The Forbidden Promise. Lorna Cook
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THE FORBIDDEN PROMISE
Lorna Cook
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
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.
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Source ISBN: 9780008321888
Ebook Edition © March 2020 ISBN: 9780008321895
Version: 2019-12-04
For Mum, Dad & Luke
For being family. For being there. And just because.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
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
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