her hair cut. Her beautiful long auburn hair. It was fashionably bobbed now, the sleek style showing off the long, tender line of her neck, framing the perfect oval of her face, the fringe stopping just above her big hazel eyes. That air of fragility was one of the things which attracted him, but it scared him too. Bones that seemed to be as light as a bird’s. Veins too near the surface of her translucent skin.

When they had first met, she looked as if she would break too easily, shatter like a porcelain figurine at the slightest touch. On board the Aquitania only a few months after the Armistice, her glorious hair had been formed into a heavy bun, sitting just at the nape of her neck. It was twilight. She was leaning against the rail staring out at the waves with New York harbour retreating rapidly into the distance. Everyone else had retired to dress for cocktails. She was quite alone—in more than one sense, as he later discovered, for she was an orphan, brought up by an overprotective aunt and uncle. Just turned eighteen, having attained a measure of independence from them, she was endearingly eager to experience what she called real life, starting in London.

He never did tell her that he’d seen her earlier that day, in the Oyster Bar. She’d seemed to him like an angel sent from heaven, but he never did tell her that either. He remembered thinking it though, those words exactly. They came back to him with a jolt now. Not just the words, the feeling he’d had, of being in the presence of someone pure, someone untainted by the dirt and horror of the battlefields, the misery and pain and pitiful suffering of the war he had only just survived. He’d felt breathless, and strangely certain that she was the one. That somehow she could save him. He’d felt desire too, so deep it felt bottomless.

He’d stood there on the deck too entranced to move for what seemed like hours. If she turned before they passed the cargo ship which was making its way towards New York, if she turned before it passed them, he would take it for a sign, he promised himself. It was not like him to be fanciful, but this felt like no other occasion. Either the gods were on his side, or they were not.

And they had been. She had turned, just as the two ships crossed. And their eyes had met. And she had smiled. And he had been lost. Just like that. Jack Damarell fell in love. Hook, line and sinker, rather aptly.

Now, six years on, with so much water under the bridge, so many dreams shattered and hopes tarnished, here she was before him again. And here he was, with his heart thudding again, a rhythm only Lindsey could conjure. And here again was that overwhelming, sickening, whirling thing he had called love.

Memories like a movie show flickered through his mind. Lindsey laughing. The way she seemed to float rather than walk. The long fall of her hair when it was released from its pins, tumbling like a waterfall down her back. Taking his hand as they wandered round the formidable collection of paintings in the gallery at Crieff House. Pictures he’d never looked at before, springing to vibrant life in the light of Lindsey’s knowledgeable enthusiasm. Pictures which were now draped in Holland covers.

Regret and yearning took Jack by surprise, washing over him like a rogue wave. The sudden rush of blood to his groin was painful. It made him furious. With her for causing it, but with himself too, for feeling. He should not be feeling, not after all this time. Not after what she had done.

Four years since he had seen her. Four years since she had deserted the sinking ship of their relationship. Four years since he had walked into her bedroom at Crieff House, having driven down from London that morning, only to find the wardrobes empty, the dressing table stripped. The faint trace of her perfume hung in the air like a ghost. The imprint of her foot in talcum on the tiled floor of her bathroom mocked him. Like a runner’s foot at a starting block. Lindsey had fled.

His memory of the confrontation the week before was dim, as all his memories of those dark episodes were. Tortured and terrified, he knew himself also to be terrifying. Such pains he had taken to hide it from her in the eighteen months they’d been married, this sickening hangover from those sickening trenches. Locked doors. Separate rooms. Unexplained absences. That tightness in his chest, lights flickering in front of his eyes, he could usually read the warning signs early enough to get away, to hide, to close out the world until it was over.

Usually. Last time had been different. Standing alone in the empty bathroom, the hope, the faint flicker of hope that she hadn’t really been there, that he hadn’t really said those things, died.

Leave me alone! Get out! Leave me alone! She’d taken him at his word. Seven days he’d stayed away, waiting for her to summon him back. It hadn’t occurred to him that she too might be waiting, that his silence could be so misinterpreted. He had searched in vain for a note. In vain he had waited for a letter or a telephone call, but there was nothing. In all the years since, nothing. Pride and shame prevented him from being the first to make the move. He had been bereft. As her absence became a permanent feature, her silence tormented him, then came the sweet relief of anger.

It made it easier at first, that anger, but he knew it was unjustified. The simple fact of her loss was unbearable. He had been alone before. He had suffered countless losses on the battlefield, but he had never felt so utterly lonely. This loss was the one he could not reconcile himself to, no matter how much he tried.

Until now. Coming here tonight, Jack finally felt ready to break the spell. Four years was more than enough to mourn. It was over. At least, after tonight it would be over. Definitely, it would be over. Jack clenched his fists in an effort to remind himself of that, to wipe the too-clear, too-painful memories which were besieging him. He had to focus on the here and now. On what he had come for.

“I see you’ve spotted her. Quite a transformation, wouldn’t you say?” Lady Eleanor’s voice cut through Jack’s thoughts. Her pencilled eyebrows were raised inquisitively. She was one of the very few people here who had met Lindsey before.

Jack managed a shrug. “She’s certainly learned to dress.”

“Chanel,” Lady Eleanor informed him, eyeing the beaded sheath of coffee and bronze which clung to Lindsey’s form, stopping just short of her knees. “She’s put on a little weight too, wouldn’t you say?”

Jack allowed his gaze to rest on Lindsey’s body. Still the same long, slim legs, but the sylph-like figure had become womanly. A more shapely calf, curves clearly defined as her dress shimmered and shifted when she moved to let someone edge past. She had always been pretty in an ethereal way, but now she had grown into an extremely beautiful woman. Her fragility was tempered with something else. Poise. Assurance. She looked different, and yet she looked the same. It was as if he was seeing her through a distorted mirror. Or perhaps with someone else’s eyes. Jack became uncomfortably aware of Lady Eleanor awaiting his verdict. “At least there’s no mistaking Lindsey’s sex,” he said dryly. “A woman should look like a woman, not a boy. I find this passion for dieting incomprehensible.”

“Really darling, don’t tell me you’re here to rekindle old flames.” His hostess, who prided herself on her stick-thinness, could not disguise the rancour in her voice. Her hand on his arm was like a claw. “How wonderful, to know that it was I who lit the touch paper,” she said, her voice dripping acid.

“You mistake the occasion entirely.” Jack followed her lead through the way through the throng to where Lindsey was standing at the far end of the drawing room. The crowd parted for them, Jack as oblivious as ever to the stir his presence caused, immune to the covetous looks of the women and the envious glares of the men alike.

“It is more a raking over of the ashes.”

Lady Eleanor tittered. “Just as well, darling. You know she uses her maiden name now.”

Jack gritted his teeth. Lindsey van der Maier. He’d seen it in the notice announcing her exhibition in the Times. For some reason it had hurt, much more than it should. Her old name, her new life. The article was cautiously complimentary about her paintings. Back then, she’d never been without her sketch book, though she rarely let him see the contents. The wash of regret tasted bittersweet, flavoured as it was with a hint of if-only. Jack straightened his shoulders. She had obviously flourished. On her own. Without him. From this point on, he was done with regrets.

Lindsey was talking to Bunty Cowper and Diana Penhaligan, smiling politely, that wide, luscious mouth of hers sipping too quickly at the lethal cocktail she held in her left hand. Bunty and Diana were discussing the latest London clubs. Diana, bottle- blonde and predatory, was insisting that the Embassy was old hat, darling, and the Forty-Three was too, too divine. Her eyes lit up as she spotted the man on Lady Eleanor’s arm. “Jack, fancy meeting you here.”

Jack! Lindsey froze. It couldn’t be. But she knew it was, even before she turned around. That prickling sensation. Giddy, like standing at the centre of the Brooklyn Bridge and looking down into the swirl of the East River. Compelling. She could feel him there, looming over her like an unavoidable fate. Her heart’s delight and her heart’s ache.

No, no, no! After all this time, he couldn’t be. He couldn’t be!

She was over him. It was why she’d come to London. She was over him—she had to be. The exhibition was the excuse she had been waiting for. A thousand times, she’d pictured this first encounter since Lady Eleanor had walked into her gallery in Greenwich Village two months ago. She’d be cool and assured. He’d be astonished at the change in her. Sophisticated. A success in her own right. He’d be impressed. She would be—she would be…

Not this! It wasn’t supposed to be like this, with the eyes of the world upon them, with herself so unprepared, with Lady Eleanor looking on as if they were a floor show, part of the weekend’s spectacle. She wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Sick. Panic struck. Her mouth dry. Her skin flushing hot then icy cold. Her heart—her heart—no!

Feeling as if she were watching herself from a distance, Lindsey forced herself to turn around, forced herself to look up, to meet his gaze. “Jack,” she said, ignoring the catch in her voice, trying desperately for a smile.

Jack. There he was, achingly attractive, heart-wrenchingly familiar. Jack. The first man she’d ever really noticed. The first man she’d ever desired. The only man she had ever loved. From the moment she’d set eyes on him that magical night, her fate had been sealed. One look, and her world had shifted, altered its orbit, and settled into a different one. Seeing him again, she realised with a sickening certainty that nothing had changed. Her world still turned only for him.

What a fool she had been to imagine it could ever be different!

“Lindsey.” Her name on his lips sounded rusty through lack of use. He thought she was going to faint, her face was so pale. Her eyes looked—stricken. The glass in her hand was shaking. With difficulty, Jack resisted the urge to take it from her, to wrap her safe in his arms.

Diana Penhaligan’s fascinated gaze flickered between them. A vicious flicker of something skittered across her heavily powdered face as she saw they had eyes for no one else. “You two know each other?”

Jack looked down at her coldly, shaking himself free of her touch. “Know each other? You could say that,” he said with a tight smile. “Lindsey is my wife.”

Diana’s mouth formed a scarlet pouted "oh" of surprise. Lindsey’s glass slipped through her fingers and thudded onto the floor. She felt as if a cloud of tiny birds were flying, soaring and diving, in her stomach. With a soft sigh, she crumpled, boneless, at her estranged husband’s elegantly shod feet.

Jack laid Lindsey on the bed, then turned to lock the door of the Chinese room behind him. Leaning against it with his arms folded, he watched her regain consciousness. Her long lashes fluttered on her cheek as the colour seeped slowly back into her face. A slow blink, then she sat up, looking around her in bewilderment. “Jack.”

“Lindsey. I suppose I should be pleased that at least you remember my name.”

She pressed a hand to her forehead. He had changed. Looking at him covertly through her fingers, she saw that now. He seemed sharper, edgier, much more intimidating. “What are you doing here? I mean—did you know I was here?”

“Did I come here just for you, do you mean?”

Hope flickered in her breast, though he had not the look of a man who wished to be conciliatory. Rather the opposite. “Did you?”

“Yes.”

He pushed himself away from the door, covering the short distance to the foot of the bed with a panther-like prowl. Desire, unexpected, uncontrollable, long forgotten and long suppressed, snaked through her. Even at his most remote, even when he was pushing her out, shutting himself away, it had always been like that between them. White-hot passion. With nothing else to feed on, she had thought it would fade, but it seemed she was wrong about that too.

Blushing, mortified at the raw need she was sure he must have glimpsed on her face, Lindsey pressed the backs of her hands to her flaming cheeks.

Jack smiled as he watched her discomfort, a lift of his mouth which did not reach his eyes. “Yes, my lovely wife, I did come here just for you,” he said, a long finger under her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “But don’t get your hopes up. It’s not a reconciliation I’m after.”

She swallowed hard. “What, then,” she asked, still not quite able to believe he really was here.

His low laugh plucked at her heartstrings. “I’ve come to perform an exorcism.”

Chapter 2

“An exorcism,” Lindsey repeated in disbelief. “You think I’m some sort of evil spirit?”

“Not evil, but in some way I feel possessed by you. I want you out of my head.”

“I assumed I already was,” Lindsey retorted, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Four years, and you haven’t once made any attempt to contact me.”

“You left me, or don’t you remember? Not a hint, not a word, not a note. I was the one faced with the empty house. I was the one left behind to deal with all the tactful friends and the not-so-tactful gossipmongers. If only I’d known you were expecting me to come and fetch you back.”

The ragged edge of his sarcasm sawed savagely through her. She flinched. “I didn’t. I wasn’t. Expecting you to, I mean. You were the one who told me to go.”

She clasped her fingers together in front of her, caught sight of them and immediately unclasped them. She hadn’t expected him to be so angry. “What would I have said in a note, Jack? I would have gone sooner or later, even if you hadn’t ordered me out that night. I felt as if I was living with a stranger. You didn’t want me there, you made that perfectly plain. The only time we ever made any sort of connection was—was…”

She bit her lip. Stupid to be embarrassed, he was still her husband, but she was. Which was the problem, really—he’d never felt like her husband at all. “When we said our vows, we promised to be united, heart, body and mind. One out of three, Jack, it just wasn’t enough in the end. I had to go, there was nothing else left for me to try. And—and anyway, I knew it was what you wanted.”

The sheen of tears in her eyes made them look like amber, her pupils dark, like an animal trapped inside. Once more, Jack struggled to resist the urge to wrap his arms around her. Regret for what they had once so briefly had took him aback. Three months into their marriage it had started. Three months he’d had, of freedom from the blackness, of hope that it was forever banished by this fresh, new start. How wrong he’d been.

The pain of her leaving had been worse than anything those episodes put him through, worse than anything dealt to him by the war. He had been expecting her to go, it had become inevitable, she was right about that. But still, when it happened, he really felt as if he had been slain.

She was unfinished business, he reminded himself sternly, albeit rather more unfinished than he had realised. “It’s done now,” he said, resolutely. “No point in recriminations or picking over the carcase, it’s time for us to move on. More than time. I want to be free of you.”

The sway she held over him was stronger, much stronger in reality than in his memories. He was struggling to reconcile the woman in front of him with the woman who lived in his head. She looked so very different. She looked so exactly the same. He sat down beside her on the edge of the bed, trailing his finger down the naked flesh of her arm. So beautiful. “I loved you so much.” The words were wrenched from him like a child from the womb.

Loved, not love. Lindsey felt a tearing and ripping in her heart, as fresh and painful as that day she had closed the door of Crieff House behind her. Tears sparkled on her lashes. “Jack.”

Loved, not love. Though it was the last thing she had come here for, being with him here, like this, made her realise it would never be a past tense. For her, it was love, not loved. She reached for him, touching her fingers to his cheek, running them through the soft silk of his hair. Hair not just black but black as night. “Can’t we try again?”

He stared at her for an eternity, then he shook his head. “Is that what you came here for?”

She shook her head. “No. I came because I thought it was over.”

“It is.”

Lindsey paled. “You want a divorce?” The words like arsenic on her lips, and just as lethal, came out as a whisper.

Though it was the next logical step, and lately had become not only acceptable, but for some of his peers almost a way of life, divorce had not occurred to Jack. The idea was repugnant. “I told you, I want an exorcism.”

“You think yourself haunted?” Amusement close to hysteria fleetingly banished the anguish Lindsey felt was wringing her dry.

He’d forgotten how she smiled with her eyes. He’d forgotten that tilting look, the way their colour changed, lightened and sparkled. He had always thought of it as his smile. Only for him. Against his will, Jack found himself smiling back. “Don’t you?”

Lindsey’s amusement faded. “Yes. Yes, I suppose I do.” She could not gauge his mood or his intentions. Eighteen months they had been married, but if anything they understood each other less at the end than at the beginning. “I failed you—us. We had something special, and it died.” For Jack, anyway.

“It didn’t die, that’s the point,” Jack said. “Or if it did, it came back. Like a spectre.”

A single tear escaped her, trickling down the well-worn path of the countless others she had shed since leaving him. “Surely—Jack, surely if there’s something there, if you still feel something for me, could we not…”

He shook his head, more decisively than he felt at that point. “You can’t bring ghosts back to life, no matter how much you might want to. All you can do is lay them to rest.”

“Who says you can’t?”

“It can’t be done, Lindsey. It’s over. Perhaps it should never have begun. At least that way we’d both have been spared the pain.”

For just a second, she saw what it had cost him. The darkness in his eyes, the hardening of his face into something she recognised, from enduring so much of it herself. The getting-by but not living, which the last four years had been. It ripped the last shred of resistance from her. She could not bear to see such suffering in him.

“I still don’t know what went wrong. It torments me, Jack, what we lost. In that sense I really am haunted. Can’t you at least help me find some answers?”

“You don’t want answers, you want reasons to try again, and I don’t want to. It would be painful and pointless.”

Despairingly, she heard the note of absolute finality in his voice. A closed door. One of the many which had been their downfall. She remembered it only too well, that feeling of powerlessness as it slammed shut in her face. “So we do it your way or not at all?” There was an acrid note in her voice she could not subdue.

“Don’t be like that. I’m right. You’ll see I’m right.”

Same old Jack after all. “You didn’t really mean it when you said you wished we had never begun, did you? You don’t regret us, do you?” she asked, clutching desperately for the solace of at least this much.

A long look, then Jack slowly shook head. “No. I can’t regret it, though I know I should.” Some of the tension seemed to leave him. He traced the delicate line of her jaw, to the point where her precision bob ended. “You cut your hair.”

“Long hair is for little girls. I grew up.”

He touched her neck now, her shoulder, her arm again, his hand brushing the side of her breast. “You certainly did.”

Lindsey shivered. Her nipple puckered and stiffened through the heavy beading of her dress. “So you want an exorcism,” she said, forcing herself to focus on the now, to take what she could from the now, to give what she could too. “How do you propose to achieve that?” Somehow she knew he did not mean crucifixes and incantations. Unbelievably, excitement glittered inside her like the sharp edge of a blade.

“A dose of reality. I want to make love to you. I need to prove that the real you can’t live up to the ghost of what you were in my head. I want to live in the real world again, Lindsey. I’m tired of inhabiting some Never Never Land.”

“You’re joking!” Even as she said it, she knew from the way he was looking at her that he was not. She knew from the way she was responding to his look that she did not want him to be either, for if she could not have it all, she would take this. They had always had this, and she wanted it, just one more time. She wanted it with a fierce wanting she had not thought herself capable of again.

“No joke. I’ve thought about it and it’s the only thing that makes sense. I’m tired of carrying you around in my head like some impossible dream.”

“Does it have to be so impossible?”

“We’ve already proved it is. Was. I don’t want to talk about it any more. I don’t want to think about us—you—anymore. I just want…”

“An exorcism. You said.” She couldn’t help it, it hurt. Some vital part of her was being severed. “You want to make love to me, to prove that I can’t live up to my memory, but what if I do? Do I get another chance?”

Jack shrugged, feigning a certainty he was far from feeling. Lindsey in the flesh, new Lindsey in her new flesh, was unbelievably enticing. He wanted her, and badly. He could not afford to let her know how much, let alone admit it to himself. “You won’t. You can’t. Now either take off your dress, or tell me to go,” he said as coldly as he could. Though if she did the latter rather than the former—no, he couldn’t bear to think of that.

Lindsey gazed at him, her breathing fast and shallow, as if she had been running. Already she knew that his dose of reality would be much, much more wonderful than her own ghosts, her own memories, her own impossible dreams. This time, she would not allow him to have it all his own way. If she must be exorcised, she would make damn sure the part she played in it was memorable!

She got to her feet to stand in front of him. “Unfasten me then,” she said and saw, with immense satisfaction, just as she turned her back on him, the look of surprise on his face. His hands were cool and competent on her dress. She turned back towards him when he had done and slipped her arms free, allowing the heavily beaded swathe of silk to pool around her feet. A tiny surge of triumph rippled through her at the sudden stillness of his look. She had never undressed so brazenly in front of him before. She had always preferred to have the light turned out. Not tonight. Tonight she wanted to see. She wanted him to see too. If it was a last chance, it would be the best.

She was wearing a camisole top and French knickers. Peach silk trimmed with ivory lace covering very unfashionable curves. Totally delightful curves. She stood before him, a slight blush staining her cheeks, but her head held high, her eyes never wavering from his face. She wanted him to look at her.

Deliberately, Jack allowed his eyes to trail down to the line of her breasts, noticing with a flicker of excitement the outline of hard nipple through the thin material. His eyes continued their downward journey, to the dip of her waist, the sweep of her hip. Her skin had a lustre to it. He could see tantalising glimpses of flesh. Her thighs in the gap between her garters and the lacy hem of her French knickers. The hollow at the base of her throat. Perfectly covered flesh, dipping curves and luscious mounds. Unmistakably, indisputably female. Unmistakably Lindsey, yet indisputably not. She was his wife. And she was not.

Want shafted through him, urgent and pure. She must have seen it in his face, for her eyes widened. She licked her lips, a flick of tempting pink tongue against their plump softness, making him think of the darker pink folds between her legs. Like a bolt of electricity, her action, his thoughts, connected directly to his groin. He was hard. Straining hard. Aching hard. “You’re beautiful,” he said, pulling her to him by the strap of her camisole. “Quite beautiful.”

She was aroused. She could feel it in the way her blood rushed through her veins. The way her breath came a little too fast. The tingling in her pulse points. She had forgotten. She hadn’t allowed herself to remember. Jack was right, she needed this exorcism every bit as much as he did.

She moved closer, so that she could feel the heat of his body. Her nipples ached as they strained against the silk of her lingerie. He was watching her, examining her face, searching for something—what? She twined her fingers into his hair. She bowed her body so that her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, brushed against him. She pulled at his tie, loosening it, then his shirt collar. She lifted her face, so that her lips brushed his. She kissed him, allowing her lips to trail heat over his, running her fingers through the short, silky hair on the back of his head, flicking her tongue into his mouth, licking and tasting, listening to the voice in her body that said, do this, now this, then this. Feeling. Communing. And kissing.

He was kissing her back. Hot and feverish. His hands on her, holding and gripping, moulding her to him, running over her skin, the silk of her underwear, trailing heat and fire, pushing her over towards the bed, throwing her down so that she was splayed on the dark green velvet of the counterpane. The nap of the soft material on her skin fanned the flames of fire in her belly.

His jacket was on the floor. He was beside her on the bed now, breathing harshly, holding her, hands on her, looming over her. For moments, moments, moments Jack looked at her with such a hunger she thought she would be engulfed. Then his mouth took hers again and she was truly possessed, his kisses sucking the life-blood from her. Bruising kisses, plunging and plundering, making her moan and pant like a wild thing. Making her suck and plunge in return. Taking and taking and taking. Then giving and giving and giving.

He pulled her on top of him. She could feel the hardness of his erection between her legs, straining into the flesh of her thighs. He kissed her again and again. Punishing kisses for all they had lost. Challenging kisses for all the darkness there had been between them. Deep kisses for all the pleasures they had once shared. She tore at his shirt, fingers fumbling with the starched front, the pearl buttons, raining begging kisses onto the hard wall of his chest, feeling the tickle of his hair on her nose, biting into the muscle of his shoulder.

Underneath him again, the straps of her camisole top were pulled down over her shoulders. His mouth on her breast through the silk. Hot, tugging at her nipple, making it ache and filling her with such a flood of longing she struggled to breathe. Strong hands wrenching impatiently, the sinews on his wrists and arms flexing, the fabric of her underwear ripped, and Jack’s face, his eyes dark with desire, looking down, drinking in.

Fingers touching her reverently now, slowly, hands cupping her breasts, tracing the curves of them, licking around their form, then sucking, a gentle sucking that filled her with such sweetness and started something new and straining inside her.

It was like chains tightening, painful in the most pleasurable way. She had forgotten, like an out-of-focus photograph, or a horizon forever distant. She forced her eyes open and saw Jack’s profile, the fan of his long lashes on his cheeks, the fall of a lock of wayward, coal-black hair on his forehead. His mouth, his beautiful mouth, on her breast, on her stomach.

She ran her hands over his back, then his chest. She arched up against him, tugging at his belt. “Jack,” she begged, hands clumsy with need, and he unbuckled it for her, standing up to quickly discard the rest of his clothing, and she caught her breath. Broad shoulders, tapering waist, flat abdomen. The thin white line of the scar he would never let her touch, curving down along the line of his rib cage. His muscles were defined under the glow of his skin. She could see each one move as he moved, a flexing and un-flexing, bunching then smoothing. Pulse-quickening movements. He had an all-over tan too. She wondered fleetingly where he had been and with whom, trying and failing to tamp down the spurt of jealousy. Its poison lent her gaze an edge, a reminder that this was her only chance for him to be hers. Possessiveness made her want to clutch at him like a trap on its prey. He was hers.

Lindsey shrugged off the remnants of her camisole. Jack quickly removed her knickers, her stockings and garters. He pulled her forward on the bed so that she was sitting with him standing between her legs. Her breasts were heavy with need, her nipples brushing achingly against the heat of his stomach. His scent was musky. Male. His erection silky hard. Man. He took her hands and placed them on his body, encouraging her to touch, over the dip of his buttocks, the rough of his flank, the softer skin and hotter heat between his legs.

She felt him tense, waiting for her to touch him. She did. Without waiting for his encouragement, she cupped him, the rough, tender skin weighty in the palm of her hand. He drew his breath sharply, the muscles on his abdomen flexing beneath her cheek. Still cupping, she touched his erection with her other hand, stroking the delicate skin, marvelling at the hardness of him, the size of him, the beauty of him. She wanted him inside her. She felt herself straining with the want, as if she was at the end of a leash.

Jack pushed her back onto the bed. Jack covered her body with his. Jack kissed her deeply. Jack touched her. His hand between her legs, he brushed her thighs, pushing them apart. He cupped her as she had him, his hand heeling against her, his fingers stroking and coaxing and parting her soft folds. She had never been quite like this before, so lush and damp and hot. So patently aroused. He was so hard he felt dizzy from it.

He slid his finger carefully, deeper into her heat, finding the hard, swollen centre of her. He touched, caressed, stroked, slipping and sliding over and round. He felt her writhe and heard her soft moan and he stopped thinking and gave himself up to pleasure.

Gripping like pain. Excitement like fear. Building, burning and clutching, higher and higher. She could hear herself pleading inarticulately. Jack’s voice answering, saying nothing, everything, harsh and soothing. His mouth on hers, like a petition. Her hands on his shoulders, holding on as if he would save her, though she didn’t want to be saved. Between her legs the storm gathered. Jack thrust his tongue into her mouth, and his fingers stroked like a thrust too, and there, right then, she gave in to it. The chains which held her to the ground were so tight, they were too tight and they were crushing the breath out of her. Suddenly they broke and she was free, free, free. And screaming it, free, free, free, but even as she screamed it, she knew there was still a void for him to fill, for him to be free too.

She clutched at his arms. He kissed her, looking straight into her eyes, the connection a jolt, as deep as the other connection they were about to make. Exactly like before. Not a bit like before. He pushed her legs apart, angled her up, positioned himself over her, still looking at her, still watching her. Possession.

He slid into her and into her and into her. Slowly. She could feel every bit of him, hard, pushing, parting, hands under her bottom to tilt her up, so he could push higher. He filled her and she contracted her muscles around him to hold him still, and saw the pleasure in his face as she did, felt it in the clenching of his fingers on her bottom.

“More,” she begged, breathlessly, thinking there couldn’t possibly be more. He pulled her closer, her ankles wrapped around his waist, and magically, there was more.

Jack moved. A tiny, tiny pulse of a movement, and still their eyes were locked on each other. Then he moved again. A thrust, pulling out from her slowly, then pushing in suddenly hard and fast, up, up, up, and it was so, so, so…

He thrust again, hard. Joltingly hard, forging into her, with each stroke harder and deeper. Making sure she could not forget. As if she ever could. She forced her eyes open and he was still watching her as he thrust, and with each thrust she felt a pulse of pleasure, and another. And then he came, spilling inside her, gripping her to him, finally his eyes closed, tight shut, and she knew that something really had been set free.

The floodgates opened as she held him and Lindsey wept. For what had once been, for what they had just shared, and for what she knew they would never have again.

Chapter 3

Jack did not stay. He pulled himself away from her, got out of bed, dressed, and left without a word. He did not meet her eyes again except once, in the doorway, when he looked as if he would speak, but then stopped. Only the rumpled sheets, her torn camisole and the tenderness between her thighs were indisputable evidence of his presence. And now his absence.

She knew what he was doing, and she felt she owed him the indulgence of allowing him to do it. For Jack, this was the final part of the exorcism. Leaving her as she had left him, without a word of explanation. It really was over.

Lindsey had thought herself well acquainted with loneliness, but this was worse. After such a connection, after such a coupling, disconnected and uncoupled, she was completely bereft.

For the next four weeks, she tried her utmost to do what he asked—to forget him, to pretend that the exorcism had worked. She had much to occupy her, with the exhibition and the plethora of social invitations Archie Davenport seemed to expect her to fulfil as his protégée. But what in other circumstances would have been thrilling, was now an unwelcome distraction. Lindsey could think of nothing except Jack.

The sweetness of their early love came back to her with a freshness which made its loss all the more poignant. They had barely been able to take their eyes off each other. She’d felt like she was living in a dream. The long sea voyage simply encouraged that belief. By the time they disembarked in Southampton they’d been engaged to be married, and all her own plans, to attend art school, to travel to Europe, had simply become irrelevant. All she wanted was to be Mrs Jack Damarell—though actually, what she’d become was the Countess of Crieff. The formality of the title, it seemed to Lindsey, looking back, somehow epitomised what had happened to their love. Formalised, it had set, become frozen, and they had never managed to defrost it. She knew it wasn’t that simple, she had spent the last four years trying to work out what had really happened, but nevertheless, it’s how it felt.

In London, where they’d spent much of their married life, the memories were impossible to avoid. Restaurants they had dined in, parks they had walked in, galleries they had trailed through, she so eager to show off the one subject on which she felt she knew more than him, he so laughingly keen to let her. How much she had loved him.

She visited their town house in Cadogan Square, but Jack had sold it. She drove down to Crieff House one day, in one of Jack’s own sleek sports cars, and found the gates padlocked. Peering through them at the overgrown pathway, the lawns like a hayfield, she cried. The beautiful Palladian mansion she’d dreamed of filling with love and laughter and children was a desolate wilderness.

Lindsey tried, she really did try for Jack’s sake, but she was not just back to the start, she was more deep in love with him than ever. The mature love of a woman, sweet and ripe, so much more potent than the tartness of the young love they had once had.

What had gone wrong? Why? How? The questions would not go away.

She sought him out. At the Café de Paris, where he had a table beside the stage with an actress—the famous one, with the name which sounded like a fanfare. She could not breach the all-male bastion of his club. She watched him play tennis and polo. He cut her every time. He did not visit her exhibition. He did not call at her hotel, nor return her telephone calls. His butler politely but firmly barred her entry from his plush Mayfair flat.

Lindsey’s frustration turned first to anger, then determination. There was something between them worth saving. The night at Lady Eleanor’s had proved that, and he must know it as well as she. Was he just being obstinate? She knew him better. He was running from something. But they had both run enough. She needed another chance. If he would not give it to her, she would have to take it.

Jack was struggling. Every day he reminded himself that it was over, that it must be over, because there was nothing left to try, but Lindsey refused to go away. Worse, it was no longer her ghost which haunted him but the real person. The raw passion of their night together by far exceeded all his memories. Always before, it had been like a secret, their lovemaking, an illicit meeting of strangers. That night at Lady Eleanor’s had been different. A meeting of lovers in the full light. But still, he stuck to his purpose. It had to work, because it had to be over.

The dreams had come back. The sweat-drenching, bone-shaking dreams. Twice in the last month he had woken up screaming, like in the old days. And once, in the factory, he had blacked out. Just for a few seconds, and thank God it had been Bill Paisley, his foreman and ex-Sergeant Major, who had been with him. But it had happened, and irrationally, set upon proving himself right, he blamed Lindsey for it. Another reason to ignore her pleas for a fresh start. Another reason to remind himself of how impossible were his feelings for her, how wrong it was, and would still be. Even if wrong was the opposite of how it felt.

“Jack!” Bunty Cowper hailed him as he came out of his club. “What a marvellous coincidence, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about your gorgeous cars. Daddy wants to buy one for Duncan’s birthday, but they told him there’s a waiting list of six months.”

Duncan was Bunty’s younger brother, a photographer who had achieved recent fame with his society portraits, and also an excellent tennis player who occasionally partnered Jack at doubles. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do,” Jack told her, reluctant to become embroiled.

“Nonsense darling.” Bunty was not a woman who could be easily cold- shouldered. “There’s always something. Let me buy you a little drinkie and we can talk about it.”

“There’s really nothing…” Jack started to protest, but already Bunty had a hand on his arm and was propelling him to her waiting car. Without quite knowing how it came about, twenty minutes later he was sitting in the Ritz with a glass of champagne in his hand and Bunty had extracted a promise from him to do his best to produce one of his cars in time for her brother’s birthday. Now Jack looked pointedly at his watch while Bunty enthused about Lindsey’s paintings.

“They’re frightfully good Jack, she’s awfully clever. Downtown, by an Uptown Girl, the exhibition is called—that was Archie Davenport’s idea, of course. So affecting, all these poor people on the streets with nowhere to live. Ghastly really, and Lindsey tells me it’s not far from where her studio is. One can only be thankful that there’s nothing like that in London.” Bunty took another dainty sip of champagne. “Lindsey tells me she hasn’t seen you since Lady E’s party.”

Jack looked into her button-bright eyes, and decided he’d had enough. “No,” he said baldly. “Now if you don’t mind, I have an appointment.”

Even Bunty could not be anything other than intimidated by the look he drew her. She adjusted the slave bangle she wore on her arm and decided she’d done her bit. “Little girls’ room,” she said, pushing her chair back before the waiter could help her, “won’t be a tick.”

Jack called for the cheque. The waiter brought him a message with it. Bunty had run into some friends and would he please bring her bag up to their suite. Sighing, Jack retrieved the clutch from where it had fallen under the table.

He made his way through the Long Gallery to the foyer, up to the first floor and knocked on the door. A voice bid him enter. He did so. The reception room of the suite looked out over the verdant swathes of Green Park. It was empty, but a door at the far end was open. Suspicious now, Jack walked towards it. At first he thought that this room too was empty, then there was a movement from behind the door. A soft cloth over his mouth and nose. The smell. The taste, he remembered it from the field hospital. He struggled, but could already feel his legs shaking. He staggered over to the bed, dropping Bunty’s bag onto the floor. Unconsciousness claimed him.

His head was thumping. His vision blurred. Shirt sleeves. Someone had taken off his coat. He tried to move, and found he was splayed out, bound by the ankles and wrists to a four-poster bed. Cool hands on his forehead. A glass raised to his lips. “Drink this, you’ll feel better.” He recognised the voice. He struggled to sit up, but the ties on his wrists prevented him.

“I’m sorry, but there was no other way.”

Lindsey. Jack strained violently, but succeeded only in tightening the ties around his wrists. “What the hell are you playing at?”

“I need to talk to you.” She walked across the room to pull a gilt chair out from under the dressing table. She was wearing a robe, long and soft and silky. Ivory- coloured like her skin, it was trimmed with feathers the same shade. The train trailed out behind her as she walked, the feathers billowing, the material rustling. He could hear the soft swish of silk on flesh. As she came back towards him, pulling the chair behind her, he caught a tantalising glimpse of leg. Stocking top. A scissoring movement then the other leg.

Lindsey sat down beside the bed. Her lips were painted vermilion red, her eyes outlined with kohl. She looked exotic. Not a bit like herself. A temptress, the vivid scarlet slash of her mouth like the glistening petals of something fatal. Lips made to envelop. The image sent his blood racing. Jack tried desperately to think of something else. He closed his eyes, but it served only to make him aware of the scent of her. A musky perfume, cinnamon maybe, spicy and heady, and beneath it, Lindsey. His wife. When would he ever stop thinking of her as such?

His wife, in an exotic wrapping. He could feel himself hardening. He opened his eyes and saw her watching him, her face alight with something he could not interpret. Her tongue, pink on the vermillion of her lips.

“Let me go.” His tone was clipped, peremptory. The voice of one used to being obeyed without question.

Lindsey shook her head. “No. We’ve tried it your way, and it didn’t work—not for me. It’s only fair that you at least consider trying it mine.”

“Why should I?”

“For the same reason as me, because your way didn’t work. Did it?” She swallowed hard, but she knew without at least this admission she had neither the will nor the nerve to go on. “Tell me honestly, Jack.”

The atmosphere had been tense, now it seemed to thicken. Surely the clock stopped ticking? Jack’s eyes were steely grey. “It doesn’t matter whether or not it worked,” he said, “there is nothing left to try.”

She let out her breath with a little whoosh. It hadn’t worked! She knew better than to let her feelings show too much. “We can try again.”

“No.”

“Why not? We still have something. We always did have something, right from the moment we met. Do you remember, that evening on the Aquitania?”

“Of course I remember,” he said tersely.

“I was so young. You seemed to me so mature. You’d been through so much, things I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I know it’s silly, but I thought—I thought I could heal you. Stupid.”

“Very.”

She flinched, biting her lip in her determination not to cry, smudging her carefully applied lipstick instead.

“I didn’t mean to sound cruel, but it’s the truth.” Jack’s face softened slightly, but his voice was still cold. “There can be no fresh start. No clean slate. It’s just not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t work. I know it doesn’t work, because it’s what I tried with you the first time around. You were my clean slate, and look where that got us. Not a fresh start, I just dragged you under with me.”

“You’re talking as if we were doomed from the outset.”

Jack winced, trying desperately to mask the pain the conversation was causing him. The scars which would never heal, the wounds he so desperately did not want her to see, he could hardly bear to look at them himself. “I suppose in a way we were doomed. There are things—I can’t tell you. I’m damaged goods. You can’t make a fresh start with damaged goods.”

“Jack, I’m your wife, you can tell me anything.”

“No!” He pulled so hard at the ties, she thought he would hurt himself. Through his shirt, she could see the muscles of his arms and shoulders straining. “For God’s sake Lindsey, untie me. This is a ridiculous situation.”

He was right, but desperation could do curious things. If she let him go she would never see him again. This was her only chance. She steeled herself to make the most of it.

Jack seemed to sense this. With an enormous effort of will he forced himself to calm down. “Look,” he said in a more conciliatory tone, “I didn’t set out to make you unhappy. It’s just that things were—complicated. Still are complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“There are things you don’t— can’t —understand.”

“Then explain to me, Jack! Help me understand.”

“I can’t. I can’t talk about it.”

She got to her feet and padded across the room to look out through the long voile drapes. Taking a deep breath she returned to the bed, the swishing tail of her peignoir trailing behind her. “Don’t you see that’s the problem. You never let me in. Always locking yourself away from me, and never wanting to explain why. Do you realise we never once spent the night together in the same bed? Not once. I’ve never gone to sleep in your arms. Never woken up beside you. At first I thought it was just your English ways, but it wasn’t that. You don’t do intimacy, and you wouldn’t let me. Eventually I realised it wasn’t because you couldn’t, it was because you didn’t want to.”

Underneath the cosmetics, her expression was one of raw pain. “I know it wasn’t just my fault, but I feel so guilty. I was so young. Perhaps if I’d tried harder, done something else, though I don’t know what. That’s what’s killing me, I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“Lindsey, what’s the point in raking over this? It’s done.”

“It’s not done! I still love you, that won’t ever be done!” She stopped abruptly, shocked by her admission. Jack’s face was unreadable. She should have known then, but she took no heed, she was too far gone to pay heed. “There, now you know, I’ve said it.”

He wished she had not. He wished he could believe it made a difference, but it didn’t. Jack closed his eyes. “It doesn’t make any difference, Lindsey. I’ve told you, I’m not interested in a reconciliation, and I’m not interested in a dissection of the why’s and wherefore’s.” He was being cruel, he was being unfair, but it was for the best, of that he was absolutely sure. The door must be firmly closed, for his own sake as well as hers.

Lindsey bit back the hasty retort which sprang to her lips. His reaction was as she had expected, after all. Jack Damarell was not a man who responded positively to coercion. He wasn’t going to talk. He wasn’t going to back down. There was only one way to break through his reserve.

If she had the nerve.

“What are you planning to do, keep me here tied up like a bonded slave until I agree,” Jack asked sarcastically.

He was still straining furiously at the ties around his wrists and ankles. So infuriatingly stubborn. So coldly determined to suffer whatever it was he was hiding from her in silence. She loved him. He had loved her once, surely he could love her again, if only she had the courage to make him see. “Whether you want to admit it or not, there’s still something special between us Jack, and I’m going to prove it.”

He didn’t like being out of control like this. He had the oddest idea that she was about to do something outrageous, something totally unlike Lindsey. Or perhaps something very like this Lindsey. This new, more mature, much more determined, infinitely more beguiling Lindsey. He worried that whatever it was he would like it.

“Untie me,” Jack demanded, mustering all the air of command his embarrassing position allowed him.

But Lindsey simply shook her head, and now he could see something of her intention in her eyes. From the way she was clenching and unclenching her fingers, she was steeling herself for it. From the way she was looking at him, he knew he was going to have to steel himself not to submit.

Lindsey loosened her robe. “You stopped coming to my room. I thought you didn’t want me. But I did, Jack. I wanted you, I always wanted you. I was just tired of being the one with all the needs.”

Her fingers were painted the same shade of deep vermillion as her mouth. He watched them, fascinated.

“I want you now, Jack. I’m going to show you how much I want you. And you are going to admit how much you want me.”

She was standing at the foot of the bed. There was a full-length mirror on the wall behind her. She pulled the robe apart and allowed it to slide down her body, where it pooled at her feet. Underneath it she wore stockings tied with garters. Wispy little slippers trimmed with feathers. And nothing else. Absolutely nothing else.

White skin. Long legs. Full round breasts tipped with dark nipples. A cluster of auburn curls between her thighs. Jack couldn’t take his eyes off her. His arms and legs strained at their ties as he tried to see her reflection in the mirror. The long elegant line of her back. The gentle slope of her bottom. His breathing quickened. He forced himself to look away. “You won’t change my mind this way,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if it was true.

“I can try.” Lindsey ran a hand slowly down her body, from her neck, grazing the nipple of her left breast, her stomach, her flank. The bright red of her fingernails drew attention to the path she traced. His eyes followed it, mesmerised. She stretched languorously, her arms above her head, pulling up her rib cage, her breasts, her waist narrowing. She was teasing him. Deliberately teasing him. Lindsey! And she was enjoying it. That light in her eyes. The tiniest curl of her mouth.

“Let me go, Lindsey. I won’t be responsible for the consequences if you don’t.”

She actually laughed. Then she sashayed over to the dressing table, returning with a large pair of scissors and Jack sighed with relief, though if truth were told, it was more because he would be free to do as he wanted with her, not to leave. Not yet.

But to his consternation, Lindsey made no move to cut his bonds. Instead, she set about removing his shoes and socks. Then she leaned over and unfastened first his tie, then the buttons of his shirt, smoothing her palms flat on his skin, and he could do nothing about the fact that he was aroused. Immediately.

Next, his belt. Then she picked up the scissors and freed his ankles, but only so that she could take off the rest of his clothing. There was nothing he could do to stop her, and he wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to.

“What are you playing at?”

“I’m not playing, Jack. I’m trying to prove you wrong. You want me. I want you. Surely it’s that simple.”

“Nothing is ever that simple,” Jack muttered, but his focus was elsewhere. Lindsey climbing onto the bed, inching her way up between his legs. Her breasts caressed the skin on his calf. His knee. Deliberately? His thigh. Definitely deliberately. He tried not to like it, and failed. His constrained state was frustrating. It was also, in some unexpected way, exciting. Lindsey in control. Himself helpless. He hated it. Or he should do.

She sat up on her knees, running a hand down each of his flanks. The red of her nails was hypnotic. The smile which played at the corners of her mouth—tantalising. Desire and anger warred inside him. It was wrong, all of this was wrong, but what she was doing felt so right. Her fingers stroking the backs of his knees, his buttocks, stroking and touching, making him feel as he never had. Out of control. A yearning to let go.

No!

Yes.

Lindsey shifted her body, so that she straddled him, her thighs on either side of his waist. The length of his shaft arced up into her back along the curve of her buttocks. She leaned back, relishing the nudging of it against her. She leaned over him now, bracing herself on the bed, her hands either side of his shoulders. Her nipples brushed his chest. A frisson. Carefully she moved them, brushing over the hard wall of muscle. Another shiver, deeper inside. Jack’s breath a sharp inhale, his body bucking up under hers, his arms straining for release.

“Lindsey, let me go.”

She sat up. His erection slid up her back. She could feel herself damp on the skin of his abdomen. Her own arousal thrummed inside her, bubbling through her blood like a drug. She saw his eyes on her breasts. Cupping them in her own hands, she grazed her nipple with her finger, imagining it was Jack, closing her eyes at the frisson of delight running through her. Opening her eyes, she saw his gaze fastened hard on her. She repeated the action.

“Lindsey, let me go.” He was not pleading, more—promising, the huskiness of his voice making her shiver as if he had spoken onto her skin. “You’ll enjoy it much more if I can touch you,” he urged.

“This isn’t about what you can do to me, Jack, it’s about what I can do to you.” She let her hand trail down between her breasts, her stomach, stopping just where their bodies met. “My pleasure is your pleasure Jack, I wish you could see that.” She reached behind her, running her fingers up his length. The contact stirred her. She felt him judder. “It’s you who have to let go. You can trust me. Trust yourself to me, just this once.”

Her heart was pounding. She was throbbing with need. The need to have him inside her. The need for release. The need to see him lose himself in her as she was lost in him. She leaned over him again, her breasts flattened onto his chest, her mouth against his, their lips touching. A kiss, the briefest of kisses. Her lips, her tongue, his immediate response.

She shifted to allow her breasts to graze his lips now, gasping as his tongue flicked over them. She leaned over further. His mouth was soft and urgent on her nipple. Tugging, the tugging echoed lower down, between her legs. Lindsey moaned.

“Lindsey, untie me.” Definitely not a command, a plea.

She shook her head. Carefully, she positioned herself over him, and started to draw him into her slowly, her muscles clinging lovingly to the thick length of him as she sheathed him, further and further, until she was sitting astride him, unbelievably full of him. She paused, breathing raggedly, trying to contain the excitement inside her which mounted as she mounted, which screamed for her to move, fast. Beneath her, Jack’s face was a rigid mask, set and hard, eyes glittering with dark pleasure. He was waiting. Not fighting her. Not challenging her. Waiting.

She prayed for restraint, but knew herself a lost cause the moment she moved. She wanted to unleash him. She wanted to see him out of control, for she knew it was this which would be her own true unleashing. But it was too much. One lift, one plunge, the sensation of his shaft pulsing inside her, the friction of her own heat grinding into him as she thrust and he pushed up against her, and she was already tight, tightening, too tight. Tipped over suddenly, without any warning, she fell and shattered, throbbing and pulsing around him, moaning with abandon.

She thought she had failed, but even as she surrendered she saw raw desire etched across his face. He arched up against her, encouraging her to move again, and she did. Through the sweep and eddy of her own climax she moved on top of him, hard, fast, grindingly urgent, gasping his name, holding him tight, clenchingly tight, so tight she felt him swell inside her, forging his way to new heights, pushing her over again, thickening and filling her.

There was a look of pained passion on his face. He was running with her, saying her name over and over, pushing deeper, and she leaned forward over him, sobbing, throbbing, kissing, his tongue thrust hard into her mouth as she felt him explode into her with the harsh cry of one who is falling.

Then she did cut the ties around his wrists, for she desperately wanted to be held. And he did hold her, at last, his arms securing her to him, chest to chest, their legs entangled, her face pressed into his neck. She could feel their hearts beating. His fingers stroked her hair, his palm tenderly cupping the back of her head.

It was that, that one tiny gesture, which told her she had lost. His palm on the back of her head. As if to stop her shattering. Knowing that what he was about to say would break her.

“Lindsey.”

She twisted herself free of his embrace to look down at him and saw what she had expected. Regret. Tenderness. Sorrow. Determination. She put her fingers over his mouth, as if to hold back the words, but he took them away. He sat up in bed, taking her with him. “I’m sorry,” he said wretchedly.

“Can I just ask you one thing?”

The shutters came down immediately. “It depends.”

“Not that, don’t worry. Whatever it is, your big secret. It’s something else. I used to think—I thought—if we’d had a child, would it have made a difference? I hoped, you see, but it never happened. I thought I’d failed you. Was that it?”

He pulled her to him, crushing her with the strength of his hold. “You didn’t fail me. You can’t think that. We—us—it wouldn’t have worked, no matter what.”

She couldn’t stop the tears now. Hot, trickling painfully, blotting the thick mascara which coated her lashes. “Don’t you love me, Jack?” The words were wrenched from her, a desperately painful plea for some chink of hope.

His grip on her arms was bruising. Anguish made his face grim. He wanted to give her what she asked, but he knew it would lead only to a slower, more painful death. Best it was a clean cut. He knew all about that, from the war. Much more humane. “I can’t.”

Weighted down with sadness, Lindsey pulled herself free. She picked up her peignoir and drew it around her. Forcing a smile to a face streaked with tears, she swallowed the pleas which clogged her throat. She would not part on such terms. She would not leave either of them with such a memory. “Once again, you give me no choice. Best if you go now. We’ve both of us proved we’re no good at goodbyes.”

She headed for the bathroom. She did not look back, but clicked the lock shut then turned on the taps of the huge marble bath to their fullest force. The noise of water thundering into the tub drowned out her sobbing.

Jack stared at the closed door, feeling as if a leaden weight were holding him down. He had what he wanted, but it felt like the last thing in the world he desired.

He dressed. He left the suite. The bathroom door remained resolutely closed.

The painting arrived the next day. Wanting,1920, it was titled. His study at Crieff House, viewed from the door opposite the window. The shadow of a woman stretched out from the doorway. A man who was quite clearly himself, looked out of the window, his back to the woman. The landscape beyond was wintery. Desolation and despair emanated from the canvas, though how she managed to convey that, Jack could not put into words.

There was no note. When he called her suite at the Ritz he was informed she had checked out. Archie Davenport told him, when he eventually tracked him down the next day, that Lindsey had sailed for New York that morning.

Chapter 4

New York, two months later

The telegram arrived mid-morning while Lindsey was working in her studio at the rear of her brownstone house just off Washington Square. It had been redirected from her uncle’s Fifth Avenue apartment. Though she remained on friendly terms with her relatives, Lindsey preferred her independence. She also preferred the bohemian ambiance of Greenwich Village to the stifling gentility of the Upper West Side.

Meet me in the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Terminal, one o’clock. Jack.

As succinct and unreadable as ever. She checked the date. It was definitely for today. There was only one thing he could want to talk to her about. Divorce. But why choose such a public place? In fact, why bother coming at all? She felt her breakfast churning threateningly in her stomach and took some deep, calming breaths. She reread the telegram. It had been sent from the Mauritania that morning. He must just have arrived. What could be so urgent?

Her hand was still clenched around the palette knife which she had used to open the telegram. There was a smear of burnt sienna paint on the envelope. She put the knife on her easel. She had no choice but to meet him. She would have had to write herself, sooner or later anyway. She pulled off the smock which protected her clothes. In a way, it was a relief to have her hand forced. Despite everything, a little kick of excitement shivered through her.

Lindsey paid off the cab and made her way into the cavernous main concourse of Grand Central. As usual, it was a teeming throng of people from all walks of life. Porters rushed about pushing trolleys stacked with suitcases, trunks and hampers. Children played hide and seek from their nannies. Businessmen checked their watches against one of the four faces of the huge clock. In the background, the whistles from conductors and the hissing of the locomotives could be heard coming from the tracks.

She came here often to sketch, perched on one of the balconies under the dark blue of the ceiling, with its back-to-front stars, enjoying the panorama, the collision of all of New York’s worlds taking place on one stage below her. Often, she indulged in a late lunch at the Oyster Bar. Her cousin Lloyd had first taken her there when she was ten. It was a strange place for Jack to pick. She wondered how he knew about it. New Yorkers liked to think it one of their best-kept secrets.

Looking up at the big clock, she realised she was late. She smoothed down the soft pleats of her lemon dress, tugging the matching jacket straight, tucked an errant lock of hair back behind her ear and headed for the ramp. The Oyster Bar was on the lower level, under the beautiful tiled and vaulted ceilings which always made her feel as if she were in Italy, rather than deep underground in Manhattan.

Jack was sitting at a table tucked away in the far corner of the restaurant. She spotted him straight away. The shape of his head. The breadth of his shoulders. The something else which marked him out from every other man. He wasn’t just the most attractive man in the room, he was the only one.

“You came,” he said, standing up to take her hand in his, holding it between his own in a tight grip, gazing at her, not quite able to believe she was really there. He’d been waiting over an hour, terrified of missing her, feeling like a fool for choosing such a public place. But it was here, where it all began, when he had first seen her, his angel sent from heaven. If it had to end, if he were to be banished from paradise, it was fitting that it should be here too. And if they were to have their new beginning— dear God, please let it be here. Jack pulled out a chair. “Sit down. You look—you look beautiful.” He smiled tightly. “As always.”

Lindsey sat down. He looked tired. He was nervous. It took her a moment to recognise it. She had never seen him nervous before. Strangely, her own nerves had faded the moment she saw him. She wanted to put her arms around him and tell him it was all right. Whatever it was, it was all right. It was all she had ever wanted, to make it all right for him, if only he would let her.

She smiled at him reassuringly, touching his arm, which was resting on the table. “Of course I came. Though why you chose here—how did you even know this place existed?”

He took her hand again, turning her wedding band around on her finger. “This is where it all started. Us.”

“Here?” She looked confused. “We met on the boat. We’ve never been here before.”

Now he smiled at her. A strange little smile. “We have. This is where I first saw you, the day we sailed. I’d just got back from Chicago on the Pullman, and someone had told me I shouldn’t miss this place. You were sitting at this table. You were with a man, he had really bright red hair.”

“My cousin Lloyd.”

“You looked so pretty. So untouched. Right then and there, I wanted you. I’ve never felt anything like it in my life. I felt as if I knew you. Though of course I didn’t, and I could hardly go pushing my way in on your lunch date and introduce myself. I sat over there, and I watched you. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

“You never told me.”

The restaurant was crowded. Crockery and cutlery clattered. Waiters glided by with platters of oysters. Every now and then the soft sigh of a champagne bottle being expertly uncorked broke through the subdued chatter of the diners. In the midst of it all, Jack and Lindsey sat as if they were entirely alone, completely caught up in their own world, as if a bubble held them apart from the lunch-time crowd going about their business.

“No, I never told you,” Jack said. “I never told you lots of things. I didn’t want to contaminate you. But you said something that night at the Ritz which made me think. You said I gave you no choice. I meant it for the best but—anyway, I came here to tell you. Everything. And then, to let you choose. If you want to. If you’ll listen.”

He didn’t want a divorce. He wanted to talk. At last, he wanted to talk. Her heart was thumping so loudly she was surprised he couldn’t hear it. “Of course I’ll listen. You don’t even have to tie me to the chair,” Lindsey said with an attempt at humour.

Jack managed a thin smile. “I don’t know about you, but I think a glass of something would help.” He seemed only to raise an eyebrow and the waiter was at his side with a champagne bucket and glasses. “A toast,” Jack said with a wry look, once they were alone again. “To confessions.”

He touched his glass to hers, but he had as well kissed her, so intimate was the gesture. “To confessions.” Lindsey took a tentative sip of the sparkling wine. It was icy cold. Now that the moment had come, she felt almost as nervous as he. She had no idea what he was about to say, but she was terrified of how she would react. She so desperately did not want to let him down, not when it was costing him so much. She took another sip of champagne, but the bubbles were making her stomach churn. She put the glass to one side.

“There’s something about sea voyages, isn’t there,” Jack said thoughtfully.

“They make you forget all about the real world. That’s what I did when I saw you. At least—not forget, but I hoped it would go away. You were so pure and lovely and untouched. I thought it would be enough, just loving you. But the real world was still there, when we landed.”

He took a deep draft of champagne and topped up his glass. Lindsey’s remained virtually untouched.

“I was the youngest of three brothers,” Jack continued with an abrupt change of tone. “When the war broke out Harry, my oldest brother, was already in the army. George, my next brother, signed up straight away. I was nineteen. All I cared about then was engines. I wanted to build my own sports car and enter for the Monte Carlo race. I didn’t want to fight in a war, not even one everybody said would be over by Christmas.”

He sighed deeply. “But duty is a family tradition, so I followed Harry and George into the army. Not long after that my father died. Harry became the sixth earl. Poor Harry, less than a year later he died at the Somme, and George became the seventh earl. He died at the second battle of Ypres, so it was my turn. I’d never wanted the title. I never expected it, and to be honest, at the time I didn’t really think it mattered. The survival rates for officers were pretty slim, but I was one of the lucky ones. Compared to most, I had an easy war. A few pieces of shrapnel, a gas attack, but I made it more or less intact. The Eighth Earl of Crieff,” he said bitterly. “You’ve no idea how guilty I felt.”

“But it wasn’t your fault, Jack.”

“I know, but it doesn’t make any difference. It’s nearly six years ago now, but the pain and the guilt are just as fresh as ever. It’s so hard to explain. The war scarred us, all of us who took part. It set us apart from everyone else. We were never the same, it felt like nothing could ever be the same. And that feeling, the things we had been through—it’s not something anyone who hadn’t could ever understand. There were those of us who had been to war, and those of you who hadn’t. Like two separate species. You said to me that you wanted to heal me, but the last thing I wanted to do was let you see my wounds. Too many and too deep. Far too grotesque. I wanted to pretend they didn’t exist. I thought if I didn’t talk about it, it would all go away—the things I’d been forced to do, the things I’d seen other people do. The suffering.”

He stopped, his face pale, a cold sweat clammy on his brow. Lindsey pushed his glass towards him. Jack’s hand shook violently as he raised it to his mouth and took a large swallow. He mopped his face. “I didn’t want you tainted by what I’d been through. It was all so near the surface, and I was terrified of what it would do to you, to see the monstrous things inside me. You were right, I was afraid to let go. I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop falling.”

“I would have caught you.”

“No. I couldn’t ask that of you, and I don’t think you could have. Not then. Have you heard of shell shock? That’s the name for what I had. Still have. It’s a horrible thing to witness—you saw that once. Nightmares, screaming. Violent, uncontrollable shaking. Sweating. And there are blackouts too. Sometimes five minutes, sometimes days where I just wouldn’t remember anything. Where I’d been. What I’d done.”

“That’s what it was, that night? Do you mean you didn’t even remember me being there?” She felt sick with guilt, sick with the horror of what he was telling her.

“I remembered. I thought you couldn’t forgive me. I didn’t blame you—except I did. I couldn’t talk about it, Lindsey, I couldn’t explain it, I was so ashamed.”

“Ashamed!”

“Others had been through more, much more. I had no right…”

“Jack! You went through four years of hell. You had every right! I am so, so sorry. Do you still…”

“Yes. Not so often and not so bad, but sometimes. After I saw you at Lady Eleanor’s it got worse again. It might never go away.”

The enormity of what he had confessed filled her with a huge pity for what he had suffered so stoically for so long. She was awed by the effort of will it must have taken for him to hide it, his determination to cope alone, mortified by her own youthful inadequacy, her lack of understanding. “I thought you were drinking. Or taking drugs. Or that you had come to be so repelled by me that you couldn’t bear to be in my company. I never dreamed—God Jack, I just never thought. I am so sorry.” She wanted to wrap her body around him like a blanket. “It’s why we never shared a room, isn’t it? Why you locked yourself away from me. You were protecting me.”

“You always seemed so fragile. I couldn’t bear the thought of burdening you with something you couldn’t possibly cope with.”

“Something that was part of you. I thought you were avoiding me. I thought you regretted marrying me, and you were too English to say.”

Jack took a sip of iced water. The relief of his confession was making him tremble. “I drove you away. I made you leave. Deliberately, I think, you were right about that. But in some ways, it was never going to work. You so young, me so damaged, and more to the point, unwilling to admit it. I’ve changed that much. I know what’s wrong with me now. Back then, the time just wasn’t right, not for either of us.”

She was gripping his hand so tight her nails were white at the tips. Relief at finally hearing the truth surged through her, for horrific as it was, it was not the most horrific, that he did not love her. Guilt, pain, anguish, remorse, were swamped by the tidal wave of love which rushed over her as he peeled away the layers of his reserve and revealed himself in the raw. The most precious gift he could give her. “And now?” She hardly dared ask the question.

“I never stopped loving you. Seeing you again, it didn’t just bring it all back, it made me realise it would never go away. I love you. I loved you then, but I love you so much more now. And you’re different too. Stronger, more sure of yourself. I came here to tell you the truth—finally. To ask you to give me another chance, knowing the facts, knowing what you’d have to cope with—because it won’t go away. Not completely. Maybe never, you do understand that, don’t you,” Jack said urgently.

Lindsey nodded. “I do. And I understand what it cost you to tell me. Truly.” She clutched desperately at his hand. She would never, ever let him go.

“It’s up to you then,” Jack said. “To choose. I won’t blame you if you walk away now. I would understand.” He managed a rueful smile. “At least, I’d try to.”

“You won’t have to.” Lindsey’s eyes were awash with tears, alight with happiness. “I have always, always loved you. I will always, always choose you, no matter what. We were meant to be together. I am so sorry I didn’t understand. Just promise me there will be no more secrets.”

“I promise.” He had never looked at her like that. Exposed. Needy. Blatantly loving. “Now for God’s sake, just kiss me.”

She did. In full view of the diners and waiters, Lindsey kissed her husband. Over the red-and-white check cloth of the table, their lips met in a kiss that was a coming home and a promise, breaking apart only when the smattering of applause from their audience brought them down to earth.

“Let’s get out of here.” Jack threw down a handful of dollars and grabbed Lindsey’s hand. The gods were smiling. A cab awaited them outside on 42nd Street. They made it downtown in record time. In late afternoon, in the bedroom of Lindsey’s brownstone house, while neighbourhood kids played baseball in the street outside, they made love.

A new kind of love. The sun streaked through the lacy drapes, striping their bodies with its beams as they kissed, twining and curving into each other’s arms. They kissed slowly, tenderly, worshipping. They kissed as if they invented kissing, just for them. As if no one had ever kissed in such a way before or ever would again. Reverently. Sanctifying kisses. Bonding kisses. Giving kisses. Exorcising kisses. For as they licked and sipped and nipped and sucked, as their hands stroked and caressed, reclaimed and relearned, the ghosts of their past slid unnoticed out of the door, forever vanquished.

“I love you, Lindsey,” Jack said, trailing tiny kisses down the taut line of her throat. “I love you,” he said again, gently removing her jacket, her dress, his mouth trailing behind his fingers, soft and warm, sparking stars all over her skin, as if her body was a galaxy he must map.

She was trembling. Unaccountably nervous, so filled with feeling, she was afraid it would spill over too soon. She plucked at his jacket, his tie, his shirt, fingers shaky and clumsy, desperate for the reassuring heat of his skin. “I love you, Jack,” she murmured, nestling her cheek into the smooth planes of his chest, breathing deep of the scent of him, the essence of him which seemed to emanate from that very spot. “I love you so much.”

“You couldn’t possibly love me as much as I love you.”

There was just the hint of a smile in his voice. She looked up. Such a look in his eyes, it made her catch her breath. “Jack.”

More kissing. Less clothes. He nudged her towards the bed. She lay passive as he removed her underwear, her stockings, still tasting and licking, tracing every vein, joint, curve, crease, dip, and swelling, his fingers so sensitive, his tongue so enticingly delicate, that by the time she was naked her skin was ablaze with light and heat and she felt as if she were floating in a euphoric haze. There wasn’t any bit of her he hadn’t touched except…

There! A lightning bolt of feeling. He was kneeling on the ground, naked, his mouth pressed between her legs. His tongue licking its way through her slick pinkness with delicious intention. He had never done this before. She had never felt anything like this before. Heavy and languorous, and yet at the same time suddenly sharp and glittering. Every shining part of her body braced itself and gathered itself as the light shivered its way towards the point where there was Jack’s mouth, his lips, his tongue, and her own swelling, throbbing, pulsing glow of a climax building and building and building under his touch.

Never, never, never had she felt like this before. So certain. So without doubt. She had only to follow where he led and it would happen. His hands coaxed her legs further apart, stroking their way under her to pull her closer to him. She could do nothing but obey, mindless now with wanting. He kissed her, his mouth seeming to envelop her, then his tongue licked slowly, slowly, slowly, building and waiting and then building again, higher and higher and higher, circling and climbing, up and up and up until he seemed to know she was there because it felt as if things came to a swollen point and something inside her thrust through and there she was at the summit and it was heady and she couldn’t breathe but she found enough voice to cry his name, over and over and over. And even before she was aware of the aching need which went with the thundering climax he was on top of her and inside her, every beautiful perfect delightful inch of him. And even as she clutched and pulsed and shivered her climax, that slow sure build started again as he pushed into her and drew out, pushed in and drew, each time a little harder, each time a little faster.

His chest was damp with sweat. A lock of hair fell over his brow, curling like a question mark. Her legs were twined around his waist, her heels resting on the curve of his buttocks, his hands under her, lifted and angled her. Close, but they could be closer still. His eyes were fixed on hers, not watching but communing. Searing into her, bared and naked for her. She clutched at him, tugged at him, pulling his head down to envelop his mouth with hers.

Close but not close enough. A burning rod of heat he was, inside her. Forging higher. She arched up against him, moaning as the movement opened up more space for him to fill, and he filled it. She was fearless. She was triumphant. She was flying, and he was there with her. She was not alone. She would never be alone, never again.

“Jack.”

His name, just his name, but it was all he needed to hear. “Lindsey. I love you so much, Lindsey.” A thrust, one last hard long impossibly high thrust, and he came, and in their kiss was mingled her name, and she was lit up from the inside so that she glowed as never before and he was free and at the same time forever united, and he had never thought that falling could be so liberating, for she was there with him after all, just as she had promised. To catch him. To hold close. To keep him safe. As he would keep her safe. Tucked into his heart.

Nothing had ever been like this. Nothing. Ever. Finally, six years after they met, they were one. No gaps. No space. Seamless. Not Lindsey and Jack. Not even husband and wife. Something new. Them. One.

“I love you,” Jack said, curving her into him, kissing her brow, stroking her closer, so close she could feel his heart bumping against hers.

“I love you too,” Lindsey said with a sated, sleepy smile. “And when I wake up, I’ll love you even more.”

And when she woke up, she found it was true. They made love once more, this time a long slow relishing of each other, rocking and sliding into a crescendo which built so gradually its climax took them unawares, whirling them together onto a wholly new plane of sensation, where they glided, entwined, in a state of bliss.

Outside, dusk had fallen. “I brought you a present,” Jack said. “Let me get it.” He rolled out of bed and retrieved the small box from his jacket pocket. Lindsey was sprawled, delightfully naked on the bed. Her hair was ruffled. Her eyes were slumberous, her skin dusky with the remnants of their passion. “You look like an angel lying there,” he said, “a very, very desirable one.”

She smiled, her mouth bruised with their kisses, curling up in the slow, sure curve of one who knows she is loved. Jack stood over the bed looking down at her. The little lines at the corners of his eyes had smoothed out. He looked years younger. There was a tiny mark on his shoulder where she had bit him. Amazingly, she felt the stirrings of desire deep inside her again. She allowed her eyes to drift down his body, the muscled torso, the flat stomach, and down. Rather wonderfully, she could see her own stirrings reflected there. He was hardening even as she watched him. “Come back to bed Jack,” she said huskily.

“Don’t you want your present?”

She reached out her left hand to touch his shaft, running her hand up its length. Solid now. “Yes I do,” she said with a naughty chuckle, looking at him meaningfully.

Jack took her hand. He opened the little box, and extracted a stunningly beautiful diamond ring from the dark velvet interior. He slipped it on to the third finger of her left hand, above her wedding band. It fit perfectly. “We never did it properly, did we? I want to do it properly this time.” He dropped gracefully to his knee. “Darling Lindsey, say you’ll be mine, always. Say you’ll be my wife always. And I will promise to love you more every day of our lives. Always.”

Lindsey blinked away a tear. She pulled him back onto the bed beside her, snuggled tight into him as if she would pull his skin around her. “I love you so much Jack. This time it will be different. I promise.”

He kissed her tenderly. “Do you like your present?”

The diamond sparkled and winked at her. “I love it. It’s perfect.” She took a deep breath. “I have a present for you too. Only, it’s not quite ready yet.”

He tilted up her chin to look deep into her eyes. “Is it another painting? The one you sent me—I never said. It was beautiful. Very sad, but very beautiful. It made me…”

“Jack, it’s not another painting.”

A sudden premonition made his heart soar. “How long before it’s ready?”

Lindsey laid his hand on her stomach. “About six months,” she whispered.

His smile was one of the purest joy. Though he had thought it impossible, somewhere out there on the horizon, he could sense it. Hope rising like the dawn. A fresh start. He kissed her slowly, holding her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. As she was.

If you liked this story, look for more Harlequin Historical UNDONE ebooks by Marguerite Kaye now available wherever ebooks are sold:

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Born and educated in Scotland, Marguerite Kaye originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practice, a decision which was a relief, both to her and the Scottish legal Establishment. While carving out a successful career in IT, she occupied herself with her twin passions of studying history and reading, picking up a first class honours and a Masters degree along the way.

The course of her life changed dramatically when she found her soul mate. After an idyllic year out, spent travelling round the Mediterranean, Marguerite decided to take the plunge and pursue her life-long ambition to write for a living, a dream she had cherished ever since winning a national poetry competition at the age of nine.

Just like one of her fictional heroines, Marguerite’s fantasy has become reality. She has published history and travel articles, as well as short stories, but romances are her passion. Marguerite describes Georgette Heyer and Doris Day as her biggest early influences, and her partner as her inspiration.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-5299-2

Temptation is the Night

Copyright © 2010 by Marguerite Kaye

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