Stranger in the Night Read online

  Stranger in the Night

  By

  Charlotte Lamb

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  First published in Great Britain 1980

  by Mills & Boon Limited

  © Charlotte Lamb 1980

  ISBN 0 263 75717 X

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was around half-past eleven that Clare lost sight of Leonie. The room was so overcrowded that it was hard to see anyone except those nearest to you. Clare had been dancing with a large young man in an improbable fuzzy orange sweater, whose hands gripped her far too tightly, and who was too drunk for her to be able to understand a word he said. When the music stopped he let go of her and she was swept away from him in a surge of people. She wasn't sorry to see the last of him. Edging her way with difficulty to the wall, she stood on tiptoes to peer over heads in an effort to catch a glimpse of Leonie's red hair. Surely Leonie wouldn't have left?

  Clare's heart sank at the thought. She didn't know a single soul at this party except Leonie. Someone had lowered the lights earlier and on the outskirts of the room ran a rim of dark shadow in which she hovered, like a disembodied spirit, anxiously scanning half-seen faces in the crowd.

  She had never been to a party like this one before— a rather young eighteen, straight up from the country, her big green eyes still wide and innocent, her previous ideas of parties had faded tonight into dim insignificance.

  Leonie had flung her into a host of strangers to sink or swim, and Clare had been making a brave effort to swim, but now she felt horribly lonely and deserted.

  The glittering blue dress she was wearing was not her own. Leonie had smuggled her stage costume out of the theatre, against all the rules, shrugging with a smile when Clare protested.

  'Go ahead! Try it on! After all, who'll know? As long as it's back in the dressing-room tomorrow it won't matter. And you can't go to a flash New Year's Eve party in a pair of shabby old jeans.'

  Looking in the mirror later Clare had been too tempted by the sight of herself in the dress to be able to refuse the offered loan.

  'It suits you down to the ground,' Leonie had told her. 'Better than it does me.'

  Leonie looked good in anything, but the blue shade of the dress did not quite agree with Leonie's red hair. She looked better in the black dress she had made herself. It had made Clare's eyes grow round and incredulous. What there had been of it had been daring and chic—and Clare had known that she would never be able to wear such clothes. Leonie had clever hands. She often helped out in the wardrobe, making costumes. Slim, vivacious, Leonie was friendly and kind in a casual, half-taunting fashion. She made no secret of the fact that Clare's breathless, romantic innocence amused her. Leonie was doing her best to help Clare grow up. 'We must bring you up to date,' she had said bluntly. 'We're in the nineteen-eighties now, remember. You're not a schoolgirl any more.'

  Clare had been brought up in a quiet little town which seemed to die at six o'clock. London was still a dazzling revelation to her. The last thing she wanted was to be laughed at, so she had listened, impressed, eager to learn the sophistication Leonie seemed to wear so lightly.

  Leonie lived in the same house, a ramshackle old London terraced house split into one-room flats, run by a garrulous and sociable old theatrical dresser called Hilda, whose flat feet were never seen in anything but carpet slippers.

  'Me feet's ruined, ducks,' she used to tell them, sighing. 'That's what the theatre did for me.' Her eye would roll wickedly at them. 'Ruined, I was.'

  Leonie encouraged her to tell them reminiscences of theatre life forty years ago. Hilda loved having people from the profession living in her house. She was maternal and warm-hearted, very tolerant, leaving them alone so long as they didn't take what she called 'liberties', which meant in general that they paid their rent on time and did not throw wild parties in their rooms or have young men in them at night.

  Clare had been lucky to find such a good place. The rent was reasonable. It was clean and as comfortable as one could expect. It was as much as she could afford. The money her parents gave her only stretched to the barest essentials, and she had already lost half a stone since coming to London. She had learnt to skip meals and exist on bread and baked beans. In her first year at a drama school she was finding life very exciting and very difficult.

  Leonie had a job in the chorus of an out-of-town show. She had slightly more money than Clare, but she spent more.

  The whole cast had been invited to this party by one of the stars. Clare did not even know where they were—she had been swept up into the noisy, excited group, but she had no idea who her companions were, except that Leonie had muttered a few first names at her as people smiled at her.

  Clare had already drunk more than she had ever drunk in her life before. Her previous acquaintance with drink had run to one sherry now and then, but tonight people had pressed glasses into her hand and she had absently emptied them. Now she was feeling distinctly odd—not drunk, she told herself, just lightheaded. She had only eaten beans on toast again today and whisky was doing something strange to her metabolism.

  There was no sign of Leonie's red head anywhere. Clare moved away, frowning anxiously.

  She ought to leave, she told herself, wondering how she was going to get back to her flat at this hour. She would never get a taxi.

  'Hallo, Charleston girl!'

  The husky voice at her side startled her. She whirled, the beaded fringe of her short dress flaring round her knees.

  'You're not dancing! We can't have that. That dress was made for dancing in, wasn't it?' The tall man who had materialised beside her slid his arm round her waist and smiled at her.

  Clare laughed with the light sophistication she was imitating from Leonie, flicking her long, darkened lashes up and then down again.

  'Have we met?'

  The stranger laughed. 'We have now,' he pointed out in what she suddenly recognised as an American accent.

  'Are you an American?'

  'Yes,' he said, smiling. 'And you're English. A typical English rose.' His glance slid down her slender, curved body in the daring little metallic blue dress. Armless, low-necked, it left little of her to the imagination. Leonie's musical was set in the nineteen-twenties, but the costume deliberately had a modernity which lent Clare a deceptive sophistication. Somehow the very feel of the costume taught her to move with audacity.

  Her hair was a natural honey blonde, warm and smooth, styled for simplicity, since she could not afford to visit a hairdresser and had to look after it herself. It fell to her shoulders in a straight, golden curtain which swished as she turned her head to smile at her new acquaintance.

  She was very conscious of the flattery his eyes were offering her as he took in her appearance, and a faint flush rose into her cheeks.

  'I don't think I've ever met an American before.'

  'What a confession!' His voice teased and his eyes mocked. 'Time you got to know one, then.'

  'You?' Clare opened her eyes wide, their soft misty green gleaming between those dark lashes, and he looked into them with an amused glint.

  'Me, Charleston girl.'

  He drew her into his arms and they moved in among the other dancers. They were soon so close that she could feel every movement he made, his arms tightly wrapped around her, his thighs sliding against hers. He was a tall, slim man with wide shoulders and an elegantly proportioned body under the dark evening suit he wore. She looked at it, recognising vaguely that
it had an expensive cut and styling, which must mean that he wasn't in anything like her own income bracket.

  'You're very elegant,' she said brightly. 'Have you been anywhere special?'

  'Not until now,' he said, his smile underlining the flattery.

  Clare laughed, beginning to feel strangely excited. She had never met anyone like him in her life and her heart had begun to beat rather alarmingly. He was not only outside her income bracket; he was out of her age group, too, she realised. It was hard to tell in the muted light, but she suspected he was much closer to thirty than twenty, and his sophistication was genuine, unlike her own imitated variety.

  The faint frisson of doubt which ran down her spine was dispelled by another of his charming little smiles. Clare was fascinated by those smiles. The grey eyes mocked and invited, the mouth curved upward with amusement.

  He's a very sexy man, she thought, tingling with excitement. She thought of what she would tell Leonie, her eyes dancing. Leonie had a way of making patronising little digs which got under Clare's skin. It would be satisfying to show Leonie how wrong she was— none of the men Leonie went around with was as sexy as this man.

  'You go around like one of the babes in the wood,' Leonie had said in a derisive voice earlier that evening.

  Clare was going to show her a thing or two.

  'You dance as beautifully as I thought you would, Charleston girl,' her partner said softly against her ear. She felt his mouth slide over her lobe, and quivered.

  He laughed softly, as though that involuntary and betraying tremor in her body had delighted him.

  The music came to an end, but he kept his arm wrapped around her. Someone passed around champagne. Whoever was giving this party had a lot of money, Clare noted interestedly, drinking her champagne with enthusiasm. The bubbles prickled in her nose and she sneezed. Her companion laughed and reached a long arm over to get her another glass.

  'I don't even know your name,' she said as she accepted it without a qualm.

  'Luke,' he said. 'What's yours, Charleston girl?'

  'Clare.'

  There was a blast of toy trumpets as some new revellers swept into the already crowded room. The crowd swayed back and forth like a live thing and Luke drew Clare closer. Someone shouted that it was almost midnight. The room hushed, and everyone began to count aloud in unison. 'Five-four-three-two-one… Happy New Year!'

  There was a roar of voices. Laughter followed it, then people awkwardly linked hands with those around them to sing Auld Lang Syne in a ragged enthusiasm which made the words barely intelligible.

  Clare had finished her second glass of champagne. The dancing began again and she found herself crushed so tightly against Luke that she was aware of every inch of his body. She lowered her hectically flushed face to his shoulder, her arms around his neck, and felt his hand pressing along her spine, fondling her in a leisurely exploration which increased the pace of her heartbeat.

  Suddenly he paused to whisper: 'I've had enough of this—have you? Shall we go?'

  Clare was feeling particularly sleepy. The slow shuffling of their bodies, the heat in the room, the muffled beat of the music had made her head heavy. The champagne hadn't helped either, she thought. It had apparently got into her bloodstream and was bubbling through her and making her head swim.

  She wasn't beyond common sense, however. 'Go where?' she asked suspiciously, lifting her head from his shoulder.

  'Let's find a quieter party,' Luke said lightly. 'There are too many people at this one.'

  Clare frowned, trying to focus on him. 'Do you know a quieter party?'

  'I do, Charleston girl.' He smiled down into her dreamy green eyes and Clare smiled back.

  'Good thinking!'

  'I hoped you'd say that,' he told her with amusement.

  He forced a passage through the overcrowded room, pulling her after him by the wrist. A few young men tried to detain her, kissing her with noisy enthusiasm, and Luke detached her from them calmly. She had forgotten all about Leonie. She followed Luke like a lost traveller following a will-o'-the-wisp over marshy ground, struggling after him, elbows digging into her, feet trampling on her toes.

  The party was being held in one of a large block of expensive flats in St John's Wood. As they dived out of the door they ran full tilt into a group of new arrivals blowing squeakers and singing. Clare let Luke pull her through them and at last found herself safely in the lift.

  She leaned on the wall, her stomach suddenly heaving. The motion of the lift made her dizzy. Am I drunk? she asked herself, her eyes closed.

  The lift stopped. Luke guided her out of it and propped her against the wall. She leaned there, eyes closed, breathing cooler air, feeling the tremendous relief of the silence.

  Luke put an arm around her again and she opened her eyes to find herself being steered into another flat It was very quiet.

  Clare frowned and looked up at him enquiringly. 'Where are we?, Where's the party?'

  'In here,' said Luke, laughing.

  She let him walk into the room and then stopped, realising it was empty. A surge of panic hit her and she turned in protest.

  'You said…'

  Luke's arms went round her before she could finish the sentence. His mouth found hers and the warm, sensual movement of it took her by surprise. She barely knew what she was doing, her lips parting on instinct, as though men as sophisticated and sexy as this kissed her every day of her life.

  It wasn't her first kiss. That had happened four years ago, when she was fourteen, and she had been very disappointed in it at the time. The boy had been a mature fifteen, a hero to the whole school because he had built himself a motorbike from scrap. It didn't have an engine, but he kept it in his garden and was to be admired seated on it every evening after school. All the girls were in love with him. When he kissed Clare she had expected some miraculous transformation to take place, but it had been a disillusioning experience.

  She had been kissed since, of course, but none of them had ever done a thing to her.

  As Luke sensitively moulded her mouth with his own, she felt her ears begin to drum and her heart to race vividly.

  It was all that she had imagined a kiss would be when she was fourteen years old. When his tongue tip touched her inner lip she almost fainted with pleasure.

  He ran his fingers into her full soft hair and tilted her head backwards, bringing his mouth down hard on her own, the pressure and demand of the kiss deepening.

  Clare slid closer. Her excitement became intense. She slid her arms round his neck and stroked and ruffled his thick dark hair, and she felt him tense at her touch.

  He broke off the kiss to look down at her with half-closed eyes, and Clare languidly moved her hand to trace the handsome lines of his face, her fingers delicately picking out his cheekbones, his mouth.

  She had forgotten about the party he had said they were going to—her mind was swamped by the rush of sensual experience which was so new to her.

  Their eyes held and her heart thudded at the excitement in his eyes. He began to kiss her again, and she felt his hand moving down her hip. He moved closer and the long body was hard and tense. She heard the fierce intake of his breath.

  He drew back again, a dark flush on his cheekbones, his eyes glittering as he stared down at her. 'Come on, honey,' he said unevenly. 'We aren't going to stand here all night, are we?'

  Dimly Clare thought he was talking about the party they were supposed to be going to and she frowned. Her head was spinning. She couldn't take her eyes off the handsome face looking down at her. Staring at the sensual line of his mouth, she marvelled at the effect it was having on her. She wanted him to kiss her again. Curving an arm round his neck, she told him so drowsily, her voice trembling.

  'You're lovely,' he whispered, kissing her again.

  She clung to his mouth like an addict, shivering, one hand against his cheek.

  'I don't want to go to the party,' she muttered thickly, and Luke laughed under his brea
th.

  'This party is just for two, darling.'

  Before she had time to consider what that meant, he had slid his hands under her back and knees, and lifted her into his arms. Her head went round. It fell against his shoulder, feeling the muscles in it flex as he carried her out of the room.

  It was dark in the corridor. Clare's eyes shut and she felt she was failing, her mind totally at sea. She tried to rouse herself enough to ask him were they were going, but she was too sleepy. She felt like a baby in his arms. She felt weak and warm and blissful.

  He laid her down and she curled up like a child, already half asleep. She felt a movement beside her. Someone was delicately moving her. An arm was beneath her, lowering her zip.

  'So sleepy,' she protested, trying to force her eyes open.

  Her dress rustled down and that woke her up slightly. She opened her eyes and saw Luke's dark head above her.

  'You're not drunk, are you, Charleston girl?' he asked with that little smile which had turned her head earlier.

  'I feel strange,' she breathed. She lifted her hand languidly and stroked his hard-boned face. His skin was faintly rough along the jaw. He kissed her palm as she touched his mouth.

  'Do you believe in love at first sight?' she asked in a sleepy voice.

  'Do you, Charleston girl?'

  She frowned as she suddenly realised he was undoing his shirt, and a flash of anxiety went through her. 'What are you doing?'

  He stopped unbuttoning the shirt and took her flushed face between his hands. 'What do you think I'm doing, darling?' Before she could answer that he began to kiss her again, and Clare floated away on a tide of physical pleasure which was totally new to her.

  I'm in love, she thought dreamily. It was all true, all the myths and fables about love. The heart did beat faster—hers was beating like a drunken metronome. The breath did come irregularly; she could scarcely breathe at all. A kiss could be heaven, and all the times when she had rebelliously let someone kiss her only to decide it had all been a boring waste of time, she just hadn't been kissing the right person. She was kissing him now and he was making her whole body melt and burn.