Mills & Boon is proud to present a fabulous collection of fantastic novels by bestselling, much loved author

ANNE MATHER

Anne has a stellar record of achievement within the

publishing industry, having written over one hundred

and sixty books, with worldwide sales of more than

forty-eight MILLION copies in multiple languages.

This amazing collection of classic stories offers a chance

for readers to recapture the pleasure Anne’s powerful,

passionate writing has given.

We are sure you will love them all!

I’ve always wanted to write—which is not to say I’ve always wanted to be a professional writer. On the contrary, for years I only wrote for my own pleasure and it wasn’t until my husband suggested sending one of my stories to a publisher that we put several publishers’ names into a hat and pulled one out. The rest, as they say, is history. And now, one hundred and sixty-two books later, I’m literally—excuse the pun—staggered by what’s happened.

I had written all through my infant and junior years and on into my teens, the stories changing from children’s adventures to torrid gypsy passions. My mother used to gather these manuscripts up from time to time, when my bedroom became too untidy, and dispose of them! In those days, I used not to finish any of the stories and Caroline, my first published novel, was the first I’d ever completed. I was newly married then and my daughter was just a baby, and it was quite a job juggling my household chores and scribbling away in exercise books every chance I got. Not very professional, as you can imagine, but that’s the way it was.

These days, I have a bit more time to devote to my work, but that first love of writing has never changed. I can’t imagine not having a current book on the typewriter—yes, it’s my husband who transcribes everything on to the computer. He’s my partner in both life and work and I depend on his good sense more than I care to admit.

We have two grown-up children, a son and a daughter, and two almost grown-up grandchildren, Abi and Ben. My e-mail address is mystic-am@msn.com and I’d be happy to hear from any of my wonderful readers.

Follow Thy Desire
Anne Mather

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IT was just a week to the wedding. Sitting before the mirror of her dressing table, putting the finishing touches to her make-up, Helen couldn’t quite believe it. Wide-eyed, she stroked mascara on to her lashes, her brows ascending in a gesture of incredulity. Six months ago, when Barry had first put his ring on her finger, the fifteenth of October had seemed a very long way away. But gradually, through those warm lazy days of summer, the time had slipped away, and now it loomed ahead with nothing between but a last-minute fitting for her bridal gown, and the usual round of gatherings arranged to meet the members of Barry’s family with whom she had yet to become acquainted. Barry had still to meet her aunt from Coventry who was coming north for the wedding, and her cousins Alison and Linda, who were to be bridesmaids, and there was his uncle and aunt from Basingstoke, and his stepbrother, Morgan, from East Africa, all of whom Helen had never met.

She had heard of Morgan, of course. Barry’s father had died when he was quite young and his mother had married again, to a widower who already had a teenage son. Barry had been too young to have much in common with his older stepbrother, and university followed by several years training at a London teaching hospital had not helped to seal the gap. By the time Barry was old enough to go to university, Morgan had married and left the country, and was presently living in Osweba, one of the emergent African states. Barry didn’t talk much about him, but his stepfather did, more in fact as time went by, and Helen guessed the old man regretted that his only son should have chosen to live so far away from his family. Yet his marriage to Barry’s mother had produced a daughter, and Barry and Susan were as close as any brother and sister. She was also to be one of Helen’s bridesmaids, although Helen herself found the younger girl rather silly and spoilt.

Rising from the padded bench that faced the mirror, Helen considered her reflection with critical eyes. Shoulder-length hair, the colour of maple syrup, framed a face which what it lacked in beauty more than made up for in warmth and vivacity. Wide brown eyes, unusual with her colour of hair, high cheekbones, and a full-lipped generous mouth, she attracted attention wherever she went, and while she wasn’t conceited, she was aware that men found her attractive. She was quite tall and slim, although not excessively so, and her work in therapy had taught her the art of listening to what people were saying and giving them her full attention, which was in itself an attractive trait. So many girls were too busy or too full of their own importance to pay attention to what other people were saying, particularly older people, but Helen always showed interest and maybe that was why Barry’s father had confided his anxiety about his son to her.

Wrapping the long cream velvet skirt about her waist, she recalled what he had told her the previous week. Mr Fox had written to Morgan, inviting him and his wife and daughter to the wedding, telling him that they were welcome to stay with the family. Morgan’s reply had been less than reassuring. He would be coming to England for the wedding, he said, but his marriage had broken up and his daughter, fifteen-year-old Andrea, preferred to stay at their home in Nrubi and therefore would not be accompanying him.

Now, as Helen tied the cords of the cream figured jerkin that matched her evening skirt, she felt a pang of sympathy for the man who had always treated Barry like his own son. Still, Morgan had arrived home early this morning, and when Barry telephoned her later, inviting her round for dinner that evening, he had not sounded too concerned about his stepfather.

‘I can’t promise you the fatted calf,’ he had teased his fiancée, ‘but Mum and Mrs Parsons have been in the kitchen since nine o’clock, and I’m pretty sure it will be something special.’

Helen had laughed and said she was looking forward to meeting his brother, but she couldn’t help wishing Morgan Fox had not brought his troubles to blight this week which should have been such a happy one for all of them.

Her bedroom door opened as she was adding a touch of perfume to her wrists, and her younger sister, Jennifer, stood regarding her admiringly. Jennifer was just fourteen, but she was tall, as tall as Helen, in fact, and although Susan Fox was three years older they were much of a size. Jennifer was the fourth bridesmaid, and as it was her first opportunity to attend at a wedding, she was more excited about the ceremony than Helen herself.

‘Barry’s here,’ she said now, hands tucked into the waistband of the jeans she invariably wore. ‘Are you ready?’

Helen nodded. ‘I think so. Do I look all right?’

Jennifer pulled a critical face. ‘I guess so. That’s new, isn’t it? Honestly, you’ve got more clothes than anyone I know!’

Helen gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘When you start earning some money,’ she replied, ‘you’ll be able to buy your own clothes, too. And besides, this is part of my trousseau.’

‘So why are you wearing it tonight?’

Helen sighed. ‘I don’t see what it has to do with you, but as I’m meeting Barry’s brother for the first time, I wanted to look—decent.’

Jennifer grimaced. ‘Decent!’ she echoed. ‘You always look decent, and you know it. What is it with this brother of Barry’s? Why should you want to impress him?’

‘It’s not a question of impressing him,’ exclaimed Helen tersely. ‘Anyway, you should mind your own business.’

‘Why? He’s nobody. He’s old, isn’t he? Barry’s twenty-four, and he said he was at least twelve years older than him.’

Helen raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh? So you’ve been talking to Barry about him, too, have you?’

Jennifer coloured then. ‘I only asked. I was curious, that’s all. Barry said I could go round and meet him tomorrow, if I liked.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’ Helen was beginning to feel impatient now. ‘Mum and Dad are inviting him to dinner on Tuesday. You can meet him then.’

‘Barry says he has a daughter about the same age as me, but she’s not coming to the wedding. He said that he and his wife have split up.’

‘Barry seems to have said an awful lot,’ declared Helen, picking up her fur jacket and slinging it about her shoulders, not quite knowing why that knowledge irritated her so, and Jennifer made another face before flouncing off downstairs ahead of her.

Barry was waiting with her parents in the lounge. He was a tall, good-looking young man, with dark curly hair and blue eyes. After passing his exams he had got a good job in the Borough Surveyor’s department, and he and Helen were to live in a furnished flat in York until they could afford to buy a house of their own. Helen was to go on working for the time being, and as she was only twenty-one, there would be plenty of time for having children later. She had known Barry for years, they had attended the same grammar school, but it was not until about a year ago that she had actually consented to go out with him.

Now he came to greet her warmly, bending his head to bestow an affectionate kiss on her lips. ‘You look great!’ he murmured, and then moved aside to allow her parents to look at her.

‘Are you sure that skirt won’t get marked?’ asked Mrs Raynor anxiously. ‘It would be a shame if you spoiled it before you went away.’

Their honeymoon was booked in Majorca, and they all hoped the weather would be warmer there than it was in England at present.

‘It is washable,’ said Helen tolerantly, and her father from his stance before the hearth added: ‘Take no notice of her, love. You look beautiful, doesn’t she, Barry? All in cream like that. Could be a wedding gown!’

‘Oh, don’t say that!’ exclaimed Mrs Raynor, shaking her head. ‘Don’t you know it’s unlucky for the groom to see the bride in her wedding dress before they’re in church!’

‘But she’s not wearing her wedding dress, is she?’ demanded her husband irritably. ‘I only said—–’

‘I know what you said,’ Mrs Raynor interrupted him, and sensing an argument, Helen took Barry’s arm and drew him towards the door.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s leave them to it. I’m hungry if you’re not.’

Outside, Barry’s sleek Triumph sat smugly on the drive of the Raynors’ semi. He helped Helen into the front seat, and then walked round the bonnet to climb in beside her, flashing her another smiling look of possession as he stretched for the ignition.

‘Dinner’s not until eight,’ he said, reversing carefully into the road. ‘Morgan’s slept most of the day, so Mum’s put the meal back an hour.’

Helen nodded. ‘I expect he was very tired. It’s a long journey.’

‘Yes.’ Barry frowned. ‘I’m surprised he came, actually, as Andrea wasn’t coming and Pamela’s left him.’

‘Well, I’m not.’ Helen’s brows drew together. ‘Mr Fox is his father, after all. And he hasn’t seen him for—what? Five years?’

‘Four,’ said Barry shortly. ‘But I don’t see the connection. We’ve seen next to nothing of him ever since he qualified.’

‘Yes, but you’re getting married now,’ said Helen gently. ‘Naturally he would want to attend your wedding.’

‘Would he?’ Barry didn’t sound convinced, and Helen wondered if he wasn’t feeling just the tiniest bit resentful of the fuss his parents were making of the prodigal.

Deciding a change of subject was needed, she put her hand on his arm and said softly: ‘I wonder what we’ll be doing this time next week?’ and was rewarded by a return of Barry’s good humour.

‘Well, not spending the evening having dinner with my parents,’ he declared huskily, and she bent her head to rest it against his shoulder.

‘I can’t; help wishing it was this time next week,’ she murmured, but not quite for the reasons he imagined. ‘I shall be glad when all the fuss is over. I wish we’d planned to have a quiet wedding, with just the two families, instead of this enormous affair at St Giles, and a hundred guests at the reception.’

‘You’ll enjoy it,’ exclaimed Barry, covering her hand with his own. ‘You’ll see. Besides, after the way Morgan went off and got married in a register office, Mum wanted me to have a proper wedding. We couldn’t disappoint everyone.’

‘No, I suppose not.’ Helen allowed a faint sigh to escape her, and then Barry was turning between the gates of Banklands, the Foxes’ detached house on the outskirts of town.

Mr Fox was in the textile trade, and while some years ago his firm had suffered a recession, in recent months things had begun to improve. The introduction of chemicals into the wool fibre to enable it to be machine-washed without shrinking had rallied an already increasing demand for woollen products, and Helen knew Barry expected a generous donation towards the deposit on their house when they decided to buy. This mercenary streak in her fiancé was the only fault she abhorred, but she was sure that once they were married he would stop depending on his stepfather for every large outlay he had to make.

Banklands was a nice house, Helen thought. Built of Yorkshire stone, with square walls and a solid appearance, it had become almost a second home to her in recent months, and Mrs Fox already treated her like a second daughter.

It was Barry’s mother who met them when they entered the panelled hall of the house, looking much younger than her forty-seven years in a simple, but expensively-styled, gown of apricot silk. She exchanged a warm smile with her son, offered her perfumed cheek to his fiancée, and then said: ‘Oh, good. I’m glad you’re here. The dinner’s going to be ready a full fifteen minutes before we expected, so if you’d like to go and have a drink I’ll tell Mrs Parsons we’ll be ready at a quarter to.’

Helen removed her jacket and left it on the padded chair at the foot of the stairs, and then walked at Barry’s side across the carpeted floor and into the Foxes’ drawing room. This was the largest room in the house, with the high corniced ceiling of a bygone age. Mr Fox had employed a firm of interior decorators to do the house through just over a year ago, and now the tall walls were hung with gold-figured silk which exactly matched the tapestry work on the olive green sofas that faced one another across the width of the hearth. The thick carpet underfoot was green and gold, too, while the furniture was soft colours, teak and walnut, with an ebony baby grand piano to grace the window embrasure.

Mr Fox was standing on the hearth as they entered, talking to a man who was stretched lazily on one of the sofas, his head resting against the upholstery, his legs extended across the hearth. The man got to his feet politely as Helen and Barry entered the drawing room, and like his father he smiled as they approached.

But there the resemblance ended. Morgan Fox was an inch or two taller than both his father and Barry, and infinitely leaner. His skin, startlingly brown against that of the other men, was stretched tautly across his features, accentuating the hollows in his cheeks and drawing attention to the curious yellowish cast of his eyes. But it was his hair that attracted Helen’s interest—so pale as to appear silver in some lights and such an unusual contrast with such dark skin. His clothes, too, did not fit as snugly as Barry’s, as if he had lost weight recently; yet there was about him an aura of sensuality that required no further propagation. Altogether a disturbing man, Helen thought, shocked by her instantaneous recognition of this.

If she was disturbed by her reactions to Barry’s stepbrother, Morgan at least did not return her feelings. His polite smile of greeting did not reach those peculiar eyes, and almost immediately he turned to Barry, asking him what they would both like to drink.

‘I can manage, thanks,’ retorted Barry offhandedly, and asking Helen if she would like the usual, he went towards the bar which, when closed, was completely concealed behind a row of bookshelves. Presently, however, it stood open, displaying its mirror-lined interior, glittering with an array of bottles and glasses. Judging by the two empty glasses resting on the mantelshelf, Helen guessed that Morgan and his father had been imbibing already, which might account for that air of brooding detachment about him.

To cover the slight moment of embarrassment Barry’s behaviour might have caused, Helen exchanged a look of apology with Mr Fox and then smiled at Morgan. ‘Did you have a good journey?’ she enquired, hoping she sounded more casual than she felt, and was relieved when his father remarked:

‘I was just saying to Morgan how far away Africa always seems, and yet one can fly there in a matter of hours.’

‘Yes,’ Helen nodded. ‘The world’s getting smaller all the time.’ Then, realising her words were trite, she flushed as Morgan Fox’s eyes rested fleetingly upon her.

‘Have you travelled much—Helen?’ he asked in the space that followed, and she quickly made a negative gesture.

‘Oh, no, not really. Not any distance, anyway. Just to Spain—and to France. For holidays, you know. I went to France with the school, actually. Barry went too, as it happened, but he was older than I was and I didn’t know him very well in those days.’

She was chattering, and realising she was, she shut up, offering a look of apology to Barry as he came to rejoin them. He handed Helen a Martini and soda and then, raising his glass to her, took a mouthful of his own gin and tonic.

‘Is it cold out?’ asked Mr Fox, indicating that Helen should take a seat, and she sank down on to one of the low sofas as Barry said: ‘Not as cold as it was earlier. The wind’s dropped.’

‘I expect it still feels pretty cold to you, Morgan, doesn’t it?’ his father commented wryly, and his son moved his shoulders in a dismissing gesture.

‘The nights can be damn cold where we live,’ he replied evenly, turning to lift his glass from the shelf. ‘Can I get you another drink, Dad? Or is that your limit?’

Mr Fox agreed to have another Scotch, and he accompanied his son to the bar as Barry dropped down on to the sofa beside Helen. ‘Drink all right?’ he murmured, the coolness he had exhibited towards his stepfather and Morgan evaporating as he looked at her, and she nodded.

‘How—er—how long is Morgan staying?’ she asked in a low voice, hoping to take the tension out of the situation, but Barry’s lips tightened as she mentioned his stepbrother’s name.

‘I don’t know. Ten days—a fortnight, maybe. He’ll be gone by the time we get back from our honeymoon, thank God!’

‘Why?’ Helen stared at him aghast, and his pale cheeks darkened with sudden colour.

‘Oh, I don’t know. He just rubs me up the wrong way, I suppose. Coming back here. Acting like he Owned the place. Offering me a drink!’

Helen smoothed the pad of her thumb round the rim of her glass. ‘Well, this is his home, too,’ she observed reasonably, and her fiancé gave her an impatient look.

‘It’s not his home. His home is in Nrubi, wherever that might be. It’s a pity he didn’t stay there.’

Helen sighed, and then Susan Fox erupted into the room with her transistor, slim and attractive in purple pants and an embroidered smock. ‘Hi, Helen,’ she greeted her brother’s fiancée lightly over the din of the pop programme being broadcast, and then went to join her father and Morgan by the bar. ‘Can I have a Martini?’ they heard her asking, before Morgan said something in response that made them all laugh.

Beside Helen, Barry stiffened, and she felt a reluctant sense of sympathy for him. He was jealous, she realised regretfully. For so long he had commanded Mr Fox’s undivided attention that he had come to regard it as his right. Morgan’s blood relationship to his stepfather was a thorn in his side, but it was only a temporary thing. Why couldn’t he see that? wondered Helen uneasily, herself aware that Morgan Fox was not a man one could ignore.

She was seated beside Morgan at dinner. In the spacious dining room they were seated at the square mahogany table which Mrs Parsons had decorated with slender silver rose holders, and the candles in the silver candelabrum gave off a delicate perfume as they ate. There was minestrone and roast beef, accompanied by real Yorkshire pudding, and a steamed pudding to follow.

‘Real north country fare,’ said Mr Fox with satisfaction, as Mrs Parsons brought in the apple dumpling, and Morgan gave him a wry smile.

‘You’re making me wish I’d never left home,’ he remarked, wiping his mouth with his napkin, and Mrs Fox regarded him reprovingly.

‘You look as though you could do with some home cooking,’ she commented with characteristic candour. ‘Look at your father and Barry. They must be at least half a stone heavier than you!’

Morgan accepted his generous portion of apple dumpling without comment, but glancing sideways at him, Helen caught the mocking gleam in his eye.

‘Do I look so undernourished?’ he asked in an undertone, and she had to school her features to prevent herself from giggling.

‘Not to me,’ she answered in a low voice, and this time he looked directly at her.

It was a devastating experience. This close she could see the silvery tips of his lashes, short thick lashes that just missed being feminine. But there was nothing feminine about his face, with its gaunt cheekbones and deeply set eyes. It was aggressively masculine, and possessed that doubtful distinction—sexuality. Returning his gaze was like looking into a deep pool, that invited as well as repelled.

The sure awareness that Barry was watching them brought her eyes back sharply to her plate, but when she ventured to lift her lids her fiancé was still looking at her. She arched her brows in silent, if not very convincing, interrogation, but Barry just continued looking at her, his eyes cold and lacking in sympathy.

The remainder of the meal passed, for Helen, in discomfited silence, and she was glad when Mrs Fox suggested they had coffee in the drawing room and she could escape from Barry’s inimical stare.

Susan joined her as they crossed the hall, whispering insinuatively: ‘Just six more days, Helen! Just imagine—a week tonight you’ll be in Alcudia.’

‘Yes.’ Helen sounded distracted and Susan gave her a second look.

‘What’s wrong? Getting cold feet?’

‘No—–’

Helen was impatient, but Susan overrode her denial insisting: ‘I know. It’s Morgan, isn’t it? I saw the way you were looking at him at dinner. Are you thinking he’s more of a man than Barry will ever be?’

‘Susan!’

Helen was angry now, but Susan was unrepentant. ‘You can’t fool me,’ she insisted. ‘I can see how attractive he is. I could even be attracted to him myself.’

‘Susan!’

‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not quite that stupid. But if I was only his stepsister…’

Mrs Fox’s hand on Helen’s arm-made her start violently, and the older woman looked at her strangely as she said: ‘Pour the coffee, will you, Helen? I want to help Mrs Parsons clear the table and then she can load the machine while I relax.’

‘Yes, Mrs Fox.’ Helen swallowed her embarrassment, and seated herself beside the low table where Mrs Parsons had already placed the tray, just as Barry and his stepfather came into the room. Barry came straight across to her, seating himself beside her, and she gave him rather a nervous look before asking Mr Fox how he would like his coffee.

‘Oh, black, please,’ declared the older man, slipping his arm about his daughter’s waist as she came to stand beside him. Then he bestowed a teasing look upon her. ‘I suppose you’ll be next,’ he remarked, squeezing her affectionately. ‘I wonder who the lucky man will be?’

‘Don’t you mean the unlucky man?’ remarked Barry sarcastically, and Susan pulled a face at him.

‘Well, when I do choose to get married, it won’t be to some stuffy civil servant!’ she retorted. ‘Why—why, Morgan’s got more guts in his little finger than you’ve got in your whole body!’

Her words were intended to be jibing. Barry and Susan often indulged in this harmless kind of baiting, and neither of them took it seriously. But tonight Helen sensed an underlying note of bitterness, and she guessed Susan’s admiration for her half-brother had added fuel to Barry’s already smouldering resentment. It was perhaps fortunate that Morgan was not around to hear his stepbrother’s savage indictment of doctors who allowed this country to pay for their training and then took themselves off to some more lucrative practice overseas.

‘I hardly think Osweba qualifies in that category,’ Mr Fox interposed quietly, at this unwarranted criticism of his son, and Helen hastily handed Barry his coffee before he could say anything more.

It was with mixed feelings that she saw Morgan coming into the room just then, but as Helen’s hands were occupied with her own coffee, Susan took the opportunity to pour Morgan’s coffee herself.

Barry replaced his empty cup on the tray with a decisive clatter, and then said shortly: ‘Well?’

Helen, who had been expecting this, made no attempt to evade the question. ‘If you mean what I think you mean, then aren’t you being a little small-minded?’

‘Is it small-minded to object if my fiancée makes eyes at my stepbrother?’ he snapped, and Helen gasped.

‘I—I didn’t!’

‘What would you call it, then?’

‘I—we—we spoke half a dozen words together, that’s all.’

‘I’m not objecting to what you said!’

‘Oh, Barry…’ Helen replaced her own cup now, glancing about them uncomfortably. But fortunately no one seemed to be paying any attention to them and she turned reproachful eyes upon him. ‘Can’t I even look at another man? Heavens, he’s your own brother!’

‘Stepbrother,’ Barry corrected briefly. Then he scuffed his toe against the leg of the coffee table. ‘Oh, what the hell! There’s nothing I can do about it.’

Helen sighed. ‘There’s nothing to do!’ she said imploringly, fiddling with the coffee pot. ‘Would you like another cup?’

‘No, thanks.’

Barry shook his head, but Helen was relieved when his mother came to join them and conversation became general. Naturally the wedding came under discussion, and those final arrangements that were still left to make. Talking about the white Mercedes he had hired for the occasion, Barry came out of his black mood, and Helen relaxed as her fiancé extolled the virtues of foreign cars. It was a favourite topic with him, and she allowed her head to rest against the back of the sofa and her thoughts to drift.

Almost compulsively, her gaze moved round the circle to rest on Morgan Fox’s unusually light hair. It was thick and straight, with a side parting that left several heavy strands to fall across his forehead. From time to time he pushed them back, his long brown fingers combing through his hair and occasionally resting in a curiously weary gesture at the back of his neck. His hair was shorter than Barry’s, barely brushing his collar at the back, and he didn’t wear the long sideburns Barry effected and which gave her fiancé’s face a rather artistic appearance. She thought he looked rather tired, and this knowledge brought a wave of unwilling anxiety sweeping over her. Yet what did it matter to her if Barry’s stepbrother needed some sleep? Why should she be concerned? Anyone who had just flown five thousand miles would be tired, particularly bearing in mind the time change.

Realising she was staring at him again, she quickly looked away, relieved to see that no one else had observed her betraying appraisal. But even though she concentrated on the delicate pattern of the coffee cups, she could still see his face and the sensual fullness of his bottom lip.

He moved, giving her a reason to look his way, and her eyes ran over the long muscular legs outlined beneath the dark blue lounge suit he was wearing. She wondered if he was more at home in shorts or safari suits, and guessed he found an excess of clothing uncomfortable after so long in the tropics. This time his eyes flickered over hers, but their appraisal was cool and detached, and she pretended there was a speck of dust on her skirt in an effort to avoid detection of her interest.

The conversation had shifted to Morgan now and Helen listened as he answered his father’s questions about the politics of Osweba. Then, inevitably, his daughter was brought into the conversation and it was with obvious reluctance he produced his wallet and the photograph of the bespectacled teenager everyone called Andy.

Barry barely glanced at his niece, but Helen studied the portrait with avid curiosity, trying to gauge something of the girl’s personality from that small likeness.

‘She doesn’t look much like you,’ remarked Susan, with her usual lack of tact, but Morgan merely smiled.

‘Oh, she is, I assure you,’ he said, pushing the picture back into his wallet. ‘There are more ways than one of resembling someone.’

‘Do you mean she’s brainy?’ demanded Susan, rolling her eyes in mock derision, but her mother reproved her, saying:

‘I expect Morgan means that she likes the same things he does,’ which aroused a contemptuous snort from Barry.

‘What are we supposed to infer from that?’ he enquired unpleasantly. ‘When she can’t even be bothered to turn up for the wedding?’

‘Barry!’ Mr Fox halted the conversation there, and Helen felt as embarrassed as if she had been a party to her fiancé’s outburst. ‘I think we’re all suffering from a bout of pre-wedding nerves, and as I’m sure Morgan will be glad to get to bed, I suggest you take Helen home now, hmm?’

Barry looked as if he would have liked to have said more, but his mother’s disapproval, added to that of his stepfather, kept him silent. Morgan said nothing and it was left to Susan to break the ominous silence that had fallen.

‘Can I come round tomorrow and try on those sandals you said I could borrow?’ she asked lightly, as if nothing untoward had occurred, and Helen rose to her feet, nodding her relief.

‘Of course,’ she said, as Morgan and his father rose, too. ‘It’s Sunday, so come whenever you like.’

‘All right.’ Susan grinned cheekily up at her older brother. ‘You can take me, if you like. You’d like to meet Helen’s parents, wouldn’t you?’

Barry’s face was reddening again, and Helen urged him towards the door. But outside, with her goodnights said and the irritation of Morgan’s polite farewell colouring her tones, she exclaimed:

‘What on earth did you think you were doing? Speaking to your stepbrother like that! Embarrassing everybody!’

‘Embarrassing you, you mean, don’t you?’ retorted Barry moodily, leaving her to close the passenger side door herself and striding angrily around the bonnet. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you!’

‘What’s got into me?’ she echoed, as he pulled away. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! You’ve been spoiling for an argument ever since we got into the car to come here.’

‘Oh, have I?’

‘Yes, you have. And it’s purely jealousy, that’s all. You’re jealous because your stepfather is making a fuss of his own son. His own son! Don’t you think you owe it to him to be polite, whatever your private feelings might be?’

Barry did not answer and they covered the test of the distance between Banklands and her parents’ house in silence. But after he had brought the car to a halt and Helen made to get out, Barry’s hand on her arm stopped her, and in the light from the street lamps she saw his scowl of contrition.

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered grudgingly, and she knew it was up to her to make the next move.

‘So am I,’ she murmured, and his lips brushed lightly across her cheek and found hers.

For several minutes there again was silence in the car, but this time of a much more satisfying sort. Nevertheless, when Barry’s hand probed beneath the fastening of her jacket, she gently pushed him away and thrust open the car door.

‘We’ve waited this long,’ she reminded him lightly, and he bowed his head in reluctant assent.

‘Okay,’ he said, leaning across to close the door again. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night? You haven’t forgotten we’re going to Peter and Liz’s, have you?’

‘Tomorrow evening?’ She shook her head. ‘Of course not. What time will you pick me up? About seven?’

‘About then,’ he agreed, and with a smile he left her, the Triumph reversing away noisily into the quiet road.

If Helen’s parents had expected a long discussion about Morgan Fox’s arrival, they were disappointed. After the briefest of explanations about the dinner party and why she should be home by half past ten, which was early for her, Helen excused herself and went to bed, glad that Jennifer was not around to add her voice to the proceedings.

But in her room she found that sleep was very far from her thoughts. For the first time, she really began to contemplate the implications of the step she was taking, and to wonder whether Barry would have recovered his good humour so willingly if they had already been man and wife. She had never really considered that Barry might be a jealous person. In truth, she had never ever given him cause to display such feelings, content as always just to be with him, to know herself cared for and protected, the envy of many of her friends. Barry was everything any girl could ever wish for—tall and dark and handsome, with a good job with good prospects, and no financial problems. He had always treated her with gentleness, respecting her rather old-fashioned notions of chastity, realising that if he tried to force her to do something she would regret, he would lose her loyalty and trust.

This evening he had displayed an entirely unknown facet of his character, and why? Because she had shown a quite natural interest in his stepbrother. What had she done, after all? Spoken to Morgan at dinner, and shared a perfectly innocent joke with him. It was ludicrous for Barry to get angry over something so innocent. Good heavens, if she had been found in Morgan’s arms he could not have reacted more positively, short of actual physical combat, and the injustice of his behaviour brought a wave of resentment sweeping over her.

Untying the waistband of her skirt, she tore it off impatiently, tossing it carelessly on to the bed. She should have said more, she fumed, unlacing her jerkin. So why hadn’t she? The answer was as unpalatable as the question, and she pulled her silk wrapper over her shoulders with fingers that were not quite steady. The truth was that deep inside her she knew Barry had had some justification for his suspicions. Not that he could have known that, of course. Her feelings had been well hidden. But she couldn’t deny that Morgan Fox disturbed her in a way that she had never experienced before, and that knowledge had left her feeling raw and exposed. She remembered once, some years ago, a girl she used to go to school with had asked her whether she had ever lost control with a boy. Helen had regarded the girl rather pityingly and replied that she didn’t believe in all that nonsense; that people said things like that to excuse their own inadequacies. The girl had retorted tartly that if that was what she thought, she must be either stupid or frigid, and Helen had never forgiven her for throwing her remarks back in her face. Tonight, however, she felt strangely vulnerable to that memory, as if she stood on the brink of some certain revelation that would put paid once and for all to her sane and ordered existence.

CHAPTER TWO

HELEN was in the garden, helping her father to clear away all the leaves and broken twigs left by the winds of the past week when Jennifer came charging out to tell them that Susan had arrived accompanied by her stepbrother.

‘Barry?’ exclaimed Helen, looking up, and then coloured as Morgan Fox came round the corner of the house.

‘No. Me,’ he announced wryly, as Helen’s father walked to meet him. ‘How do you do? You must be Mr Raynor.’

‘That’s right.’ Helen’s father shook hands, removing his gardening glove to do so. ‘Nice to meet you. How are you finding England after all this time? Cold, I expect’

Morgan’s mouth lifted slightly. ‘Cold, indeed,’ he agreed, as Mr Raynor passed him, indicating that he should follow him into the house, and then he looked back at Helen: ‘Good morning. Are we interrupting anything?’

‘Oh, no. No.’ Helen shook her head quickly, noticing how much better his cream denim pants fitted him, the thigh-length sheepskin jacket accentuating the width of his shoulders. ‘We—er—we were just tidying up the garden. It’s been quite windy this last week and everywhere is covered with leaves.’

‘Hmm, autumn,’ drawled Morgan, making no effort to follow her father through the conservatory and into the warm kitchen. ‘I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to smell woodsmoke on frosty air.’

Helen shifted awkwardly, conscious that her brown chunky sweater had holes at the elbows, and that her jeans after several washings clung to her like a second skin. ‘I expect you’d miss the heat, though, wouldn’t you?’ she ventured, licking her lips. ‘I mean—you must regard Africa as your home.’

His lips twisted then, and his eyes when he looked at her were cold and calculating. ‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed flatly. ‘There’s no chance of me coming back to live in England, if that’s what you’re afraid of.’

‘I—I’m not afraid!’ Helen was indignant. ‘I only meant—–’

‘I know what you meant. I’ve had it from Barry since I got here. I forfeited my right to live at Banklands when I married Pam and went to live in Osweba!’

‘Did he say that?’ Helen was aghast.

‘In so many words.’ Morgan sighed, and then made a dismissing gesture. ‘Oh, forget it. I have. As it happens, I have no desire to come back to England. My—work is in Nrubi. But there’s still Andrea…’

‘Your daughter.’

‘Yes.’ He glanced towards the house. ‘We’d better be going in or your parents are going to suspect we’re conducting some illicit liaison.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Helen quietly, and then on impulse she added: ‘Why did you mention your daughter? Does she want to come to England? I thought—when she didn’t come with you…’

‘I know. And you’re right. She didn’t want to come, but not because she’s indifferent. She—well, she’s very shy.’

‘But we—the Foxes, that is—they’re her family!’

‘I know that.’ Morgan’s eyes had lost their calculating gleam, but they were still cool as he changed the subject, saying: ‘I’ve asked Barry what you would like for a wedding present, and he says I should ask you. What about it? Have you any ideas?’

Helen scuffed her booted toe in the soil at the edge of the path. ‘Oh, I—anything you like.’

She couldn’t look at him for a few moments, but when she lifted her head his eyes were upon her. Immediately, she felt that unfamiliar weakness inside her, that sense of wanting and need that had nothing to do with the emotion she felt towards her fiancé. She knew an almost overwhelming desire to touch him, to make him as aware of her as she was of him, and as if the thought was father to the deed, she felt her muddy boot slide across the concrete, forcing her to grasp his arm to save herself. She felt the taut muscles beneath her fingers, palpable through the rough skin of his jacket, the heat of his body, as just for an instant she was close against him. And then he had stepped back from her, a muscle jerking betrayingly in his cheek.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her face flaming brilliantly. ‘I—I lost my balance.’

His eyes revealed none of his feelings, but he made a polite gesture towards the house and she was forced to go ahead of him. They walked through the glass-roofed conservatory where her father nurtured his collection of semi-tropical plants, and then in through the kitchen, scented with the smell of roasting meat.

Mrs Raynor was in the kitchen, and Helen introduced Morgan awkwardly, glad to go on into the living room where Jennifer was showing Susan her collection of pop pictures. Mr Raynor was there, too, lighting his pipe, and he smiled when his daughter came into the room, asking her whether her mother had got the kettle on.

Morgan came to join them and Helen thankfully took Susan upstairs to show her the sandals she wanted to borrow. But Susan had not been unaware of how long Helen had spent in the garden with her brother, and she was more interested in that than anything else.

‘What were you talking about?’ she asked, flopping down carelessly on to Helen’s bed and flicking over the pages of a magazine she found on the bedside table. ‘You looked awfully embarrassed when you came in. What was he saying to you?’

Helen’s embarrassment was rekindled. ‘We were talking about autumn, if you must know,’ she declared impatiently. ‘Look, do you want to try these sandals on or don’t you?’

Susan’s expression was resigned, but she obediently pulled off her boot and slipped one of the gold-strapped sandals on to her foot.

‘Hmm, nice,’ she agreed critically, turning her foot from side to side. ‘How lucky we both take the same size.’ Then she tossed it off again, and reaching for her boot returned to the attack. ‘I should be careful if I were you anyway,’ she said seriously. ‘Barry was really mad last night, wasn’t he? Jealous as hell!’

‘I’m sure your mother wouldn’t approve of you using that kind of language!’ retorted Helen severely, hiding her unwilling anxiety in irritation, but Susan was not subdued.

‘You talk like an old maid sometimes, do you know that?’ she demanded. ‘Just because I’m trying to give you a piece of advice, you act like I was a schoolgirl trying to advise the teacher. Well, let me tell you, Helen, I know more about men than you do. You might be older than I am, but emotionally speaking, you’re not even in the running!’

Helen thrust the sandals into their box and held them out to the younger girl. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take them. And stop trying to tell me how to run my life.’

Susan took the box and stood up. ‘All right,’ she said, moving her shoulders indifferently. ‘But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Warn me?’ Helen couldn’t let that go, although she knew she would regret it later. ‘Warn me about what?’

‘Why, about getting involved with Morgan, of course.’

‘Getting involved with Morgan?’ echoed Helen in disbelieving tones. ‘I’m not getting involved with anyone—except Barry.’

‘But don’t pretend you wouldn’t like to,’ put in Susan infuriatingly. ‘You’re attracted to Morgan, aren’t you? But you’re wasting your time. He’s married already.’

‘I think you’d better go,’ said Helen, controlling her temper with difficulty. ‘And please don’t repeat what you’ve said to me to anyone. To anyone, do you hear?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Susan sniffed. ‘I won’t tell Barry, if that’s what you’re afraid of.’

‘I’m not afraid of anything,’ retorted Helen coldly, and led the way downstairs again herself.

Morgan and her parents were drinking coffee in the living room. Jennifer had returned to the study where she was doing her homework, and thankfully Susan went to find her, leaving Helen to face the others on her own. But at least she did not have the ignominy of feeling Susan’s eyes upon her at every turn, and she poured herself some coffee and seated herself almost unnoticed in the corner.

Morgan was talking about Africa, telling Mr Raynor about the tropical diseases he had to contend with in the course of his work and the advances which had been made in vaccination and inoculation. It was fascinating listening to him describing conditions in an African village, the contrasts between the youths who went to the city to get educated and their parents and grandparents who still lived by the tribal customs which had existed for hundreds of years. He talked of the hostility which still existed in some areas between the so-called white man’s medicine and the medicine men of the tribe, who used ritual magic and herbal remedies to effect their cures.

‘But do they get results?’ asked Mr Raynor smiling, as he tapped his pipe against his palm, and Morgan gave a rueful grin.

‘Sometimes,’ he conceded honestly. ‘I suppose faith has a lot to do with it, but occasionally some miraculous recovery comes to light. No one knows why. There are times when I’d say that by forcing a sick patient to drink some obnoxious mixture or applying a poultice made out of chicken feathers and God knows what else to an open wound would be fatal; but then I visit the village again and I find this chap going hunting with his brothers and I realise modern medicine has taken another backward step.’

‘It must be quite frustrating,’ said Mrs Raynor sympathetically, but Morgan shook his head.

‘Not frustrating, no. I’m always glad when a patient gets well, by whatever means. I think perplexed is a better word. I’d like to learn more about these primitive medicines, study them in depth.’ He paused, and Helen saw a strange expression cross his face. ‘But that’s not very likely, I’m afraid.’

‘No,’ Mr Raynor nodded. ‘I imagine these witch doctors guard their secrets closely.’

‘Yes,’ Morgan agreed, but Helen had the distinct impression that that was not what he meant at all.

Soon afterwards, he said he would have to be leaving, and Mrs Raynor took the opportunity to invite him for dinner on Tuesday evening.

‘Could we make that Wednesday or Thursday?’ he asked apologetically. ‘I—er—I have an appointment in London on Tuesday, and I don’t suppose I’ll be back much before ten.’

‘Of course.’ Mrs Raynor was eager to oblige. ‘Thursday, then. If that’s all right with you, Helen?’

Helen nodded. ‘Any night suits me,’ she shrugged, realising as she did so that she sounded offhand. But Susan’s words still lingered, and she half wished she didn’t have to see Morgan again until the day of the wedding.

Helen left her job at the hospital on Tuesday evening. She would be returning after her honeymoon, but it was good to feel herself free for almost three weeks. Not that she didn’t enjoy her work. She did. It gave her great satisfaction to know that she was helping someone recover the use of their limbs, particularly if the patient was a child or an elderly person who had given up hope of ever being able to walk again. But the quality of her work was demanding and this week before the wedding was demanding enough in itself.

Nevertheless, the following morning found her at a loose end, with her parents and Barry at work, and Jennifer in school. During the afternoon she planned to go to the flat she and Barry were going to lease and take along some of the household things they had collected over recent weeks, but the morning was fine and sunny and she didn’t much feel like applying herself to housework. Instead she took herself off into town, and in the paperback book department of W H Smith she encountered the one person she least wanted to meet.

‘Morgan!’ she said, rather dismayed, after practically walking into him round the end of one of the fixtures. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

‘It’s my usual port of call on visits to England,’ he replied evenly, pushing a textbook on neural surgery back into the rack. ‘I always take a pile of books back with me.’

‘Yes,’ Helen nodded, folding her fingers firmly round the strap of her handbag. ‘Did you—er—did you have a good day in London?’

Morgan regarded her with a faintly mocking expression. ‘Do you really want to know? I got the impression you didn’t particularly want to meet me just now.’

‘Oh, no.’ Helen reddened. ‘It was just—I was surprised to see you, that’s all.’

Morgan inclined his head, and she moved jerkily away from him. Dear God, she thought sickly, what was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she stand near him without becoming overpoweringly conscious of his hard masculinity? Why did the very sight of him in his worn leather jacket and black suede pants affect her with something very like a physical shock when Barry never ever had this reaction on her?

‘Helen.’

He was speaking to her, and she swung round nervously, her fingers probing the buttons of her own suede coat. ‘Yes?’

‘Can I buy you a cup of coffee?’

‘What? Coffee?’ She moved her shoulders offhandedly. ‘I—why, yes, I—suppose so.’

‘Good.’ He gestured towards the exit. ‘Shall we go? I can call back here later.’

‘All right.’

Outside, he turned towards the market place and she fell into step beside him, wondering rather anxiously what Barry would say when he found out that she had been having coffee with his stepbrother while he was at work. And then, she decided, she didn’t care. She wasn’t doing any harm, and besides, if she was honest she would admit that she had wanted to accept Morgan’s invitation. But why that should be so after the way she had felt when she encountered him, she did not care to analyse.

They sat at a table in the window of a small cafe that overlooked the Shambles, and after the waitress had taken their order Helen was glad of the activity outside to distract Morgan’s attention. But presently, after the coffee was served, he looked her way, and she put her hands down on to her lap to hide their damp unsteadiness.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last, and her eyes flickered bewilderedly up to his.

‘Sorry?’

‘Yes.’ He tipped the front legs of his chair back and regarded her through narrowed lids. ‘I shouldn’t have invited you to join me. But I selfishly felt like some company.’

Helen didn’t know how to reply. ‘I—it was very kind of you invite me—–’

‘No, it wasn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t do it out of politeness anyway.’

Helen licked her dry lips. ‘Wh—why did you do it, then?’

Morgan’s chair dropped back on to all four legs with a protesting creak. ‘Because I find I like talking to you,’ he said, and the ready colour that never seemed far away in his presence poured back into her face.

‘I—I shouldn’t have thought that was something to apologise about,’ she murmured awkwardly at last, but when she ventured a look at his face she saw the wry cynicism in his expression.

‘Something makes me think Barry wouldn’t agree with you,’ he remarked dryly. ‘He made his feelings very clear the other evening.’

‘Oh, Barry says a lot of things he doesn’t really mean,’ exclaimed Helen, moving her shoulders protestingly. ‘He’s very glad you’ve come home.’

‘Is he?’ Morgan sounded unconvinced. Then as once before, he changed the subject, saying abruptly: ‘My father tells me you’re a physiotherapist. Do you like working with old people?’

Glad of the respite from personal matters, Helen said: ‘Not all my patients are old. There’s a fair percentage of children, too, and in any case, I like the work.’

‘Very commendable,’ he remarked, raising his coffee cup to her. ‘Have you ever thought of working outside the hospital system? In schools for handicapped children, for example?’

‘I’d like to,’ she answered frankly, ‘but I still have my training to complete.’

‘You didn’t go to university.’

It was a statement and she shook her head. ‘No. You did, though, didn’t you? What made you decide to be a doctor?’

Morgan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. An interest in humanity, I guess, combined with a lucky ability to remember anatomical terms.’

Helen smiled, relaxing somewhat. ‘I don’t believe that. Your father said you got a double first.’

‘My father talks too much,’ he retorted without rancour, and Helen sipped her coffee, thinking affectionately of the man who had made her feel so welcome in his home.

‘I suppose he told you about my marriage breaking up,’ Morgan said suddenly, and Helen’s new-found relaxation fled.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘There’s no need to look so flabbergasted—it’s no secret. Pam and I separated two years ago. We were totally incompatible.’

Helen cleared her throat. ‘He—I believe he did say something about it. Does—I mean—your daughter lives with you, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes.’ Morgan finished his coffee and pushed the cup aside. ‘Pam never wanted children. I don’t think she’d have married me at all if Andrea hadn’t already been on the way.’

‘Oh!’

Helen’s embarrassment was plain, and Morgan’s lips curved teasingly. ‘Oh?’ he echoed. ‘Is that all you can say? Oh? That doesn’t shock you, surely. Not these days when every girl you meet accepts going to bed as part of the deal.’

‘I don’t!’ declared Helen hotly, deriving a certain amount of courage from the strength of her convictions. ‘And I don’t believe all girls do either. That—that’s just a rumour put around by those who do to excuse themselves!’

‘Oh, yes?’ His eyes were lazily mocking. ‘Do I take it then that you and Barry—don’t?’

‘You can take it whatever way you like!’ she retorted shortly. ‘And now, if you’ve finished your coffee, I’ve got some shopping to do.’

The baiting light went out of Morgan’s eyes, and without another word he thrust back his chair and got to his feet. But when she went to pass him, his hand caught her wrist, his fingers closing over it tightly.

‘Wait,’ he said, his warm breath fanning her forehead. ‘Don’t go rushing off like this. Perhaps we could have lunch together. Allow me to make amends for embarrassing you. Will you?’

Helen’s breathing felt constricted. Because of the narrowness between the tables, her body was close to Morgan’s, the muscles of his legs hard against hers through her skirt and the suede pants he was wearing.

‘I—I don’t know,’ she got out jerkily, and because they were beginning to attract attention, he let her go and she made her way outside with air-gulping relief.

But in the narrow street outside, the question had to be answered, and although she knew she ought to refuse him she found herself agreeing to meet him in a couple of hours outside a pub they both knew.

For the rest of the morning she tried to justify her actions, but without much success, and by the time she had dumped her shopping in the boot of her Mini, parked on the outskirts of town, and walked the quarter mile or so to the Bartlemy, she was as taut as a violin string.

It didn’t help when Morgan kept her waiting almost ten minutes only to find that the restaurant was closed and the bar already full to overflowing with people wanting snacks.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Morgan as they came out into the wintry afternoon again. ‘I got held up at the bank.’

‘The restaurant would still have been closed,’ replied Helen tartly, and then, realising she was being shrewish, she added: ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘I suppose we could go somewhere else,’ he suggested thoughtfully, hands thrust into the pockets of his coat. ‘Or should we just—forget it?’

Helen’s heart gave a curious lurch at his words. ‘Oh, no,’ she found herself saying desperately. ‘We can go somewhere else. We could even buy some food and have a picnic by the river…’ But as if to destroy even this nebulous suggestion, a few spots of rain blew into their faces.

Morgan turned his face up towards the lowering skies. ‘No picnic’ he said ruefully, looking down at her again. ‘Perhaps we’d better try somewhere else.’

Most of the popular eating places were crowded, and Helen didn’t much fancy sharing a table with a crowd of students. Morgan was beginning to look weary of the whole idea, and almost without considering the ethics of the situation, she said: ‘Let’s buy some food and take it to the flat. I was going there anyway this afternoon.’ And as her face betrayed the sudden guilt that swept over her, she added defensively: ‘You’d like to see where Barry and I are going to live, wouldn’t you?’

Morgan hesitated, a frown creasing his brow. ‘That’s not really the point, is it?’ he asked. ‘What is Barry going to say when he finds out?’

‘Barry’s not my keeper,’ she retorted indignantly. ‘But if you don’t want to go—–’

‘It’s not that,’ he muttered, and then, as if a pain had suddenly made itself unbearable, he nodded, raking back his hair with an impatient hand. ‘Why not?’ he agreed shortly. ‘How do we get there?’

Helen almost lost her nerve, but she managed to say quite coherently: ‘My car—is parked on that lot near the river. We can go in that.’

‘Where is the flat?’

‘Gainsborough Crescent.’

‘Gainsborough Crescent.’ She could see him trying to place the vaguely familiar name. ‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I know it. But my car—or rather my stepmother’s—is nearer. We can buy what we need on the way there.’

‘All right.’ Helen had no objections. No one in Gainsborough Crescent would recognise Mrs Fox’s yellow Volkswagen, whereas her blue Mini might incite attention.

Morgan bought some eggs and cheese and butter, and some rolls still warm from the oven. He also added a bottle of wine to the steadily increasing load in Helen’s basket, and then they made their way to where he had left the car.

‘You drive,’ he said, after unloading their possessions into the back, and with a puzzled shrug of acceptance, Helen climbed behind the wheel. Morgan got in beside her, supporting his head with evident relief against the padded rest, and she gave him an anxious look before starting the engine.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Mmm,’ he nodded. ‘Just a slight headache, that’s all. I’ve got something I can take for it when we get to the flat.’

Helen didn’t waste any more time. The Volkswagen was easy to handle, and she swung out of the parking area and into the stream of traffic with the expertise born of experience. She had been driving since she was seventeen, and even Barry had had to concede that she was good.

It only took a matter of five minutes or so to reach Gainsborough Crescent, and she parked the car at the kerb before reaching into the back for her basket.

Morgan’s hand closed on her arm, however, preventing her from reaching it. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said, thrusting open his door and getting out, and reluctantly she went ahead into the building.

Gainsborough Crescent was a terrace of tall Victorian houses, most of which had been converted into flats now. Families were no longer so large as to require half a dozen bedrooms, and the rooms on the attic floor were snapped up by students wanting an economical bed-sitter.

The flat Helen and Barry were to occupy was on the first floor. It was small—just a bedroom, a living room, a tiny kitchenette and a bathroom, but at least it was all their own. The furnishings were the prime drawback. Nearly all the furniture had done service for more years than Helen would have liked to have guessed, and she hoped it wouldn’t be too long before they could buy and furnish a house of their own.

Leading the way into the living room, she realised that this was the first time she had ever actually invited anyone there. Her mother had seen the flat, of course, but Barry’s parents were waiting until they returned from their honeymoon and they could have a proper flat-warming.

Morgan closed the door behind him, glancing about him appraisingly as Helen bent to light the gas fire. The room was chilly, but the fire created a warm glow, casting enveloping shadows over the worn patches on the hide-covered couch.

Morgan walked straight through to the kitchenette, and when she followed him she found him taking two tablets with a mouthful of water direct from the tap.

‘Hey,’ she exclaimed, ‘we have some glasses!’ But he shook his head and straightened, saying:

‘It’s okay, they’ve gone. Now—do you have a frying pan?’

They ate in the kitchenette, seated on stools beside the breakfast bar. Morgan had grated the cheese while Helen beat up the eggs, and then while she made light, fluffy omelettes, he opened the wine. His headache seemed to have disappeared as suddenly as it had come and she was relieved, aware that ridiculous as it might seem she had been concerned about him.

Although the wine was unchilled, it had never tasted so good and they drank the bottle between them. Helen felt quite reckless, drinking so much in the middle of the day, and she hoped that by evening the feeling of lightheadedness would have evaporated.

Morgan insisted on washing the dishes afterwards, and Helen commented on his efficiency. ‘A man can learn to do a lot of things if he has to,’ he replied, with a wry smile, and she knew he was referring to the break-up of his marriage.

‘I suppose—Andrea helps,’ she commented, picking up a tea-towel to polish their glasses. ‘I mean—she’s fifteen, isn’t she? Almost grown up.’

‘Almost,’ he agreed, a frown drawing his brows together. ‘Yes, she does what she can. But she was ill some time ago, and she’s never really properly recovered, I’m afraid.’

Helen stared at his profile, wondering if she dared ask what was wrong with her, and then chided herself for her inquisitiveness. It was nothing to do with her, after all, and yet everything about this man troubled and intrigued her, and it was impossible for her to remain unmoved by his statement.

‘Ill?’ she said now, concentrating on the glass. ‘How—ill?’

‘She contracted pneumonia,’ said Morgan flatly, and her murmur of dismay was barely stifled before he added: ‘You wouldn’t expect that in Africa, I suppose, would you? But in certain circumstances, it’s quite possible. It’s left her weak and—apathetic. What she needs now is care and encouragement, but God help me, I don’t have the time to give it to her.’

Helen finished drying the glass and set it down with exaggerated precision. Then, as he had finished washing the dishes and was drying his hands, she ventured: ‘Are—aren’t there any centres where she could go? You know—to be with young people of her own age?’

‘Not in Nrubi, no.’

‘There are in Engl—–’

‘I know that!’ He spoke harshly, and then, as if regretting his outburst, he muttered: ‘I’m sorry, but that’s one of the reasons why I came here. I thought, if I could persuade Susan to come back with me, to stay a few weeks—two, three months maybe—she might be able to help Andrea, give her back her confidence, show her that there are other people who care about her just as much as I do.’

‘And?’

The word came automatically from Helen’s lips, and Morgan looked at her as he rolled down the sleeves of his cream silk shirt. ‘No,’ he said dispassionately. ‘It wouldn’t work. I can’t take Susan back there, even if she wanted to go, which I doubt. She and Andrea would have nothing in common. I doubt if she’d even get close to her. Andrea’s too—sensitive. Susan would scare her, and besides, she’s far too much of a liability. I have enough responsibilities as it is.’

‘I see.’

‘The pity of it is, I know that if I could get her to come to England, let her get to know my father, she’d be all right when—–’

He broke off abruptly at that point and strode through to the living room, and after a moment’s hesitation Helen followed him. He was standing before the fire, staring down into the flames, and she watched him for a few moments before saying awkwardly: ‘Are you cold? Shall I turn the fire up?’

He turned then and she saw the look of strain he had worn a few minutes before had been erased. In its place was the polite mask of detachment he had worn when she first met him, and she felt curiously disappointed. Not that she wanted him to confide in her, she told herself impatiently, but the silent protestation did not quite ring true.

‘I’m not cold,’ he said now, with a slight smile. ‘Are you ready to leave?’

‘To leave?’ Helen glanced behind her. ‘I—well, I had intended to do some housework this afternoon. To leave—to leave the flat ready for when we get back from—from Majorca.’

‘From your honeymoon,’ agreed Morgan dryly. ‘I see.’ He paused. ‘But how will you get back to town?’

‘I can catch a bus,’ declared Helen shortly, realising she sounded offhanded and despising herself for it. But she had hoped he would offer to wait for her, which in itself was a stupid thing to expect.

‘All right.’

Morgan reached for his coat from the back of the couch where he had thrown it before having lunch, and Helen stood by tensely while he pulled it on. Then, checking the knot of his tie, he walked towards the door.

‘Thanks for lunch,’ he said, and she forced a faint smile.

‘Thank you,’ she countered, wrapping her arms protectively about herself, and he made a dismissing movement of his shoulders.

‘Do I tell Barry I’ve been here or not?’

Helen shrugged. ‘Please yourself.’ She pressed her lips together for a moment to prevent them from trembling. ‘I don’t suppose it matters.’

Morgan stared at her for a long disturbing moment, and then with an exclamation, he wrenched open the door. ‘I’ll keep it to myself,’ he declared harshly, and the door slammed heavily behind him.

Helen’s hands went towards the panels after he had gone, fingers spreading against the dark wood as if to repel the feelings that swelled inside her. Then, withdrawing her hands again, she pressed them tightly together, forefingers resting against her parted lips. It took several minutes to get herself in control again, before she turned to face the room behind her with the tight ball of suppressed emotion in her throat almost choking her.

She was getting married on Saturday, she kept telling herself over and over again. This was to be her new home. In less than three days, she would be Mrs Carson, Mrs Barry Carson, and here she was, allowing herself to indulge in futile fantasies about his own stepbrother. A married man, moreover, who had never at any time given her reason to suppose that he found her attractive, too. All he had said was that he liked talking to her—talking to her, nothing else. But nothing could alter the fact that she was attracted to him, which seemed totally disloyal to the man who was to be her husband.

Yet as the immediacy of the situation passed, and practical issues reasserted themselves, she began to put things into perspective. What was happening to her was not so unusual, after all, she told herself reassuringly. It was natural that in these final few days before the wedding she should have second thoughts about giving up her freedom. It was probably quite common for girls to imagine themselves attracted to some other man, particularly if the other man was hard and tanned, and disturbingly alien to her way of life. Why, even Susan had said what an attractive man he was, and she was his sister. Even so, it took her a long time to summon any enthusiasm to do the dusting and vacuuming she had planned, and when she left the flat it was with a feeling of escape…

CHAPTER THREE

BY Thursday evening Helen was congratulating herself on her common sense. What had happened the previous afternoon had been the culmination of a build-up of tension, a natural escape valve which had opened and allowed all the pent-up emotions she was feeling to break loose. Now she was herself again, her emotions were no longer in any danger of exploding, and she could face the future with increased confidence.

She dressed for her parents’ dinner party with extra care. She wanted to look good, for Barry’s sake, she thought affectionately, sliding half a dozen gold bangles on to her wrist. She had chosen to wear silk harem trousers in a particularly attractive bronze shade, teaming them with a buttoned shirt that almost exactly matched her hair. The colours gave her an all-over golden look, and the unbuttoned neckline of the shirt exposed a smooth length of creamy throat and the faintest shadow between her breasts. Round her neck was suspended a gold amulet which her father had brought back from North Africa after the war. It was Egyptian in origin, and the light caught the lettering that circled its coinlike design.

Jennifer pulled a face when Helen joined her parents downstairs, but her whistle of derision merely hid a mild sisterly jealousy. Mr Raynor smiled his approval, and her mother contented herself with saying: ‘You do look nice, dear, but don’t you think you ought to wear a sweater? It’s an awfully cold evening.’

‘Not in here, it isn’t,’ interposed her husband mildly. ‘Stop fussing. She looks beautiful. I’m proud of her.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’ Helen flashed him a smile as the sound of a car turning into their drive came to her ears, and with a twinge of trepidation she realised their guests had arrived.

Jennifer went to open the door, wearing a long dress for once in deference to the occasion. Helen could hear her calling a welcome to Mr and Mrs Fox, and as her parents moved out into the hall to greet their visitors, she dutifully followed after. There was nothing to be alarmed about, she told herself severely. Barry was here now, and he would see that she had no time to worry about anyone else.

But when the Foxes came into the hall, Barry was not with them, and seeing Helen’s anxious face, Mrs Fox exclaimed immediately:

‘Now don’t get upset, Helen. Barry’s not coming. He’s been off colour all day, a head cold, I think, and I’ve insisted that he stays home tonight to make sure he’s fully recovered for Saturday.’

‘That’s right.’ Mr Fox added his reassurance to his wife’s. ‘Morgan’s had a look at him and he says it’s nothing serious.’

‘I—I see.’ Suddenly the evening loomed ahead fraught with uncertainty. ‘Well, if you’re sure…’

‘He’ll ring you tomorrow,’ said Mrs Fox comfortingly, patting her arm, and as she did so, Morgan came in through the open door.

Tonight he was wearing a dark grey lounge suit, that looked almost black in the subdued lighting of the hall, but it was evidently new and fitted much better than his other suit had done. It threw his light hair into stark relief, complementing the darkness of his tan.

‘I locked the car,’ he said to his father, tossing the keys in his hand, and then turned to Helen’s parents, greeting them with ease and friendliness. To Helen he addressed the politest of smiles, complimenting her on her appearance with characteristic detachment.

Mr Raynor closed the front door, and Mrs Raynor led the way into the sitting room. While their parents exchanged small talk about the weather and helped themselves to a drink, Jennifer took the opportunity to ask Morgan when he was going back to Osweba.

‘In about ten days, I guess,’ he replied good-humouredly. ‘I promised Andrea I’d be back before her birthday, and that’s in just under a month’s time.’

‘How old is she?’

Jennifer was not troubled with shyness, and he smiled. ‘Fifteen,’ he answered. ‘Fifteen years old.’

‘So she’s fourteen now. Like me.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘I’ll be fifteen in April. Where does Andrea go to school?’

‘She doesn’t,’ replied Morgan ruefully, and Mrs Raynor turned to reprove her younger daughter for asking so many questions.

‘Things are done differently in Africa,’ she said, giving Jennifer a quelling look, and Jennifer muttered that she wished she lived in Africa if that was the case.

‘You’d find life very boring, I’m afraid,’ said Morgan, accepting a Scotch and soda from Mr Raynor. ‘No clubs or discothèques, very little television and practically no cinemas.’

‘What do you do, then?’ asked Jennifer, aghast, and Helen nuged her in the ribs and told her to mind her own business.

‘I don’t mind telling her,’ said Morgan, his eyes meeting Helen’s with faint mockery. ‘We swim, and play tennis. And we read a lot. And occasionally we go into Charlottesville and have dinner at the Yachting Club.’

‘Do you have a yacht?’ exclaimed Jennifer, in awe, but Morgan shook his head.

‘No. But I have use of one when I need it. I have a very good friend in the government who lends me his from time to time.’

Helen looked down into the Martini her father had handed her. It didn’t sound a boring life to her. On the contrary, she thought how satisfying it must be, living quite a simple life, using his skills as a doctor to treat people of a different creed and culture. She wondered why he wanted to bring Andrea back to England. She would miss the kind of life she was used to, and no doubt she would miss her father, unless he planned to come back to England to live, too. Her heart missed a beat. What would she do if Morgan came to live in York again? If he moved into Banklands with his father and stepmother now that Barry was getting married and moving away? There was no reason why he shouldn’t, if that was what he wanted, but the prospect of finding him there when she visited her in-laws filled her with a ridiculous sense of dread.

She helped her mother to serve dinner. Mrs Raynor had no daily help, only old Mrs Latimer who came in two mornings a week to do the rough work, and as she was in her seventies now, more often than not Helen found herself cleaning up after her. But Mrs Raynor wouldn’t hear of asking her to leave, and besides, she enjoyed the gossip the old cleaner usually had to impart. Mrs Raynor herself worked three days a week as a dental receptionist, more to get her out of the house than any need for the extra money, but on her days off she and Mrs Latimer put the world to rights over pots of tea in the kitchen.

The meal was delicious, as usual—soup and fish, and a sweetly basted duckling in orange sauce. No one could find much room for the raspberry meringue that followed, but Morgan gallantly had a second helping, earning Mrs Ray-nor’s undying gratitude.

Afterwards, they all adjourned to the sitting room again. Helen, strung up and nervous, perched uneasily on the arm of her mother’s chair until Mr Raynor, noticing her restlessness, said:

‘Take Morgan into the study, Helen. I’m sure he’s not interested in all this woman’s talk. Show him that book I bought in Harrogate last week. All about his part of the world, it is. It’s a collector’s piece. I’m sure it would interest you, Morgan.’

Morgan, who had been seated on the couch between his stepmother and Jennifer, rose to his feet politely. ‘If Helen has no objection,’ he essayed smoothly, and after a moment’s hesitation, she got off the chair arm and walked towards the door.

‘Can I come?’

Jennifer’s treble was overridden by her father’s denial, and while her sister grimaced her disappointment, Helen led the way along the hall to her father’s study. Perhaps she should have invited Jennifer to join them, she thought, as Morgan leant past her to open the study door. She wasn’t at all sure her nerves were proof against being alone with him again.

The book her father had bought was lying on his desk and while Morgan closed the door, she went towards it determinedly, pointing at its worn leather binding. ‘It’s a guide to Southern Africa,’ she declared jerkily, ‘published before the First World War. My father collects books, as you can see.’ She gestured towards the book-lined walls. ‘And this book interested him because just recently he was reading Burton’s book about his pilgrimage to Mecca.’

Morgan seated himself on a corner of the desk, leaning over the book to turn the pages. ‘Your father’s interested in Africa?’ he queried, and Helen moved round the desk as she nodded.

‘He—he was there during the Second World War. North Africa, at least. They say it’s the most exciting continent, don’t they? That it gets into your blood? Maybe that’s why my father finds it so fascinating.’

‘He’d like to go back there?’ Morgan asked, straightening and folding his arms, and she shifted uneasily beneath his gaze, fiddling with the amulet that hung around her neck.

‘I—I think so. Not that he’s ever tried. He and Mum—well, they usually spend their holidays in Spain, but perhaps after Jennifer grows up they’ll have the chance to be more—adventurous.’

‘Adventurous?’ echoed Morgan wryly. ‘Is that how you see it?’

He slid off the desk then and to her horror came towards her. Her mouth went suddenly dry and her tongue clove to her palate, but she could not move. Every intimate thought she had ever had about him rushed through her mind in a chaotic stream, and weakness brought a betraying tremble to her knees. What was he going to do? she wondered desperately. Had he guessed why she was so nervous in his company? Had he sensed the paralysing awareness she felt in his presence that made a mockery of her feelings for Barry?

When he stopped before her, she almost swayed against him, but his hand reached out and lifted the gold amulet on its chain, and when he moved closer it was to read the inscription.

‘Do you know what this says?’ he asked, and the normality of his tone was like a cooling draught against her forehead.

‘I—what—oh, no! No.’ She shook her head, and as she did so, the chain moved sinuously against her neck. ‘It—it’s in Arabic, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Morgan’s brows had drawn together in a frown as he observed her agitation, but with a tightening of his lips, he read: ‘Follow thy desire while thou yet livest!’ He dropped the amulet again. ‘Such things were engraved on the walls of temples and tombs. Rather too late for their inhabitants, but not a bad maxim for the mourners at the funeral feast.’

Helen’s tongue appeared to moisten her upper lip. ‘Is—is it a maxim you follow, too?’ she asked unsteadily, aware that for some reason he was angry with her, but unprepared for the violence her words evoked.

‘No,’ he said harshly. ‘No one can. Not unless one is totally without conscience.’ His tawny eyes raked her upturned face with grim bitterness. ‘Are you totally without conscience, Helen? Is that why you’re looking at me like that? What do you want me to do, I wonder? Does a last-ditch affair appeal to you, before the bonds of matrimony tie you down? If so, you’re wasting your time here. Find somebody else to satisfy your desires, because I happen to have a conscience, and whatever Barry thinks of me, I respect him!’

For a minute, Helen was too stunned to answer him, but then a kind of guilty indignation came to her rescue. ‘How—how dare you?’ she gasped, choking on the words. ‘I didn’t invite you here, and I certainly didn’t want to spend any time alone with you! You’ve mistaken a natural effort on my part to act in a polite and friendly fashion towards my fiancé’s brother for something quite ludicrous, and embarrassed us both. You’re despicable! I think you’d better leave. You can make whatever excuses you like to my parents, I don’t care, but I hope I never have to speak to you again!’

She whirled on her heel to make her grand exit, but almost against his will, his arm came out barring her way, and when she turned in the other direction he stepped into her path. There was a look of torment in his face, his mouth twisting with self-derision, and then he reached for her, his hands curving around her nape, compelling her firmly towards him.

‘God, Helen…’ he muttered with a groan, and all her talk of despising him went for nothing beneath the demanding possession of his mouth.

Her head swam with the first touch of his lips. It was all one with the caressing compulsion of his hands on her neck, his thumbs probing the hollows behind her ears, his fingertips exploring the source of her spinal cord. Her hands were crushed between them and when she moved her fingers they encountered an unbuttoned opening in his shirt and curled inside. His skin was warm and roughened with hair, and when she separated more of the buttons from their holes she felt the responsive constriction of his muscles.

His mouth left hers to seek the hollow of her neck, and his hands slid down her spine to her hips, drawing her close against the hardening muscles of his thighs. She had never been so close to a man’s body before, but instead of wanting to pull away, she pressed herself to him, arching her body and creating an intimacy between them that destroyed any hope of dismissing this embrace as the casual result of enforced proximity. They were both fully aware of what they were doing, and his tortured breathing was the only sound she could hear.

It was his hands on her upper arms that finally separated them, forcing her back from him while he still had the strength to do so. Her eyes, seeking his face, could see the actual physical control he was exerting and the strain it was putting upon him.

‘You’re crazy, do you know that?’ he demanded, pushing back his hair with an unsteady hand, but when she made a sound of protest and swayed towards him again, he turned his back on her and put the expanse of her father’s desk between them. ‘Stop it, Helen!’ he ordered tautly. ‘We can’t do this. My God, anybody could have come in and found us!’ He broke off, shaking his head disbelievingly. Then he went on: ‘That sister of yours, for example. How do you think she would have felt if she had come in? How would she have reacted finding her sister in another man’s arms only two days before the wedding!’

Helen drew a deep breath and endeavoured to recover her composure, but it wasn’t easy. He was right, she told herself dully, so why didn’t she feel ashamed? Why wasn’t she tearing her hair out, or dressing herself in the mental equivalent of sackcloth and ashes? Why hadn’t she been the one to draw back, instead of him?

She trembled. She had always controlled the situation with Barry. She had never let his lovemaking get beyond certain limits. But Morgan wasn’t Barry, and that was the trouble. With Morgan, she didn’t want to draw back, she wanted to go on and on, giving herself to him, caring little for things like modesty or self-respect, only wanting to please him as he was pleasing her…

Shades of that school friend’s advice, she thought sickly. So much for her bland statements about inadequacy. What price virginity now? She pressed her palms down on to the cool surface of the desk. She was crazy. It was true. Because even now, with half the width of the room between them, she felt nothing but regret that he hadn’t gone further…

‘Helen…’ He was looking at her as he fastened the buttons of his shirt she had opened. ‘Helen!’ He sighed. ‘Oh, what’s the use of denying it? I was as much to blame as you were, but hell, you invited it!’

She moved her shoulders in a little helpless gesture. ‘I know.’

‘What do you mean—you know?’ He expelled his breath noisily. ‘Helen, what can I say? What can I do to show you that I mean it when I say I’m sorry? God help me, I’m sorry.’

She wiped her damp palms down the seams of her silk pants. ‘I—don’t want you to be sorry,’ she said carefully, aware of his harsh incredulity. ‘That—that’s what I mean.’

His eyes were narrowed until they were almost slits beneath his lowering brows. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard me,’ she insisted, her fingers opening and closing against her thighs. ‘Why do you sound so surprised? Do you think I go in for this sort of thing? Do you think I’d let any man hold me as you have just held me? Do you imagine I’ve let Barry get that close to me?’

‘And haven’t you?’

‘No!’ Her lips trembled with indignation. ‘I—I told you once before that—that I—–’

‘—that you don’t sleep around, I remember.’ Morgan’s response was curt. ‘All right, all right. So what am I to gather from that? That I broke some of the rules?’

‘Rules?’

Helen’s voice broke on the word and now she turned her back on him, snatching a tissue out of the box on her father’s desk and dabbing furiously at her eyes. She mustn’t cry, she told herself desperately, not now, not when, as he said, their parents or Jennifer could come in at any moment.

‘Helen…’ He said her name close by her ear and she realised with a start that he had come to stand right behind her. ‘Helen,’ he said again, and there was the same note of anguish in his voice that she had heard before. ‘Don’t make me hate myself any more than I do already.’

Her breathing was coming in short, uneven gasps, but she tipped her head back to rest against his chest, and with a groan of defeat his arms slid round her waist, propelling her back against him. Her body moulded itself to his almost as if it had been designed for just that purpose, and he buried his face in the curtain of silky hair that curled into her nape. His hands moved carelessly upward, over her ribcage to the buttoned neckline of her shirt, sliding inside almost possessively to close over the ripe fullness of her breasts. They surged against his fingers and she felt the unsteady draught of his breath against her neck as his tongue stroked the erratic pulse that fluttered below her jawline. His own heart was pounding behind her and the throbbing demands of his body were no longer in any doubt.

He was twisting her round in his arms to seek the parted sweetness of her lips with his mouth when they heard voices coming along the passage. Almost immediately she was free to do what she could to restore her clothes to order, while Morgan placed himself protectively in front of her, tightening his tie with something less than detachment.

Mrs Raynor came into the room first, followed by Mr and Mrs Fox, with Mr Raynor bringing up the rear. Fortunately, Jennifer was not with them to comment on Helen’s hectically flushed cheeks, or to ask why her mouth was bare of all lipstick, but Mrs Raynor looked at her daughter rather doubtfully, before asking what Morgan had thought of the book.

Morgan, at least, appeared unperturbed. ‘I found it very interesting,’ he replied, and only Helen knew that his smile was a trifle forced. ‘Er—Helen tells me you’re interested in the dark continent, Mr Raynor.’

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