Sara Craven - Witch's Harvest

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Former journalist SARA CRAVENpublished her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

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Title Page Witch’s Harvest Sara Craven www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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Copyright Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

THE LIFT DOORS slid together, and the steel cage began its upward journey with a faint lurch, which Abigail Westmore’s stomach uneasily echoed.

What the hell, she thought despairingly, was she doing, acting as a reluctant messenger between her cousin and her fiancé? Why hadn’t she refused—stood out for once against Della and her outrageous demands? Because unless she’d totally misunderstood the situation, the letter in her bag contained some kind of ultimatum, and was the last thing she wanted to be involved with, particularly when … Her mind closed off.

For the umpteenth time she looked in her bag to check that the letter was still there, that she hadn’t, by some Freudian slip, lost it on the way here. Then she glanced at her watch, making sure that her timing was exact. Della had been most insistent about that.

‘You’ve got to deliver it just before six,’ she’d said sharply. ‘So don’t go into one of your dreams, Abby, and forget. Everything depends on you.’

Abby had no wish for ‘everything’ to depend on her, particularly when it meant delivering a message to Vasco da Carvalho which he would not want to receive.

They used to execute people who brought bad news in the old days, she thought, grimacing at her reflection in the lift mirror. Not that she thought Vasco would go to those lengths, although she suspected he had a temper, but he would be less than pleased to know that Della had been discussing the rift between them with a third party.

She could always slide the envelope under the door and vanish, she thought, then sighed. No, she had to give the letter to him in person. Della had been adamant about that too.

‘And if he’s not there,’ she added, ‘you must phone me instantly—at this number.’ And she had handed Abby a folded slip of paper.

Abby had been mildly surprised. After all, she’d spent the greater part of her life, since her parents’ death, sharing her cousin’s luxurious home in St John’s Wood. She could, she thought, be expected to remember the phone number, even if she had been living in her own bed-sitter for the past six weeks. But when she glanced at the paper later, she was disturbed to see that Della had written the number of a Paris hotel.

Although she wasn’t sure why she felt uneasy. Della, and her mother, often popped across to Paris on shopping expeditions for Della’s trousseau. And now that Della had learned to her fury and alarm that her future married life would not be spent in the lap of luxury in Rio de Janeiro but on an obscure cocoa plantation in Amazonia, she would probably have to re-think much of her wardrobe. But it seemed odd that she was going shopping when matters between Vasco and herself were so unsettled.

The lift halted, and Abby emerged reluctantly into the corridor, her heels sinking into the deep pile of the carpet. It was the first time she had visited the apartment block where Vasco was staying, and it was all as luxurious as she’d imagined. She could see why Della had fallen into the trap of believing this was the kind of background Vasco belonged to, rather than some obscure corner of the Brazilian rain forest. She could understand, to some extent, why her cousin had been convinced that the cocoa bean plantation was just a temporary aberration—a rich man’s whim—and that when he was married, Vasco would cheerfully take his place in his family’s wealthy export company in Rio, with all that implied.