The Secret Hour

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Just a week before her marriage to Gordon Veriland, Evelyn meets and falls in love with Shane Cargill. But Evelyn is trapped, for Gordon has the power to put her father in prison for fraud. She knows that the wedding must take place. But Evelyn's marriage proves a hollow thing and she still hopes that one day she will be united with Shane. A captivating love story from the 100-million-copy bestselling Queen of Romance, first published in 1932, and available now for the first time in eBook.

Release date: August 14, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 222

Sample

The swift darkness had fallen—that hot, close darkness which descends upon the glittering day in South Africa.

Evelyn Mayton, sitting on the veranda of the Embassy Hotel, Johannesburg, felt something more than the darkness closing about her. She lifted her eyes from a letter which she had been reading and looked over the exotic garden with almost a fatalistic expression on her young, lovely face.

‘Life,’ she whispered. ‘What are you offering me? What is there in store? A husband—money—security for father and me—but what of love—and a lover?’

What indeed! There was a restless, tormented feeling in the heart of Evelyn to-night. She looked again at the last paragraph of the letter which had come out from England and reached her this morning. A letter from her father, from their home in London.

‘And now that I know the date of your wedding with Gordon is fixed, I have no further worries. Thank heavens he fell in love with you and you with him. You will be happy, won’t you, my little girl? I couldn’t bear you to do this thing for my sake alone. …’

Evelyn turned her eyes to the darkness again. Her lips—red, exquisitely shaped, with a short, passionate upper lip—twisted into a smile. Not a happy smile for a girl of twenty-one who is just about to be married. Her restless, tormented feeling increased.

‘Poor father!’ she whispered. ‘If he knew how little I am in love—how little I want my marriage—’

A few months ago she had been living with her father in town, leading the ordinary life of a carefree, attractive girl, with exceptional beauty and, so far as outsiders knew, with money behind her.

Her mother was dead. Ever since she was fifteen Evelyn had been all in all to her father and adored him. It had come as a considerable shock to her to discover that he was badly pressed for money, and that in a moment of weakness he had borrowed a considerable sum on forged security from a man named Gordon Veriland, a diamond merchant with whom he had had business dealings.

Veriland had discovered what Charles Mayton had done. But he had neither reproached nor condemned. He was a curious character. Domineering, stubborn—immensely selfish. He had met Evelyn. Her fair, slender beauty and her intriguing personality had at once fascinated him. He was forty; just the age to fall crazily in love. He wanted Evelyn for his wife. He asked her to marry him. It was all very subtle. No mention was made of her father’s folly. But Evelyn knew—knew that if she accepted Gordon Veriland that crime would be wiped out, and she and her father need never worry about money again.

Veriland sailed for South Africa in a hurry on urgent business. One month later Evelyn followed as his future wife. She had given her word. And in a fashion she liked him. He was not repellent to her. He had a certain amount of personal attraction—a good figure, good features—and he was literally at her feet.

So here she was—and in a week’s time Gordon would be here and they would be married. She was waiting for him. Her trousseau was ready—her future settled and assured. Gordon was up-country at his famous mine and he wrote to her every day. Only this morning she had had one of his notes—brief but possessive in every line.

Evelyn shut her eyes. Slim, lovely, fair as a man’s dream of real English beauty, with her pale gold hair curled at the nape of her neck, her grey, black-lashed eyes, her rose-petal skin, she looked about seventeen in her white linen dress. A slender, rather fragile girl. And she ought to have been on fire with love—with the thrill of what was to come next week when she became Gordon’s wife. But the thrill was missing—so far as he was concerned. Not once had Evelyn—the real Evelyn—wakened to her fiancé’s kiss or touch. His lovemaking even bored her a little.

She knew that the real thing had not come.

To-night she stretched out white arms and whispered:

‘Life—what are you offering me?’

A big grey car with strong headlights came at a reckless pace round the curve in the hotel drive and stopped. It stood there, throbbing like a live creature, just in front of the veranda where Evelyn was sitting.

She stood up, and the wistfulness in her grey eyes changed to a peculiar look of interest.

A man stepped out of the grey car and came up the white steps towards her. She knew he had seen her. In the glaring headlights she recognised him. Shane Cargill, like herself, was a visitor at the Embassy Hotel. Only last night Evelyn heard him discussed by a woman in the lounge:

‘Shane Cargill is the wickedest, nicest man in South Africa—an absolute devil—breaks the hearts of all the women he meets——’

That was enough to intrigue any girl, and Evelyn, at heart most romantic, was no exception. She became interested in the ‘wickedest, nicest man in South Africa.’ She found out a little more about him. He was a bachelor of considerable means and one of this world’s rovers. He spent his time in travelling—big-game hunting was his chief passion, and, so Evelyn’s informant said, pretty women.

Evelyn was amused. Certainly Shane was very handsome, and there was a little dare-devil, arrogant smile generally playing about his well-shaped lips when he strolled through the lounge. A smile that seemed to say:

‘Come on—if you dare—I challenge you!’

Evelyn liked being challenged. She wished she could speak to Shane Cargill—and see what he was really like.

He collided with her, suddenly, in the darkness on the veranda. Was it by accident, or on purpose? Evelyn did not know, but she found her cheeks flaming when she felt both his hands on her arms, supporting her, and heard his low voice:

‘Oh, I say—forgive me, please!’

A rich, Irish voice. He was Irish on his mother’s side. Anyone might guess that from his eyes. Blue as the lakes of Ireland, with lashes as long and black as Evelyn’s own—very blue indeed in the dark tan of his rather thin face. Something about him reminded Evelyn of Gordon. His figure; his height. Gordon was tall, the same build. But somehow Gordon was flabby and this man was like tempered steel, lithe, powerful, graceful as a jungle-beast.

She smiled up at him. She could just see the blueness of his eyes in the velvet darkness of the African night; the blackness of his thick, untidy hair; the funny challenging tilt of his lips. She said:

‘Oh—not at all. My fault.’

‘I’m sure it was mine,’ said Shane Cargill. And it was. He knew it. Hadn’t he told himself last night when he saw her—slim, golden, the pale gold girl of his secret dreams—that he must meet her, speak with her, gather that gold and white loveliness to himself?

Shane Cargill had loved many women—never to his own torment. But when he set eyes upon Evelyn, a stranger unknown to him, he had recognised the fact that here was torment. Here was a new and strange desire stronger than any that had ever come upon him.

Now that he had spoken to her he could not easily let her go. With eager eyes he looked down at her, wishing he could see her more clearly. He could only smell the fragrance of her hair—unforgettable perfume. And he was glad because he had heard her speak at last and knew that her voice was cool and soft like the trickle of spring water. It was a voice which he could enjoy to hear.

‘These nights are dark until the moon rises, and then they are bright and splendid,’ he said.

‘I am just going in,’ she murmured.

‘Please stay and smoke a cigarette with me and tell me I am forgiven for crashing into you so stupidly,’ he said.

Evelyn found herself quite willing to do so.

They sat, side by side, on the veranda, and each time they inhaled their cigarettes they could see each other’s faces in the red glow of the burning ends. When Shane had lit Evelyn’s cigarette for her, his little finger touched hers, and a queer, electric current ran between them. Why? Who can tell? Who can solve the mystery of mutual attraction? Evelyn mused that some men mean nothing to a woman in a year and others can mean much in a moment. Such a man was Shane Cargill.

He talked to her of many things, of South Africa, of hunting, of the man’s life on the veld, and of other lands he had seen and people he had met. She listened, fascinated, and wished that Gordon would talk to her like this. But Gordon had only two topics of conversation—money and food!

‘How long will you be here?’ asked Shane.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, untruthfully.

‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ he said. ‘The hotel was so boring, but now——’

‘Isn’t it still boring?’ she laughed.

‘No,’ he said, and leaned toward her so that she could just see his lean, dark, earnest face. ‘You are not like any girl I have ever met.’

‘Why?’ She tried not to be thrilled.

‘Hasn’t any man ever told you how exquisite you are?’ he asked daringly.

‘How silly,’ she said, confused. But her pulses leaped, and she thought: ‘This man has a potent charm. I ought to be angry with him for his impudence—and instead, I like him.’

‘When I saw you in the lounge last night amongst that crowd of over-dressed, jewelled, exotic women, I thought you looked like a lily,’ said Shane Cargill. ‘You were all in white with white flowers on your shoulder. You ought always to wear white.’

The insolence of it! And he had only known her half an hour. But Evelyn was not cross. She laughed.

‘You’d better design my dresses in future.’

‘I’d love to,’ he said. ‘Would that I had the chance! Tell me more about yourself. Who are you—where do you come from, White Lily?’

‘White Lily, indeed!’ She gave a low laugh and he thought it was the sweetest thing he had heard—like the sweetness of the linnet’s song. ‘My name is Evelyn Mayton. I am generally called Eve.’

‘Eve is a lovely name.’

‘Yours is Shane Cargill. I like that.’

‘How did you know?’

‘I heard …’

That pleased him. Evelyn bit her lip, but her cheeks were dimpling. This was a rather naughty flirtation, and she ought to put an end to it. She was Gordon Veriland’s future wife. But there was something irresistible about this man, and she did not want to end it.

‘Tell me that you belong to yourself and to no man—Lily Girl,’ said Shane. ‘You aren’t engaged—are you?’

Then Evelyn, with a crazy little feeling inside her, furtively slid the big yellow diamond from her marriage finger and put it in her bag.

‘Do I look as though I were?’ she parried.

Shane Cargill’s very blue eyes half closed. He smoked in silence an instant. His heart beat furiously. She was terribly attractive, this girl with her white throat, her pale amber hair, and her cool grey eyes. He liked the gay way she responded to his flirtation. She was charming. He also believed that she was rather innocent, which made the lure stronger for him. He was tired of experienced women. But his quick eye had seen that ring on her finger—and seen her slip it off.

So she was engaged, but she did not wish him to know it.

‘No,’ he said slowly, deliberately, ‘you do not look engaged. I’m sure you are not.’

She stood up, half scared of what she was doing.

‘I must go in—dress for dinner.’

‘There is a dance to-night,’ said Shane, standing close to her. ‘May I have—every dance?’

‘Of course not,’ she laughed.

‘We shall see,’ said Shane in his rich voice, and he, too, laughed, then lifted one of her hands to his lips with a swift gesture.

‘I’ll be waiting for you when you come down,’ he added.

He left her with her cheeks crimson and hot and her heart beating as it had never beaten before.

‘I’m crazy,’ she told herself.

But it was a divine madness. And this was her last week of freedom. Why not have a last fling—with Shane Cargill? He wanted an amusing, meaningless affair with her. He was the man with the reputation for breaking hearts. He wouldn’t break hers. She wouldn’t let him. But why not join in the game, play it with him just for fun? Once she was Gordon Veriland’s wife, no more frivolity of this kind. No more admiration, no more unfettered happiness. And Shane Cargill had the bluest eyes and the brownest face she had ever seen.

‘Life—you have offered me something at last,’ she whispered, and stretched her hands to the rising moon. ‘I’m going to take it—just for to-night—and let the world go by!’

The orchestra in the dance-room of the Embassy, Johannesburg, played well. Just before midnight they broke into a slow, old-fashioned waltz.

For two hours Evelyn Mayton had been dancing with Shane Cargill. He had asked for every dance—and he had had it. They had been the cynosure of all eyes. An attractive couple: the big, dark, leonine man; the slender, golden-haired girl. And because he had said she should always wear white, she was in white again to-night. A long, creamy, satiny dress with cloudy tulle to the tips of the little white satin shoes. It was cut low off the shoulders with a big bertha of delicate lace, and white roses were pinned with one diamond bar at her waist. An old-fashioned dress, but the latest thing from Paris. She was chic, exquisite, even to the white velvet coat with the huge fox collar which she carried with her because the nights in Johannesburg grow cold.

Shane Cargill’s pulses had leaped when he had seen her, and there had been no other woman in the room for him from the time Evelyn entered it.

He danced well. She experienced the acme of pleasure in the curve of his steady arm. Like one in a dream she surrendered to that waltz, Noel Coward’s newest one from Private Lives. Delicious, wistful melody. A man in the band was singing the refrain:

‘Some day I’ll find you,

Moonlight behind you,

True to the dream I am dreaming.’

Evelyn looked up at the man who was waltzing with her. His vivid blue eyes looked down at her. And suddenly something deeper and fiercer than a mere passing attraction passed between them. Evelyn felt an almost suffocating sensation. She went very pale, as pale as her lovely dress. Shane, too, was white under his tan.

‘Let’s get out of this hot room,’ he said.

He guided her on to the veranda, then took his arm from her. He wrapped her white velvet coat about her shoulders. They were the loveliest shoulders and arms he had ever seen—like marble in the moonlight. The exotic garden was flooded with white splendour. He was intoxicated with so much loveliness.

‘Walk with me a little way,’ he said.

Evelyn went with him. She thought:

‘This is mad—I’m losing my head, and I mustn’t. It’s only a game.’

They were out of sight of the hotel now. Shane Cargill paused and took a cigarette-case from his pocket. Their eyes met in a long look. Suddenly he dropped the case on to the grass.

‘No!’ he whispered. ‘No! I can’t stand it. I must kiss you. Eve—I must. …’

‘No, no,’ she said, terrified. But her whole body was on fire—urging toward him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘White Lily, the whole evening I’ve been crazy—haven’t you known?’

She did not answer. Her hands went up to her throat, where a little pulse ached madly. She tried to remember Gordon—her fiancé—her coming marriage. But she could think of nothing but this fascinating man whose Irish blue eyes roused something in her that had been sleeping until now.

‘Don’t!’ she whispered.

But he had taken her in his arms with a swift, fierce movement. Her pale gold head fell back against his shoulder. He took her lips like a man dying of thirst and said:

‘Darling—darling—darling——’

In the white blaze of the African moonlight she stood there in his arms, crushed against him, her lips burning under endless kisses. And she knew what Life offered her to-night. Love, passion such as she had not dreamed of, and this man, Shane Cargill, as her lover, blotted out the rest of the world.

Later, strolling round the moonlit grounds with him, Evelyn knew that she ought to tell him about Gordon. And Shane knew that he ought to tell her that he knew. But neither of them spoke. Enchanted, like young lovers without guile, they walked—‘the wickedest, nicest man in South Africa’—with his arm about her. They strolled round the gardens, only pausing now and then, when he took her wholly in his embrace.

When he bade her good-night, he said:

‘I’m frightfully in love with you, darling. Do you care a little for me?’

‘Yes—a lot,’ was her reckless reply, and once again Gordon was forgotten—and so was that ring in her purse, and her father’s crime.

‘To-morrow we’ll go out in my car all day and have more of this enchantment,’ he said.

‘Oh, let me go now, please,’ she said, half afraid, wholly thrilled.

‘I don’t want ever to let you go,’ said Shane with his lips against her throat.

S. . .