Charade In Winter

Charade In Winter
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. A dangerous deception…Alix has good reasons for wanting to work for the powerful Oliver Morgan - but she knew he won’t like them! So she takes the job he offers under false pretences, hoping he will never discover the truth…But Alix is about to find out that that she has been deceived too when it turns out the position doesn’t exist! Alix is soon caught up in a dangerous double-game with Oliver – and the disturbing attraction between them is threatening to upset both their plans…

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.

Charade in Winter

Anne Mather

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

Table of Contents

Cover (#u4ea4a1d6-0def-5ecd-b02e-b33cfd28912a)

About the Author (#uc027f0a8-5b89-5d7b-8d82-48e9e6c61034)

Title Page (#ue2b0296a-0b84-59a6-ac43-cda84a83b845)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ua6e882eb-fb10-58a3-af5b-b9530b269f0b)

IT was cold. Much colder than she had expected it would be, even though she had been warned that Northumberland in November was not the place for hothouse plants—Lady Morgan’s words, not hers. Her breath turned to vapour in the frosty air, a minute contribution to the mist that was thickening between the trees all around her, giving their bare branches a skeletal shrouding. Alix dug her hands more deeply into the pockets of her sheepskin coat as the tail-lights of the bus disappeared into the encroaching dusk of the afternoon, and then turned reluctantly to the glimmer of light issuing between the half-drawn curtains of the lodge. Had she been mad to agree to this charade? she wondered uneasily. Was she going to regret her impulsiveness before she had even encountered her prospective employer? Was the chill of the day seeping into her bones, undermining her determination to succeed? Or was it simply that she doubted her own ability to cope in what was, to her, an entirely alien situation?

Although there could not be too many buses stopping at the gates of Darkwater Hall, her arrival seemed to have aroused no curiosity, and she looked down resignedly at her two suitcases. As no one else was there to carry them for her, she would have to carry them herself. But how far? The lodge stood just inside the tall iron gates that were at present closed against any intruders, but beyond a curve of gravelled drive that disappeared between thickly planted trees into the mist she could see nothing.

Deciding it was pointless to stand there speculating when action was obviously necessary, Alix looped her handbag over her shoulder and, taking a case in each hand, walked towards the tall gates. An iron ring suspended by the stone gateposts invited tugging, and with an irrepressible feeling of stepping back in time she reached for it.

The sudden barking of dogs was startling and seconds later two enormous wolfhounds rounded the corner of the lodge and came charging towards the gates. She stepped back automatically, the brief spell of unreality evaporating before such an aggressive presence. Instead, the animals renewed all her former uncertainties, and had she not had the suitcases to impede her she might well have changed her mind about going on with this. As it was, she stood in frozen immobility, half mesmerised by the beasts leaping at the gates in front of her, until a man appeared and silenced their noisy uproar. He was an elderly man, dressed in dark trousers and a tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbows, a peaked cap concealing his thatch of silvery hair. He looked neither pleased nor surprised to see her, and without further ado began to unbolt the gates.

‘This is Darkwater Hall, isn’t it?’

Alix felt obliged to say something, and the man nodded, holding back the dogs by their collars, and indicated that she should come inside. Rather gingerly Alix obeyed, wondering rather foolishly whether he intended letting the dogs loose on her as soon as the gates were closed again.

The gate swung closed behind her, and the man spoke for the first time, his accent thick with the Northumbrian brogue: ‘You afraid of dogs?’

Alix put down her cases. ‘Not particularly,’ she admitted, and then stiffened as he did as she had feared and released the wolfhounds. They came bounding towards her, barking once more, but the man seemed unconcerned.

‘They’ll not harm you,’ he said, securing the gates again, ‘not unless you was to run or do something silly like. They’re guard dogs, but they’re not vicious.’

Alix managed a half-smile, suppressing the urge to push the wet noses away from her legs. ‘You know who I am?’

The man regarded her levelly. ‘Well, as we don’t get young women coming to the gates with suitcases every day, I’d hazard a guess that you was Mrs Thornton, is that right? You’re expected. And it’s not an afternoon for standing on ceremony, is it?’

‘No, it’s not.’ Alix’s pulse rate slowed as the dogs began to lose interest. ‘Er—how far is the Hall?’

The man glanced at her, glanced at her suitcases, and then came forward to pick them up. ‘Best part of a mile,’ he replied laconically, ignoring her dismayed gasp. ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to walk it. We can go up in the Rover.’

‘Thank goodness!’ Alix’s relief was evident, and the man cast a derisive look at the heels of her boots.

‘Them’s riding boots, I suppose,’ he taunted, and when Alix looked confused, he added, ‘Well, they surely don’t look like walking boots!’ and laughed at his own joke.

Alix didn’t find it particularly amusing, but at least his humour helped to relieve the situation, and she managed to ignore the implications behind locked gates and guard dogs and a drive almost a mile in length.

She could see now that a Landrover was parked to one side of the lodge. The lodge itself was a single-storied dwelling, built of local stone, with lead-paned windows and a sloping roof with hanging eaves. It might have been quite picturesque, but in the drifting spirals of mist that crept around it from the forest behind, it, too, had a slightly menacing air.

The Landrover was reassuringly ordinary, and judging from its appearance had spent part of the day ploughing through acres of mud. The man flung her cases into the back with a distinct disregard for their well-being, and Alix felt an almost irresistible urge to rescue them before they, too, became encrusted with mud. But a kind of masochistic desire to go on with this affair kept her still and silent, and she consoled herself with the thought of what an opening to her feature this would make.

The dogs were apparently left loose in the grounds, and when the Landrover’s engine was started they slunk away into the shadows surrounding the lodge. The vehicle’s headlights made little headway in the mist, but at least they revealed how thickly wooded the area was, and how impossible it must be to see the house from the road. Probably a deliberate choice of landscaping made many years ago when the original inhabitants of the Hall were in residence. Alix had looked up the history of the Darkwaters, thinking that possibly there might be some family connection between old Lord Darkwater and the Morgans: but she could find none. Oliver Morgan’s reasons for buying Darkwater Hall and coming to live here were as obscure as ever.