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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
TITLE PAGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
ENDPAGE
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
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.
She had always known that there was more affection than passion in her feelings for James, but she had never intended that their marriage should be anything other than a normal one. She had been shocked and hurt to discover that James seemed in no hurry at all to consummate their relationship. At first, she had felt she ought to be grateful for his consideration—he had told her that he felt they should take time to become mentally attuned to each other before they became lovers in the physical sense—but as time went on Gabrielle felt growing doubts that James had ever wanted a wife in the real sense at all. And far from becoming mentally attuned, they seemed to be growing apart.
She had assumed that as his wife, she would be expected to take part in a certain amount of socialising. That he would have colleagues to entertain and that she would act as his hostess as she had sometimes done for her father. But they saw no one. James went each day to the Institute of Central American Studies and she was left entirely to her own devices. In the evening he read or worked in his study while she sat alone watching television.
Once and only once she had suggested that they might do some entertaining. His face had taken on the frozen look she had come to dread. ‘When I wish my privacy to be invaded by a chattering horde of strangers, I’ll tell you, Gabrielle.’
In spite of his unspoken disapproval, Gabrielle had invited Aunt Molly to visit her, but her aunt had not been nearly so reticent.
‘Good heavens, child, it’s like living in a museum!’ She walked over to one of the showcases and inspected its contents with raised eyebrows. ‘It must cost James a fortune in insurance. Some of these things are incredibly valuable.’ She swung round and looked her niece over with a touch of grimness. ‘And what are you, exactly? The latest addition to his collection?’
Gabrielle had naturally protested, but Aunt Molly’s words had stayed in her memory.
The greatest disappointment of all had been James’ refusal to let her take part in any of his work. During their courtship he had patiently answered all her eager questions. Now she was made to see that her curiosity was a nuisance to him, and that she interrupted his concentration.
He was busy, she told herself, but when all this paperwork was behind him and he began to prepare for the real work—for the expedition to the Yaxchilan region that she knew was brewing, then he would need her. Perhaps when they were actually in the Yucatan her enthusiasm would be the inspiration that he had once spoken of, instead of the irritation it now seemed.
She could hardly believe it when she learned that he was going without her.
‘But you’ll be gone for months,’ she had burst out. ‘You can’t mean to leave me here alone. What will I do?’
He stared at her. ‘Do? Occupy yourself in the same way as other wives, I imagine. You have the flat to run and …’
‘The flat!’ Gabrielle’s voice was contemptuous. ‘Mrs Hutchinson runs the flat and you know it. I’m not even allowed to so much as boil an egg on that immaculate stove of hers.’
James looked a little flustered and murmured something about ‘female squabbles’.
‘James,’ she put her hand on his arm, trying not to notice his almost instinctive withdrawal, ‘please let me come with you. I’ve always dreamed of going to the Yucatan—you know that. Besides,’ she flushed, ‘we are supposed to be—getting to know one another better. How can we do that if we’re thousands of miles apart?’
James made an irritable exclamation. ‘Why is it women can never understand that a man’s work and his personal relationships must be kept separate?’ he asked in martyred tones.
‘I accept that—or at least I accept that’s the way you feel about it,’ Gabrielle said desperately. ‘But you said once that I could be—an inspiration to you. Was that just words, or did you really mean it?’
‘Of course I meant it.’ James sighed. ‘And you are an inspiration to me, my dear. From the moment I saw you, I knew you were the one woman whose beauty would complement the setting I’d devised here. The rain forest——’ he frowned and shook his head. ‘That wouldn’t do at all.’
‘Why not?’ Gabrielle asked bitterly. ‘Are you afraid the goddess might come down off her pedestal and behave like a real woman after all? That I might get hot and dirty, and covered in leeches and insect bites like other human beings? I know what’s involved, James, and I’m prepared to accept it if it means I can stand just for a moment on the pyramid of the Sun at Palenque, or look down into the sacred well at Chichen Itza.’ She ended on a note of appeal.
‘Well, I’m not prepared to accept it,’ James said flatly. ‘Nor am I prepared to argue about this any more. I’ve made my wishes clear, I think. There’s nothing further to discuss.’
Up to the day of his departure, she had hoped secretly that he might relent—suggest that she joined him later, but she should have known better. His goodbyes to her were almost abstracted, as if his mind had gone ahead of him to that violent and beautiful land where stone ruins stood deserted and forgotten among the towering trees.
His letters when they came were brief, containing none of the detail or description she hungered for. All she had learned was that the expedition which was being led by a Professor Morgan was based at the Institute’s headquarters in Merida, the capital of the Yucatan, and that her own letters should be directed there.
But she could not occupy every minute of the endless day in writing to James. She wasn’t even sure that her letters were wanted or that her small items of news would hold any interest for him.
Photography had been her salvation. She had wandered through London, enjoying the summer weather and recording her impressions on film more for her own amusement than with any commercial intention. There was a tiny boxroom at the flat, as immaculately neat and sterile as the other rooms, and Gabrielle turned this into a temporary darkroom, ignoring Mrs Hutchinson’s hostility to the move. One set of pictures involving children’s street games had excited her, and these she had sent to Vision.
An invitation to meet the editor Martin Gilbert had followed and soon she was working regularly for them. It was over lunch with Martin and one of his feature writers one day that the name Yaxchilan had cropped up unexpectedly and she had said without thinking, ‘The place of green trees.’
‘Quite right.’ Martin had sounded surprised. ‘Now how did you know that?’
She tried to make her laugh sound light. ‘Don’t sound so surprised! The Mayan jungle happens to be one of my obsessions.’ She twisted the plain gold ring on her left hand. ‘That’s where my husband is now, as a matter of fact.’
‘Indeed?’ Martin gave her a long considering look. ‘I’m surprised that you’re not with him—feeling as you obviously do.’
Gabrielle bent her head. ‘I have my work here,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Perhaps I’ll go another time. Anyway, you haven’t explained what your interest is in the expedition?’
Martin laughed. ‘Need you ask? We have our sights set on a feature—a big one. You know the sort of thing—cities where no human foot has sounded since the Maya left all those centuries ago—carving the memorial to a civilisation out of the encroaching jungle. There’s always a fascination in that sort of thing, and we’ve been lucky enough to persuade Dennis Morgan, the man leading the expedition, to write the copy for us, so we can concentrate on the visual side.’
‘It—it all sounds wonderful.’ Gabrielle forced a smile. ‘And a wonderful trip for someone,’ she added bleakly, not noticing the speculative glance being exchanged by Martin and his companion.
When, a few weeks later, she was offered the assignment, she still could not believe it. She had convinced herself that her lack of overseas experience would count against her, and Martin told her frankly that she had not been far wrong.
‘It was the fact that your husband is an actual member of the expedition that swung the balance in your favour,’ he admitted. ‘It gives you the sort of “in” that no one else could hope for. Besides, I like your work, and I have faith in it. Why shouldn’t we take a chance on you?’
‘You won’t regret it.’ Gabrielle could hardly contain her rising excitement. It wasn’t just a tremendous professional opportunity, she had realised at once. It was also a chance—the best possible chance—to get her personal relationship with James on a proper footing. They could not continue as they were—she knew that. But it did not seem fair to come to any decision in isolation. James had to be consulted—she felt she owed him that, although she knew wryly that it was unlikely that he would have extended the same courtesy to her.
The more she thought about their marriage and the form it had taken, the more convinced she became that an annulment was the only answer. It was not a pleasant prospect, but it had to be faced. At best, it would be an honourable admission by them both that a mistake had been made and would leave them free to pursue their separate lives as if this strange, brief marriage had never existed. But if James did not agree—Gabrielle’s heart sank every time she considered the possibility—then it must be made clear to him that she was not prepared to go on living this half-life with him. If their marriage was to continue, it had to be a real marriage with her own career and personal aspirations respected.
She sighed and bit her lip. It was wrong and cowardly, she told herself, to pray that James would opt for an annulment, yet if she was honest with herself she knew that to take up her life again with him, as his wife in deed as well as name, was the last thing she wanted. If he insisted that their marriage must be given a chance, she would have to concur, she thought wearily, and tried to subdue the quiver of revulsion that went through her.
She had been terrified that James would get wind of her visit and do something to prevent it, so she had persuaded Martin to notify the Institute that the party gathering in Merida was being joined by ‘G. Christow’ instead of ‘Mrs J. Warner’. Later she had chided herself for cowardice and had made herself write to James, telling him the truth. She had been on edge ever since, in case word came from the Institute, rejecting her. In the meantime she had gone ahead blindly with her arrangements, obtaining the necessary documents, and having her smallpox vaccination renewed.
She had flown by jet from London to Mexico City and then had used one of the smaller domestic airlines to fly her to Merida. She would have preferred to travel there by train, stopping off on the way to visit the famous ruins at Palenque, but had sacrificed her own wishes under the compulsion to get to Merida and establish herself with the expedition.
One of her first actions, after taking up her reservation at the hotel, had been to write a note to Professor Morgan announcing her arrival and sending it round to the Institute. She knew they would all be busy with last-minute preparations for the trip and felt it would be better to allow the professor to contact her at his own convenience rather than arrive on the Institute doorstep, tacitly demanding attention they might not have time to give her. For the past twenty-four hours she had not dared to leave the hotel in case a message came for her, but she had been disappointed. She told herself resolutely that much of the depression she was feeling was due to jet lag—nothing more. But James’ failure to meet her at the airport, followed by this chill silence from the Institute, was unnerving to say the least.