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www.millsandboon.co.uk
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
‘ALL right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine, truly.’
‘Sure you don’t want to come?’
‘Sure,’ Melly confirmed with a smile. ‘Go on, you go; have a good time.’
‘We-ell, all right, if you’re sure.’
‘I am. Go.’
With an answering smile, he kissed her quickly on the mouth, grabbed his car keys, and left.
So punctilious, so polite, so eager to be away. With no one now to see, the shadows returned to her lovely amber eyes. Getting to her feet, she walked across to the window in order to watch his slim, elegant figure stride from the house; to note the casual way he pushed back his dark hair before climbing behind the wheel of his beloved XJS, and continue to watch as he roared off down the drive. Charles. Her husband. The man she adored to the point of insanity. The man who did not love her. Did he have any idea at all, she wondered, what his kisses did to her? How she stored them up like a miser? No, she doubted he ever gave them a thought. With a rather wry, sad little smile, she smoothed her palm gently over the burgeoning swell of her stomach.
Charles, whom she had comforted on the death of his closest friend in a yachting accident. Charles, who had made love to her in his anguish and pain, and then married her when he’d discovered she was pregnant. Charles, whom she had loved since the age of ten, but who would never have considered marrying her had it not been for the baby.
With a long sigh, she drew the heavy brocade curtains across the window before returning to the large leather armchair drawn up before the fire. Sitting awkwardly, she tucked her legs beneath her. Charles’s chair, which she had, to his amusement, adopted as her own. Her eyes on the dried flowers in the empty fireplace, she saw only Charles. Visualised him parking outside the casino, striding in, grinning at his friends and acquaintances. Relaxed, casual, elegant. Adored. A man liked by women; envied by men. A man who had probably forgotten all about her, she thought with another little smile. A care-for-nobody... No, that wasn’t true, that was just the impression he liked to give, a mask he showed the world. Why, she did not know, only that it was true. Because he thought nobody cared for him? Perhaps, but what she did know was that there was a great deal more to Charles than met the eye. Or was she interpreting facts to suit herself? Because she wanted to believe he was something he wasn’t? Because he was attractive, with a wicked charm, and because she had always liked him, had she made him the misunderstood hero? Assumed his parents were tyrants because they had disowned him? Yet wasn’t it likely that his parents had known him better than anyone? And, working on that assumption, wasn’t it possible that it was not Charles who had been misunderstood, but his parents? Recalling to mind their prim mouths, their moralistic outlook, she shook her head. No, she would trust in Charles. And don’t we all believe what we want to believe? she mocked herself. You no less than anyone else? Yet, even with the doubts, would she have changed anything that had happened these last few months? No. He would probably never love her as she longed to be loved, but he liked her, and, working on the principle that a few slices were better than no bread, she was probably as content as she would ever be.
He would care for her, and the child when it was born, but would he ever again share her bed? Ever again hold her close in his arms, when, even in his pain over the loss of his friend, he had proved himself a lover to surpass all others? She did not know, but she had made her bed, and now must lie on it.
Reaching out her hand, she tugged the little bell pull. It never failed to amuse her, the pretentiousness of it. Châtelaine. Of what? A small house that had no need of a butler, but had one all the same? Not, perhaps, in the image usually called to mind, but certainly quiet, mostly unobtrusive, and always elegantly attired. It was not a role, she often thought, that came naturally to him.
Entering quietly, he gave a small bow. ‘Bonsoir, madame,’ he said with marvellous dignity, which was slightly spoilt by the hint of humour in his dark eyes.
‘Bonsoir, Jean-Marc.’ They had seen each other not fifteen minutes previously, and yet they always went through the same ritual. The same polite exchange. He was in his late fifties, she knew, but behaved as though he were seventy at least and a family retainer of long standing. He was slightly stocky, a little shorter than Charles, very French-looking, with dark hair and pale skin. He tried to give the very misleading impression of being aloof, and of never being hurried. Melly doubted either was true.
Charles had won him, along with the house, in a poker game, or so he said. Melly wasn’t sure she believed him.
‘Je suis fatigué, Jean-Marc...’
‘Madame wishes to retire?’
‘Jean-Marc! How am I ever going to learn to speak French properly if everyone persists in practising their English on me?’
With that wonderful Gallic shrug that was so difficult to imitate, and a downturning of his mobile mouth, he spread his hands in helpless enquiry.
With an infectious little chuckle, she nodded. ‘Yes, I wish to retire.’ Uncoiling herself, she stood and stretched. Of medium height, her once slim, almost boyish figure now nicely rounded, she lowered her arms and gave her gentle smile. Pushing the long brown curly hair away from her face, she asked hopefully, ‘Hot milk?’
‘Hot milk,’ he confirmed with a look of disgust for her choice of beverage. ‘I will bring it up to madame in—fifteen minutes?’
‘Fifteen minutes will be fine. Goodnight, Jean-Marc.’
‘Bonsoir, madame.’
Shaking her head at him, she went up to her room.
The milk was duly brought, and duly drunk. With a last smile for Jean-Marc as he left with the tray holding her empty glass, she settled herself in the large bed. But not to sleep. Or not until she heard Charles come in.
When she heard his quiet footstep on the stairs at just gone two she turned over and slept, which was why, when she woke in the morning, she still felt tired. She could, of course, have gone back to sleep. She didn’t choose to. She always made a point of breakfasting with her husband. Even though he rarely returned from the casino, where he was one of the partners, before three, he was always up by eight o’clock, and now, after three months of marriage, it had become the norm for them to sit down together.
When she entered the dining-room he looked up from his seat at the table, and smiled. He looked delighted to see her. He looked delighted to see everyone. No comfort there.
With a lithe movement he got to his feet, walked to the opposite side of the table and held out her chair. As she sat he dropped a light kiss on the top of her head. ‘Good morning, Melissa.’
‘Bonjour, Charles.’
With a chuckle, he resumed his seat. ‘Coffee?’
‘Please.’
As with Jean-Marc, it was a ritual to be gone through. He poured the hot milk into her cup, with just a dash of coffee. Fresh warm croissants were piled in a snowy napkin in a basket in the centre of the table. There was butter, a selection of confitures, marmalade and honey. Charles reached for her plate, selected a croissant for her and placed it together with butter and honey in front of her. ‘Bon appétit.’
‘Merci. You had a successful evening?’
‘Mm, so-so. Not many in last night.’
‘You played?’
‘No, I wasn’t feeling lucky. I mingled, talked to some people, listened to gossip,’ and, for a moment, his generous mouth firmed. Not tightened; Charles’s expressions were never excessive. He generally appeared relaxed, smiling, contented. It wasn’t true that he was, of course—no one was ever that amiable—but if he had any dark thoughts, emotions, he hid them very well. Which was no doubt why he was such a good poker player. ‘I’ve decided to move the horses to another haras.’
‘But why?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘I thought you were quite happy with the way they were being trained. Heaven knows, you fought hard enough to get them into that particular stable!’
‘Ye-es, but oh, I don’t know, I have a feeling all is not well.’
Knowing better than to mock his ‘feelings’, she asked instead, ‘Where will you place them?’
‘Don’t know; I’ll have to give it more thought.’ With the swift change of subject that was so characteristic of him, he smiled. ‘I also saw Fabienne; she’s invited us to dine tonight. Yes? I accepted for us both. You don’t get out enough—and don’t turn down your mouth, my darling, it’s time you got over this reluctance you have to meet people.’
‘I’m not reluctant to meet people, just...’
‘Just those people who constitute my friends.’
‘No,’ she denied with a frown, ‘that’s not true; it’s just that some of them...’
‘Like Fabienne...’
‘Yes, like Fabienne, make me feel—oh, I don’t know, gauche, unsophisticated. I never know what to say to them.’ Looking up, holding his grey eyes with her own, she added, ‘You’ll be much happier on your own.’
‘Will I?’ he asked with a quizzical smile.
‘Yes. You won’t need to worry about me, make sure I have someone to talk to, understand what’s being said...’ With a little smile and a shrug that was nowhere near as eloquent as Jean-Marc’s, she left her sentence unfinished. But it was true: without her, he would thoroughly enjoy himself. Very gregarious was Charles. He liked meeting people, talking, exchanging ideas, and, although he had never by look or deed intimated that she was a drag on his enjoyment, she suspected he felt restricted by her presence. She had tried to overcome her not dislike, exactly, but discomfort with his smart friends, but she always got the feeling that they were sneering at her. Maybe she was being over-sensitive because of the circumstances of their marriage, but she could never feel quite at ease at these little dinner parties that everyone seemed to give.
‘Nevertheless,’ he said with a subtly different smile that meant he would expect her to go along with his wishes, ‘I would like you to come. David will be there. You like David.’
Yes, she liked David; it was his wife she couldn’t stand, mostly, she admitted, because the wretched Fabienne would persist in drooling all over Charles at every given opportunity. Touching, smiling, stroking, pressing herself against him as though she were irresistible, which she wasn’t, not by any means. She was forty if she was a day and persisted in behaving as though she were sixteen. She seemed to be the violent exception to the rule that French woman were elegant, chic, sexy. Most older women that she had met were far more attractive than the younger set, having achieved that certain confidence and sophistication that wisdom brought, but not the wretched Fabienne, and, for all his perspicacity, Charles didn’t seem to see what other women saw. That she was a troublemaker.
If Melly flatly refused he would still go, and he would say nothing more about it, but the smile would be cooler, the warmth that she needed withdrawn. She didn’t think he knew that he did it, and maybe someone who did not know him very well would not notice. But she would. Forcing herself to smile, she nodded. ‘All right, I’ll come. What time?’
‘Eightish. Thank you. I know it is not easy for you, Melly, but if you do not ever try you will not know...’
‘What I’m missing,’ she finished for him. ‘I know, and I am trying; it’s just that it’s such a different lifestyle to the one I’ve been used to.’
‘British understatement at its best,’ he laughed. ‘Beckford was hardly the Mecca of sophistication.’ Leaning back in his chair, he steepled his fingers under his chin, a smile playing about his mouth. ‘I would dearly love to know what they made of our marriage,’ he mused.
‘Oh, probably that I deserved all I got,’ she said lightly. ‘I mean, what else could one expect, marrying an adventurer?’
‘Is that what they call me? An adventurer?’
‘Mm.’ A no-good adventurer, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Besides, it wasn’t true.
With every appearance of enjoying the notoriety, he leaned forward and propped his chin in his hand. ‘What else? Black sheep? Rogue? I bet they said, “Ah, that one, he’ll come to no good. Meet a sticky end one day.” Mm, I see by your face that I’m right. Well, it’s possible I will one day fulfil their prophecies, but hopefully not drag you down with me. You deserve better, Melly.’
‘No!’ she said more sharply than she had intended. ‘No,’ she repeated more moderately.
‘Yes,’ he contradicted. ‘If you had not come to Deauville to find your grandfather’s grave; if—’
‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,’ she cut in firmly, because they both knew that wasn’t why she had come. Charles might, for the sake of harmony, pretend to believe it, but she had always thought that he suspected otherwise. Always suspected that he was treading carefully, as she was, in order to make the marriage work. Holding his eyes, she forced herself to smile. ‘You didn’t coerce me. I didn’t have to—comfort you that day. And if I had denied your paternity...’
‘Ah, but you didn’t, God knows why. Anyone less worthy to be a father would be hard to find. Anyone less worthy to be a husband... And yet, if you hadn’t admitted it, if I had found out later that you were carrying my child...’
He would have been angry? Yes, she knew he would have been, and was sometimes very surprised by how responsible he seemed to feel. She desperately wished they could have spoken about it, discussed it, but because of her own feelings of guilt it always seemed impossible. And yet perhaps, after all, it was safer not to.
‘How would you have found out?’ she queried with a lightness she did not feel. ‘You no longer had ties with Beckford, and as far as you knew I could have had any number of boyfriends, any one of whom could have been the father...’
‘Maybe; water under the bridge now...’ With an odd laugh, he straightened. ‘Not exactly your normal run-of-the-mill husband, am I?’
‘No,’ she agreed with a forced smile, ‘but then, run-of-the-mill might be a bit boring, don’t you think?’
‘And wouldn’t you, if you were honest, not wish for boring now and again?’ he asked whimsically. ‘Like knowing where I was at nights? Or even days, come to that...?’
‘But then you would never have won this house at poker; I would never have met Jean-Marc. Would never have ogled the rich and famous at the American Film Festival...’
‘Ah, now, be fair, you could have ogled them any time. They hold the festival here every year.’
‘But I couldn’t have ogled them as a guest!’ she insisted. ‘Couldn’t have ogled them from the arm of the most sought-after bachelor around. Anyway, I quite like being the wife of racehorse owner; the wife of a casino partner, famous yachtsman...’
‘Hardly famous,’ he derided, his mouth turned down at the corners.
‘Well known, then,’ she substituted. Staring at him, examining that strong, attractive face as he gazed pensively at the table, she wondered how much he was regretting it. Had he taken one too many gambles and lost? Had he been expecting her to refuse his proposal? He would never say, even if she asked, yet she knew this wasn’t the lifestyle he had planned for himself. He’d been quite honest about it, about never intending to marry. So really he was someone else who had to lie in a bed of their own making. ‘You lost more than I ever could,’ she added quietly in a foolish desire to be reassured. ‘Your freedom to choose.’
Raising his eyes, and shaking off whatever thoughts he had been thinking, he smiled. ‘Choose what? Women? Women were never that important to me, Melly, despite what the gossips say. I like them, enjoy their company, and I don’t say I’ve never bedded them,’ he added with his engaging grin, ‘but not to the degree those same gossips would have you believe, and the truth of the matter is I don’t feel tied. I enjoy being married to you, didn’t you know that?’ he queried lightly.
‘Do you?’ she smiled, knowing it for the lie it was.
‘Yes, of course. It’s also an excuse I can use when I want to leave somewhere that bores me; an excuse for importuning women...’ With a laugh that mocked himself, he added more seriously, ‘No, the only regret I have is that I might hurt you. I’m on a course of self-destruction, Melly, always have been, you know that. I seem to have this need for danger; to pit my wits against the world. Constantly test my abilities. A need to win... I’ll make the best provision I can for you and the child, and then if anything happens...’ With a little shrug, his mood changed again. ‘What shall we do today? Choose the pram?’
Shaking off her own feeling of despondency that his words had brought, she shook her head. ‘No, mustn’t tempt fate. I won’t choose the pram, or cot, or anything until the last month...’
‘But that’s ages!’ he protested.
‘Only eight weeks—it will soon go.’
‘I suppose. But I want to do things!’ he exclaimed comically. ‘Get the nursery ready! Choose outfits for him, it, her...’
‘Designer?’ she asked with a teasing grin.
‘Of course designer!’ Looking down, he traced an invisible pattern on the tablecloth. ‘It frightens me, Melly,’ he confessed quietly. ‘Being a father. I can’t picture it. Don’t know how I will be.’
‘I do,’ she said softly. ‘You’ll be protective, caring—and fun. What more could a child ask?’
‘For his father to be there, I should think!’ With an abrupt move that took her by surprise, he got to his feet. ‘I have to go and see someone about the horses. I’ll be back in an hour or two; we’ll go out then.’ Almost at the door, he halted. Turning, he regarded her with a frown. ‘Don’t you have to go to the clinic today?’
‘Mm, but not till two.’
‘OK, I’ll be back well before that. See you later.’ And, with that, he was gone.
Abandoning her attempt to eat, she leaned back and gave an unhappy sigh. Oh, Charles. It was getting harder and harder to appear relaxed, friendly—for him, too, she suspected—but if any intensity was to creep into her voice, any hint of how she felt, she would drive him away. He would feel threatened, and he would leave. She had always known that; she just had not known how desperately hard it would be—or had not wanted to admit it, yet she must have suspected how doomed it would be, with both of them pretending to be something they weren’t.
Clenching her hands tight on the napkin, she took slow, deep breaths to let out the tension that his mood had brought. Self-destruction... He would do the craziest things on a seeming whim: race his yacht; ski down routes that were marked hazardous; stake a fortune on the turn of a card... And she did not know why, why he had this need to push himself to the limits, punish himself. It wasn’t because of Laurent’s death, or for making her pregnant; his course of destruction had started long before those two events. Was it because of his upbringing? Because of Beckford? They both had their share of secrets. She didn’t know his, and, hopefully, he would never find out hers, for, although he suspected that their meeting wasn’t one of those odd coincidences that occurred from time to time, he didn’t know. Not for certain, not that she had known he was here, and that her desire to visit her grandfather’s grave had just been an excuse. A reason for being in the same place as Charles.
Throwing down her napkin, she got awkwardly to her feet and wandered out on to the small terrace. Settling herself in the cushioned chair that Jean-Marc always put out for her, she gazed out over the town spread below.
Charles. He’d coloured her life, given it magic, and every other man paled into insignificance beside him. He was her fantasy, her dream come true. And he had no idea—at least, she hoped he didn’t, hoped that he thought she regarded him, as he did her, as an old and valued childhood friend. So, always there must be this need to keep the reins loose, never give him reason to feel trapped, because, without him, life quite simply would not be worth living. She needed him near, and he needed to be free, like a wild horse, but if she was careful, and clever, perhaps he would always come back.
Her eyes unfocused, she thought back to that day over six months before when they had met near the harbour. Correction: when she had engineered the meeting. Although, as in all things, fate had played its part. Had, on that one occasion, played into her hands. And if he found out? No, she thought with a little shudder, he must never find out. He would never understand obsession.
CHAPTER TWO
THERE had been grey skies, a fine drizzle, the day Melly had arrived in France. The overnight ferry had been crowded and she had been glad to reach the relative freedom of the roads. The drive to the Hotel du Golf in Deauville had been without incident, and after unpacking she had wasted no time in gaining directions to the Military Cemetery from the desk clerk. First things first. Set up the alibi.
It was only a five-minute drive from the hotel. A winding road, empty of traffic, then along a small unmarked track, tucked away behind some trees. Isolated. Forgotten? No, not forgotten. All the war graves had been carefully tended. The grass cut.
Shrugging into her slicker, pulling the hood over her dark hair, she climbed from the car. A fitting day for visiting a grave, she thought, with the heavens crying, and guilt was her companion that day, because grandfather’s grave was only an excuse. Her father had drawn her a little map, which she had memorised, and, with that in mind, she walked straight to his grave.
Huddling more warmly into her slicker, she gazed before her. Yet, even with her eyes on the grey stone cross, she saw only Charles. Or, said the French way, ‘Sharle’. With a small smile, she savoured the name on her tongue. Sharle. No, not here, now; that was a betrayal of them all.
Focusing once more on the memorial stone, she conjured up an image of her grandfather. A face seen only in photographs. A black and white image of a young man that bore a striking resemblance to herself. Mid-brown curly hair, amber eyes with the same wistful expression. And he deserved far more of her attention than she was giving him. He had died for king and country, died so that future generations could be free, and here she was, over forty years later, giving him barely one tenth of her attention.
Captain David Morland. Aged thirty-two. Liberator.
June 6, 1944
Simple, poignant—and said nothing. How had it really been? Had death come swiftly, on silent wings? Or had it been resisted? Had he known? Or been unaware? There was no one to tell her now. Above the simple inscription was a carving of his regimental badge and his number. Not much as a testament to thirty-two years of life. And yet it was more than some had. Looking round her, at the bleak little cemetery, she shivered and began to move slowly along the row. So young, so little of life had been lived, and she began to silently mouth the names, as though it was important that someone, somewhere, remembered them. Not as a mass, but as individuals.
Most were from the First World War, only a few from the Second. Some were unknown. And in the corner, isolated, were the German war graves. No poignant little messages on these, no soft remembered phrase, just the name and date of death. Feeling depressed, she turned to go back through the little gate. Duty done. The reason for her trip to France. Liar. With a long sigh, she went back to the car.