Temple Of The Moon

Temple Of The Moon
Sara Craven

Mills & Boon proudly presents THE SARA CRAVEN COLLECTION. Sara’s powerful and passionate romances have captivated and thrilled readers all over the world for five decades making her an international bestseller.TEMPLE OF THE MOONSultry nightsNo matter how attractive he was, Gabrielle knew there was no future for her in any relationship with sophisticated cynical Shaun Lennox – just the basic fulfilment of a mutual need. And for her, that was not enough. She was worth more than that!But how to make the bitterly mocking Shaun listen to her? She couldn’t tell what he truly felt. One minute he seemed to regard her as a pretty distraction, the next he was holding her at arm's length with a kind of wary contempt. Yet when he kissed her, she was so tempted…

Temple of the Moon

Sara Craven

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

Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER (#u6bb54aa9-a4c3-5978-9879-0000efa2f4f6)

TITLE PAGE (#u27975a32-6dc8-5360-b8fe-1661d2dca351)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#u6253fa8e-4fc3-5717-9fe5-e391fc768e04)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

ENDPAGE (#litres_trial_promo)

COPYRIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#u5dc0cbaa-f3e0-5f1a-ae8b-0b5b044067a7)

IT had been raining for several hours, a monotonous, relentless downpour that turned the gutters into miniature torrents and transformed the once sun-baked streets into shallow canals, swirling with red dust and debris.

Gabrielle sat alone in the foyer of the Hotel Belen, her eyes fixed bleakly on the huge glass swing doors which gave on to the street. Her fingers drummed restlessly on the small carved table in front of her, keeping time with the raindrops. She felt totally alien to the laughing, chattering groups of tourists sitting around her, exclaiming over this unseasonable break in the weather pattern in what was officially the dry season in the Yucatan peninsula. Once or twice she glanced down at the camera case lying at her feet as if seeking reassurance.

She was here, she told herself, where she had every right to be, so it was ridiculous to think that this sudden rainstorm was some kind of ill-omen. Even if James was not prepared to welcome her to Merida, she still had her commission from Vision magazine to fulfil. She was a working woman now, whether he liked it or not. And there could be all sorts of explanations as to why he had never answered the slightly defiant letter she had sent him, telling him that Vision had bought some of the work she had sent them in a fit of bravado and wanted more. Perhaps he had never received the letter. After all, this was hardly the most accessible place in the world, and if James was in the depths of the Mayan forests somewhere, he would hardly be in a position to conduct a correspondence.

But the more she tried to bolster up her self-confidence, the more frankly depressed she became. Other archaeologists managed to keep in touch with their wives and families, she knew, and long silences had invariably been James’ way of manifesting his displeasure with her during their brief married life. And in the past, she had always been the first to ask forgiveness, daunted by this forbidding chill, but not now, she thought. Not any more. This time, there was nothing for James to forgive. He had deliberately, almost cold-bloodedly shut her out of his career. He could not prevent her seeking one of her own, although he had made it icily clear before he had left for Mexico that he did not want a working wife.

Gabrielle sighed, and ran her fingers round the neck of her dress, lifting the collar away slightly from her throat. In spite of the air conditioning in the hotel, she found the humidity trying and she knew that in the forest regions she would have tropical conditions to contend with. But even the prospect of more discomfort could not prevent a mercurial change in her spirits at the thought of the trip ahead.

To think that she was actually going to see them—these strange ancient pyramids rising out of the jungle, evocative memorials of an advanced civilisation that had been wiped out by the Spanish conquest. For as long as she could remember, the conquest of Mexico had fascinated her, and she had read every book on the subject she could lay her hands on. Her father, who had taught at a northern university, had always encouraged her interest, although he had not shared it particularly. His own researches were based nearer home into Roman and Celtic remains, and father and daughter had amicably agreed to differ. They’d had a warm, happy relationship, made even closer by her mother’s death quite unexpectedly during a minor operation. Dr Christow had aged visibly under this blow, but he had been determined not to allow it to affect Gabrielle’s growing-up, and his older sister Molly, herself a widow, had come to live with them, becoming a more than adequate substitute mother as Gabrielle advanced into her teens.

Her father’s death had occurred when she was halfway through a photographic course at art college, and she had immediately offered to abandon the course and get a job to help out financially, but Aunt Molly had been adamant in her refusal. Gabrielle might well be glad of some qualifications one day, she had insisted, although she had no means of knowing how right she would be.

Gabrielle had been at the end of her course when she met James. She had seen his lecture on ancient Aztec civilisations advertised at the local adult education centre and had recognised in the Dr James Warner with the impressive string of letters after his name the Jimmy Warner who had been at university with her father and worked with him on digs in their younger days.

When the lecture was over, she nerved herself to approach him and explain who she was. James Warner was a slightly built man, with severely cut greying hair and a trim beard, and in her wildest dreams Gabrielle could not envisage anyone, even her extrovert father, calling him ‘Jimmy’, but he had greeted her with every appearance of delight and asked her to stay on and have coffee with him.

Her initial reservations had soon been swept away by his evident affection for her father and distress at the news of his death.

‘I was abroad, of course, when it happened,’ he told her. ‘By the time I heard about it, I felt it was too late even to write and offer my condolences. I had no idea Charles had a daughter, either.’

He drove her back to her digs after the lecture and said they must keep in touch, but it was a vague remark and Gabrielle did not really expect to hear from him again, although she thought regretfully that she would have liked more time with him to give her a chance to ask more things about ancient Mexico that did not come within the normal scope of a lecture.

But to her surprise, she did hear from him again, and quickly. He wrote to her, and followed this up with a telephone call and flowers. He had several speaking engagements in the neighbourhood and invited Gabrielle to go to these as his guest. It was useless to pretend she was not flattered by his attentions and in many ways she felt as safe with James as she had with her father, although the two men were not a bit alike and she knew it.

At first she told herself that James’ kindness to her was prompted solely by the fact that she was her father’s daughter, but as time went by, she began to realise this was not the whole truth. His wooing might have begun cautiously, but soon there was no doubt of his intentions. James wanted to marry her. He told her so one evening when they were dining together before going to the theatre. He spoke frankly on the considerable difference in their ages and on his previous marriage which had ended in divorce some years previously.

‘My former wife could not accept the demands that my work made on my time,’ he said. ‘She had no interest in my researches and hated travelling. Whereas you, my dear Gabrielle, share my fascination with the Maya. You could be a great help to me—even an inspiration.’

If Gabrielle hesitated at all, it was only momentarily, and if an inner voice warned her to make sure she was attracted by the man and not merely by the life he could offer her, she hushed it. She had been oddly touched too by James’ old-fashioned ideas of courtship and his evident respect for her innocence. She had been disturbed by the permissive behaviour that seemed to be the pattern at the college she had attended and her determination to stay apart from it had resulted in her being called a prig, and even more unkindly a professional virgin by some of the other students. The labels had stuck and in spite of the attractions of her dark copper hair and green eyes, fringed by long lashes, she had spent a rather lonely existence during her student years.

Even when they were engaged, James made no attempt to push their relationship to a more intimate level, and she was grateful to him for this. The only souring of her happiness came with Aunt Molly’s overt disapproval.

‘Are you quite sure what you’re doing, child?’ she had said abruptly one day, watching Gabrielle packing some of the books she had decided to take with her to her new home. ‘He’s a middle-aged man, and set in his ways, and you’re so young … Sometimes I feel so worried.’

Gabrielle sat back on her heels and looked at her aunt wide-eyed. ‘But, Aunt Molly, surely you’ve known James for years.’

‘Oh yes, I’ve known him all right,’ her aunt reorted rather grimly. ‘And that just increases my misgivings. Even your father used to say there was a side to James that no one would ever know, and that it was probably just as well. Oh, it’s not just the fact that he’s so much older than you, although that does disturb me too. I just wish you’d wait for a while—get to know each other a little more.’

‘Oh, Aunt Molly!’ Gabrielle curbed her exasperation. ‘Haven’t you said time and time again that no one really knows anyone until they have to live with them?’

‘Yes, I have,’ her aunt returned. ‘And if that was all you and James wanted to do, I’d feel much happier about the whole thing.’

‘I’m shocked,’ Gabrielle said with an attempt at lightness. ‘But seriously, can you imagine James agreeing to anything as—swinging as a trial marriage?’

They laughed together, but their amusement was forced and Gabrielle was relieved when the conversation turned to another, less personal subject. Aunt Molly was a dear, but her views of marriage were as old-fashioned in their way as James’. She believed in romance, and that love would win the day, whereas Gabrielle was convinced that marriage was a relationship demanding toleration and hard work on both sides if it was to succeed. She had been prepared to work at her marriage. What she had failed to do was ask herself if James was prepared to do the same.

Gabrielle gave a little sigh and signalled to a passing waiter. ‘Quisiera una horchata, por favor,’ she said haltingly, indicating the few drops of the pale almond and rice drink remaining in her glass so that there would be no misunderstanding.

This was not how she had imagined her introduction to Mexico would be, sitting alone in a hotel foyer. She had thought James would be with her, advising her on what to order, encouraging her to use her Spanish, so painfully acquired in the comparatively brief period before she set out on her journey. But James had not even been there to meet her at the airport. Again, she had tried to make excuses for him, blaming the unreliability of the postal system, but at the same time something told her that even if one of her letters had in fact gone astray, it was unlikely that two would have done so.

She had tried very hard with the second letter. There was no note of triumph in her announcement that Vision had decided to send her to the Yucatan to accompany the expedition of which James was a member. She had acknowledged that she was going against his expressed wishes, first in accepting full-time employment, and again in following him to Mexico, but she had begged him to understand that she needed more from life than to spend every day sitting in that immaculate flat, watching the housekeeper Mrs Hutchinson tending the pottery and figurines so strikingly displayed in showcases and alcoves. Gabrielle had not visited James’ home before their wedding, but when they returned there after the honeymoon. she was immediately conscious of a feeling of oppression. It was all so beautiful and tasteful—and slightly unreal. She had imagined she would be able to stamp something of her own personality on their home, but it had soon been made clear to her that there was no room for the sort of improvement that she visualised. Her tentative suggestion that the living room furniture could be re-grouped to provide a more homely effect had been greeted by James with a kind of horrified amusement. Gabrielle sometimes felt like a ghost. If she was merely sitting in a chair reading, and left the room momentarily, she found the cushions had been plumped up in her absence. Not even her own bedroom seemed to belong to her.

The waiter arrived with her drink and she paid him and murmured her thanks.