Dark Moonless Night

Dark Moonless Night
Anne Mather

Mills & Boon are excited to present The Anne Mather Collection – the complete works by this classic author made available to download for the very first time! These books span six decades of a phenomenal writing career, and every story is available to read unedited and untouched from their original release. Rekindling an old flame…Seven years ago Caroline had considered Gareth Morgan unsuitable as a potential husband – and it was too late now to have second thoughts about that! But when she finds herself unexpectedly living in the same area of Central Africa as him, she discovers that her attraction still burns as hotly as the equatorial sun!When Caroline encounters only hostility from Gareth, she consoles herself that she has plenty of admirers anyway. But now he seems to be seeing her in a whole new way – is his icy aloofness finally beginning to thaw…?

Mills & Boon is proud to present a fabulous

collection of fantastic novels by

bestselling, much loved author

ANNE MATHER

Anne has a stellar record of achievement within the

publishing industry, having written over one hundred

and sixty books, with worldwide sales of more than

forty-eight MILLION copies in multiple languages.

This amazing collection of classic stories offers a chance

for readers to recapture the pleasure Anne’s powerful,

passionate writing has given.

We are sure you will love them all!

I’ve always wanted to write—which is not to say I’ve always wanted to be a professional writer. On the contrary, for years I only wrote for my own pleasure and it wasn’t until my husband suggested sending one of my stories to a publisher that we put several publishers’ names into a hat and pulled one out. The rest, as they say, is history. And now, one hundred and sixty-two books later, I’m literally—excuse the pun— staggered by what’s happened.

I had written all through my infant and junior years and on into my teens, the stories changing from children’s adventures to torrid gypsy passions. My mother used to gather these manuscripts up from time to time, when my bedroom became too untidy, and dispose of them! In those days, I used not to finish any of the stories and Caroline, my first published novel, was the first I’d ever completed. I was newly married then and my daughter was just a baby, and it was quite a job juggling my household chores and scribbling away in exercise books every chance I got. Not very professional, as you can imagine, but that’s the way it was.

These days, I have a bit more time to devote to my work, but that first love of writing has never changed. I can’t imagine not having a current book on the typewriter—yes, it’s my husband who transcribes everything on to the computer. He’s my partner in both life and work and I depend on his good sense more than I care to admit.

We have two grown-up children, a son and a daughter, and two almost grown-up grandchildren, Abi and Ben. My e-mail address is mystic-am@msn.com (mailto:mystic-am@msn.com) and I’d be happy to hear from any of my wonderful readers.

Dark Moonless Night

Anne Mather

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Table of Contents

Cover (#u604fe7fd-51c5-545d-b83b-5ffd62c38532)

About the Author (#u3ffe252e-0fd9-540f-8600-67d388daf330)

Title Page (#u2ffdf3b6-9f9c-59a2-aa21-4f88d983c73c)

CHAPTER ONE (#u504c0af6-d98b-56e6-a1db-8990f5c5d49e)

CHAPTER TWO (#ud0e467e9-5d2e-5d11-b384-49731050c07d)

CHAPTER THREE (#u3f108209-8adc-5203-b295-5f899290be14)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_ebe4e990-71c0-5539-9f47-3e27696eebaf)

THE Boeing had landed in the early hours of the morning, local time, and there had been little to see but the lights of the airport; which, as far as Caroline could remember, had been much the same as any other airport she had visited, except of course that all the personnel were black. It had been cold, too, much colder than one would have imagined a place to be that was within a couple of hundred miles of the Equator. There had been the usual landing procedure, the usual delays with passport control and Customs, but then they had been free to take the company car to the hotel.

David and Miranda had been fractious, which hadn’t really been surprising. Any young child would be fractious at having to be wakened from a sound sleep to face a series of irritating airport formalities, and even Elizabeth had been inclined to moan a little. It had been left to Caroline to marshall their suitcases for the black chauffeur and cope with two small pairs of clinging hands, both of which demanded her undivided attention.

At last they had all been able to pile into the back of the opulent limousine sent by Freelong Copper Incorporated to meet the wife and family of one of its minor executives. They had been driven along a smooth, tarmacked highway to Ashenghi, Tsaba’s capital, and installed in a luxurious hotel in the very heart of the city. Then the chauffeur had departed leaving them to explore the comfortable suite of rooms which had been put at their disposal.

Elizabeth had said it had all been too much, much too much, and she had pleaded exhaustion and a raging headache before taking herself off to seek the cool sheets of her bed. Consequently, it was Caroline who gave the children their brief but thorough wash, helped them into their pyjamas, and tucked them up in the twin beds in the room adjoining her own. And it had been Caroline who had been woken twice in the night—once when a particularly large species of moth had somehow invaded the children’s room, and secondly when David awoke, terrified at the strangeness of his surroundings.

But all that had happened several hours ago now, Caroline realised, as the heat of her room and the activity of her thoughts brought her fully awake. As yet, no one seemed to be stirring in the apartment, but the brilliance of the sunlight which was penetrating even the shutters of her windows was sufficient to arouse her to a full awareness of exactly where she was. And besides, there was a distinctly alien lack of inhibition about the noises coming from outside the hotel.

She thrust back the cotton sheet which had suddenly become too heavy on her slender limbs and slid out of bed. Her feet appreciated the coolness of the floor tiles as she went to the window, but when she thrust the shutters wide the heat caused her to draw back into the shadows as her eyes adjusted themselves.

Her windows overlooked the side of the hotel and immediately below she could identify the noises she had heard. Three stories below were the hotel kitchens and from there came the clatter of dishes and the shouted commands of someone in charge. Dustbin lids clattered as black-skinned houseboys in white shirts and shorts covered by long aprons came to empty rubbish, and an assortment of mangy dogs hung about the outer precincts obviously hoping for scraps.

Beyond the less salubrious environs of the kitchen yard a stretch of browned grass gave on to the road down which they had travelled the night before. Although there was quite a lot of traffic using it now it was a much more motley collection than Caroline was used to seeing from the windows of her London flat. There were carts and bicycles, fruit and vegetable drays drawn by oxen, and lorries and cars thickly smeared with dust. Although the road itself was smoothly surfaced, there were no pavements to speak of, just mud-baked paths at the side along which moved a steady stream of women and children. The women carried baskets of clothes or produce on their heads, and Caroline could only assume they were going to the market. This unsophisticated view of humanity went oddly with the skyscraper blocks of hotels and offices and other commercial buildings which formed the nucleus of this apparently thriving African capital.

Turning back into her bedroom, Caroline tried to dispel a sense of disappointment. After all, she had chosen to come to Tsaba, no one had forced her to do it, and just because it was far removed from the picturesque jungle clearing of her imagination it did not mean that she regretted coming. On the contrary, her surroundings were immaterial. She was here to do a job of work, and if by chance she should get to meet Gareth, well …

There was only one bathroom to serve the whole suite, so as everyone else seemed to be sleeping on Caroline made the most of it. She took a shower, smoothed a perfumed anti-sunburn cream into her arms and legs, and brushed her hair until it shone. Her hair was her best feature, she thought. Thick and lustrous, it swung in a dark chestnut curtain to her shoulders where it tilted under, curving confidingly under her chin in front. She was not unaware that amber eyes edged by long thick lashes and a wide, attractive mouth gave one a distinctly appealing appearance, but she had never considered herself beautiful. She was too tall, she thought. Girls who were five feet seven inches in their stockinged feet could never appear weak and clinging, and while she could get away with strongly coloured dramatic clothes, the envy of some of her friends, frilly, feminine garments did not suit her.

After her shower, she dressed in slim-fitting cotton pants in a rather unusual shade of lilac, and a sleeveless yellow tank top. By the time she returned to her room she could hear David and Miranda arguing and when she reached the door of their room Miranda burst into tears. As soon as she saw Caroline, she rushed across to her, wrapping her arms around Caroline’s thighs and clinging to her.

Caroline released the little girl’s arms and went down on her haunches beside her. ‘Now what’s going on?’ she asked gently.