Lorna Cook

The Forbidden Promise


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      THE FORBIDDEN PROMISE

      Lorna Cook

Avon. Logo

       Copyright

      Published by AVON

      A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2020

      Copyright © Lorna Cook 2020

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

      Cover photographs © Susan Fox/Trevillion Images (woman); © Shutterstock.com (landscape)

      Lorna Cook asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008321888

      Ebook Edition © March 2020 ISBN: 9780008321895

      Version: 2019-12-04

       Dedication

      For Mum, Dad & Luke

      For being family. For being there. And just because.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Chapter 33

       Chapter 34

       Chapter 35

       Chapter 36

       Chapter 37

       Chapter 38

       Chapter 39

       Chapter 40

       Chapter 41

       Chapter 42

       Chapter 43

       Chapter 44

       Chapter 45

       Chapter 46

       Epilogue

       Acknowledgements

       Keep Reading …

       About the Author

       Also by Lorna Cook

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER 1

       Invermoray House, Scotland, end of August 1940

      Sometimes it’s not the biggest lies, but the little white ones that bring about the most change. Although Constance couldn’t possibly have known that by pretending she had a migraine in order to escape the house, there would be such lasting consequences.

      Constance sat on the edge of the large rock that jutted out over the loch and hitched her evening dress up in what her mother would call an unladylike fashion. She removed her satin shoes and peeled off her stockings, dipping her legs into the cool water, soothing her dance-sore feet. She needn’t be discreet; the edge of the loch was so far from the house that no one could possibly hear her, and given the strict blackout regime the housekeeper adhered to, no one could see her either.

      Constance closed her eyes and then opened them almost immediately. Her migraine had been a fabrication, although the racket the band was making was exceedingly loud and growing louder the more enthusiastic both the players and the guests became. If she strained her ears now, she could hear them playing all the way from the loch. The need to escape her birthday party, to escape Henry, had engulfed her to the point she could think of no other way out but to lie.

      Over the past few months she had found herself liking Henry. She had only known her brother Douglas’s friend a short while, spending time with him when the two men journeyed to Invermoray on rare days of leave. He was older than her by only a few years, and she had looked up to Henry, idolised him and found herself following her parents’ lead when they suggested he might be a good match. Henry had clearly liked her, or so she believed. Constance thought he would be different, not like the other suggestive and sometimes inappropriate men she’d met, of which there had not been that many, admittedly. But he had shocked her as they danced, as she nestled into him, enjoying the closeness. His hands had crept down her back until they were resting far too low, his fingertips grazing