Sara Craven - Moth To The Flame

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 Moth to the Flame 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

ENDPAGE 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.

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.

‘WELL, I can’t understand you,’ Mrs Laurence said plaintively. ‘Most girls would give their eye teeth for a week in Rome with all expenses paid.’

Juliet Laurence repressed a sigh and gave her mother a look of affectionate resignation. ‘You make it all sound so simple,’ she said.

‘It is simple,’ her mother protested.

‘And of course Jan will welcome me with open arms, without the slightest idea that I’ve been sent out to spy on her.’

‘What an unpleasant way of expressing it!’ Mrs Laurence directed a quelling glance at her older daughter. ‘That is not my intention at all. I admit that I’m concerned, but …’

‘But you want to know what she’s doing, and why she hasn’t written to you for nearly a month, without actually asking her directly,’ Juliet supplied accurately.

‘But she never keeps me waiting so long for a letter,’ Mrs Laurence said defensively. ‘Something’s wrong, I know it is. I have one of my feelings …’

‘Oh, Mim!’ Juliet smiled ruefully. ‘You and those “feelings” of yours—the panics they’ve started! If you’re so worried, why don’t you telephone Jan? It would be cheaper than sending me to Rome to ferret out the information for you.’

‘I can’t phone her. I’d sound like one of those dreadful, over-protective mothers who keep dragging their fledglings back to the nest,’ Mrs Laurence said fretfully. ‘Jan would hate it. And I’ve never pestered or interfered, have I?’

Juliet patted her hand. ‘No, Mim, love, of course not.’

And if the thought fleetingly occurred to her that if it had been herself all those miles away in Rome instead of her younger sister, her mother’s antennae might not have been quite so sensitive to impending doom, she loyally suppressed it. After all, Jan was her last-born, and Juliet had always known, ever since her sister’s birth, that Jan was the favourite child. It was an instinctive knowledge and she had been able to absorb it without particular hurt, because she knew that she was also loved and valued, and that what favouritism there was had been wholly unconscious on her mother’s part.

Jan, after all, was everyone’s darling. She was incredibly lovely to look at, for one thing. Strangers had hung over her pram, cooing rapturously while she accepted their homage. She had continued to accept it all through her childhood, at school and at play, and no one had been in the least surprised when a career in modelling beckoned when she was seventeen. And now she had been working in Rome for almost a year at a leading fashion house, the latest in a series of glamorous jobs.

Juliet did not grudge her sister one iota of her almost meteoric success. No one, she had realised a long time ago, was ever likely to offer her a career in modelling, even if that had been what she wanted—unless it was to advertise tights or nail varnish. Her legs were long and shapely, and her hands small and well cared for, but her figure, although slender and rounded in the right places, would never set the world on fire, she thought judiciously, and while she shared Jan’s basic colouring, her own hair tended towards a bright copper rather than her sister’s rich red-gold colour and her eyes had more grey than green in them. Her face was thinner, too, its cheekbones more prominent and the mouth more vulnerable.