- -
- 100%
- +
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COVER
TITLE PAGE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
ENDPAGE
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
‘ARE you going to marry him?’ said Jenny, straight to the point as usual.
‘I don’t know.’ Lissa Fairfax lifted the brooch from its satin bed in the worn velvet box, with a troubled frown. The late afternoon sun was pouring in through the big window of the living room of their small flat and catching the gleaming stones, as she turned the brooch in her hand, and the sparkling facets gleamed like living fire.
She sighed a little. ‘One thing is certain. This will have to go back.’
‘I don’t see why,’ argued Jenny. ‘Paul has given you masses of presents. You’ve never thought twice about accepting any of them before.’
‘But this is different.’ Lissa examined the brooch, her frown deepening. ‘This is valuable—I’m sure it is. Look at the colour of the gold, and the way the clasp is made. It looks very old.’
‘Perhaps he’s showering you with the family heirlooms,’ said Jenny. ‘Still, it makes a nice change from flowers and perfume, and those gorgeous chocolates that we didn’t dare eat because of that diet thing we were on. Oh—and that super lighter. I’d forgotten that.’
‘I hadn’t.’ Lissa put the brooch back in the case. ‘That was too expensive as well. It’s all too much, too soon, Jen. After all, I’ve only known him six weeks.’
‘Some people would say that was long enough.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t.’ Lissa’s tone was definite. ‘I want to know someone far better than that before spending the rest of my life with them. I don’t like being rushed into things.’
Jenny sighed elaborately. ‘The most attractive Frenchman I’ve ever seen, young and wealthy—yes, he is, Lissa—no one could have his sort of clothes or car unless they were loaded, and he wants to marry you. And instead of falling into his arms, you say …’
‘I’ll think it over.’ Lissa smiled at her flatmate affectionately. They had been together ever since she had come to London, sharing this upstairs flatlet of sitting room, tiny bedroom with enough space for two beds and a Victorian-style wardrobe, with a kitchenette and tiny bathroom. ‘I mean to think it over very seriously. After all, you knew Roger for ages before you even thought of settling down. I can’t just grab Paul and let everything go by the board. After all, what do I really know about him—about his family or his background?’
‘Hasn’t he ever mentioned anyone?’
‘He’s spoken of his mother a few times—and he’s made odd references to a brother. I got the impression there might be a spot of friction there. He didn’t say so, of course.’
‘Your womanly intuition told you so.’ Jenny turned back to the neglected ironing board and began to pay minute attention to the cuffs of a white silk blouse. ‘Honestly, love, he’s the catch of the year, and he’s just waiting to drop into your hands. And you get on so well together. You can’t deny that.’
‘Oh, yes, he’s wonderful to go out with—charming, attentive, amusing—everything anyone could wish, but——’ Lissa paused.
Jenny raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘The girl wants jam on it. Okay, but what?’
‘But I can’t see him married and settling down to a routine just yet. Take that job of his at the Embassy. He doesn’t care about it at all,’
‘Well, if he’s as wealthy as he seems to be, there’s no real need for him to worry.’
‘No, but if you have a job, you should do it, not just play at it.’ Lissa stared down at the brooch. ‘And now this. I wish I knew where he’d got it from.’
‘You surely don’t think he nicked it?’ Jenny was horrified.
Lissa laughed. ‘Of course not. But it’s so uncharacteristic of Paul. He’s such a present-day person, and this has definitely an air of days gone by.’
‘Show it to Maggie,’ Jenny suggested. ‘After all, what’s the good of being a secretary to a historical novelist if you can’t pick her brains occasionally?’
‘She might know, I suppose,’ Lissa said slowly. ‘I still think the best thing is to give it back to Paul when I see him tonight.’
‘Do you think tonight he’ll want a definite answer?’ Jenny asked.
‘I doubt it,’ said Lissa. ‘We’re going to a party, one of those formal things at the Embassy, I think. Still, it will give me a chance to wear my new chiffon.’
‘It would also give you a chance to wear the brooch,’ Jenny said, grinning.
Lissa shook her head decisively. ‘No. I’m just going to give it back to him and explain that I can’t accept expensive presents like this when I’ve only known him such a short time.’
‘Even though he wants to marry you?’ Jenny asked.
‘Particularly because of that. You know what they say about marrying in haste,’ said Lissa. ‘After all, think how many years you’ve known Roger, and you went out with him for at least a year before he even suggested an engagement.’
Jenny laughed. ‘But Roger, bless him, isn’t a glamorous young Frenchman who wanted to sweep me off my feet.’
‘I don’t think I want to be swept either,’ Lissa said reflectively, ‘and if I do, I’m not sure this is the way I would want it done. The fact is I don’t know what I do want. I’ve never felt so unsure.’
‘I’d say it was spring fever, only spring’s over now really,’ said Jenny. She picked up the brooch again, and examined it minutely. ‘I suppose the stones must be zircons. They’re certainly big ones.’
‘They couldn’t be diamonds could they?’ Lissa gasped, horrified. ‘I wonder if the French have some strange habit of giving brooches instead of engagement rings.’
They both bent, placing the brooch against the glittering three-diamond ring on Jenny’s engagement finger, and studying the two closely.
Jenny shook her head. ‘It must be zircons. I mean, there just aren’t diamonds that big any more, and the cutting looks different too. But it’s an antique, and no mistake.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Lissa said a little despondently. ‘The problem now is how to return it gracefully.’
‘Your main problem at the moment is getting ready for the big night out,’ said Jenny. ‘I don’t know what time Paul is calling for you, but the immersion heater’s been on for ages.’
‘Heavens!’ Lissa glanced at her watch. ‘I had no idea it was so late. I must fly!’
Some ten minutes later, her fair hair pinned into a topknot, Lissa lay luxuriating in hot scented water. She ignored the fact that time was pressing and closing her eyes against the steam, let the worries of the day, including this latest one, slowly submerge. Margaret Desmond, her employer, was one of the most charming people alive and by no means a slavedriver, but when the idea for a new book was paramount with her she demanded total concentration, and Lissa had to acknowledge that since Paul’s proposal two nights earlier, she had been unable to keep her mind wholly on the job in hand.
Although, as she reminded herself with slightly rueful amusement, the new book had been the means of her meeting Paul in the first place.
Maggie was currently engaged on researching background for a novel about the French Revolution and Lissa had been sent to the French Embassy to collect a promised list of reference books and biographies of the period from an eminent French historian, with whom Maggie had been in correspondence, and who was staying in London for a few days.
Her note of introduction had been handed in the first instance to Paul, whose job it had been to conduct her through a bewildering array of corridors to the suite being occupied by the historian. By some strange coincidence, and somewhat to Lissa’s relief, he was still waiting when she emerged, and not only conducted her back to the foyer, but insisted on driving her back to Maggie’s flat in his low-slung and very expensive sports car.
Maggie had received him amiably, offered him her special sherry, and allowed him to stay for lunch, presiding over the meal with the benign air of an inveterate matchmaker. That was one of the drawbacks of working for your own godmother, Lissa reflected. Maggie was too apt very often to take rather a personal interest in one’s off-duty moments, but Lissa knew that it was precisely this fact that gave her parents, hundreds of miles away in Devon, such a sense of reassurance.
Maggie was quick to see romance even in the most unlikely situations, which perhaps explained the extreme popularity of her books, and it was obvious that Paul had her approval as a suitor for Lissa.
‘I daren’t tell her that he’s proposed to me.’ Lissa thought, ‘or she’ll write off to Mother and Dad and the wedding will be planned before I know it.’
Madame de Gue. She said the name slowly, trying to relate it to herself, and giggled. It sounded alien and unreal.
And if she did marry Paul, where would they live? In France? Lissa’s French was fairly fluent, especially with some recent coaching from Paul, but it was still on a pretty schoolgirl level, as she was the first to admit. Paul himself spoke almost perfect English, but he would have relatives, no doubt, who might not be bi-lingual.
She got out of the bath and began to dry herself. ‘If I really loved him,’ she thought, ‘I wonder if I would be having all these doubts. I’d know that loving him was enough, and would get us across all the bridges as we came to them.’
Physically he stirred her as no other man she had ever met had done, but she was uncertain whether this was due to genuine feeling, or was merely the reaction of a fairly inexperienced girl to what she suspected was a very experienced young man. Lissa grimaced. Again, it all seemed like a game to Paul, she thought, and she wondered if she had given in to his desires, whether he would still want to marry her now.
It was not a particularly pleasant thought, and she pushed it away resolutely. Give Paul his due, he had always insisted that her instinctive recoil from his passion delighted him.
The permissive society, he had made it clear, while enjoyable, did not extend to the woman he wanted to make his wife. Although Lissa had no desire to become part of the permissive society, this typically masculine attitude had annoyed her.
‘That’s a mediaeval way of looking at it,’ she had protested to him once.
He laughed. ‘But it is true, chérie, and all men feel it in their hearts, even if it is no longer fashionable to say so aloud. The girls they marry must be for them alone. And I assure you that my attitude is positively enlightened compared with—let us say—my brother.’
Lissa stared at him. ‘So, if I had slept with another man, you wouldn’t want me?’
‘I did not say that, my beautiful Lissa, but I would naturally feel—differently.’
Lissa had always felt a spirit of rebellion rise within her at this attitude. She was no women’s libber.
‘But he must learn that he doesn’t own me,’ she told herself.
She fastened the belt of her housecoat and padded into the bedroom. Her skin was naturally pale, but flawless, and she applied only light make-up, using eyeshadow to flatter the slightly tip-tilted grey-green eyes that were her loveliest feature. She brushed her long, almost silver-blonde hair until it shone, before winding it deftly into a smooth elegant coil at the back of her head, with just two curling tendrils allowed to escape and frame her face. The chiffon dress, a floating cloud of misty blues, greens and violet hung from the wardrobe door. It was a dress she particularly liked and Jenny called it her ‘sea nymph’ look. Some nymph, Lissa thought, slipping her feet into high-heeled silver shoes. She hoped that Paul would approve. It was the first time she had ever worn it for him, but she had got the impression that the party tonight was an important one and she was determined to look her best. She was used by now to the photographers with their flash-lamps who attended these affairs, and had frequently been the subject of their attentions, although she had never seen any pictures of herself actually featured anywhere. She guessed they would mainly be of interest to French magazines.
When she was ready, she sprayed on some of her favourite scent, and stood back and looked at herself in the long mirror that she and Jenny had found in an old junk shop, and cleaned and polished up.
Her skin gleamed against the deep V of the neckline and the full skirts floated out like cobweb as she turned.
Jenny appeared in the doorway, holding the box with the brooch.
‘Gorgeous,’ she said appreciatively. ‘And this brooch would just be the finishing touch, you know.’ She held it against herself. ‘Look what it does for this old black jumper. And just think what it would do for the chiffon! Try it on at least, there’s no harm in that.’
‘I suppose not.’ Lissa took the brooch and pinned it at her neckline. Gleaming there, it seemed to reflect back every sensuous colour in the gown, and she stared at it longingly.
‘Oh, Lissa, you must wear it. It looks wonderful,’ Jenny pleaded.
Lissa nodded ruefully, but as her hands went up to unfasten it, the door bell rang.
‘That’ll be Paul.’ Lissa swirled across the tiny bedroom and across the living room to the door and flung it open. She dropped in a mock curtsy. ‘Bonsoir, monsieur.’
‘Bonsoir, mademoiselle.’
The right answer. The wrong voice. Lissa looked up for the first time and found herself confronting a complete stranger. He was tall and very dark. His hair was black and his thin face was tanned. The expression in his low-lidded eyes as he stood looking down at Lissa was unreadable, but a faint smile played without warmth about his firm mouth.
There was something vaguely objectionable in the way he was looking her over, and Lissa lifted her chin and stared back.
‘You must forgive me, monsieur. As must have been obvious, I was expecting someone else.’
‘That is why I am here.’ He took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to her. It bore her name and she tore it open with a feeling of anxiety. Inside was a typewritten note from Paul.
‘Lissa, chérie, forgive me, but I cannot make it to the party tonight. Something totally unexpected has cropped up, and I am obliged to change my plans. I will see you tomorrow instead and make up for it, I swear. Your loving Paul.’
‘I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news.’ The stranger’s voice did not sound particularly regretful. ‘Paul was unable to come himself to explain, and of course you have no telephone, so I was happy to oblige him.’
‘Thank you, monsieur.’ In spite of her bitter disappointment Lissa did not forget her manners. ‘Won’t you come in for a moment? I am Lissa Fairfax as you have already guessed, and this is my flatmate Jenny Caldwell.’
He stepped into the living room, and stood looking at the small room with its clutter of easy-chairs, and the small sofa before the gas fire. His expression gave nothing away, but Lissa could guess that he was not impressed.
‘You have not told us your name, monsieur,’ she reminded him a little tartly, and he turned, giving her another of those sweeping looks from head to foot that she was beginning to find so disconcerting.
‘I am Raoul Denis, at your service, mademoiselle.’ His dark eyes considered her again. ‘Now that I have seen you I can understand why Paul should be so désolé at having to sacrifice his evening with you.’ He paused. ‘I have a proposition for you, mademoiselle. I too have suffered the same fate this evening. My partner has been suddenly overtaken by illness, and I have a cocktail party to attend, with the theatre afterwards. As we have both been left in the lurch, shall we take advantage of the situation and spend the evening together?’
Lissa stared at him. ‘But I don’t know you,’ she exclaimed. ‘Paul has never mentioned a Raoul Denis to me. Are you close friends?’
He shrugged. ‘Let us say we have been acquaintances for a very long time—and he did trust me to come here and deliver this note. And it would be a tragedy to waste that gown and all that radiance at home, when all the world is waiting. And you need have no fears. Paul would not be jealous of me.’
‘For your information, monsieur, Paul has no real right to be jealous of anyone,’ Lissa said a little coldly.
She looked at Raoul Denis in some perplexity. It was true. She was all dressed up, with nowhere to go, and his alternative suggestion was appealing.
At last she spoke. ‘Very well, monsieur. I shall be happy to be your companion. If you will just allow me to fetch my wrap.’
She walked back into the bedroom, and closed the door. Jenny was sitting on one of the beds, staring at her.
‘You have all the luck!’ she exclaimed. ‘If that had been Roger, I would have been condemned to an evening’s television.’
‘I don’t know.’ Lissa took her black velvet coat out of the wardrobe, and checked over the contents of her silver kid purse. ‘He seems polite enough, and if he knows Paul, I suppose that must make him respectable. But I can’t understand his invitation.’
‘Why not?’ Jenny was intrigued. ‘He’s an absolute dish.’
‘Yes,’ Lissa said slowly, ‘I suppose he is. But all the time he was talking to me, though he was civil enough, I felt there was something there. That he didn’t really like me. That there was something—just slightly wrong about the whole thing.’
‘I think you have too vivid an imagination,’ Jenny said decisively. ‘I think it’s a most sensible solution. You’re both on your own. Why not take advantage of each other’s company? If you don’t like him, you don’t have to talk to him all the time. You’re going to the theatre, remember.’
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. I’m just being a fool.’ Lissa put on her coat and gasped, ‘I’d forgotten—the heirloom! What am I going to do with it this evening? Where can I hide it?’ She gazed round the room, a little desperately. ‘There’s nowhere really safe.’
‘Well, it hardly seems worth building a strongroom just for my Indian necklace and your copper bracelet that Aunt Rosemary-sent to ward off rheumatism,’ said Jenny. ‘If you’re worried about it, leave it where it is. It looks good there. I think Monsieur Thing thinks so too. I noticed him giving it a keen glance as he came in.’
‘It seems wrong to wear it, when I meant to give it back tonight.’
‘Well, at least you’ll have the comfort of knowing exactly where it is,’ argued Jenny. ‘And Paul will never know.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Lissa agreed. ‘And to be honest, I like the way it looks.’ She fastened the silver clasps on her coat. ‘I’m not looking forward to this evening. He seems rather a chilly mortal.’
‘Unlike Monsieur Paul de Gue, for instance,’ Jenny said mischievously. ‘I’ve got a feeling that Paul will live to bless this evening. Seriously, doesn’t the Pirate King out there remind you of someone?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Lissa took a last look in the mirror. ‘Who were you thinking of?’
‘I don’t know. Just for a second—as you opened the door—he looked familiar.’
‘It can only have been for a second. I don’t think familiarity is his strong point. In fact I’m expecting to be turned into a pillar of ice as the evening wears on,’ Lissa said drily.
On her return to the living room, she found Monsieur Denis standing by the small sideboard looking at a glossy magazine. It was one of their landlady’s few personal indulgences that she liked reading magazines that showed ‘how the other half live’, as she put it, and she always passed these magazines on to the girls and seemed disappointed that they were not more interested in the gala evenings and hunt balls that were largely featured.
This particular magazine had been pushed under the door when the girls came home from work with a note attached: ‘Wait till you see this’. Neither of them had even scanned through it, however, because Paul’s parcel with the brooch had also been delivered.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Jenny had commented, picking the magazine up from the carpet. ‘Her favourite deb’s just got herself engaged to her favourite chinless wonder.’
As Lissa entered, Raoul Denis flung the magazine down and turned towards her. She was startled to encounter a sudden blaze of anger in his eyes, but before she could fully assimilate this, or begin to wonder at the reason, it had faded, and the mask of rather enigmatic aloofness had returned.
Lissa smiled rather more cheerfully than she actually felt. She wished now that she had turned down his invitation and spent the evening by the fire with a book. He hardly seemed likely to turn into a boon companion from what she had seen of him so far.
‘I’m quite ready, monsieur.’ She turned to Jenny, who was standing behind her. ‘ ’Bye, love, have a wonderful time at Roger’s. I suppose you’ll be spending the night there.’
‘Well, his mother is full of wedding talk and lists into the small hours, so I might as well take a nightie and a toothbrush,’ Jenny said, smiling.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow evening, then. Don’t forget, it’s my turn to do the shopping.’
‘Yes, but I’ll willingly do it, if you’re going out with Paul.’ Jenny began, but she was interrupted by the incisive voice of Monsieur Denis.
‘Time is running short, mademoiselle. I suggest you reserve these domestic details for another occasion.’
Lissa kept her temper in check. After all, he was a friend of Paul’s, but she could feel the colour burning in her cheek as she went to the door. ‘Beast!’ she raged inwardly. ‘Arrogant beast! How dare he speak to me like that? I wish I’d let him go to this wretched party on his own!’
If Monsieur Denis was aware of her unspoken resentment he gave no sign of it. They did not speak as they descended the stairs and went into the street, where a low-slung maroon saloon car was parked by the pavement.
‘If I’m going to be miserable tonight at least it will be in comfort,’ Lissa thought, unwillingly regaining her sense of humour, as Monsieur Denis opened the passenger door and helped her into one of the cream leather bucket seats.
The same rather strained silence persisted in the car for the first part of the journey. Lissa stole a look at her companion and was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that Jenny was right. ‘He is a dish,’ she thought. ‘Or he would be if he could bring himself to smile occasionally. But perhaps he was very fond of the girl he was going with tonight, and he’s just disappointed and I’m getting the backlash. But he didn’t have to ask me, if he didn’t want to. He was under no obligation at all. It can’t be that. Perhaps he just doesn’t like blondes. I’m sure there must be something about me personally that’s annoyed him. He can’t be like this with everyone, or he would have been murdered years ago. Well, someone’s got to say something, so here goes.’
Trying to keep her voice light, she said, ‘I believe we are going to a cocktail party, monsieur. May I know where?’