Lynne Pemberton - Eclipse

LYNNE PEMBERTON

To my husband Mike,

who made dreams possible,

all My Love.

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Book One

Chapter One : PORT ANTONIO, JAMAICA. JULY 1966.

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four : ENGLAND, MARCH 1967

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Book Two

Chapter Nine : CAYMAN ISLANDS 1980

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Book Three

Chapter Fourteen : LONDON 1993

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen : PELHAM CRESCENT, SW7, 1994

Chapter Seventeen : NEW YORK CITY

Chapter Eighteen : JUNE 1994

Chapter Nineteen : THREE MONTHS LATER

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

A shiver ran through her as the wind outside rose to an agonized howl, rattling the shutters on the chalkstone house with a ferocity that threatened to rip them off their hinges.

The storm had begun.

Feeling relatively secure inside the drawing room of the sturdily constructed beach-house, Lady Serena Frazer-West was quite enthralled by the prospect of experiencing a Caribbean storm first-hand. Overcome by curiosity, she carefully prised open a tiny gap between the louvres of the floor-to-ceiling shutters and, bending forward, strained her eyes to see through the blanket of dark silver rain.

She had never seen such a downpour. A solid sheet of water was teeming out of a sky the colour of charcoal.

Serena remembered the first time she had come to Jamaica on her honeymoon two years previously. It had been raining then. A flicker of a smile crossed her face as she recalled the three-hour drive across the island from Kingston the capital, to the sleepy little town of Port Antonio. She had laughed, and Nicholas had complained loudly, when they had been squashed into the back of a broken down Morris Minor with four pieces of luggage, and a box of rotting paw-paw belonging to the chattering driver. As the old car approached the rushing Rio Grande, the sun had made its first appearance over the top of the soaring blue mountains. Submerging the lush green valley in a translucent pinkish light. The avenue of flamboyant trees lining the roadside, rain dripping from their tightly packed blossoms, had reminded Serena of a mass of scarlet umbrellas.

It was a sight she’d never forgotten.

Now the wind was roaring across the island at more than eighty miles per hour, driving the rain violently, soaking everything in its path. And with it came a veil of mist which seemed to hang over the ground, covering the huge Cannonball tree at the foot of the garden in a ghostly cloak.

Serena’s eyes travelled across the covered terrace, then down the garden path, littered now with fallen branches, and on to the dark sea beyond. Through the gloom she caught sight of a huge wave, almost the same height as the ubiquitous coconut palms. Within seconds, it had smashed a small fishing boat to smithereens, the splintered fragments whirling on a great gust of wind before being swallowed up by the blackness of the sky.

Serena was fascinated. She found the untamed beauty of the storm exhilarating and the wildness of the scene stirred her senses. How could she know that for the rest of her life she would always look back on this day, thinking that if it hadn’t been for the storm things would have been so different.

Suddenly an involuntary gasp exploded from her lips when, stretching on tiptoe to scan the far side of the garden, she spotted something or someone moving behind the thick trunk of a date palm.

A figure stumbled out into the open. It was a man, his shirt flapping wildly like the wings of some huge prehistoric bird. As the full force of the wind hit him he dropped on to his belly and with his head curled into his chest, he crawled across the sodden ground towards the shelter of the house.

Serena shared his discomfort, afraid for him, as she watched his painfully slow progress. Every few yards he was forced to lie flat, covering his head with his hands as meagre protection from flying branches and other debris. As he drew nearer he seemed to shout for help, but his voice must have been lost in all the chaos.

She snapped out of her state of mental paralysis and jolted herself into action, running across the large drawing room, down two wide steps and into an internal courtyard that led to the hall.

She could hear the stranger’s muffled shouts as she flung open the heavy wooden door. He was slumped against the stone wall of the covered walkway which crossed the front of the house. Staring at him, speechless, she noticed how his broad chest heaved as he turned to face her.

He was panting.

Unable to take her eyes off the man it suddenly struck Serena that she must look totally stupid, standing there gaping. But just as she was about to say something, a particularly ferocious gust of wind lifted him and hurled him forward. She raised her hands to ward him off but the heavy weight of his body fell clumsily, crashing into her right shoulder. She cried out as her ankle twisted and she slid to the floor.

A second later the man was kneeling beside her, his strong hands cool on her bare shoulders. She could smell his wet clothes and a musky aroma coming from his skin, or was it his hair, she wasn’t sure which.

‘Are you OK?’ His voice was very deep.

A sharp pain shot through her ankle. It hurt like hell but Serena forced herself to suppress her tears.

‘It’s not much, I don’t think.’ Her voice was tremulous.

‘Let me look at it,’ he said, gently lifting her right foot.

Supporting her ankle with one hand, he tenderly ran his fingers over her skin, delicately searching for any signs of serious damage. Closing her eyes, Serena sat very still whilst he completed the examination.

‘No bones broken, thank God,’ he announced, his dark head glistening in the dim light. As he spoke he blinked rapidly, several times, to clear his vision of the tiny drops of rain which fell from his eyelashes.

Serena was shocked by the intense green of his eyes. And when a gleaming smile lit up his dark face, she suddenly felt that she’d known him for a very long time. Holding those eyes for what seemed like an age, she marvelled at the unpredictability of love at first sight.

‘Serena darling, what on earth is going on?’

Lord Frazer-West was striding towards them, dressed in a long cotton shirt and jeans; closely followed by Joseph, the butler, in starched white shirt and bow tie.

Reluctantly Serena dragged her eyes away from the stranger.

‘I’m not absolutely sure myself,’ she responded, glancing briefly in her husband’s direction before reverting her full attention to the other man.

It annoyed her that neither Nicholas nor the butler made any move to help the soaked stranger as he struggled to close the solid mahogany door behind him.