Fire Mountain

  Fire Mountain - Rose Elver

  Amelia had loved Professor Donovan Lyne for a long time; she should have been thrilled when he asked her to marry him. But his careless proposal was so unashamedly businesslike and hurtful that all she wanted was to sever all connection with him. But that was easier said than done....

  PRINTED IN U.S.A.

  OTHER Harlequin 'Romances by ROSE ELVER

  1949—SHINING WANDERER

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  Original hardcover edition published in 1976 by Mills & Boon Limited

  ISBN 0-373-020546

  Harlequin edition published March 1977

  Copyright © 1976 by Rose Elver. All rights reserved.

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  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  WILL you marry me, Amelia?'

  Amelia was so startled she almost dropped the pencil she had been meticulously sharpening while the professor sipped his coffee and brooded over his notes. He had been fidgeting with his papers for the last ten minutes, and she had supposed that his mind was miles away, probably on the jungle slopes of the volcanic island of Sarava, preoccupied with some absorbing detail of his researches there.

  But this proposal, coming like a bolt from the blue, was so incredibly unlikely and unexpected that she sat gripping the pencil and staring at him, her eyes wide and blank behind her horn-rimmed spectacles.

  `Sorry! I rather slung that at you, didn't I ! ' He set down his coffee cup with a clatter, swivelled round in his chair and went over to the long, low windows of the cottage which looked out across a stretch of lawn to the haphazard cluster of apple trees laden with blossom at the bottom of the small garden.

  There he stood, his back to her. He seemed very remote; a tall, spare figure, impressive even in his fisherman's-knit sweater and worn slacks. The light from the window traced threads of silver in his thick, dark hair and outlined the strong bone structure of his angular profile.

  Amelia's deep, secret love for this man swept over

  her like pain. She closed her eyes for a second against it and the pencil snapped in two under the pressure of her fingers.

  At the small, sharp click he turned round. 'Does it sound such an outlandish proposition?'

  Flinging himself into his chair again, he pushed the papers and coffee cup aside and lit a cigarette. His knuckles shone white against the flare of the lighter, and in that small gesture revealed his complex character—the dominant will controlling the inner tensions of the highly-strung.

  For the moment the atmosphere in the room was strained, so extraordinary as to be almost dreamlike. Wordless still, Amelia poked the sensible round spectacles, that would keep slipping down her nose, back into position with a shaky forefinger. She brushed the fragments of pencil lead from her shabby skirt.

  It took her another full minute to say, as sedately as she could : 'I don't think I understand, Professor.'

  `What is there to understand?' He blew an impatient wreath of smoke. 'I've asked you to be my wife, and if we can discuss it reasonably for a few minutes now it may help you to come to a decision.'

  `Are you serious?'

  `Perfectly serious.'

  She looked up at last to meet the grey eyes intent on her. They were grave and thoughtful, and it was an effort to keep her composure, for her brain refused to accept any of this as reality.

  Yet it was real enough; the long, familiar room at the back of the cottage, flooded with afternoon sunlight; white plastered walls and old oak beams,

  polished boards underfoot with a long, threadbare rug, the lumpy, chintzy armchair in the corner; the desk, strewn with notebooks and piles of typescript and blow-up photo stills from the' films he had taken; her own rickety table, a makeshift for the portable typewriter; even the few sprays of apple blossom she had cut that very morning from some of the lower branches and arranged in a blue china bowl on the window sill.

  And the man himself was only too real. A distinguished anthropologist with a bold, incisive mind who could be so coolly austere at times and at others so tense and restless. Donovan Lyne, for whom her love had gradually grown in the agonizing knowledge that it was hopeless and must be hidden not only from him but from the knowing glances and suppressed laughter of others. This man who must have known many beautiful, accomplished women.

  `How long have you worked for me, Amelia?'

  `A year ... I remember, the blossom had just come out on those trees.'

  `Time enough to rub off the edges of acquaintanceship and get to know one another, would you say?' He drew on the cigarette. 'You agree we're compatible?'

  `Well, yes, I suppose so,' she said cautiously.

  `Let me put my own position to you first. When I came back from the expedition to Sarava I'd picked up a type of jungle fever, and I needed time to recuperate and to get my notebooks and photographic material into some kind of order in preparation for the book. I took indefinite leave from the Founda-

  tion and hired this cottage. Peace and quiet, with time to relax and get fit and put my ideas together. When I began to feel well enough to cope with some preliminary work on the book, my department offered to send a stenographer down. I was asking Mrs Maggs about the possibility of accommodation in Whimpleford, and quite gratuitously she suggested I needn't bother as you would probably fill the bill better than anybody from town.'

  `Mrs Maggs ! ' Amelia was surprised to learn at this late stage that the stout, kindly woman who came in to cook and clean for the professor, and whose husband owned the cottage, had had a hand in her being here.

  `A perspicacious old girl, our Mrs Maggs,' he stubbed out the cigarette. 'I might as well admit that I then made a point of getting to know your brother-in-law for the specific purpose of meeting you and looking you over.'

  `I see,' she said warily, her cheeks reddening slightly.

  `Does the idea offend you?' His smile glinted briefly. 'No reason why it should. I kept very much to myself the first couple of months I was here, and I couldn't imagine a village like this coming up with the kind of secretary-cum-assistant I required. On the other hand, I wasn't too keen on importing a town-bird who would get bored with the life I lead and go hopping off in a car for the bright lights at any and every opportunity.' Running his fingers through his thick hair, he went on : 'It was an outside chance, but it paid off. Country-bred girl, college education, in-

  telligent and sensible, and competent with a typewriter. The fact that you'd actually been studying anthropology was too good to be true. You've been a godsend, my dear girl.'

  She said in a level voice: 'I've enjoyed it too, Professor.'

  Donovan Lyne's eyes narrowed. 'I'm glad.' He looked away and then back to her. 'You've become indispensable to me, Amelia.'

/>   Her heart turned over, but she continued to watch him calmly, saying nothing in return. Indispensable? —yes; like a comfortable coat in winter.

  He stirred restlessly and rubbed the back of his neck, flexing his shoulders. 'I have to go back to London soon, and pick up my life, and I want you to come with me. You're out of your element here with your sister and brother-in-law, and to be brutal, I don't see that they have any obligation to provide you with a home,'

  Nor have you! ' she retorted more sharply than she realised. 'After all, Whimpleford is my home.'

  `Face up to it,' he insisted brusquely, 'you're not happy with them. Before you took this job with me you were merely trying to justify your existence by doing any odd jobs they chose to foist on you. They've managed for a whole year without you, and I would judge from your sister's temperament that she would prefer not to have you under her feet all the time again.'

  This time she had to make a tremendous effort not to reveal her mortification by answering bitterly.

  He was right. Of the two sisters, Emma had always

  been the beautiful one, with a confident charm neither their parents nor anyone else could ever resist. Amelia had had the dubious consolation of a serene, practical outlook which had helped her, from a very early age, to come to terms with the fact that it was no use trying to compete with Emma's extrovert personality. So she had quietly withdrawn from Emma's. clique, and become absorbed in her studies and her own interests to the point where she was completely indifferent to outward appearances.

  `Oh, for heaven's sake, Melly ! ' Emma would comment furiously. 'You're no beauty, but there's no need for you to be such a drag. Thousands of plain-looking women project themselves through their clothes and personalities, but you're so negative. I daren't introduce you to my crowd because you always manage to look like a jumble sale. And that dreary, bookish chitchat drives the men a mile off.'

  Amelia had laughed off these attacks with an equanimity which never failed to exasperate Emma; but it had distressed her mother, whose affectionate attempts to change Amelia's style and bring her out of her shell had never succeeded. Only her father had seemed to understand that her attitude was a refuge behind which Amelia was determined to build an independent life to satisfy and fulfil herself.

  Some of Emma's sallies had penetrated, leaving scars of hidden hurt, and it was almost a relief when Amelia left home to go to university. Meanwhile Emma had become engaged to the handsome, wealthy sportsman who had bought the old Manor

  House estate and turned it into an expensive and very exclusive country club. Amelia had submitted to being dressed up for the wedding, but had retreated as soon as possible to the familiar, congenial background of like minds at her college.

  Then, a few months before she could take her degree, her parents were involved in a pile-up on a motorway, her mother killed and her father cruelly maimed. Amelia could think of nothing but her beloved father in need, and gave up her studies to return home and nurse him for two pain-filled years.

  It was Emma and her businesslike husband, Edward, who had taken over the running of the family's prosperous market garden, leaving Amelia to cope with the invalid. And when he had died, Emma had decreed that Amelia move into a small room at the back of the club until she had decided what to do with herself.

  Feeling tired and bereft, Amelia could not make up her mind whether to try to return to her studies and take up where she had left off, or look around for some kind of job, but her pride would not allow her to live off her sister. For the time being she had insisted on looking after Emma's rather spoilt twins, doing some clerical work in the office of the country club, and learning to use the typewriter with the vague notion that it would be useful whatever she might decide to do once she could rouse herself from the weight of mourning and inertia. She was conscious of the fact that most of the sophisticated members of the club looked on her as a rather

  amusing oddity; many were not even aware that she was Emma's sister, but thought her the children's nanny. But the most difficult of her problems was the knowledge that Emma was finding her presence increasingly irritating and that Edward was inclined to become more and more patronising towards her as the weeks dragged by.

  It was at this crucial point that the solution had come, without any effort on her part. The distinguished Professor Donovan Lyne, whose work on the Fire Mountain of Sarava had been featured in magazines and on television, and who had been living like a hermit crab in one of the cottages the other side of the village repelling all overtures from the locals to get to know him, had turned up at the country club one day and surprisingly become a member. Edward was extremely flattered and made good use of his name among the members; Emma, a keen celebrity-hunter, was thrilled at first but later pronounced him rather a cold fish and very stand-offish. Amelia, who had longed to meet him and perhaps have an opportunity of asking about his work, tried to screw up her courage once or twice to go into the club lounge, but was hastily and pointedly given something else to do by her sister. The club was for relaxation, not for the family frump to monopolize one of the important guests and badger him about his work.

  They just happened to meet—or so Amelia had thought—in the grounds of the Manor House estate when she was returning with the children after an evening walk and Professor Lyne was taking a short cut back to his cottage. They fell into conversation; a

  tentative and yet curiously stimulating conversation which had resulted in an invitation to her to visit the cottage the following week, to look at some of his material and continue the discussion over one of Mrs Maggs's ample teas. A week later she was working for him, much to Emma's chagrin, for after that his visits to the country club had virtually ceased.

  Mrs Maggs—deus ex machina! The plump personification of providence, Amelia thought wryly. She could almost hear the old woman's well-meaning recommendation: 'No sense in getting one of they flibberty-gibberties from town. That there Miss 'Melia, now, sister of Mrs Denton of the Manor House club, wastin' her time she is. She would do for you, sir, bein' as she's book-learned, and not much else for the likes of her here now that her father's gone, poor soul.'

  Amelia sighed. Little did Mrs Maggs know what she had done for her that day, or brought her to now!

  Her good sense prevailed and she relaxed. Looking up, she answered the man across the table in a matter-of-fact voice : 'You're right. I couldn't go back to my old life at the Manor House and I would like to be able to work with you on the final stages of the book. But there's no reason why I shouldn't come to the Foundation on the same terms, as your assistant, is there? I could find a room in a small hotel or a hostel.'

  `I want you to come as my wife,' he reiterated firmly.

  `Why?' she asked, and the ache of her love for him

  trembled a little in the insistence of her tone. But the flickering hope of hearing him say what she longed to hear was stillborn.

  He shifted uneasily. 'I know it's a great deal to ask, but I want you beside me to share my home and my interests and my friends. I have a large, comfortable flat and a wide circle of colleagues. I'm sure you'll like them and fit in perfectly.'

  Very flattering! she thought with wry resignation, and asked quietly : 'A sort of companion as well as assistant, to run the flat and help in any way I can? Is that what you mean?'

  `No, damn it, that's not what I mean ! ' He rose from the chair and paced the room. Turning abruptly, he said : 'I mean a wife in the fullest sense,' his grey gaze held her upward glance with clear, forceful candour, 'and perhaps a child too, Amelia.'

  Before she had time to interrupt him, he went on, `I'm thirty-seven. In about two years I'm going back to my researches in Sarava. Anything could happen. I have—reasons for needing the assurance of an established family to leave behind me.'

  All the tenseness, and the slight air of embarrassment which had showed occasionally, had evaporated and his manner was brisk and impersonal. 'Apart from my work I have a fairly substantial private income. I h
ave only one living relative. I've been absorbed in my expeditions, my research and my books. Any thoughts of marriage I've had so far were in direct conflict with that and would have tied me down, but with you it's different. I want a wife and

  an heir, Amelia, and I'm offering you complete security for your future in return for the next two years of your life.'

  There was profound silence between them. He was waiting, his face attentive but devoid of any sentiment. Amelia had to push words past the constriction in her throat.

  `This is the strangest conversation I've ever had in my life,' she said helplessly, playing for time to take in the implications of his blunt statement.

  `There isn't anyone else, is there?' he demanded. `I've always had the impression—'

  `No,' she cut in flatly. 'As we're being frank, I must tell you that I'm twenty-five and I have no emotional ties. There was a time, with someone at college, when I thought I might ' she broke off and looked down, concentrating on her hands clasped in her lap. `I've never had any of the social graces I'm sure I would need as the wife of an important man like you. And as for—for giving you an heir, how could I possibly be sure of fulfilling my part of the bargain?'

  `I'll take that chance, if you will.'

  `Then it's a sort of bargain, isn't it,' she told him quietly, ruthlessly turning the knife in her own wounded feelings. 'Trying to make a go of it on both sides. Just now you said that thinking about marriage had been different this time—with me. May I ask why?'

  `Because you're intelligent and competent. Because you don't fuss over trivialities or chatter inanely. You have a sense of duty and compassion—I know how much you willingly gave up for your father, and I'm

  sure you would give as much to any child of yours.

  What more can I say?' He settled down into his chair,