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Prologue
Chapter One ‘M iss Bowes?’ The voice was low, mellow and familiar. It spoke in Sally’s ear and she came awake abruptly. For a moment she could not remember where she was. Her neck ached slightly and her cheek was pressed against something cold. Paper. She had fallen asleep in her office again. Her head was resting on the piles of invoices and orders that were on the desk. She half-opened her eyes. It was almost dark. The lamp glowed softly and from beyond the door drifted the faint sound of music, the babble of voices and the scent of cigar smoke and wine. That meant it must be late; the evening’s entertainments at the Blue Parrot Club had already begun. ‘Miss Bowes?’ This time the voice sounded considerably less agreeable and more than a little impatient. Sally sat up, wincing as her stiff muscles protested, and rubbed her eyes. She blinked them open, stopped, stared, then rubbed them again to ensure that she was not dreaming. She was not. He was still there. Jack Kestrel was leaning
Chapter One
Chapter Two H e wanted her. He wanted the Blue Parrot’s cool-as-ice owner in his arms and in his bed and Jack Kestrel was accustomed to getting the things that he wanted. It should have been impossible with her sister’s blackmail standing between them, but Jack was determined to find a way to have Miss Sally Bowes. It had been a relief in some ways to discover that his instincts about her the previous night had been sound after all. Jack did not like being made to doubt his own judgement. But whatever the sins of Miss Connie Bowes, he was sure that her sister was as honest as she claimed to be. Sally was no blackmailer. He watched Sally as she mounted the fine silver-and-brass staircase to the second floor. She was a tall woman and she held herself very upright, with the unconscious grace of someone who had learned deportment in her youth. Not for the first time, he wondered about her background. He had been away from London a long time, too long to know anything of the owner of the mo
Chapter Two
Chapter Three D amn the woman. How could she look so cool and unemotional when only ten minutes before he had been kissing her senseless? How dared she look so cool when he was burning up with the need to possess her? Jack watched Sally as she walked slowly towards him. The waiter had installed him at the very best table in the dining room, up on a dais tucked away at the back of the room and surrounded by drooping green fronds of palm. Somewhere, out of sight, a string quartet was playing softly. It was a charming setting, relaxed but extremely stylish. The food smelled wonderful. But Jack had lost his appetite for food and he did not feel remotely relaxed. Every nerve ending in his body seemed tense and alert, wound up intolerably, waiting. He watched as Sally smiled and paused to answer the greetings of the other diners. She looked regal, untouchable and very, very seductive in the bright fuchsia-pink silk gown. He had noticed it when she had first walked into the card room. Of cour
Chapter Three
Chapter Four S ally woke up as the morning sun crept across the floor of the bedroom and touched her face with its warmth. She opened her eyes slowly. She could tell that it was very early, for the light still had its dawn pallor. Out in the street she could hear the rumble of carriage wheels and the scrape and crash of the vendors setting up their stalls, but behind that noise were the calls of the birds in the garden at the back of the house and the splash of water in the fountain. It sounded peaceful. She yawned, stretched and reached out a hand. The bed was empty. Somehow she had known that it would be. Jack had gone whilst she was asleep. He had made love to her twice more through the long, hot darkness of the night, teaching her things she could never have imagined, taking her to places she had never even thought could exist, showing her things about herself and her responses that had dazzled and overwhelmed her. He had held her in his arms and shown her tenderness, but despite h
Chapter Four
Chapter Five J ack glanced sideways at Sally Bowes as she sat beside him on the deep-red leather seat of the Lanchester. She looked cool, composed and very, very desirable. It took all his self-possession not to lift the saucy black veil she was wearing and kiss her luscious red mouth. She was pin neat in a black-and-white travelling outfit and picture hat that framed her face and Jack admitted to himself that he wanted to rip it all off her and make love to her on the bonnet of the Lanchester. But Alfred, the Blue Parrot doorman, probably would not care for that. He was currently polishing one of the car’s gleaming panels with the sleeve of his uniform and looking as excited as a child with a new toy. Jack waited whilst Sally handed Alfred an envelope, with a low-voiced instruction that he could not hear. The doorman nodded, stood back and raised a hand in farewell. ‘I do not think we need to go as far as the border,’ Jack said, as the car moved off into the Strand. ‘Bertie has always
Chapter Five
Chapter Six J ack fiddled irritably with his cufflinks whilst the long-suffering valet he had borrowed from his brother-in-law put the final touches to his wing collar. ‘If you could just keep still a moment longer, sir,’ the man said resignedly. Jack sighed and tried not to tap his foot. The dinner suit, shirt and tie were all borrowed as well as the servant. It was fortunate that he and Stephen were of a height. He was a little broader across the shoulder and could feel the material straining a little, but it was not a bad fit. He hoped he did not split the jacket. It was no wonder his brother-in-law had given him a tuxedo rather than his best tailcoat to wear, but he thought that Lady Ottoline would probably cut up rough when she saw that he was not in formal evening dress. He wondered what Charley would find for Sally to wear to dinner. Whatever it was, it would not be able to eclipse that luscious pink gown she had worn two nights before. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. He f
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven J ack was up early the following morning. He had slept poorly, tantalised by the knowledge that Sally’s room was just down the corridor from his own, so near and yet so far. More disturbing than his sexual frustration was the fact that he actually missed sleeping with her; he missed her warmth and her scent and the confiding way that her body curled closely with his, bringing a deep sense of peace and comfort to him. It was not a feeling that was familiar to him and it irritated him profoundly. He wished he had not provoked her when they had parted the previous night. She had spoken so convincingly about her reasons for refusing Gregory Holt that he had almost believed her. Then he had kissed her and once again he had been swept by the need to have her, to hold her, to keep her close. He wanted to believe in her. He was hesitating on the edge of a precipice and it infuriated him that Sally could get under his skin like this because he knew he was losing control; after Mer
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight S ally was not sure how she got outside. She vaguely remembered running back down the staircase and seeing Jack’s and Stephen’s startled faces as she rushed past them. Jack put a hand out to her and called her name, but Sally brushed him aside and slammed the door open. She hurried across the terrace and stood with her palms resting on the flat top of the wall that bounded the moat, and breathed in deep breaths of the fresh night air in an attempt to still the whirling, giddy spin of sickness within her. You mustn’t listen to all the gossip about his past, Lady Ottoline had said to her only the night before, but it was difficult not to listen to fiction when Jack himself refused to speak of his first love and Sally knew nothing beyond the fact that he had loved her and they had run away together and that she had been shot. To think that it might have been Jack who had killed Merle was shattering, impossible, even if it had been a tragic accident. An icy trickle of despair
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine I t was raining when Sally got back to London, big fat summer raindrops that spattered the dry cobbles and made the air smell of dust. Jack had wanted to drive her back, but Sally had insisted on taking the railway; she needed time alone to think. She had told Jack that she would give him an answer to his proposal that night, after the opening of the new Crimson Salon at the Blue Parrot, which meant that her whirlwind affair had lasted precisely a week. It seemed a perilously short space of time on which to make a decision that would affect the rest of her life so profoundly. Yet even if she turned Jack down, she could see that things would not be the same; he had come into her life and changed everything. The club was reassuringly calm and quiet. Dan took her through everything that had happened in her absence and assured her that they were ready for the opening. Keeping her eye on the clock so that she would have plenty of time to get dressed for the evening, Sally worke
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
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