CHAPTER ONE

      THE letter that was to turn Raine Marlowe’s life upside down came out of the blue.

      She and her father were eating breakfast in White Ladies’ white-walled, black-beamed morning room. September sunshine, golden as honey, bathed the garden and poured in through the lattice windows.

      Raine, blissfully unaware of the coming upheaval, was putting marmalade on her second piece of toast while Calib, as black and glossy as her own hair, his cat’s eyes as green as her own, sat on the window-sill like a statue, the low sun gilding his fur and turning his whiskers to fine gold wire.

      ‘Only one this morning,’ the housekeeper announced cheerfully as she brought in the post.

      Martha Deering had been with them twenty years and rated as one of the family.

      ‘Thank you, Martha.’

      Ralph, a nice-looking man with a rugged face and a thatch of iron-grey hair, accepted the letter. Finishing his coffee, he tore open the envelope, which bore a US stamp, and drew out the folded sheet of paper.

      Glancing at her father’s face as he read it, Raine saw that he looked shaken, tense. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

      Taking of his horn-rimmed glasses, he said slowly, ‘A letter from Harry.’

      ‘Uncle Harry?’

      ‘Yes.’

      As he passed it to her a sudden presentiment made her shiver.

      She knew that the twin brothers had quarrelled and lost touch long before she’d been born, though in their younger days they had been very close, and, after leaving college, had gone into the real estate business together.

      Confirmed bachelors, and well on their way to being highly successful, they had both fallen in love with the same woman—a black-haired, green-eyed, gentle beauty named Lorraine, who had been Harry’s girlfriend until she had met and fallen for his brother.

      When, finally, she had agreed to marry Ralph, the brothers had split up. Ralph had kept White Ladies, the Elizabethan manor-house that had been the family home for generations, while Harry had realised enough capital to start another business and left for the States.

      That had been almost thirty years ago.

      The letter, which had a Boston address, was simple and to the point.

      No doubt it will seem strange hearing from me after all these years. I’m ashamed to admit that only pride has kept me from getting in touch sooner. I’m aware, through a family friend, that Lorraine died a long time ago, leaving only one daughter. My own wife has been dead for many years, and I’m alone except for my adopted son, Nick. I’m still on my feet, but my health has been a problem for some time now, and the specialist has finally confirmed that I only have a few months to live. I would dearly like to see you again before I die. Will you come over for a while and bring my niece? If she can forgive an old man for being so foolishly stubborn.

      At the bottom was a postscript.

      If you decide to come, please make it as soon as possible. The specialist may be out on his timing...

      Green eyes grave, Raine looked up to ask, ‘Will you be going?’

      ‘Of course.’ Her father answered without hesitation. ‘What about you?’

      ‘Do you want me to?’

      ‘It would be a pity not to meet your uncle and cousin.’

      ‘Then I’ll come. If we can both be away together?’

      Since leaving business college Raine had been her father’s personal assistant. They went to work together each day; his office, in the little market town of Lopsley, was only ten minutes’ drive from home.

      ‘Certainly we can,’ Ralph said, rising to his feet. ‘Now, I’ll go into the office and deal with that side of things while you make the travel arrangements.’

      ‘When do you want to go?’

      ‘Today, if possible. As soon as we’re organised I’ll ring Harry and let him know our time of arrival.’

      Raine could tell by the barely suppressed urgency in her father’s voice that all his old affection for his twin had come flooding back.

      Some of that urgency rubbing off on her, she lost no time in phoning the airport, and in less than an hour they were booked on an evening flight to Boston.

      The man waiting outside the international arrivals hall singled the pair out—a tall, spare, familiar-looking man accompanied by a slender black-haired beauty with wonderful Slavic cheekbones and a passionate mouth—and stepped forward.

      Raine found herself looking up into a pair of long-lashed