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Authors: Dorothy Vernon

Kissed by Moonlight

BOOK: Kissed by Moonlight
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KISSED BY
MOONLIGHT

Dorothy Vernon

CHIVERS

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

This eBook published by AudioGO Ltd, Bath, 2012.

Published by arrangement with the Author

Epub ISBN 9781471311987

Copyright © 1981 by Dorothy Vernon

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental

Jacket illustration © iStockphoto.com

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Chapter One

Petrina's face was pressed into the pillow that was acting as a sponge for her tears, which was why she didn't hear the man climbing in through her bedroom window. She first saw her midnight intruder as a shadow, dramatically elongated, on the white wall.

She knew immediately it was the press; it was always the press these days. “Why won't you leave me alone?” It was a plea.

She reached out a hand, meaning to switch on her bedside lamp. Impulse intervened, as it so often did because she was a woman given to spontaneous action. Instead, she threw the table lamp at him.

He ducked. The lamp crashed against the wall; her bed sank silently under his extra weight. She shivered in horror. Fear, plus the proximity of his long, supple strength, acted as a momentary silencer. Before she had the wit to scream, his hand clamped down on her mouth. She bit it.

“You little vixen. I'm here to –”

“Get off my bed. This is unpardonable –”

“For heaven's sake, list –”

“– trespass,” she yelled at him.

She would have said more, but his mouth closed on hers; no doubt he thought that would shut her up. She hit out at him, trying desperately to regain her freedom.

“All right, if that's how you want it.” His laugh grated on her senses, tapping a memory that was slow to form.

The kiss deepened, and suddenly she knew who he was. Her first guess that he was one of the newspaper reporters who'd hounded her for days, going to diabolical lengths to interview her, was wrong. Even the most unscrupulous of them wouldn't resort to this.

“You're not the press,” she hissed at him.

“Of course I'm not. A couple of characters who look as if they might be are lurking outside. That's why I decided to come in this way instead of using the door.”

“What do you want of me?” she demanded.

“I thought
you
might want something of
me
.”

Three years ago when they last met, yes. Not now. “Go to the devil,” she spat at him in fiery indignation. Then she thought again, and added, “What did you think I might want?”

“Protection.”

“Thank you, but I can look after myself,” she replied with a return of spirit.

His low chuckle went part way to agreeing with her bold statement. “A while ago I might have argued with that. Now I'm inclined to believe you. For a lightweight, you've got quite a punch, Petrina.”

In the remote event of her needing to have her suspicions regarding his identity confirmed, his use of her unusual name would have been proof enough. David had always called her Petrina. To the press she was Trina Nightingale, and the majority of her friends called her Trina as well. If people thought about it at all, they generally assumed it to be a shortening of the name Katrina.

It was pure perversity that made her ask, “Am I supposed to know you?”

“Always the joker. Want me to put the light on so that you can see me?”

She would have said yes, but for the teasing note in his voice that gave her memory a nudge. Before crawling into bed she'd indulged in a temper tantrum, throwing her various possessions everywhere. It had been a stupid and pointless release, serving no useful purpose, and tomorrow she would have the ignoble task of picking everything up and restoring order. It wasn't the state of the room that bothered her, though. She didn't care a toss what he thought of that. Her concern was of a more personal nature. She'd thrown literally everything she could lay her hands on, including her nightgown, as his restraining hands could bear witness, hence the inflection in his voice.

She heard the groping noises as he reached for the quilt that had slithered to the floor. She felt its comforting bulk being wrapped around her. Only then did he switch on the light so that she could see his mocking face.

“Hello,” she said resignedly to David Palmer, the son of her dearest and most trusted friend, Professor Richard Palmer.

Three years ago, when she was eighteen, she had imagined herself to be in love with the much older David. She had extended her foolishness a step further by telling him so. A rebuff was the last thing she had expected. She had the looks; her father had the money. Who would turn down that irresistible combination? Who but David? He had callously informed her that she was a promising child. “Look me up in several years' time,” he had drawled, “when they've let you out of school.”

Her lip had trembled but she'd stood her ground. “I'm not a child. Girls aren't children at eighteen these days,” she screamed at him. “You're a rat.”

She would have pushed past him, but nobody called him a rat and got away with it. He'd held her by the wrists and forced her to come forward until she was directly under his chin. The tangy fresh smell of his after-shave – a blend of sage, laurel, and oak moss – had teased her nose until she was looking up at him. She had wrenched her wrists free, but mischief had prompted her to wind her hands up around his neck and clasp her fingers tightly together.

He had groaned and said, “The ring of seduction.” She hadn't known what he meant and he didn't explain it to her.

“And don't ever say that to me,” he'd added tersely. “Don't ever call me a rat again.”

Her full child's mouth, colored by nature that soft shade of pink that beauticians aim in vain to create, had pouted at him as she sought to hide her pain. “I suppose understatement would bother you. You're not just any old rat. You're King Rat.”

She'd looked scared then, as if it had just occurred to her that she'd gone too far. She didn't know that the signs she was reading – the swift shallow breathing, the dilated pupils – were due to arousal. Half-child that she had been, she was gullible enough to believe him when he said he had no interest in her.

“I'm not King Rat. That title deservedly belongs to your father.”

She kept right on looking at him with her huge, reproachful eyes, biting heavily on her lip. She couldn't know that he'd retaliated in anger because of his own response to her nearness.

Regret had washed over his features. “I didn't mean that, and whether I meant it or not is immaterial. I shouldn't have said it. I'm sorry. Sorry for my quick tongue. Sorry for the things you have yet to find out.”

She'd found them out the next day. It was three years ago and still the pain of remembering hurt. No wonder he hadn't wanted anything to do with her. Her father was no longer a highly respected man of great wealth and power. The words the press bandied about – fraudulent transactions, currency infringements, secretive deals, financial failure, tax investigations – spelled out the crash of his vast business empire.

In the nightmare days that followed there was a lot that was not entirely clear to her. Her father had started modestly with little more than a wild brilliance and the ambition to back it up. Wherever his Midas hand touched he brought jobs and prosperity. Perhaps he never realized he'd succeeded in what he'd set out to do. Perhaps he found it too stultifying to sit back and lord it in luxury. Restless ambition stirred his brain. He dreamed of having an interest in an island sunspot – a small, neglected chunk of land that was waiting to be reclaimed and turned into a holiday paradise. Nothing trashy or commercialized, though. Just white villas, a few select shops. A hotel, even two, tastefully secluded in a green and fragrant setting of pine. Sickle-shaped beaches, peace, relaxation – everything his overworked brain and body craved for when he planned a holiday. The island of Chimera.

He made his first error ever, the error of looking at the scheme with too personal an eye. He'd always known intuitively what the public wanted and he had given it to them irrespective of whether it coincided with his own taste. Perhaps he'd stumbled on the formula of success by accident and wasn't aware of it. This time he was going to give the public what
he
wanted, whether
they
wanted it or not.

He advertised both at home and abroad for parties interested in taking out a concession in the venture. The response was enormous. King Midas, as he was affectionately called, couldn't fail, and people from all walks of life wanted a stake in any project that carried the charisma of his name.

From the beginning there were snags. One was the tight control on sterling movement. Permission was rarely given for the transfer of the amount he envisaged without a cast-iron guarantee of a quick return of foreign capital.

He got his plan off the ground, but there were too many things against him. The unprecedented rise in aviation charges brought on by the severe energy crisis was only one of many hurdles to be overcome. Several of the investors pulled out when they saw how things were going and this show of lost confidence moved others to do the same. The final blow came when the package tour operators weren't enthusiastic and declined to include his resort in their holiday brochures. Their support had been vital, but as far as they were concerned the very things that Benjamin Nightingale had pressed for – the peace and quiet and exquisite natural beauty of an unspoiled location – proved its downfall. It wasn't commercial enough, they said.

The dream had shattered at his feet. Benjamin Nightingale not only lost his Midas touch, but almost his mind, as the full weight of the disaster hit him. He escaped going to prison because someone stepped in to buy him out. He dodged the abuse and the condemnation of the same public who had hoisted him up onto his golden throne by fleeing to a secret hideaway in Scotland. The press had a field day, latching predictably on to such headlines as “The King Has Fallen” or, another favorite, “The Bird Has Flown.”

Petrina had begged her father to take her with him, but he had refused all entreaty. It hurt that he did not want her by his side but she understood that he was driven almost by instinct. In the way that a hurt animal drags himself to his lair to lick his wounds in private, so he wanted some time alone.

Although her mother had died many years before, Petrina was lucky to have a staunch protector in Professor Richard Palmer, a widower like her father and her father's friend. He took her into his home and persuaded her to continue with her schooling. Before her father's financial crash, her name had been put down for her to go to an exclusive school in the south of England. As far as she was concerned, that was now out of the question.

“But Uncle Richard,” she had argued, “there's no money to pay for it.” The “uncle” was a courtesy title only, honoring his long-standing family friendship. “It's been set aside for you.”

“My father lost everything. He couldn't have made provision for my education.”

“Who mentioned your father?”

“Then who?”

He had given a small embarrassed laugh. “Sometimes it's better not to ask these things, my child.” But she knew who her kind benefactor was. Uncle Richard himself.

“I can't take your savings.”

“I'd insist that you did, if I had any. I'm not the financial genius in this family, though,” he'd said, a wicked reminder that it was his son, David, who was that and more. “I've nothing to speak of in the bank and I have to draw on my own resources. I'm as rich as my next salary check.” The grin on his face had slid into a look of genuine concern. “I would have been happy to pay your school fees, even at some sacrifice, but it was never asked of me.”

She hadn't believed him. She had reached up to kiss his cheek, for his generosity and for his modesty in telling a white lie so that he would not be embarrassed by her thanks.

She had settled down reasonably well at school. Her father had been less content in Scotland, in his whitewashed crofter's cottage. He soon tired of the heather- and bracken-clad banks and braes. The windy spaces, this bonny refuge, could no longer appease his exiled heart. His restless thoughts migrated to the city streets of his birthplace. He had to make a comeback. He reasoned it out in his mind that he'd gone into the holiday project with insufficient knowledge. He wouldn't make that mistake again. He hit upon a plan, bolder than the first one, but still, he was convinced, within his capabilities. He had the flair and determination to succeed, and also the knowledge. What he didn't have was the money; he needed a stake. There must still have been some charisma attached to his name because he got it. The speculators readily came in, and he was in harness again. Petrina joined him; she left school to keep house for him.

BOOK: Kissed by Moonlight
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