It Wasn't Love

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Lois had been warned about shipboard romances, but felt herself quite immune as she set out to visit her brother in Singapore. But Philip Sanpell seemed to be something quite different. His stunning good looks and passionate kisses made her throw caution to the wind, and before the end of the voyage her heart was irretrievably lost. But it wasn't long before she remembered those warnings and, with bitter regret, her own heedlessness... A captivating love story from the 100-million-copy bestselling Queen of Romance, first published in 1930, and available now for the first time in eBook.

Release date: October 16, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

BY the time the Blue Funnel boat S.S. Artis had reached Port Said, Lois Mannering realised quite definitely that she was in love with Philip Sanpell.

She had been warned by numerous friends, before she set foot on board, against “sea-voyage flirtations”. They were notoriously dangerous affairs. One felt so romantic on board ship under a hot, tropic blaze of stars and moon, with a charming man who could make one feel the “only woman in the world”.

Philip Sanpell had made Lois feel that.

One night, sitting beside her in a secluded corner of the deck, when the boat was just steaming into Port Said, and the air was hot and breathless, and the moonlight a thing of beauty and magic, he told Lois that he adored her and wanted her to be his wife.

“But it’s—it’s absurd,” Lois answered weakly. “We’ve only known each other a—a few days.”

“Long enough for me to know that I love you, Lois,” was his reply. “Oh, my dear, my dear, don’t you love me, too?”

She looked at him; leaned back in her deck chair, thrilling with excitement. In the white moonlight, Philip’s face was remarkably handsome. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. A skin, ivory pale, which never seemed to tan under tropic suns; dark narrow eyes deeply set under straight black brows; very smooth dark hair brushed straight off his forehead.

To most women Philip Sanpell was dangerously good-looking and attractive. Very few saw behind that perfect mask; very few noticed the thin cruelty of the lips under the dark, close-clipped moustache; guessed at the hot temper smouldering under the veneer of laziness and good-humour.

To Lois, inexperienced, just emerging from the quiet shell of a secluded life in a London suburb. Philip Sanpell was wonderful and without flaw. Life just at the moment spelt Romance and sunlight, and why should she peer behind that light and see the lurking shadows?

When Philip said: “I love you, Lois,” it melted her; made her all soft, tender, yielding womanhood. She said:

“Oh—do you mean it—can you mean it?”

“You know that I do,” he said. “And you know that you love me too, Lois.”

She looked at him, flushed; starry eyed.

“I—do like you, Philip.”

“Like …” he echoed the word with a low laugh. “I want to hear something more than that from you, my Lois.”

“But you—know so little about me. I’m a very dull sort of person. I have nothing to commend me.”

“Haven’t you?” Again Philip laughed and suddenly caught both her hands and kissed them each in turn. “Why, you’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen, darling.”

She leaned a little towards him.

“The voyage has been very thrilling and wonderful and you have been very, very nice to me. …”

“I could be nicer,” he said. “And we’re only just at Port Said—we’ve got the rest of the voyage together. Say you’ll marry me—sweetheart!”

The last word, spoken in Philip’s husky, attractive voice, completely melted Lois. The next moment she was in his arms. He tilted back her head a little and then slowly, ardently, kissed her.

That kiss was a revelation to Lois. It seemed to take from her her last shred of resisting power. She was madly in love with this man. She did not want to resist him. She would marry him … of course … to be his wife would be the most miraculous thing life could offer.

Her arms went round his neck.

“Oh, Philip, Philip … I’m so happy. …”

He touched her lips lightly … ever so lightly; kissed the soft waves of her blonde, silky hair. He was very tender with her now … very subtle … he knew just how to play on the cords of her emotions as an artist plays on the strings of a violin. While he caressed her, he whispered a hundred passionate promises—made a hundred passionate vows.

The sound of music floated out to them from the saloon. Dreamily Lois listened. The orchestra was playing “Less than the Dust”. Plaintive and haunting the Indian Love Lyric drifted on the still, hot air. Lois felt a sudden catch in her throat, and she shivered. It was as though the music seemed to hold some half-veiled warning. She pushed Philip away from her.

“No, Philip, don’t kiss me again—it’s so hot.”

“Not so hot as it will be in Kuala Lumpur,” he returned, conscious of her sudden doubt.

“Kuala Lumpur?” she repeated. “But I’m going to my brother in Singapore.”

The man’s dark eyes narrowed.

“No, darling—you’re going to marry me and live in Selangor—up Kuala Lumpur (K.L., as we call it out there). My bungalow is twenty miles outside the town.”

Her breath came quickly, the fear of a moment ago had vanished.

“Oh, Philip, I—I shall have to see Dick first. We—can’t get married till I’ve seen him—asked him.”

A long argument followed. Outwardly the man was patient, gentle with her. Inwardly he was flaming with impatience and growing rage because this little soft, innocent slip of a girl was so self-willed and stubborn. Philip Sanpell was not used to being thwarted. But he was trying hard not to let that furious temper of his blaze out. He knew that it would be fatal to let Lois see under the mask before he married her.

He wanted her almost to madness. There was something peculiarly appealing in her to Philip.

She had told him everything about herself. Till now she had lived in London with a widowed mother; she had done nothing in particular. But now the mother was dead and Lois was on her way out to Malaya to her brother, Dick, who was doing quite well on a rubber estate which he had bought in partnership with an old friend from Cambridge.

There was nothing in the world to prevent Lois from marrying Philip—except Dick. Philip Sanpell had not the least desire to wait until the boat touched Singapore before he married Lois. Everybody in Malaya knew the name of Sanpell and a good many men had suffered at his hands, and were not likely to forget it. Dick Mannering might have heard tales. …

But Lois said “No” to all his arguments. Her little display of convention, of propriety, maddened the man. In this moment, just because she had beaten him, he would like to have hurt her, physically … thrashed her into submission … and kissed away her tears.

The ship touched Port Said, then steamed on towards Singapore. The weather seemed to Lois to grow hotter and hotter, and she could only sit on deck in the thinnest of cotton frocks and languidly pass the long, golden hours with Philip at her side.

Philip had ceased to argue about a marriage on board. He was clever enough to know that Lois would shrink from him if he harassed her. So he laid himself out to be most charming for the rest of the voyage, and on Lois’s engagement finger there now shone a brilliant diamond set in platinum. Philip had bought that ring on board. One can buy everything for any occasion on a liner these days.

Lois was blindly happy. Many women on board seemed to envy her sudden possession of the lithe, handsome man who was the most devoted and attentive lover. She often asked herself, humbly, what she had done to deserve such happiness.

Once Philip asked her if she had ever thought of marriage with any other man. She said:

“No-o—not exactly.”

“You sound uncertain, darling,” he smiled at her. “Come along—confess—I won’t eat you up. You’re so pretty, Lois, I can’t believe I’m the first fellow to kiss you.”

“Well—in the way you kiss me, yes, you are,” she said, her cheeks hot and pink. “But there was one man—quite young—I was awfully fond of him and he seemed to be of me. We were never engaged … it was only one summer when Dick came home from the ’Varsity … brought Jimmy with him. …”

Philip listened to the shy confession that followed, with eyes half-contemptuous, half amused. Such innocence … such a white purity! it was amazing and yet really very adorable, he thought. Just a simple story. Dick Mannering’s best friend at Cambridge had spent a summer on the river with Dick and his sister; two years ago, before Dick went out East to try his luck. Jimmy had gone punting with Lois … Lois described him as a sun-browned, good-looking, cheery boy … and one night on the river under the stars they had kissed … and she had thought that love had come into her life.

But it hadn’t really come, she told Philip. It had just been a “boy-and-girl” affair; she at nineteen, Jimmy at twenty-three. He had had no money; they could not possibly become engaged. He had vanished out of her life entirely after that one summer.

Lois spoke of it without regret. It all seemed so childish after she had learned to love Philip Sanpell. … Yet she thought rather wistfully of Dick’s friend, Jimmy Morgan. He had been a dear, and that night on the river when his boyish lips had touched hers lightly and innocently, she had thought that perhaps later on, a deeper, more passionate love might follow. For months she had treasured the memory of Jimmy; put his photograph on her dressing-table; made a hero of him.

She would always think tenderly of Jimmy. And Dick had, in his letters, spoken of him sometimes. Jimmy was out in Malaya with Dick now; often sent her friendly messages; hinted that he hoped to see her when he came back on leave.

But that was all passed and gone. With a little sigh she looked at the perfect face of the man she had promised to marry and who had come like a meteor into her life … flashing … wonderful.

She gave him her hand impulsively.

“There’s been nobody but you, ever in this way, darling,” she said.

He was not the least jealous of her innocent past. He kissed the little hand—kissed each slim, tapering finger separately. He knew that he was the first. And he did not for an instant pause to ask himself if he were worthy to take such innocence, or feel remorseful at what he meant to do in sweeping Lois off her feet and marrying her.

He thought of the life he had led in Malaya before they had met. He began to talk to Lois of his bungalow, his rubber-estate in Kuala Lumpur; careful not to tell her of any incidents which might frighten or make her suspicious of his real character.

“I’ve made a bit of money; my estate is doing well,” he said. “You’ll be comfortable with me, Lois: I’ve just been home on leave, you know, getting a breath of fresh air. You can’t live in Malaya for any length of time without a break, home. But I’ve got a topping bungalow. We’ll be so happy, baby darling.”

Baby darling! A silly name, yet it thrilled her. She said:

“Of course we will, Philip. But I don’t want your money—only your love.”

“You’ve got that right enough. Kiss me, Lois.”

They were standing side by side in a secluded corner of the deck. The sun had set and the starlit splendour of night had replaced the hot glory of the tropic day.

Lois moved to her lover’s side and he put his arms about her, towering over her from his great height. His dark, brilliant eyes were so ardent that they made her catch her breath. For an absurd instant she felt inclined to run away … to escape from him … then she felt his lips on her mouth and she went limp in his arms, yielding, adoring him. Again from below came that haunting melody: “Less than the dust beneath they chariot wheel.” But this time Lois took no notice.

After she had gone to her cabin to dress fo. . .