Temptation is the Night

by Marguerite Kaye

  Temptation is the Night

  Marguerite Kaye

  England, 1924

  It had been love at first sight when Jack Darnell, the Eighth Earl of Crieff, and American artist Lindsey van der Maier met on the steamer to England. Their marriage had been filled with white-hot passion—until Jack's dark memories of the trenches drove them apart.

  Now Lindsey has returned, and Jack has resolved to exorcise her from his heart with one final night of lovemaking to prove that reality couldn't possibly live up to his memories. But can Jack hold onto his conviction when their sensual encounter exceeds his imagination?

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  England, Summer 1924

  He was late, deliberately so. And alone. Another deliberate choice, driving down from London in one of his own sports cars. Jack Damarell, the Eighth Earl of Crieff, eased his long legs out from behind the wheel. He’d designed the four-cylinder engine himself, a commercially modified version of the one he’d raced at Brooklands. Listening with quiet satisfaction to its ticking as it cooled under the sleek bonnet, he made a mental note of some minor adjustments before making his way up the shallow flight of steps into the house. Handing over his driving coat and gloves to the butler, he glanced into the crowded drawing room from the cover of the doorway.

  It was exactly as he had expected. All the usual crowd had flocked to Lady Eleanor Kilpatrick’s Saturday to Monday. The latest cocktails, the latest jazz and the latest party games, Lady Eleanor was famous for being the first with them all, and the Bright Young Things who filled her drawing room were eager to be the first to sample them. There was about the place a manic air of desperate people partying just a little too hard. It was not Jack’s scene at all. He much preferred the sanctuary of his club, one of the few all-male bastions left in London, where no one gave a damn about the latest swim party, black and white party, bottle party or treasure hunt, and the only games played were cards, albeit often for outrageous stakes.

  As a rule, he refused all such invitations as this one, knowing that the illicit thrill of swapping sexual partners lay at their root. Despite his famed reclusiveness, Jack had no shortage of willing conquests, and he preferred to choose them for himself. He certainly had no wish to rely on such whims as the turn of a card, the fall of a die or even the floating of a feather to make the selection for him. He wondered disinterestedly what Lady Eleanor had planned as this evening’s jeu de jour. Not that he had any intention of joining in. He had a game of his own to play out.

  His arrival caused a stir. Tall, dark and handsome, the phrase could have been invented for Jack Damarell. His dinner jacket fit tightly across those broad shoulders of his. A military cut. Almost six years after the end of the war, when he had served as Captain Damarell, he still had a military stance. The crisp white shirt and plain silk waistcoat seemed stretched taut over his chest. The tailored black trousers clothed legs which were long and muscled. An athlete’s legs. The body of a Greek statue, one smitten young lady had once declared as she positively drooled over him in his tennis whites. Jack’s love of sport was almost as legendary as his hatred of socialising.

  As he stood in the doorway, idly surveying the scene before him, every woman in the room, young and old, seemed drawn towards his brooding figure. Who could resist the challenge of breaching such defences? Many tried but remarkably few succeeded, and not even those select few who did could claim to know him. An enigma, was Jack Damarell. An illicit secret. A brooding god. A deliciously sinful- looking angel. An infuriatingly aloof one.

  “Darling, so thrilling to see you, we’d quite given you up.” Lady Eleanor Kilpatrick appeared at his elbow. Dressed in her trademark silk pyjamas and black pearls, she enveloped him in a perfumed embrace and a cloud of pungent smoke emanating from the cigarette at the end of the long ivory holder she waved like a wand.

  Jack disentangled himself politely, and kissed her hand. The emerald she’d extracted from Iain Kilpatrick was so large that it overlapped the fingers on either side. As husband number three, Iain no doubt thought himself in need of such an anchor. Poor fool.

  “I knew you’d come,” Lady Eleanor said. “Naughty boy, you usually turn down my invitations, but I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist this one, not when I dropped you the hint about our intriguing visitor from across the pond. It was I who recommended her work to Archie Davenport who owns the gallery, did you know?” As she spoke, Lady Eleanor led him into the room, making for the bar which had been set out in the corner. “Shall I introduce you? Or should that be reintroduce you,” she asked maliciously.

  “Why not,” Jack replied carelessly. She could fish all she liked but he’d be damned if he’d give his hostess any satisfaction. Not that she hadn’t begged him to give her exactly that on their last meeting. He smiled inwardly. Lady Eleanor was not accustomed to being spurned.

  As he waited for her pink gin to be replenished, Jack eyed the crowd. A sea of women with shingled hair and Clara Bow pouts, but he spotted Lindsey instantly. He always could, right from that first time he’d seen her in the Oyster Bar at Grand Central. Her presence drew his eyes towards her like a magnet. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  He’d forgotten. No, he hadn’t forgotten, he’d just chosen not to remember. He was good at that. He’d had plenty of practice.

  She’d had her hair cut. Her beautiful long auburn hair. It was fashionably bobbed now, the sleek style showing off the long, tender line of her neck, framing the perfect oval of her face, the fringe stopping just above her big hazel eyes. That air of fragility was one of the things which attracted him, but it scared him too. Bones that seemed to be as light as a bird’s. Veins too near the surface of her translucent skin.

  When they had first met, she looked as if she would break too easily, shatter like a porcelain figurine at the slightest touch. On board the Aquitania only a few months after the Armistice, her glorious hair had been formed into a heavy bun, sitting just at the nape of her neck. It was twilight. She was leaning against the rail staring out at the waves with New York harbour retreating rapidly into the distance. Everyone else had retired to dress for cocktails. She was quite alone—in more than one sense, as he later discovered, for she was an orphan, brought up by an overprotective aunt and uncle. Just turned eighteen, having attained a measure of independence from them, she was endearingly eager to experience what she called real life, starting in London.

  He never did tell her that he’d seen her earlier that day, in the Oyster Bar. She’d seemed to him like an angel sent from heaven, but he never did tell her that either. He remembered thinking it though, those words exactly. They came back to him with a jolt now. Not just the words, the feeling he’d had, of being in the presence of someone pure, someone untainted by the dirt and horror of the battlefields, the misery and pain and pitiful suffering of the war he had only just survived. He’d felt breathless, and strangely certain that she was the one. That somehow she could save him. He’d felt desire too, so deep it felt bottomless.

  He’d stood there on the deck too entranced to move for what seemed like hours. If she turned before they passed the cargo ship which was making its way towards New York, if she turned before it passed them, he would take it for a sign, he promised himself. It was not like him to be fanciful, but this felt like no other occasion. Either the gods were on his side, or they were not.

  And they had been. She had turned, just as the two ships crossed. And their eyes had met. And she had smiled. And he had been lost. Just like that. Jack Damarell fell in love. Hook, line and sinker, rather aptly.

/>   Now, six years on, with so much water under the bridge, so many dreams shattered and hopes tarnished, here she was before him again. And here he was, with his heart thudding again, a rhythm only Lindsey could conjure. And here again was that overwhelming, sickening, whirling thing he had called love.

  Memories like a movie show flickered through his mind. Lindsey laughing. The way she seemed to float rather than walk. The long fall of her hair when it was released from its pins, tumbling like a waterfall down her back. Taking his hand as they wandered round the formidable collection of paintings in the gallery at Crieff House. Pictures he’d never looked at before, springing to vibrant life in the light of Lindsey’s knowledgeable enthusiasm. Pictures which were now draped in Holland covers.

  Regret and yearning took Jack by surprise, washing over him like a rogue wave. The sudden rush of blood to his groin was painful. It made him furious. With her for causing it, but with himself too, for feeling. He should not be feeling, not after all this time. Not after what she had done.

  Four years since he had seen her. Four years since she had deserted the sinking ship of their relationship. Four years since he had walked into her bedroom at Crieff House, having driven down from London that morning, only to find the wardrobes empty, the dressing table stripped. The faint trace of her perfume hung in the air like a ghost. The imprint of her foot in talcum on the tiled floor of her bathroom mocked him. Like a runner’s foot at a starting block. Lindsey had fled.

  His memory of the confrontation the week before was dim, as all his memories of those dark episodes were. Tortured and terrified, he knew himself also to be terrifying. Such pains he had taken to hide it from her in the eighteen months they’d been married, this sickening hangover from those sickening trenches. Locked doors. Separate rooms. Unexplained absences. That tightness in his chest, lights flickering in front of his eyes, he could usually read the warning signs early enough to get away, to hide, to close out the world until it was over.

  Usually. Last time had been different. Standing alone in the empty bathroom, the hope, the faint flicker of hope that she hadn’t really been there, that he hadn’t really said those things, died.

  Leave me alone! Get out! Leave me alone! She’d taken him at his word. Seven days he’d stayed away, waiting for her to summon him back. It hadn’t occurred to him that she too might be waiting, that his silence could be so misinterpreted. He had searched in vain for a note. In vain he had waited for a letter or a telephone call, but there was nothing. In all the years since, nothing. Pride and shame prevented him from being the first to make the move. He had been bereft. As her absence became a permanent feature, her silence tormented him, then came the sweet relief of anger.

  It made it easier at first, that anger, but he knew it was unjustified. The simple fact of her loss was unbearable. He had been alone before. He had suffered countless losses on the battlefield, but he had never felt so utterly lonely. This loss was the one he could not reconcile himself to, no matter how much he tried.

  Until now. Coming here tonight, Jack finally felt ready to break the spell. Four years was more than enough to mourn. It was over. At least, after tonight it would be over. Definitely, it would be over. Jack clenched his fists in an effort to remind himself of that, to wipe the too-clear, too-painful memories which were besieging him. He had to focus on the here and now. On what he had come for.

  “I see you’ve spotted her. Quite a transformation, wouldn’t you say?” Lady Eleanor’s voice cut through Jack’s thoughts. Her pencilled eyebrows were raised inquisitively. She was one of the very few people here who had met Lindsey before.

  Jack managed a shrug. “She’s certainly learned to dress.”

  “Chanel,” Lady Eleanor informed him, eyeing the beaded sheath of coffee and bronze which clung to Lindsey’s form, stopping just short of her knees. “She’s put on a little weight too, wouldn’t you say?”

  Jack allowed his gaze to rest on Lindsey’s body. Still the same long, slim legs, but the sylph-like figure had become womanly. A more shapely calf, curves clearly defined as her dress shimmered and shifted when she moved to let someone edge past. She had always been pretty in an ethereal way, but now she had grown into an extremely beautiful woman. Her fragility was tempered with something else. Poise. Assurance. She looked different, and yet she looked the same. It was as if he was seeing her through a distorted mirror. Or perhaps with someone else’s eyes. Jack became uncomfortably aware of Lady Eleanor awaiting his verdict. “At least there’s no mistaking Lindsey’s sex,” he said dryly. “A woman should look like a woman, not a boy. I find this passion for dieting incomprehensible.”

  “Really darling, don’t tell me you’re here to rekindle old flames.” His hostess, who prided herself on her stick-thinness, could not disguise the rancour in her voice. Her hand on his arm was like a claw. “How wonderful, to know that it was I who lit the touch paper,” she said, her voice dripping acid.

  “You mistake the occasion entirely.” Jack followed her lead through the way through the throng to where Lindsey was standing at the far end of the drawing room. The crowd parted for them, Jack as oblivious as ever to the stir his presence caused, immune to the covetous looks of the women and the envious glares of the men alike.

  “It is more a raking over of the ashes.”

  Lady Eleanor tittered. “Just as well, darling. You know she uses her maiden name now.”

  Jack gritted his teeth. Lindsey van der Maier. He’d seen it in the notice announcing her exhibition in the Times. For some reason it had hurt, much more than it should. Her old name, her new life. The article was cautiously complimentary about her paintings. Back then, she’d never been without her sketch book, though she rarely let him see the contents. The wash of regret tasted bittersweet, flavoured as it was with a hint of if-only. Jack straightened his shoulders. She had obviously flourished. On her own. Without him. From this point on, he was done with regrets.

  Lindsey was talking to Bunty Cowper and Diana Penhaligan, smiling politely, that wide, luscious mouth of hers sipping too quickly at the lethal cocktail she held in her left hand. Bunty and Diana were discussing the latest London clubs. Diana, bottle- blonde and predatory, was insisting that the Embassy was old hat, darling, and the Forty-Three was too, too divine. Her eyes lit up as she spotted the man on Lady Eleanor’s arm. “Jack, fancy meeting you here.”

  Jack! Lindsey froze. It couldn’t be. But she knew it was, even before she turned around. That prickling sensation. Giddy, like standing at the centre of the Brooklyn Bridge and looking down into the swirl of the East River. Compelling. She could feel him there, looming over her like an unavoidable fate. Her heart’s delight and her heart’s ache.

  No, no, no! After all this time, he couldn’t be. He couldn’t be!

  She was over him. It was why she’d come to London. She was over him—she had to be. The exhibition was the excuse she had been waiting for. A thousand times, she’d pictured this first encounter since Lady Eleanor had walked into her gallery in Greenwich Village two months ago. She’d be cool and assured. He’d be astonished at the change in her. Sophisticated. A success in her own right. He’d be impressed. She would be—she would be…

  Not this! It wasn’t supposed to be like this, with the eyes of the world upon them, with herself so unprepared, with Lady Eleanor looking on as if they were a floor show, part of the weekend’s spectacle. She wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Sick. Panic struck. Her mouth dry. Her skin flushing hot then icy cold. Her heart—her heart—no!

  Feeling as if she were watching herself from a distance, Lindsey forced herself to turn around, forced herself to look up, to meet his gaze. “Jack,” she said, ignoring the catch in her voice, trying desperately for a smile.

  Jack. There he was, achingly attractive, heart-wrenchingly familiar. Jack. The first man she’d ever really noticed. The first man she’d ever desired. The only man she had ever loved. From the moment she’d set eyes on him that magical night, her fate had been sealed. One
look, and her world had shifted, altered its orbit, and settled into a different one. Seeing him again, she realised with a sickening certainty that nothing had changed. Her world still turned only for him.

  What a fool she had been to imagine it could ever be different!

  “Lindsey.” Her name on his lips sounded rusty through lack of use. He thought she was going to faint, her face was so pale. Her eyes looked—stricken. The glass in her hand was shaking. With difficulty, Jack resisted the urge to take it from her, to wrap her safe in his arms.

  Diana Penhaligan’s fascinated gaze flickered between them. A vicious flicker of something skittered across her heavily powdered face as she saw they had eyes for no one else. “You two know each other?”

  Jack looked down at her coldly, shaking himself free of her touch. “Know each other? You could say that,” he said with a tight smile. “Lindsey is my wife.”

  Diana’s mouth formed a scarlet pouted "oh" of surprise. Lindsey’s glass slipped through her fingers and thudded onto the floor. She felt as if a cloud of tiny birds were flying, soaring and diving, in her stomach. With a soft sigh, she crumpled, boneless, at her estranged husband’s elegantly shod feet.

  Jack laid Lindsey on the bed, then turned to lock the door of the Chinese room behind him. Leaning against it with his arms folded, he watched her regain consciousness. Her long lashes fluttered on her cheek as the colour seeped slowly back into her face. A slow blink, then she sat up, looking around her in bewilderment. “Jack.”

  “Lindsey. I suppose I should be pleased that at least you remember my name.”

  She pressed a hand to her forehead. He had changed. Looking at him covertly through her fingers, she saw that now. He seemed sharper, edgier, much more intimidating. “What are you doing here? I mean—did you know I was here?”