Eclipse
A sparkling saga from the author of Platinum Coast.Lucinda Frazer-West: daughter of Lord Nicholas and Lady Serena, a young actress with a glittering future beckoning.Luna Fergusson: daughter of West Indian businessman Royole, reluctantly accepted by his wife Caron, and developing a high-flying business career.Two successful young women, unaware of the bond that links them. They are twins, the product of a one-in-a-million biological chance, following a liaison between Serena and Royole: twin sisters, one white, one black.Now, twenty-seven years later, events are destined to bring them together, and to unmask the secret of their birth.
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LYNNE PEMBERTON
Eclipse
Contents
Chapter One: PORT ANTONIO, JAMAICA. JULY 1966.
Chapter Four: ENGLAND, MARCH 1967
Chapter Nine: CAYMAN ISLANDS 1980
Chapter Sixteen: PELHAM CRESCENT, SW7, 1994
Chapter Seventeen: NEW YORK CITY
A shiver ran through her as the wind outside rose to an agonized howl, rattling the shutters on the chalkstone house with a ferocity that threatened to rip them off their hinges.
The storm had begun.
Feeling relatively secure inside the drawing room of the sturdily constructed beach-house, Lady Serena Frazer-West was quite enthralled by the prospect of experiencing a Caribbean storm first-hand. Overcome by curiosity, she carefully prised open a tiny gap between the louvres of the floor-to-ceiling shutters and, bending forward, strained her eyes to see through the blanket of dark silver rain.
She had never seen such a downpour. A solid sheet of water was teeming out of a sky the colour of charcoal.
Serena remembered the first time she had come to Jamaica on her honeymoon two years previously. It had been raining then. A flicker of a smile crossed her face as she recalled the three-hour drive across the island from Kingston the capital, to the sleepy little town of Port Antonio. She had laughed, and Nicholas had complained loudly, when they had been squashed into the back of a broken down Morris Minor with four pieces of luggage, and a box of rotting paw-paw belonging to the chattering driver. As the old car approached the rushing Rio Grande, the sun had made its first appearance over the top of the soaring blue mountains. Submerging the lush green valley in a translucent pinkish light. The avenue of flamboyant trees lining the roadside, rain dripping from their tightly packed blossoms, had reminded Serena of a mass of scarlet umbrellas.
It was a sight she’d never forgotten.
Now the wind was roaring across the island at more than eighty miles per hour, driving the rain violently, soaking everything in its path. And with it came a veil of mist which seemed to hang over the ground, covering the huge Cannonball tree at the foot of the garden in a ghostly cloak.
Serena’s eyes travelled across the covered terrace, then down the garden path, littered now with fallen branches, and on to the dark sea beyond. Through the gloom she caught sight of a huge wave, almost the same height as the ubiquitous coconut palms. Within seconds, it had smashed a small fishing boat to smithereens, the splintered fragments whirling on a great gust of wind before being swallowed up by the blackness of the sky.
Serena was fascinated. She found the untamed beauty of the storm exhilarating and the wildness of the scene stirred her senses. How could she know that for the rest of her life she would always look back on this day, thinking that if it hadn’t been for the storm things would have been so different.
Suddenly an involuntary gasp exploded from her lips when, stretching on tiptoe to scan the far side of the garden, she spotted something or someone moving behind the thick trunk of a date palm.
A figure stumbled out into the open. It was a man, his shirt flapping wildly like the wings of some huge prehistoric bird. As the full force of the wind hit him he dropped on to his belly and with his head curled into his chest, he crawled across the sodden ground towards the shelter of the house.
Serena shared his discomfort, afraid for him, as she watched his painfully slow progress. Every few yards he was forced to lie flat, covering his head with his hands as meagre protection from flying branches and other debris. As he drew nearer he seemed to shout for help, but his voice must have been lost in all the chaos.
She snapped out of her state of mental paralysis and jolted herself into action, running across the large drawing room, down two wide steps and into an internal courtyard that led to the hall.
She could hear the stranger’s muffled shouts as she flung open the heavy wooden door. He was slumped against the stone wall of the covered walkway which crossed the front of the house. Staring at him, speechless, she noticed how his broad chest heaved as he turned to face her.
He was panting.
Unable to take her eyes off the man it suddenly struck Serena that she must look totally stupid, standing there gaping. But just as she was about to say something, a particularly ferocious gust of wind lifted him and hurled him forward. She raised her hands to ward him off but the heavy weight of his body fell clumsily, crashing into her right shoulder. She cried out as her ankle twisted and she slid to the floor.
