A Marriage To Remember. Carole Mortimer

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      CHAPTER ONE

      HE STOOD at the back of the dimly lit, smoke-filled room, unnoticed by the crowd, especially the noisy people clamouring for attention at the bar beside him. But that was all right—they were completely unnoticed by him too.

      Because he knew that as soon as the woman standing on the slightly raised dais across at the other side of the room began to sing again the crowd would forget their need for a drink, would fall into a hushed silence once more as they forgot everything but listening to the music.

      She had been on stage for almost half an hour now, and it was the same each time she began to sing a new song; a pin could have been heard dropping amongst the appreciative audience. It was easy to understand why. She was good. Very good. As good as she ever had been, the haunting sensuality of her voice reaching out and touching a chord in the heart of each person in the room. She sang of love. Betrayed love. And yet there was also hope in her words. Hope of survival. And there was a joy in life itself. In the mere gift of life.

      Where had she found such joy?

      How?

      Who with?

      It was this last agonising question that ripped into him like the sharpness of a knife, that held him mesmerised as he stood silently watching the haunting beauty of her face.

      Then the room fell silent around him once more as she began to lightly strum her guitar; it was an expectant silence, as if everyone in the room had suddenly held their breath at the same time.

      He knew why. He too recognised those opening chords. And the words as she began to sing. It was a song he hadn’t heard for a long time. A long, long time.

      Their song...