Miranda Lee - Seduction And Sacrifice

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK

GEMMA SMITH: on her father’s death, Gemma discovers a magnificent black opal worth a small fortune and an old photograph that casts doubt on her real identity. In quest of the truth and a new life, she sets off for Sydney…

NATHAN WHITMORE: adopted son of Byron Whitmore, Nathan is acting head of Whitmore Opals and a talented screenwriter. After a troubled childhood, and a divorce, he is ruthless and utterly emotionally controlled.

LENORE LANGTRY: talented stage actress, ex-wife of Nathan Whitmore and mother of Kirsty. Lenore’s tough exterior hides her unrequited love for successful solicitor, Zachary Marsden.

KIRSTY: the wayward fourteen-year-old daughter of Nathan and Lenore has never come to terms with their divorce.

JADE WHITMORE: the spoiled, willful daughter of Byron and the late Irene Whitmore, Jade can’t have the one man she wants—her adopted brother, Nathan.

BYRON WHITMORE: recently widowed, Byron is the patriarch of the Whitmore family, and a stranger to love.

MELANIE LLOYD: housekeeper to the Whitmores, Melanie is emotionally dead since the tragic deaths of her husband and only child.

AVA WHITMORE: Byron’s much younger sister, Ava struggles with her weight, being unmarried and her fear of failure.

A NOTE TO THE READER: This novel is one of a series of six. Each novel is independent and be read on its own. It is the author’s suggestion, however, that the novels be read in the order written.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SHE didn’t cry. Neither did anyone else attending her father’s funeral.

Not that there were many mourners standing round the grave-side that hot February morning at the Lightning Ridge Cemetery. Only the minister, Mr Gunther, Ma, and Gemma herself. The undertaker had left as soon as he’d dropped off the deceased. If you stretched a point, the grave-digger made five.

Admittedly, it was forty degrees in the shade, not the sort of day one would want to stand out in the sun for more than a few minutes unless compelled to do so out of duty. Gemma watched the coffin being lowered into the ground, but still she couldn’t cry.

The minister didn’t take long to scuttle off, she noticed bleakly, nor did Mr Gunther, leaving her to listen to that awful sound as the clods of dirt struck the lid of the coffin.

Why can’t I cry? she asked herself once more.

She jumped when Ma touched her on the shoulder. ‘Come on, love. Time to go home.’

Home...

Gemma dragged in then expelled a shuddering sigh. Had she ever thought of that ghastly dugout with its primitive dunny and dirt floors as home? Yet it had been, for as long as she could remember.

‘Do you want me to drive?’ Ma asked as they approached the rusted-out utility truck that had belonged to Jon Smith and which was now the property of his one and only child.

Gemma smiled at Ma, who was about the worst driver she had ever encountered. Her real name was Mrs Madge Walton, but she was known as Ma to the locals. She and her husband had come to try their luck in the opal fields at Lightning Ridge more than thirty years ago. When Bill Walton died, Ma had stayed on, living in a caravan and supplementing her widow’s pension by fossicking for opals and selling her finds to tourists.

She was Gemma’s neighbour and had often given Gemma sanctuary when her father had been in one of his foul moods. She was the closest thing to a mother Gemma had had, her own mother having died at her birth.

‘No, Ma,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive.’

They climbed into the cabin, which was stifling despite the windows being down. Bushflies crawled all over the windscreen.

‘What are you going to do now, love?’ Ma asked once they were under way. ‘I dare say you won’t stay in Lightning Ridge. You always fancied livin’ in the city, didn’t you?’

There was no use lying to Ma. She knew Gemma better than anybody. ‘I might go to Sydney,’ she said.

‘I came from Sydney, originally. Nasty place.’

‘In what way?’

‘Too big and too noisy.’

‘I could take a bit of noise after living out here,’ Gemma muttered.

‘What will you do with Blue?’

Blue was Gemma’s pet cattle-dog. Her father had bought him a few years back, fully grown, because he was a fierce guard-dog. He’d chained him up outside the entrance to the dugout and God help anybody who went near him. Gemma had rather enjoyed the challenge of making friends with the dog and had astounded both her father and Ma by eventually winning the animal’s total loyalty and devotion. The dog adored Gemma and she adored him. She didn’t have to think long over her answer to Ma’s question.

‘Take him with me, of course.’

‘He won’t like the city, love.’

‘He’ll like wherever I am,’ Gemma said stubbornly.

‘Aye, that he probably will. Never seen a dog so attached to a person. He still frightens the dickens out of me, though.’

‘He’s as gentle as a lamb.’

‘Only with you, love. Only with you.’

Gemma laughed.

‘That’s better,’ Ma said. ‘It’s good to hear you laugh again.’

Gemma fell silent. But I still haven’t cried, she thought. It bothered her, very much. A daughter should cry when her father died.

She frowned and fell silent. They swept back into town and out along Three Mile Road.

Both Ma and Gemma lived a few miles out of Lightning Ridge, on the opposite side to the cemetery, near a spot called Frog Hollow. It wasn’t much different from most places around the Ridge. The dry, rocky lunar landscape was pretty much the same wherever the ground had been decimated by mine shaft after mine shaft. Picturesque it was not. Nor green. The predominant colour was greyish-white.

Ma’s caravan was parked under a fairly large old iron-bark tree, but the lack of rainfall meant a meagre leafage which didn’t provide much shade from the searing summer sun. Gemma’s dugout, by comparison, was cool.

‘Come and sit in my place for a while,’ Gemma offered as they approached Ma’s caravan. ‘We’ll have a cool drink together.’

‘That’s kind of you, love. Yes, I’d like that.’

Gemma drove on past the caravan, quickly covering the short distance between it and her father’s claim. She began to frown when Blue didn’t come charging down the dirt road towards her as he always did. Scrunching up her eyes against the glare of the sun, she peered ahead and thought she made out a dark shape lying in the dust in front of the dugout. It looked ominously still.

‘Oh, no,’ she cried, and, slamming on the brakes, she dived out of the utility practically before it was stopped. ‘Blue!’ she shouted, and ran, falling to her knees in the dirt before him and scooping his motionless form into her lap. His head lolled to one side, a dried froth around his lips.

‘He’s dead !’ she gasped, and lifted horrified eyes to Ma, who was looking down at the sorry sight with pity in her big red face.

‘Yes, love. It seems so.’

‘But how?’ she moaned. ‘Why?’

‘Poisoned, by the look of it.’

‘Poisoned! But who would poison my Blue?’