The Waterfall Of The Moon

The Waterfall Of The Moon
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. Married in haste…!When disturbingly attractive Patrick Hardy proposes marriage, Ruth discovers that he is not as allergic to emotional attachments as she first imagined… Unable to fight her attraction to him, Ruth allows herself to be swept away to the other side of the world to become his wife.But her happiness is as at the cost of a terrible deception, and Ruth quickly realises she has put her marriage in jeopardy through a disastrous mistake. Can Patrick forgive her, or has she lost him for good?

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.

The Waterfall of the Moon

Anne Mather

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

Table of Contents

Cover (#u373420de-73b2-5be9-8e72-2bc51bf697fb)

About the Author (#u6a815b78-8646-5553-99d8-58bb761223b6)

Title Page (#uea326314-e0c8-5012-9b1f-d0e9d6325828)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_422a3f26-bce0-5899-85d5-38edd85cf5bb)

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_c00d18cd-eb61-5917-a3bc-71a24886d8d6)

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_f89c54b3-a9fe-54f9-9e54-c8a8dcc59005)

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)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_8fa85911-ba1c-5429-9c57-929f60d0f642)

RUTH noticed him as soon as he entered the room. It wasn't that he was a particularly handsome man, certainly no more so than some of the young men she had been dancing with all evening; but he was older, his eyes were deeper set, there were lines of experience about his eyes and mouth, and compared to the pale skins around her, his tan was quite startling.

He stood just inside the doorway of the lounge with James Stephenson, Julie's father, and Ruth decided that they were merely making a polite inspection of the proceedings. It had been a good party, but definitely not James Stephenson's sort of affair. About the other man, she wouldn't care to speculate.

It seemed as though she had been right, however, when a few minutes later they disappeared again, and feeling an odd sense of disappointment, Ruth left her current partner to push her way through the throng of young people gyrating in the middle of the floor to Julie's side. Edging her friend into a corner, she asked curiously: “Who was that just now – with your father?”

Julie was an attractive brunette, with curling dark hair and unexpectedly blue eyes. She and Ruth had first met at boarding school and had been close friends ever since. Julie used to say they were a foil for one another – she so dark, and Ruth so fair – but in recent years she had had to admit that Ruth required no foil to enhance her Scandinavian blonde beauty.

Now she smiled, and said: “You mean Patrick? Patrick Hardy – Daddy's cousin?”

“If that was who was with your father just now – then yes.” Ruth was half impatient. “Who is he? I haven't seen him before.”

“No, you wouldn't have,” agreed Julie, with gentle complacency. “He's only just got back from Venezuela. He works there. He's some kind of chemist – or physicist, or something. He works for one of the big oil companies. Why?”

Ruth shrugged her slim shoulders. “I was curious, that's all.”

Julie gave her an old-fashioned look. “What's wrong? Has Michael's charm begun to pall already?”

Ruth gave her a reluctant smile. “You know very well that Michael Freeman and I are just friends.” She sighed. “It's nothing like that. He was – well – he was different.”

“And older,” commented Julie wryly. “Heavens, he must be thirty-five, at least!”