Climb to the Stars

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

An arduous journey to exotic lands has turned into a nightmare for Jane Daunt. As the "poor" relation, Jane serves as a private secretary to her uncle and companion to her beautiful spoiled cousin. Jane watches the whims of her cousin Sonia have a devastating effect upon Pat Connel, the strong dependable chauffeur - and she suffers as a silent spectator to their romance. Jane is deeply in love with Pat - but she knows he will have to suffer as she had. She had sworn to Sonia long ago not to reveal the terrible secret of the past - a secret that would prevent Pat and Sonia from marrying - a secret that would send Pat into Jane's waiting arms... A captivating love story from the 100-million-copy bestselling Queen of Romance, first published in 1936, and available now for the first time in eBook.

Release date: October 16, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 192

Sample

A STREAMLINE car with a black shining body drew up outside the main entrance of the motor showrooms in Piccadilly. The engine ticked over noiselessly. A tall young man, almost as spick-and-span as the car, stepped out of it; soft hat set a little jauntily on a smooth head as black, as shining, as the Royale “Victor”, the newest, fastest thing in cars Royale had yet marketed.

Hands in his pockets, whistling under his breath, Pat Connel entered the showroom.

Through the glass windows of an office at the far end, a girl, seated at a desk, watched the young man walk toward her; watched him smile and exchange a few words with a salesman here and there.

Jane Daunt sighed a little, shook a drop of ink from her fountain-pen, and returned to the ledger in which she had been writing. She was John Royale’s personal secretary, and, as such, one of the busiest young women in London. There was no time, she told herself, in her particular life, for romance. No use sighing because Pat Connel was not only one of the most efficient salesmen in Royale’s service, but he had a pair of Irish blue eyes which were too handsome for any woman’s peace of mind, and a mouth which suggested that the owner liked to get his own way.

And Pat Connel meant to get his own way. He had limitless ambition. One of these days it was his intention to enter a place like this as a buyer, not a salesman. He was going to make money, to be a power instead of one of the spokes in the wheel which turned the fortunes of John Royale, whose name could be coupled with that of Henry Ford or Sir Herbert Austin.

In the pockets of Pat Connel there was very little cash. His elegant suit, his jaunty air, were all camouflage. He worked for a salary and commission. He could adopt a beguiling manner and rhapsodise with fervour on the perfections of the Royale motor-car. At times he was sick of the whole job and there was nothing but weariness and anxiety behind his smile. But he wasn’t going to let anybody know that.

Jane Daunt knew it. And she wasn’t going to let him know that she knew. But she did, because she was in love with him, had been so for over a year, ever since he had first become one of the Royale employees.

Pat was still whistling when he entered her office. It was a blithe sound. But Jane wondered just how tired he was and how far he had travelled in that car, which he had been trying to sell to others.

“Hullo!” she said.

“‘Morning, Miss Daunt.”

“It was ‘Jane’ at the dance the other, night,” she reminded him.

Those very blue eyes of his looked at her with friendliness.

“Sure. …” His voice held the merest touch of a rich Irish brogue, no more. “And why shouldn’t it be Jane now if you’d like it to be? I’m Pat to you. How’s life?”

“Busy,” she said. “It was a good dance, wasn’t it?”

“Sure,” he said again.

But while Jane remembered a waltz in the circle of his arms, when her heart had beaten much too fast, his thoughts turned to another girl who had danced at that ball, which was held annually by the firm for Royale employees. A much more important girl than Royale’s secretary. John Royale’s only daughter and heiress, Sonia.

Jane Daunt wondered suddenly if her nose was shining. and dived into her bag for a powder puff. She was glad that she had put on this new brown suit and the orange jumper with little brown leather buttons. She must have had a premonition that Pat Connel would be in town to-day.

Pat, sitting there on her desk, was hardly aware of the grace or slenderness of Jane in her tailored suit or of the attraction in her small pale face with the dark serious eyes and smooth brown head. Jane was meticulous in her work, meticulous about her personal appearance. One couldn’t imagine those sleek brown waves of hair being ruffled or out of place. Nor could a man guess that there was a depth of passion in Jane Daunt which belied the tranquillity of her brows and the serene curve of her small mouth.

Pat Connel’s imagination was full of the picture of Sonia Royale as he had last seen her. He had had a bet with another salesman that he would ask Miss Royale for a dance. And he had asked and got it. That was his way. He rushed in where angels feared to tread. She had treated him graciously, but with reserve, a hauteur that had annoyed and challenged him. But, God, she had looked marvellous in her shining silver dress … head so fair that it might almost have been silver, eyes of greenish-grey, the blackest, longest lashes he had ever seen, and a scarlet mouth which had haunted him long afterwards.

“Miss Royale looked grand that night, didn’t she?” Pat Connel spoke his thoughts aloud.

Jane Daunt sat still a moment. So that was where his thoughts were! Something, perhaps her own feeling for this young man, provoked her to be sincere with him.

“Surely you aren’t going to waste your time day-dreaming about Sonia?”

Pat’s jaw stuck out.

“Why not?”

“She’s the most sought-after girl in town—turning down big titles.”

“Do you know her well?” asked Pat. “Tell me about her. Is she a snob?”

Jane’s dark little head suddenly bent over her blotter.

“I’m too busy to enlarge on my cousin’s character.”

“Your cousin! But I had no idea …”

“That I was part of the family? But I am, although not many of the people here know it. The poor cousin.” Jane laughed a little. “But my mother was a Royale. Both my parents died when I was seventeen, since when I’ve lived in the Royale household. But I insisted on working. I couldn’t bear to be a dependent. So Uncle John let me train in a secretarial college, and for the last two years I’ve been his private secretary.”

Pat looked at her with sudden interest. He admired anybody who had an independent spirit.

“Well, you may be a member of the great family, but you’re not a snob, anyhow,” he said. “And you’ve always been frightfully nice to me, too.”

Her head bent low, so that he could not see the colour that rose to her cheeks.

“Why not?” Her voice was soft.

But Pat’s thoughts turned to Sonia Royale again.

“How wonderful for you to live with the Royales. I think that she is the loveliest thing on God’s earth. Tell me more about her. …”

But here the manager of the showrooms entered. Pat slid off the desk and stood to attention.

“What have you done this week, Connel?” The manager was a brisk business man.

Pat handed him his notes for the week.

“Sold a sports-coupé at Basingstoke—a streamline at Reading—that’s all.”

“Not bad, but not good enough.”

Pat Connel, who had fought hard, using all his weapons to achieve those sales, smiled grimly.

“People want to hand over their rubbish in part exchange. It isn’t easy,” he said.

Said the manager:

“You’re the chap to do the job when things aren’t easy.”

That was praise. But Pat Connel was not satisfied and never would be until he had climbed to the top. And the “top” was a long way out of the reach of a young man who hadn’t a penny in the world, only one or two poor relations, and a room in Bloomsbury which was a home.

“By the way, Connel,” added the manager, “Miss Royale is coming to look at that new Twenty Royale with the open green sports body. The Chief phoned from Coventry. He wants her to have it for a birthday present if she likes it. You’d better demonstrate it.”

Jane Daunt looked up from her ledger and caught a glimpse of the light that sparkled in Pat’s blue eyes.

“Certainly sir,” he said.

“We’ll go and have a look at it,” said the manager.

Pat Connel picked up his hat. As he passed Jane’s chair he bent over her a little.

“I’m in luck, aren’t I?” he whispered.

She did not answer. She looked after his retreating figure and raised her brows.

“I wonder,” she said aloud—“I wonder if any man is lucky who falls in love with my cousin Sonia.”

At half-past three Sonia Royale came into the Royale showrooms. The manager was out on business. It was Pat Connel who received the Chief’s daughter, and piloted her to the low green car.

Sonia Royale examined the car critically. But Pat Connel’s criticism was of her.

The silver goddess of the other night was to-day an exquisite vision in a blue-and-white sports suit, a white coat, white beret set rakishly on a platinum head, white gauntlets on her hands.

“I like the look of this model,” she said, and turned to him. “Let’s take it out.”

She was tall, and her manner was cool and superior. The touch of superiority irritated Pat Connel.

He unbuckled the strap around the bonnet of the car and displayed the engine.

“You’d like to see inside, wouldn’t you?”

Sonia Royale knew nothing about the mechanism. She only knew that she liked the outside of the car because it looked very racy and very expensive. She said:

“Marvellous! Let’s take it out.”

“Certainly,” he said.

“I’d like to try the gears,” she said.

She was smiling. He could have sworn there was warmth, invitation, in the curve of that maddening scarlet mouth of hers, and yet he felt the command behind the smile, and rebelled against it. He would like to make this girl do something that he wanted. Of course he was crazy … but she had disturbed him from the moment he had first seen her and danced with her at the ball.

For years he had been too busy keeping the wolf from the door in the bitter struggle for a livelihood to think about marriage. He had flirted—his Irish temperament had led him to make love a little—lightly—in idle moments. But to-day he knew himself to be madly and unreasonably in love with the daughter of his Chief.

Later, as he steered the Twenty Royale out of the showrooms into the sunlit street, and Sonia, complacent and cool, was sitting beside him, he could smell the faint, lovely perfume which seemed a part of her. His heart seemed to beat in tune with the throb of the racing car.

“She runs sweetly, doesn’t she?” murmured Sonia.

“A first-rate job,” was his reply.

“Let’s go to Richmond, and then I’ll take over,” said Sonia.

He guided the car out of the busy thoroughfare toward Richmond Park.

Sonia Royale sat back in the car, enjoying the sunlight of the April day, which was unusually warm, and the beautiful purring sound of the engine. Mr. Connel drove well, she thought. Glancing at him beneath her heavy lashes, she became more aware of the blackness of his hair and the blueness of his Irish eyes. A touch of the devil in that face, perhaps. She had thought him a good-looker at the staff ball. And she had heard her father say that Connel was one of his best salesmen. He had a charming voice, too. He was educated—a gentleman.

She found herself comparing him with the Hon. Francis Glyde. Francis had driven her down to Maidenhead yesterday. He was the son of an earl and had money to burn, and he was very much in love with her. But what a weakling he looked, and probably was, and what a bore, in comparison with this young motor-car salesman.

Something in Pat Connel’s manner captured Sonia’s imagination. She wished she had met him in her own social circle. They might have had some fun.

“Daddy says you’re a wizard at getting people to forsake old favourites for the Royale,” she said as they drove along.

“Praise indeed from the Chief,” said Pat.

“It isn’t easy to make people do things against their will, is it?” she said.

“No, but that’s when a thing’s worth doing.”

“Do you always get your own way?” she asked with faint curiosity.

“I think I do.”

“So do I,” she said.

His heart suddenly leapt. So the hauteur, the superiority, had evaporated a little. She was becoming more human.

In Richmond Park he pulled up the car and said:

“Would you like to take the wheel now?”

She changed places with him. She put her foot on the clutch pedal. He looked down at that small foot and the slender ankle. The beauty of them made his senses swim. In a casual voice he warned her that the gear change was difficult and the acceleration very rapid.

“Oh, I know how to drive!” she said like a spoilt child.

But it only took him a minute to discover that she could not manage a car like the Twenty Royale. She would have been safer with something less responsive. He had no nerves. But he did not want, particularly, to lose his life or let her end her own violently. So he said:

“Not so fast.”

Then Sonia Royale became very conscious of the young man at her side. Her lips took a mutinous curve. She was used to doing what she liked.

“I’m not going fast.”

The car swerved. She slowed down a little, tried to change gear and missed it.

“Slow right down and get into neutral,” he said.

“It isn’t necessary.”

“You’ll find it is.”

That carnation pink in her cheeks was lovely, he thought. She was not going to admit that she couldn’t drive, and that amused him. But the fight had begun. The speedometer leapt up to fifty. Then sixty. A car came out of a side turning. Sonia swerved dangerously. Then Pat put a hand on the wheel and touched her slim gloved fingers. He was immensely thrilled by the contact, but she turned on him.

“I’m driving this car.”

“You must slow down. It isn’t safe, and there’s a speed limit.”

“I shall do what I like, Mr. Connel.”

“In that case,” he said, “if you’ll forgive me, I’ll get out and walk.”

She was staggered. The insolence of it! She slowed down.

“I’ll turn round and drive back,” she said icily.

“Better let me take her through the traffic.”

“I am driving.”

“Miss Royale, for your own sake—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped.

Their eyes met. His were intensely blue. To her intense astonishment he opened the door of the car and jumped out. And then, scarlet to the roots of her fair hair, Sonia put on the brakes. He took off his hat and bowed with cold courtesy.

Sonia’s anger suddenly evaporated. She was immensely amused. She wondered what his reactions would be if she took a really high hand with him. A bit of an experimentalist with men was Sonia Royale. She looked him straight in the eyes.

“You’re a coward as well as a cad, Mr. Connel. And you are a little ridiculous, exhibiting such fear.”

That made him really angry.

He had not been afraid for himself, but for her. He wanted to prevent her from being such a little fool as to drive that car through traffic. He said through his teeth:

“Perhaps I won’t take a bus back. Perhaps I’ll insist on you giving me the wheel.”

Sonia began to enjoy herself.

“And if I refuse?”

“I’ll make it pretty difficult for you to drive.”

He climbed into the car again, and with a quick movement switched off the engine, pulled out the key, and pocketed it.

Sonia said:

“You go too far. I shall see that you leave my father’s employ.”

Pat went white under his tan. So he was to be sacked at the whim of a spoilt child, a girl who wouldn’t admit that she was in the wrong! And how lovely she was, sitting there, her strange grey-green eyes blazing at him!

“So I’m to lose my job, am I?” he said.

“I consider that you have been imp. . .