Anne Mather - Dark Moonless Night

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.comand I’d be happy to hear from any of my wonderful readers.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Cover

About the Author 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!

Title Page Dark Moonless Night Anne Mather www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Copyright

THE Boeing had landed in the early hours of the morning, local time, and there had been little to see but the lights of the airport; which, as far as Caroline could remember, had been much the same as any other airport she had visited, except of course that all the personnel were black. It had been cold, too, much colder than one would have imagined a place to be that was within a couple of hundred miles of the Equator. There had been the usual landing procedure, the usual delays with passport control and Customs, but then they had been free to take the company car to the hotel.

David and Miranda had been fractious, which hadn’t really been surprising. Any young child would be fractious at having to be wakened from a sound sleep to face a series of irritating airport formalities, and even Elizabeth had been inclined to moan a little. It had been left to Caroline to marshall their suitcases for the black chauffeur and cope with two small pairs of clinging hands, both of which demanded her undivided attention.

At last they had all been able to pile into the back of the opulent limousine sent by Freelong Copper Incorporated to meet the wife and family of one of its minor executives. They had been driven along a smooth, tarmacked highway to Ashenghi, Tsaba’s capital, and installed in a luxurious hotel in the very heart of the city. Then the chauffeur had departed leaving them to explore the comfortable suite of rooms which had been put at their disposal.

Elizabeth had said it had all been too much, much too much, and she had pleaded exhaustion and a raging headache before taking herself off to seek the cool sheets of her bed. Consequently, it was Caroline who gave the children their brief but thorough wash, helped them into their pyjamas, and tucked them up in the twin beds in the room adjoining her own. And it had been Caroline who had been woken twice in the night—once when a particularly large species of moth had somehow invaded the children’s room, and secondly when David awoke, terrified at the strangeness of his surroundings.

But all that had happened several hours ago now, Caroline realised, as the heat of her room and the activity of her thoughts brought her fully awake. As yet, no one seemed to be stirring in the apartment, but the brilliance of the sunlight which was penetrating even the shutters of her windows was sufficient to arouse her to a full awareness of exactly where she was. And besides, there was a distinctly alien lack of inhibition about the noises coming from outside the hotel.

She thrust back the cotton sheet which had suddenly become too heavy on her slender limbs and slid out of bed. Her feet appreciated the coolness of the floor tiles as she went to the window, but when she thrust the shutters wide the heat caused her to draw back into the shadows as her eyes adjusted themselves.

Her windows overlooked the side of the hotel and immediately below she could identify the noises she had heard. Three stories below were the hotel kitchens and from there came the clatter of dishes and the shouted commands of someone in charge. Dustbin lids clattered as black-skinned houseboys in white shirts and shorts covered by long aprons came to empty rubbish, and an assortment of mangy dogs hung about the outer precincts obviously hoping for scraps.

Beyond the less salubrious environs of the kitchen yard a stretch of browned grass gave on to the road down which they had travelled the night before. Although there was quite a lot of traffic using it now it was a much more motley collection than Caroline was used to seeing from the windows of her London flat. There were carts and bicycles, fruit and vegetable drays drawn by oxen, and lorries and cars thickly smeared with dust. Although the road itself was smoothly surfaced, there were no pavements to speak of, just mud-baked paths at the side along which moved a steady stream of women and children. The women carried baskets of clothes or produce on their heads, and Caroline could only assume they were going to the market. This unsophisticated view of humanity went oddly with the skyscraper blocks of hotels and offices and other commercial buildings which formed the nucleus of this apparently thriving African capital.