Peppercorn Woman (Hardcover)

Huddled beneath a hedge, shawl drawn tight against the lancing rain, Garnet Cadell sobbed as memories trod relentlessly through her mind. The letter had said Tyler would be home in one week's time. His business in India now finished he had a few things to settle in London and then he would be home.

Tall, fair haired and blue eyed he had swept her off her feet the night they had met at the Commissioner's Ball in Mariwhal. For a year he had paid court to her, calling at her parents' bungalow on the hill that over-looked the bustling Indian town, ever polite, ever the gentleman. There had been no hint at all at that time, no pointer to the cruelty that was the very core of Tyler Cadell. They had been married there in India and a few months later her parents were dead of typhus. Her loving gentle parents. A long-drawn sob rattling through her chest drowned the sound of a snapping twig.

She had not been allowed to return to Mariwhal to bury the two people she had loved most in the world, to see where they would lie together, to whisper them a last goodbye. `I cannot allow you to take the risk, my love, perhaps in a year or so, once I can be certain all danger of infection is passed.'

Why couldn't he have let her return to that town while the infection was rife? That way would have been easier, that way he could have taken what he really wanted from her much sooner and she . . . ? She would have been at peace with her beloved parents. A sudden flurry of wind caught at the hurrying drops of rain flinging them needle sharp against her face, but deep in the misery of her thoughts she did not feel them, nor did she hear the soft tread of a boot. Three days! Three days was all it had taken for Tyler to put her on a boat for England. He would follow as soon as he could, meantime Raschid would take care of her.

And he had taken care of her. A sob she could not hold back spilled into the dark silence, and once more the soft tread of feet was masked. Raschid, Tyler's Indian manservant, had cared for her as a father might, seeing to her every comfort on that long voyage back to England, then on to the Midlands and her father's childhood home. The home where her own child had been born, her beautiful dark-eyed child.
`You'll get nothing but the influenza sitting there in this weather.'
A foot hitting sharp against her thigh brought terror flooding back.
`No!'A scream piercing the rain-swept night, Garnet was on her feet, her thin frame hurling itself forwards. `I won't let you . . . I won't let you kill my baby!'