Solitaire
Sara Craven

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

ENDPAGE

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

AS she got down from the small country bus, the heat seemed to strike her like a blow. A glance at her watch told Marty Langton that it was already past noon, and that, of course, explained why the small square seemed almost deserted. She had been in France for less than a week, but already she had become accustomed to the way everything seemed to grind to a complete halt at lunchtime so that the French could give le déjeuner their full and serious attention.

She put her case down at her feet, flexing her shoulder muscles wearily. In spite of the breeze from the open window she had managed to station herself beside, it had been a long hot journey, but now it was over at last. She had finally arrived in Les Sables des Pins.

Behind her the bus, having discharged the remainder of its passengers, started on its way again with a roar and a whiff of exhaust fumes. As it passed Marty, the driver leaned out of his seat and called something to her. She didn’t catch the words—at school she’d always been considered good at French, but her experiences so far had soon disabused her of that notion; no one had told her about regional accents or that people spoke so fast—but the tone was friendly and encouraging as if he had discerned there was something a little forlorn about the slender figure standing looking round the square, with all her worldly goods packed into the elderly leather suitcase at her feet. She smiled rather shyly and lifted a hand in response as the battered vehicle clattered and swayed over the cobbles and around the corner out of sight.

When it had finally disappeared altogether, and even the raucous note of its engine was becoming a memory, Marty felt a faint quiver of apprehension run through her. She had been lonely before many times during her short life, but she had never felt so completely alone as she did at that moment. And all she had to sustain her was the promise of Uncle Jim’s letter, reposing safely in her handbag.

‘You’re not alone,’ she told herself fiercely and silently. ‘Uncle Jim is waiting for you as he said he would be all those years ago. There’s nothing to worry about. You’re going to have a proper home at last.’

A proper home! Even though she had actually arrived, she could still hardly believe it. Only a month ago she had been working at her secure boring job in a solicitor’s office, going home in the evenings to help Aunt Mary with the housework and the gardening at the big rather ugly Edwardian villa on the edge of the small town where they lived, and listen to her accounts of the day’s events in the faintly complaining tone she habitually used. Aunt Mary had always had a grudge against the world in general, but this had been intensified fourteen years earlier when she had been forced to offer a home to her small orphaned niece. This had been a burden and an encumbrance she had never desired, and she had made Marty, five years old and shocked to the core of her being by the sudden death of her mother from virus pneumonia, fully aware of the fact.

All her young life she’d heard the recital of the various grievances—the difficulties of supporting a growing girl on a fixed income, the wish to travel, thwarted by Marty’s presence—and it was only as she grew older that Marty began to realise that she was the excuse and not the cause for the shortcomings in her aunt’s life. That Miss Barton was an indolent woman who preferred grumbling to exerting herself in any way. But by then it was too late. The idea that she was a nuisance and a burden to her aunt was firmly fixed in Marty’s mind, and there could never be any real affection between them.

That was why Uncle Jim had come to assume such importance to her, she supposed. He had made the fact of his caring, his anxiety for her so clear from the outset. He wasn’t in the strict sense of the word an uncle at all, of course, but a distant and much older cousin of her late father’s, and many of Marty’s earliest memories were connected with him. There was never any pattern to Uncle Jim’s visits—he just arrived, and there were always presents when he did come, and a lot of laughter.

Marty smiled a little as she picked up her case and started determinedly across the square. Even her mother, whose eyes had never really lost their sadness after her young husband had been killed in a works accident, laughed when Uncle Jim came. Only Aunt Mary had disapproved, her openly voiced opinion that her young sister had married beneath her never more evident than when Uncle Jim was in the vicinity.

‘Really, Tina,’ Marty had overheard her say impatiently, ‘I can’t imagine why you encourage that man to come here. There’s bound to be talk whether he was a relation of Frank’s or not. And he’s a most unsuitable influence to have on an impressionable child. Why, he’s little better than a nomad. He’s never had a settled job or a respectable home in his life.’

She could not hear her mother’s soft-voiced reply, but Marty heard Aunt Mary’s scandalised snort in response.

‘You can’t be serious, Tina! Isn’t one mistake enough for you? A man like that—and he must be at least twenty years older than you. Have some sense before it’s too late!’

Years later, Marty could still remember her mother’s laugh, warm and almost carefree, with another underlying note that she was too young to understand then. Yet only a few weeks later, a neighbour had come to fetch her from school, telling her soothingly that her mummy didn’t feel too grand, and before twenty-four hours had passed Tina Langton had died in hospital.

Marty’s eyes misted suddenly as she sank down on one of the wrought iron chairs set outside the café under a striped awning. Uncle Jim had been off on his travels again, so there had been no way to tell him her mother had died—not that Aunt Mary would probably have done so even if there had been a forwarding address, she thought. So he had missed the funeral, and she had travelled south with Aunt Mary, thin-lipped and brooding beside her at this unexpected turn in her affairs.

At first the bewildered child she had been had thought she would never see Uncle Jim again, but she had been wrong, because he had turned up about six months later—‘like the proverbial bad penny’, Aunt Mary had remarked caustically, but she had not prevented Marty from seeing him, either then or on the few subsequent visits, and Marty supposed she should be grateful to her for that.

She had been nine the last time he came, she remembered, and breaking her heart because she had been asked to take part in a play at school and Aunt Mary had refused point blank to make her the necessary costume. He had noticed her red eyes and subdued manner at once and taken her on to his knee while Aunt Mary, rigid with resentment, had gone to the kitchen to make the pot of tea she considered sufficient to fulfil the laws of hospitality.

‘What is it, lass?’ He had smoothed her thick bob of chestnut hair with a massive but infinitely gentle hand. ‘Aren’t you happy here? It’s a grand house, and I’m sure your aunt does her best for you.’

‘I don’t want her best.’ Marty had wound her arms round his neck. ‘I want you, Uncle Jim.’

He was very silent for a long time, then he said quietly, ‘So be it, Tina. I can’t take you with me now, because I don’t know where I’m bound for and that’s no life for a child. But one day, my chick, I’ll find a place to settle down in and then I’ll send for you—just as I’d meant . . .’ He’d stopped then, but Marty had known with an odd instinct that he’d been going to say, ‘just as I’d meant to send for your mother’, and she thought rather sadly that maybe if he’d just taken her with him four years earlier, her mother might still be alive and happy. And it didn’t matter that he’d called her Tina either, because she knew that in some strange way in Uncle Jim’s eyes, she and her mother were the same person.

He’d gone then, after drinking his tea and wishing Miss Barton ‘Good afternoon’ with more civility than sincerity, and Marty had not seen him again. Occasionally there had been a letter, and even more rarely a parcel, but none of them ever contained the hoped-for summons, and after a while the demands of school had begun to blur his image in her mind, and when she thought of him at all it was in the terms of a childhood fantasy.

A young woman emerged from the café to take her order and Marty asked her for an Orangina. Her throat was parched from the dust and heat of travelling. She was hungry too, and when she glanced through the beaded curtain that hung over the open doorway she saw that the adjoining room to the bar was a restaurant, and that there were menus posted on a small board at the side. She felt in her handbag for her wallet and counted her remaining francs. She had enough for a meal, if it wasn’t too expensive, and then she would set about finding her way to Uncle Jim’s house. Les Sables des Pins didn’t look a very big town, and she was sure she would have little difficulty in finding her way to Solitaire, as he’d told her it was called.

She got out his creased and much folded letter and read it again. It was not the letter of a man who had ever had much to do with words, but it was hardly the illiterate scrawl that Aunt Mary had derisively dismissed it as.

It had not been a long letter either, but it told Marty all that was necessary.

‘After all these years,’ he’d written. ‘I’ve finally found a place I can call home, and it’s yours too, Tina, if you still want it. I’ve no relative other than you in the world, so everything I have—the flower farm and the house—will be yours when I’ve gone. It’s very beautiful here in the spring, Tina, when the bulbs have bloomed, and each year in April there’s a flower festival in Les Sables des Pins. That’s the nearest town, and it’s just as it sounds with acres of pine forests running down to the longest beach you’ve ever seen. My house is by itself in the forest—I suppose that’s why the chap that built it called it Solitaire. A bit of a fancy name, but I like it, and I hope that you will too.’

He had enclosed a small coloured snapshot of the house, and as Marty studied it she felt her spirits rise perceptibly. Who couldn’t be cheered by the prospect of going to live in a long, low house, its red-tiled roof, and dark green shutters providing a dramatic contrast to the stark white of the exterior?

There was a man standing near the front door and at first glance she had assumed it was Uncle Jim, but when she looked more closely she saw that he was a much younger man, taller than Uncle Jim, and with dark almost black hair where Jim’s was fair turning to grey. Or had been when she saw him last. He was probably completely grey by now.

She’d looked through the letter, stirred by a vague inexplicable curiosity about the man in the photograph, but there had been no clue to his identity.

Marty drank her Orangina gratefully when it came, and then bestirred herself to look at the menu. As usual there was a choice of meals at various prices, and after some wistful lingering over the menus that offered grilled shrimps and moules marinières as starters, she decided to settle for the plat du jour—a thick slice of rare roast beef, accompanied by a steaming dish of pommes frites, and preceded by a delicious home-made terrine with a side-dish of tomato salad in an aromatic dressing.

In spite of some inner qualms of nervousness at the prospect of meeting Uncle Jim again after all these years her healthy young appetite would not be denied, and she sat back at last with a sigh of repletion, blinking her eyes sleepily in the sun as she drank her coffee and toyed with one of the nectarines that had been served as a dessert.

If the worst came to the worst, she told herself, and Uncle Jim had not received her letter in reply, telling him that she was on her way, or even if he was away, she had enough money to supply her with a night’s lodging here in Les Sables, or even two nights if it came to the pinch. There had been a generous amount of francs enclosed in Uncle Jim’s letter, and she had converted her own small savings into travellers cheques as well.

It was probably this more than anything, she thought, that had convinced Aunt Mary that she was really going to France.

‘You’ve closed your savings account?’ Her aunt had stared at her as if she had gone mad. ‘What on earth has possessed you, child? You surely haven’t been taken in by the boasts of that ridiculous old vagabond? You’ve no idea what kind of conditions he may be living in. He probably wants an unpaid housekeeper to look after him. A Frenchwoman would drive too hard a bargain for him, so he’s thought of you, after all these years without a word.’

Marty bit her lip, willing herself to be silent, while she flinched at the scathing nature of her aunt’s remarks. She had always known that Aunt Mary would not be pleased to hear of her plans, but she had not expected quite such a vitriolic reaction. And she could have replied hotly that she was little more than an unpaid housekeeper living where she was, Aunt Mary having dispensed with the daily woman she had employed for some years on economic grounds, leaving the bulk of the heavy work to Marty at weekends.

Aunt Mary was going on. ‘You’ll make the biggest mistake of your life, my child, if you throw up everything here. Your mother did exactly the same thing, and look what a disaster that was—marrying a man of that class, and then being widowed, left with a young child to bring up. I would have thought the example of her folly would have taught you a thing or two.’

‘And so it has,’ Marty said hotly, unable to restrain her anger any more at this slur on her mother. ‘It taught me that it’s love that matters in this world, and even you can’t deny that my mother and father were happy together. And Uncle Jim loves me, so even if this house in France is—a slum, I don’t care.’

‘I think you will.’ Aunt Mary’s lips were so tightly compressed that they had almost vanished. ‘You are used to certain standards, my dear—standards that your father’s family, good people though they may be, probably don’t even know exist. And what kind of a life has Jim Langton been leading all these years? Heaven only knows, but it’s doubtful whether he’s ever been fit company for a young girl, especially someone with your upbringing. And you seriously intend to throw it all up and go to live in a country—where it’s not even safe to drink out of the taps,’ she added on a note of pure bathos.

Angry as she was, Marty could not help seeing the funny side of it all and a reluctant smile started to spread, but Aunt Mary had no sense of humour, and she reached forward and to Marty’s shock slapped her hard across her face.

‘This is no laughing matter,’ she rapped, her own face alarmingly red. ‘Understand this, if you leave here, if you go to that no-good tramp of a man, then I shall alter my will. Not a penny will you get, nor this house. And don’t imagine that Jim Langton will cushion you against the hard times. Money flows through his hands like water. He’s been totally improvident all his life, and it’s unlikely that age has changed him.’

Marty stood very straight, her large grey eyes fixed on her aunt’s furious face, the fingermarks standing out angrily on the pallor of her cheek.

‘It isn’t your money I want, Aunt Mary,’ she said quite gently. ‘It was always something that you couldn’t give me—or weren’t prepared to. Your love and your time. But there’ll be plenty of that where Uncle Jim is. I shall always be grateful for what you’ve done for me,’ she added, ‘but I really don’t want any more. You must do as you wish with your possessions. They’re really none of my business.’

There was a long and fulminating silence and then Aunt Mary turned precipitately and left the room.

The following week, up to the time that Marty left to board the Hovercraft at Ramsgate for the Channel crossing, was not an easy time, full of strained silences and edged and embittered remarks. Miss Barton made no attempt to come and see Marty off, and Marty herself did not suggest it. She had been hurt by her aunt’s assumption that she could be bought, and felt that any move towards a conventional leavetaking would be nothing short of hypocrisy. Her one tentative suggestion that she should write when she got to France and let her aunt know that she had arrived safely and that all was well was met with an icy ‘It won’t be necessary.’ And when the front door of The Poplars finally closed behind her, Marty knew that an era in her life had come irrevocably to its end.

She could not drive, but even if she had possessed a licence she felt she would have thought twice about driving in France. Even before she got out of Calais, she saw some near-accidents involving tourists who had not got the hang of the French priority from the right. Her own journey was to be rather more sedate, on public transport, so that she could see something of the countryside on her way to the Vendée region of France where Les Sables des Pins was situated.

It wasn’t a part of France that Marty really knew very much about, and her researches at the local library prior to her departure had not been very revealing, although she had discovered that La Rochelle was the nearest big town to Les Sables, and she knew that La Rochelle had played a major part in the tragic religious wars in France during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Her journey down to Les Sables might not have been a totally straightforward one, but she felt she could have had no better introduction to France. The trip through Anjou had been particularly enjoyable, and she had stayed overnight in Angers, taking time off to visit the chateau with its odd decapitated turrets—another relic of the religious wars. She was fascinated by the acres of vineyards stretching away on both sides of the road, and the little stalls set up at intervals urging passers-by to stop and taste some of the famous wines of Anjou. Marty would have loved to have done so, but the bus she was travelling on never seemed to stop at a convenient place, and she had to promise herself that she would get Uncle Jim to bring her one day.

She paid the bill for her meal, and asked Madame rather haltingly if she knew the whereabouts of a house called Solitaire. Madame’s eyebrows rose a little, but her reply was immediate. But of course she knew of it. Who did not? Gladly she would direct Mademoiselle, but what did Mademoiselle seek there?

Marty hesitated, but only for a moment. After all, she told herself, there was no harm in telling this woman what the situation was.

‘I’m going there to see the owner. He’s my uncle,’ she said, and smiled.

Madame’s eyebrows ascended almost into her hairline, and Marty found herself hoping devoutly that all Aunt Mary’s predictions about Uncle Jim’s probable life-style were totally unfounded.

‘Est-ce possible?’ Madame asked the world in general, and went back into the café shaking her head. A moment later Marty saw her talking excitedly to a man behind the bar, and saw necks being craned in her direction. She felt hot with embarrassment and stood up decisively to take her leave. Obviously in spite of its placid appearance, Les Sables des Pins was a hotbed of gossip, she thought, and she had just supplied the main item for the day.

She was just about to leave when the man from behind the bar emerged and stood looking at her, frowning a little. He said, ‘Mademoiselle desires to be directed to the Villa Solitaire, it is so?’

‘Yes, please.’ Marty set her case down rather resignedly.

He hesitated. ‘Is Mademoiselle sure that she has the correct destination?’

‘Quite sure.’ Marty did not want to be rude, but some of her weariness crept into her tone. ‘Please tell me where it is. I’ve been travelling for most of the week, and I’m very tired. The journey took longer than I originally expected and my uncle will be worried if I don’t arrive.’

His shrug seemed to be almost fatalistic. ‘Then there is nothing more to be said.’

He might have seemed reluctant to vouchsafe them, but his directions were clear and concise and he even drew her a little map. Watching her tuck it away safely in the pocket of her shoulder bag, he asked ‘Mademoiselle has a car? It is a fair distance.’

‘No, but I’m sure I can manage.’ Marty repressed a sigh as she looked up at the unclouded blue of the sky and felt the heat of the sun blazing down.

‘That will not be necessary. Jean-Paul!’ He gestured to someone sitting inside the café. He turned to Marty. ‘He will take you,’ he said rather abruptly.

‘Oh, no, really!’ Marty was appalled. ‘I don’t want to cause anyone any trouble.’

He shrugged again. ‘What trouble?’ he demanded. ‘Each day he passes the Villa on his way to the beach.’

When Jean-Paul finally emerged, he turned out to be not a great deal older than Marty herself, but, she suspected as he looked her over with lingering appreciation, a great deal more versed in the ways of the world. He seized her case and carried it over to a small and battered Citroën parked in the shade of the church which dominated the square.

‘You are English,’ he said with an air of amazed discovery as he climbed into the front seat beside her and started the engine. ‘Not many English come here to Les Sables. They prefer to visit Brittany, which is my own region where I was born.’

‘Then why are you here?’ Marty was glad to be asking the questions, determined to switch the focus of attention.

He was not in the least unwilling to reply. He was a student, she learned, working in the local boulangerie for the vacation, and he was fortunate that his shift worked at night so that he had the day for swimming and sunning himself. Judging by the deep tan he had already acquired, this must be how he spent the major part of each day, she surmised. She was just about to ask him about his studies, when he got in ahead of her with a question of his own.

‘And yourself? You have come here to lie in the sun?’

‘Perhaps,’ she allowed. ‘Actually I’m joining my uncle.’ She paused. ‘He owns the Villa Solitaire.’

Obviously startled, Jean Paul missed his gear change and swore under his breath.

‘Your uncle?’ he demanded. ‘But no one has heard of any niece from England.’

‘All the same he has written to me and asked me to join him,’ she said coolly.

‘Mon dieu,’ he murmured, a smile playing about his lips. ‘And how will Bernard respond to this, I ask myself?’

‘Bernard?’ Marty raised her brows interrogatively.

He slanted her an odd look. ‘Your cousin, ma petite. The only son of your uncle. Is it possible you did not know of his existence, hein?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Marty managed after a pause. ‘I—I didn’t even know my uncle had married.’

‘Well,’ he gave a slightly cynical shrug as he accelerated past an elderly cyclist, ‘I imagine he would not have been too eager to pass on the news. The marriage, from what I can gather, was not a success and they lived apart after the child was born. Bernard came to live with his father on the death of his mother just over a year ago.’

‘Oh.’ Marty digested this with a pang. She could not understand why Uncle Jim had given her no inkling of this in his letter. She could appreciate that he might be reluctant to admit that his venture into matrimony had been a failure, but surely the existence of a child made some mention of it obligatory. She wondered how old Bernard was, but was reluctant to ask Jean-Paul. Certainly Uncle Jim had left it late in life to marry. At her reckoning he must be at least in his late fifties by now, and she had always thought of him as the eternal bachelor, which was silly in a way as she was sure he had been in love with her mother and would have married her eventually.

She realised unhappily that she was feeling jealous and scolded herself for her selfishness. Just because she had always had this idea that Uncle Jim and she would be on their own, she had not bargained for a third party, especially one who could claim a closer relationship than she could.

And there was another strange thing. She was sure Uncle Jim’s letter had said she was his only relative. Had the failure of his marriage embittered him against his son, so that he refused to acknowledge the relationship? With a sinking heart, it occurred to her that the haven she had envisaged might in fact contain stormier waters than she had ever encountered before.

They were out of the town by now, and driving along a narrow rather twisting road flanked by small neat houses whose pristine paintwork gleamed in the sun. There seemed to be sand everywhere—banked at the side of the road, and covering what earth there was in the gardens which seemed to be assiduously cultivated in spite of this. She could see a number of women, some of them wearing attractive sun-bonnets, working with hoes between neat rows of plants.

Beyond the houses she could see the deep brooding green of the pine forests, and it was not long before the houses became more scattered and gave way to the trees.

Jean-Paul glanced sideways at her rapt face and grinned. ‘It would have been a long, hot walk for you,’ he commented, and she was forced to agree. On each side of the narrow road, the banks rose steeply, the grass giving way to what seemed to be gorse bushes. Beyond this rose the trunks of the pine trees, dark and mysterious. But even here in the forest there were signs of habitation. Plots of land had been cleared and smart white houses had been erected. Jean-Paul explained that these were mainly occupied by holidaymakers on a seasonal basis.

‘In some of them the arrangements are fairly primitive,’ he said. ‘But don’t be nervous. Your uncle’s house is not like that. In fact, according to Madame Guisard, your uncle’s housekeeper, it is the last word in luxury.’ He smiled at her. ‘Madame Guisard is the aunt of Madame Benedict, who has the restaurant where you had lunch. That is why I am so well informed.’

Marty had to laugh. ‘Thank you, Jean-Paul. I’m sure that to be forewarned is forearmed.’

‘Comment?’ He wrinkled his brow, and she realised that she had not made her meaning clear. She was casting around for another way of expressing herself, when he began to slow down. They had passed a number of tracks leading into the forest—some leading to houses, others to nature trails and picnic areas, but the track Jean-Paul was turning into was guarded by a high white gate. Marty’s eyes ran over the notice on a stark white board standing beside it. ‘Défense d’entrer, sous peine d’amende. Chien méchant.’ She swallowed. So trespassers on the Villa Solitaire land would be prosecuted and also had to beware of the dog. It wasn’t the most welcoming of prospects. But she wasn’t trespassing, she protested inwardly, she had been invited there, and she only hoped that the dog would appreciate the subtle difference. She wished very much that she had taken the precaution to telephone Uncle Jim before leaving Les Sables, but now they were here she could hardly request Jean-Paul to drive her to the nearest callbox.

Suppressing a little sigh, she prepared to climb out of the car. Jean-Paul was also out, retrieving her case which he carried over to the gate. He stood waiting for her to join him.

‘You wish me to accompany you?’ he asked.

Marty shook her head. In spite of her misgivings, she had a strong feeling that her reunion with Uncle Jim was likely to be an emotional one, and she did not particularly want any witnesses.

‘No, thank you, Jean-Paul.’ She held out her hand for him to shake. ‘You’ve been very kind.’

He shrugged. ‘Pas de quoi.’ He held on to her hand and she felt her cheeks grow warm under his intent gaze. ‘You realise that I don’t even know your name, although you know mine. That is hardly fair.’

‘I suppose not. My name is Martina—I suppose you would say Martine.’

‘Martine.’ He smiled. ‘It’s a pretty name. And are you going to let me see you again, Martine? You cannot intend to devote the whole of your vacation to your uncle.’

Her flush deepened. ‘Er—thank you, Jean-Paul. I’d like that.’

‘I’ll telephone you, then,’ he promised. ‘Au revoir, Martine.’ He walked back to the car and got in. With a hesitant hand set on the latch of the gate, Marty turned to watch him go. He swung the car round with an expert flick, and then leaned out of the window to shout back to her.

‘Don’t be afraid, chérie. The dog won’t bite you—although the owner might!’ And he drove off laughing.

‘Thank you for nothing,’ Marty muttered half under her breath. She pushed tentatively at the gate and it gave way, opening with a protesting squeal of hinges. She began to walk up the sloping sandy track, littered with pine needles and fir cones. Above her the trees seemed to close over her head, so that she appeared to be in a dim green tunnel. She stumbled slightly as her foot caught against a hidden obstacle, and paused to transfer her case to the other hand. The track had curved slightly and she could no longer see the road. A solitary house was right, she thought.

She was disturbed at the apparent change in the Uncle Jim she remembered. Yet his letter had seemed full of the old warmth and affection. Why then did he erect a high gate and warning notices at the entrance to his property? Was he afraid of thieves and vandals, or had age simply made him eccentric? The genial burly figure she remembered from childhood would have dismissed such precautions with contempt, she thought with a sigh.

She walked forward once again over the rutted path. It was very quiet in the forest. She supposed the beach must be quite close at hand, yet she could hear no sound of the sea. There was a faint whisper of a breeze in the branches above her head, and an incessant chirping of insects in the undergrowth, but as far as other human beings were concerned, she could have been alone in the world.

The track curved again, and suddenly the house was in front of her, standing in a large clearing on top of a rise, looking as inviting as it had done in the photograph. Marty paused and set the case down, wiping damp palms down the denim jeans which clung to her hips and thighs, and twitching the cheesecloth smock she wore with them into place. Her mouth felt dry and she passed her tongue nervously over her lips.

‘Oh, please be glad to see me,’ she whispered as she moved forward again up the rise towards the front door. ‘Oh, please . . .’

She never even heard the dog come. One moment she seemed quite alone, and the next the animal was in front of her, its front legs splayed menacingly, its lip curling back in an unmistakable snarl.

Without the slightest conviction in her voice Marty said, ‘Good dog. Good boy, lie down.’ She wondered if she ought to extend her hand in friendship, but decided against it. The dog might misunderstand, and she might need that hand again one day.

She took another step forward and froze as the dog snarled again, then lifted its voice in a full-throated bark that held a clear warning that she was to keep her distance.

Marty glanced round nervously. Why didn’t someone come? Uncle Jim, for preference, but even this Madame Guisard would do at a pinch. She tried calling out, ‘Is anyone there?’ first in English and then in French, but no one answered, and she felt a cold prickle of fear at the nape of her neck. Was the house deserted then except for this dog, only too aware of his role as guardian and protector? She had a feeling that any movement, even one of retreat, would be fatal. All she could do was stand there, and hope that the big animal would restrict himself to this threatening surveillance. At the same time, she was not sure how long she could go on standing there. Her legs were shaking under her suddenly, and she could feel the sun blazing down on her unprotected head, and the case weighing down almost unbearably on her arm.

She called out again, uncaring that there was now a note of panic in her voice—‘Please—someone . . .’—and heard almost unbelievingly the sound of an approach, an unmistakably masculine stride, and closed her eyes with a little sob of relief. Uncle Jim—it had to be.

When she opened them again, trees, sky and house swam a little under her gaze and a droplet of sweat ran down her face. She put up her free hand and wiped her eyes because she seeemd to be suffering from the strangest illusion. The image on the snapshot in her handbag had suddenly been reproduced all over again.

She looked at the newcomer, her lips slightly parted. Tall, and very dark, and even more deeply tanned than Jean-Paul, and making no secret of it either, for all he appeared to be wearing was a pair of closely fitting white denim jeans slung low on his lean hips. A thin face with high cheekbones, and an uncompromising beak of a nose. A harsh face, belied only slightly by the sensual curve of his lower lip.

Marty took a step forward encouraged by the fact that the dog was quiet now, crouched at his feet, with one restraining hand on his collar.

She said uncertainly, ‘Bernard?’

She could hardly believe it. This man was in his thirties. Had Uncle Jim been married all that time and never disclosed the fact? It seemed incredible.

She heard him give a slight intake of breath, so it seemed she had guessed right.

He said in English with only a trace of an accent, ‘Who are you, and what do you want here? Didn’t you read the notice?’

Dark eyes under heavy lids went over her in a kind of contemptuous dismissal that flicked Marty on the raw.

She said hotly, ‘I don’t call that much of a welcome.’

‘I don’t feel particularly welcoming. Be good enough to state your business and leave.’

Marty flung her head back and stared him straight in the eye. She said silkily, ‘You may not be expecting me, Bernard, but your father is. So please take me to him.’ She waited, but there was no response except a slight narrowing of the dark eyes, and a faint unpleasant smile curling his lips. ‘Did you hear me, Bernard?’ she asked eventually.

‘Oh, I heard you, mademoiselle. I am just asking myself what little game you’re playing. However, it seems you wanted to see me, so here I am.’

‘I want to see your father . . .’ she began, but he interrupted, his voice cold with suppressed anger.

‘Au contraire, mademoiselle, you said you wanted to see Bernard’s father. Well, I am Bernard’s father.’

She stared at him. ‘But you can’t be! I mean . . .’ She put her case down and took another step forward. ‘I think it’s you that are playing games, monsieur. What are you—some sort of bodyguard? It all fits in with the gate, and the notice and the dog. Has Uncle Jim suddenly become a millionaire?’

He stood very still, and she saw his brows draw together in a swift frown. ‘Whom did you say?’ he asked. ‘You spoke of an uncle?’

‘Yes,’ she said wearily, wishing that he would at least permit her to enter the house, and continue this futile conversation in the shade. She only wished that Uncle Jim would suddenly appear and put him in his place. ‘My uncle—James Langton. He owns this villa.’

The tension in the air between them was suddenly almost tangible.

‘You are mistaken, mademoiselle,’ he said bleakly. ‘I own this villa. Your—uncle, Monsieur Langton, sold it to me just over a year ago.’

CHAPTER TWO

MARTY stared at him, her heart beating so wildly that she had the oddest sensation that it might leap into her throat and choke her.

‘But that’s impossible!’ she managed at last.

‘Au contraire, mademoiselle, it is not merely a possibility, but reality.’ He spoke almost wearily. ‘As I suspect you knew before you ever set out on your travels. Accept my felicitations on the depth of your research and commiserations that it has not had the desired effect.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said helplessly. ‘But if Uncle Jim really isn’t here, perhaps you can tell me where he has gone.’

The firm mouth curled slightly as if in distaste. ‘You should have continued your research, ma petite, then you would have discovered the answer to that for yourself.’

‘Please stop talking in riddles,’ she begged wearily. ‘I don’t understand what’s going on. You say Uncle Jim sold you this villa a year ago, Did he go away, then?’

The stranger paused, his dark eyes raking over her. ‘Not immediately, no. Is it important?’

‘Yes.’ Marty fumbled at the catch of her shoulder bag. ‘You see, I had a letter from him only three weeks ago asking me to come and live with him and . . .’

He interrupted sharply, his frown deepening. ‘Three weeks? To turn your own words against you, mademoiselle, that is impossible.’

‘But I can show you the letter,’ she began.

‘I am sure you can.’ His look of contemptuous derision scourged her. ‘But I think it’s time I called a halt to this little game you’re playing. Your pretence is in the worst of bad taste under the circumstances. I suppose I can admire your determination to carry it through, but that is all I admire.’

‘I don’t want your admiration.’ In spite of her bewilderment, Marty felt her own temper begin to rise under the lash of the man’s words. How dared he treat her like this! she stormed inwardly. If she had trespassed on his property and his time then it was quite inadvertent. ‘In fact, I don’t want any part of you,’ she went on stonily, ignoring the look of frank scepticism he sent her. ‘If you’ll be good enough’—she stressed the words sarcastically—‘to tell me where Mr Langton has gone, then I’ll be on my way.’

‘Perhaps the truth will shame you into abandoning this ridiculous charade,’ he said harshly. ‘Jacques Langton is dead, mademoiselle, and has been so for the past four months. That is why I know you are a fraud, and that is why I am ordering you to leave—now.’

‘Dead!’ Marty repeated the word mechanically, her mind oblivious to everything else he had said. Then, as the full realisation finally dawned on her, she gave a little anguished cry. ‘Dead? Oh, Uncle Jim, no!’

She gave a desperate look around her at the house, and the brooding pines and the tall inimical figure of the man confronting her, then the great golden disc of the sun came swooping down at her, and she gave a little moan and collapsed to the ground.

The sun seemed to be all about her. She felt as if she was bathed in fire. There were even slow flames forcing themselves between her lips and trickling down her throat, and she began to struggle against them, pushing them away, and pressing her hands to her mouth.

‘Don’t be a little fool.’ She recognised the voice at once, and sat up with a gasp. ‘It’s only cognac. You fainted—remember?’

She was lying on a sofa inside the villa, in a long room full of light. The walls and carpeting were some pale subtle shade between cream and mushroom, and one wall was glass from floor to ceiling giving access to a paved patio. The only real colour in the room came from the abstract paintings hanging on the wall above the empty fireplace, and above the sofa where she was lying, which appeared to be the work of the same artist.

One half of her brain seemed to register these details quite coldly while the other cried out in protest as she did indeed remember only too well what had passed between them. She felt nauseated, and she knew too that she was going to cry, feeling her face begin to crumple like a child’s.

But I can’t, she thought agonisedly, I can’t cry in front of him, even as the first sobs tore harshly at her chest. The tears were slow and scalding at first, grief and shock mingling with loneliness and disappointment as the full extent of her loss came home to her. It was something she was unable to control even though it was a degradation to expose her emotions in front of this man.

At last she sat motionless, her face buried on her arm against the cool leather of the sofa, then with a long quivering sigh she dragged herself upright on to her feet.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said remotely. ‘I—I’ll go now.’

He had been standing with his back to her, staring out of the window and she supposed she should be grateful to him for that.

‘Wait.’ He swung round at the sound of her voice. ‘Either you’re a better actress than I gave you credit for, or I have done you an injustice. Which is it? Tell me the truth.’

‘I don’t have to tell you anything.’ She bent and picked up her bag which was lying on the floor at her feet. ‘What have you done with my case?’

He walked over to her and took her chin in his hand. She wanted to snatch herself away from him, but made herself stand very still and endure his touch.

‘The tears were real,’ he said half to himself. ‘And an actress surely would have learned to cry prettily and not allow her eyes to become swollen and her nose red.’

‘Thank you,’ she said ironically. ‘Now may I go, please?’

‘In a moment. You came here in your own good time. You will depart in mine.’ He released her and walked over to the door. ‘Albertine!’

A thin woman appeared so promptly that she might have been hovering on the threshold waiting for the summons.

He said in French, ‘Take Mademoiselle to the bathroom, and see that she has all that she needs. She has had a great shock.’

The woman nodded, her dark eyes avid with curiosity as they rested on Marty. She tutted briskly and placed a hand on her arm, urging her towards the door.

‘I don’t want to use your bathroom,’ Marty said tightly. ‘I don’t want any help from you. I just want to get away from here.’

He gave her a cool look. ‘You need to wash your face before you do anything, mademoiselle.’

Rebellion welled up in her, but she caught sight of the housekeeper obviously relishing every minute of this passage at arms between her employer and his unexpected guest, and bit back the angry words trembling on her lips.

She accompanied the woman out of the room and into a large hall, its floor coolly tiled. A shallow flight of stairs led up to the first floor, and the woman guided Marty up these and along the gallery above to the bathroom.

Left alone in the bathroom once she had been supplied with a fresh bar of exquisitely scented soap and a small rather harsh-feeling linen towel, Marty stared around at her surroundings. At any other time, she would have been bound to appreciate the exquisite tiling of the walls and floor in shades of beige and rust and amber, as well as the magnificent appointments, including a luxurious shower cubicle, but now it was as much as she could do to run some water in the marble basin and splash it over her face and wrists. Although she hated to admit it, the touch of the water was refreshing, and by the time the woman who she realised must be the Madame Guisard that Jean-Paul had mentioned had returned, the more obvious marks of grief had vanished, although she still looked pale and red-eyed.

As they returned downstairs, Marty saw her case standing in the hall below. It looked forlorn and out of place, stationed next to a large wooden chest that was clearly an antique. As out of place as she was herself, she thought. And what had Uncle Jim had to do with all this restrained elegance?

Madame led her across the hall and tapped almost deferentially on the partially opened door to the salon.

‘Mademoiselle is here, monsieur,’ she annnounced, accompanying the words with a little push as if she sensed Marty’s reluctance to face the new master of the house once again.

‘So I see.’ He was seated, his muscular limbs relaxed in one of the massive hide chairs that flanked the fireplace. ‘You had better bring some tea, Albertine. That is the English stimulant, is it not, and Mademoiselle did not care for the cognac.’

‘I don’t want anything,’ Marty protested.

‘Some tea, Albertine.’ He repeated without haste. He waved a hand at the chair opposite. ‘Be seated, mademoiselle, and let us see if we can get to the bottom of this affair.’

She hesitated for a long moment, then sat down tensely on the very edge of the seat.

He waited until the door had closed behind Madame Guisard, then said in a slightly gentler tone than he had used so far, ‘Is it true that you are the niece of Jacques Langton?’

‘Not exactly.’ Marty moistened her lips. ‘He was my father’s cousin,’ she went on hurriedly, seeing the now familiar look of scepticism on his face. ‘I—I always called him my uncle.’

‘I understand. Under the circumstances I regret that I broke the news of his death to you quite so bluntly.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said quietly. ‘After all, it doesn’t alter anything, and I had to find out some time. There’s no easy way to break that sort of news.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Can you tell me a little more about it?’

He gave a slight shrug. ‘There is little to tell. Jacques had suffered from a weak heart for some time. He had three attacks and the last one killed him. It was very sudden and very quick. Is that what you wanted to know?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said after a pause. ‘I’m glad he wasn’t an invalid for any length of time. He would have hated it so.’

‘That is true.’ He leaned back in his chair, his eyes going over her from head to foot, frankly and deliberately assessing her, so that in spite of herself she felt herself flushing under his all-compassing gaze. ‘What I cannot understand,’ he went on after a moment, ‘is why when I asked Jacques after the first attack if there was anyone in England whom I should contact, he told me there was no one. How do you explain that?’

‘I wouldn’t even begin to try,’ she said rather hopelessly. ‘Any more than I can explain why he should write to me offering me a home that was no longer his.’

‘Are you sure the letter came from him?’

‘Absolutely certain.’

‘May I see it?’

Her handbag was no longer on the floor, but lying on the sofa. She found the letter and passed it to him. As their fingers brushed fleetingly, she was conscious of a curious tingling sensation, and her flush deepened. She tried to tell herself that it was because of her overcharged emotional state that she felt this strange new heightened awareness, but the explanation was not wholly convincing. She found herself glancing at him from beneath her lashes as he sat reading the letter and frowning a little. He seemed completely at ease, but then why shouldn’t he be, in his own home? She was being idiotic. He was quite entitled to behave as he liked, but this did not stop her wishing that he would go and put a shirt on. She had never realised before what an exclusively feminine environment she seemed to have inhabited all her life. Even Mr Leslie whose secretary she had been had been a prissy, old-maidish kind of man, always rather fretfully searching for his pen and his spectacle case.

She had thought Jean-Paul was attractive, but this was before she set eyes upon this man whom even her lack of sophistication could recognise had come to terms with his own virility a long time ago, and no longer needed to prove anything about himself to anyone.

As she watched he reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table beside his chair, and selected one with a practised flick of his wrist. Even that most conventional of movements was enough to set the muscles rippling across his shoulders and chest where the dark mat of hair grew so thickly, tapering down his flat stomach to disappear inside the waistband of his pants.

‘My apologies, mademoiselle. Do you use these things?’

With a start Marty pulled herself out of her disturbing reverie to the realisation that he was holding the pack of cigarettes out to her.

A faint smile was curving his mouth as if he was letting her know that he had been quite well aware of her scrutiny, and that her face had been an open book for the conflicting thoughts and emotions stirring within her.

A wave of colour rose to complete her betrayal as she swiftly shook her head. ‘Thank you, but I don’t smoke.’

‘But how wise,’ he said, still with that faint amusement underlying his words, and making her feel gauche and defenceless. He lit his own cigarette and blew out a cloud of pungent blue smoke before resuming his perusal of her letter. Marty bent her head and stared down at the scuff marks on her dusty sandals. She was beginning to wish that she had made no protest, no attempt to justify her presence here. At least by this time she would have been away from this place, and why the prospect of being alone and almost penniless in a strange country should seem safer than the comparative luxury of her present surroundings was far too complex a question for her to answer to her entire satisfaction in her present confused and emotional state.

She started as the door opened and Madame Guisard came back into the room carrying a tray. In spite of the strange inner conviction that the housekeeper did not approve of her for some reason, Marty could not deny that her preparations for this unwanted tea-party were well-nigh perfect. As well as the hot and fragrant tea with its attendant dish of sliced lemon, there was also a plate of enticing pastries—horns filled with cream and smooth chocolate and pastry shells filled with peaches and cherries and glazed in rich syrup. The housekeeper arranged the tray to her satisfaction on a small table and busied herself with the pouring out of the tea. Marty supposed that she considered the delicate porcelain cups and teapot too fragile to be entrusted to her own tender mercies, nor did she miss the narrow-eyed glance Madame favoured her with as she handed her the cup. And apparently the master of the house did not miss it either, in spite of his preoccupation with the letter. His voice was pitched too low for Marty to catch the words, but the tone was quite plainly dismissive and Madame Guisard left the salon with something of a flounce.

Now that they were alone again the silence between them seemed almost tangible, and Marty felt the tension building up inside her as she waited for him to make some comment. The initiation of any discussion was beyond her, and the fingers that held the delicate handle of her cup shook slightly as she raised her tea to her lips.

‘It’s incredible,’ he said at last. ‘I would swear that this was Jacques’ handwriting, yet it must be a forgery.’

Marty’s heart missed a beat and she set down her cup, staring at him wide-eyed.

‘A forgery—but who on earth would do such a thing?’ She caught the faint derision in the glance he bent upon her and exploded, ‘You think I did it, don’t you?’

‘It seems the most reasonable explanation.’

‘But why?’ She almost wrung her hands in fury. ‘What possible motive could I have for doing such a thing?’

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps because you wanted to attract my attention. If so, your ploy has succeeded admirably, mademoiselle. I congratulate you.’

She loked at him fiercely, her small breasts rising and falling in time with her erratic breathing. ‘You really must be the most abominably arrogant and conceited man it has ever been my misfortune to meet,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Do you honestly think that you’re so irresistible that a woman would travel half across Europe simply to be noticed by you, because if so . . .’

‘A number of women have travelled twice that distance—and shown even more determination on their arrival than you have,’ he said dispassionately. ‘Where you differ from them is in your unwillingness to admit that your motives for coming here are not of the purest. I can only guess that Jacques must have written to you before his death telling you to whom he had sold the villa, and your ambition led you to make the best possible use of your information.’

Ambition—motives—information? Marty’s head reeled. Nothing he was saying made the slightest sense, and to her horror she felt the weakness of tears threatening to overcome her again. She couldn’t break down a second time under his ironic gaze. She sprang to her feet.

‘You accused me of playing games, monsieur, but it’s you that seems to enjoy talking in riddles. But I’m afraid your snide insinuations are wasted on me. I came here hoping to find a home and someone to love me, that’s all. Laughable, isn’t it, and I apologise for being so naïve. But if that letter was a fraud and a hoax, then I was the victim, not the perpetrator. And I can assure you I have no desire to pander to your overwhelming ego by adding another name to your list of conquests. I’ll go now. Please don’t bother to show me to the door.’

She took two steps across the salon before his hand descended on her shoulder, turning her forcibly to face him. She gasped in mingled pain and fury as his fingers bruised her flesh.

‘Take your hands off me!’ she raged, her balled fists lifting instinctively to strike at his bare chest.

‘Tais-toi,’ he ordered, his voice as harsh and abrupt as a blow in the face. ‘Calm down for a moment, you little firebrand, and tell me something. What’s my name?’

His hand snaked down and closed around both her slender wrists, holding them in a paralysing grip as he stared down into her face. He was holding her so close to him that she could feel the warmth from his half-bared body on her own skin. This new proximity was too sudden, too intimate, she found herself thinking wildly.

‘I said what’s my name?’ The dark face came threateningly near her, his piercing eyes seeming to mesmerise her.

‘How should I know?’ she flung back at him. ‘Don Juan, I suppose, or Casanova. They both seem eminently suitable.’

‘Try Luc Dumarais.’ His eyes continued to bore relentlessly into hers while the grip on her wrists increased in pressure until she thought she would be forced to cry out if he did not let her go. He seemed to be awaiting a particular response from her, but for the life of her she could not guess what it was.

‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’ she asked at last.

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not.’ The black brows were drawn together frowningly, but to her relief that crushing grasp of her wrists had slackened. ‘You don’t go to the cinema?’

She shook her head, her startled eyes searching his face. ‘Is that … I mean, are you a film star?’

He gestured impatiently. ‘God spare me that! I’m a director. And you? If you’re another would-be actress looking for a part in my next film, you’d better confess now.’

‘An actress?’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘You must be mad! I’ve never been on a stage in my life.’ Not since, she thought achingly, that abortive chance she’d been offered as a child at school. She managed an unsteady laugh. ‘I could hardly look less like an embryo film star.’

‘It is no longer necessary to look like a carbon copy of Bardot,’ he said drily. ‘Your clothes are poor and your hair is badly cut, but with a little attention you would not be unattractive.’

She flushed angrily, pulling herself free from his slackened grasp. She was quite well aware of her own shortcomings, she thought furiously. She didn’t need to have them pointed out by this arrogant Frenchman, even if he was a film director as he claimed. And she had to admit that for all she knew he could be all he said and more. Aunt Mary had considered the price of cinema seats a sinful waste of money and had reacted in horror against the permissive trend in what was being shown at a great many film centres. Within this context, all foreign films had been a particular anathema to her, and Marty had never even been allowed to watch any of the great classics of the genre shown on television.

‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve never heard of you,’ she said with childish ungraciousness, and saw his firm lips twist in wry acknowledgment.

‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘I don’t think even an experienced actress could have managed that look of total blankness when you heard my name. So I acquit you of coming here with an ulterior motive.’

‘Thank you!’ She concentrated as much acid as she was capable of in her tone.

‘But that still does not explain the letter.’ He walked back to his chair and picked it up, studying it yet again, then turning his attention to the envelope.

‘The letter is undated, but there is a postmark,’ he remarked at last. ‘Curious. It was posted in Les Sables just over a month ago.’

Marty moved her shoulders wearily. ‘Someone’s idea of a cruel joke, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I hope whoever it is will be delighted with their success.’

‘I think not,’ he said abruptly. ‘As I said before, no one here knew of your existence. Jacques never mentioned you, and as far as we all knew he died without kin.’

‘He was always a loner,’ Marty said tiredly. ‘He—he travelled a great deal all his life and seemed to find it difficult to put down roots. But he always promised that when he finally made a settled home for himself, he would send for me.’

‘And you believed him?’

She looked at him in bewilderment. ‘Of course. Uncle Jim wouldn’t lie to me.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant that you believed he would be capable of creating this stable environment that you desired so greatly. You never paused to ask yourself whether this was the right thing to ask of such a man—a loner, as you yourself have said—a nomad even. You never asked yourself whether such a leopard would be able to change his spots?’

‘No, I never did.’ It was shaming to have to confess her lack of perception, her stubborn refusal to accept that the doubts Aunt Mary had raised had been valid ones. She had been too ready to blame them on prejudice, and had failed to see that they were not without foundation. She cleared her throat. ‘Why did Uncle Jim sell the villa to you?’

‘He needed the money,’ he returned with brutal frankness. ‘The flower farm had been a failure, although he tried hard enough to make a success of it, and he was deeply in debt. We had met some months before when I was staying in the locality and he knew I was looking for a house, so we came to an arrangement.’ His hand came out and lifted her chin gently. ‘If it is any consolation to you,’ he said quietly, ‘he clearly intended that you should have the best. I have not altered the house at all since I moved in except to install my own furniture. It took all the money he had been able to save in a lifetime and all he could borrow as well to buy this villa.’

‘But why?’ Marty fought her tears. ‘I didn’t want—all this. I would have been content with something far smaller—humbler.’

‘But maybe he could not,’ he said. ‘Perhaps a promise made to a child assumed paramount importance in his life, in his thinking. Perhaps when you make a dream come true for someone, there should be no half measures. And perhaps too he knew he did not have a great deal of time left. According to the letter, this was meant to be your inheritance.’

‘You’re talking now as if you believe Uncle Jim really did write that letter!’

He shrugged. ‘What other rational conclusion is there? All that remains to be explained is the lapse of time between the writing, and its posting.’ He paused and she saw an intentness in his expression as if he was listening to something. He released her and with a fierce gesture to her to keep silence, he strode swiftly and quietly towards the door of the salon, jerking it open.

Marty heard him speaking to someone in French, his voice like a whiplash, and she quailed. Surely the austere Madame Guisard didn’t descend to listening at keyholes, she thought, a hysterical desire to laugh welling up inside her.

But when Luc Dumarais reappeared he was holding the arm of a young boy, thin and dark-haired, the slenderness of his wrists and ankles betraying how brief the journey he had taken so far towards adolescence. His mouth set and mutinous, he glared up at the man who was thrusting him mercilessly towards where Marty was standing, open mouthed.

‘I have the honour to present my son Bernard, mademoiselle,’ Luc Dumarais said tightly. ‘His interest in the matter we have been discussing leads me to think he could shed some light on the problem that has been perplexing us.’ He picked up the letter and the envelope and held them out to the boy, who stared at them sullenly.

‘Alors, Bernard,’ his father said almost silkily. ‘Did you send this letter to Mademoiselle Langton?’

There was a long silence. Bernard’s slightly sallow complexion took on a deep guilty flush. His lips parted slightly, but no sound came out.

Marty felt suddenly sorry for him. ‘It’s all right, Bernard,’ she said, trying to sound encouraging. ‘I’m sure you meant well and …’

‘I did not mean anything,’ he interrupted flatly in heavily accented English. ‘I found the letter in a book that Jacques gave me. I thought that I would send it, that was all.’

‘How long ago did you find it?’ Luc Dumarais demanded.

Bernard shrugged, his face peevish. ‘I don’t remember. A long time ago—just after he died.’

‘And it did not occur to you that a more proper course of action would have been to give me the letter, so that I could pass it on to the lawyer who was dealing with Jacques’ affairs?’ Luc said coldly.

‘Why should I?’ Bernard flung his head back defiantly and faced his father. ‘The letter was not written to you. It was not your business.’

‘Or yours,’ Luc Dumarais returned harshly. ‘Yet you chose to make it so.’

Bernard shrugged again. ‘I did not know what was in it,’ he muttered defensively. ‘I did not know that Mademoiselle would be fool enough to come here. Who is she?’ he added. ‘Jacques’ mistress?’

Almost before he had finished speaking, Luc’s hand shot out and slapped him across the face. The boy staggered back wincing with a gasp that was echoed by Marty’s.

She whirled on Luc. ‘There was no need for that, surely!’

‘There was every need.’ His voice sounded weary. ‘Or are you accustomed to be insulted in such a manner?’

‘No, of course not.’ Marty was taken aback. ‘But he didn’t mean it.’

Luc’s smile held no amusement whatsoever. ‘He meant it.’ He turned and gave his son who was standing, his fingers pressed to his cheek, a long hard look. ‘As he always means every word of the mischief he makes. Pauvre Bernard! Were you so lost for ways to anger me that you had to send all the way to England? Involve a complete stranger?’

‘Well, it has been a success, tout de měme,’ the boy burst out suddenly, and Marty was horrified at the malice in his voice. ‘For now this girl has come, and you will have to deal with her, mon père.’ He turned and ran out of the room, banging the salon door behind him.

Marty heard Luc Dumarais swear softly under his breath before he swung back to face her.

‘As you see, mademoiselle,’ he said coldly, ‘your intervention on my son’s behalf was quite unnecessary. He has his own weapons.’

Marty spread her hands out helplessly in front of her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said inadequately.

‘There is no need,’ he said impatiently. ‘It is I who must apologise to you as it was my son who has brought you on this wild goose chase.’

‘But why should he do such a thing?’

‘You heard,’ he said. ‘To annoy me. To disrupt the peace I have tried to establish here. To cause me yet more problems, and eventually to prove such a thorn in my flesh that I will willingly send him back to Paris to his mother’s family.’

‘And you aren’t prepared to do that?’ Marty ventured.

‘No, I am not.’ Luc Dumarais stretched tiredly. He did not volunteer any further explanation and his dark face was so harsh and strained suddenly that Marty did not dare probe further.

There was a long silence. It was eventually broken by Luc, and Marty had the impression that he was forcing himself back from some bitter journey into the past. She tried to remember what Jean-Paul had said about the household while she was still under the mistaken impression that his remarks referred to Uncle Jim. He had spoken of a divorce, she thought, and also that Bernard’s mother was dead. He had also given her the feeling that Bernard would not welcome her presence. But then, she thought, Bernard would not be welcoming to anyone. Brief though their meeting had been, she had sensed an air of resentment and hostility which seemed to encompass the world at large.

‘Now we must decide what must be done with you.’ He sounded resigned.

‘That’s easily settled.’ Marty tried to shut out of her mind the chilling realisation of just how much she had staked on this trip and the pitiful amount of money now left to her. ‘I—I shall return to England. There really isn’t any need to concern yourself …’

‘Don’t be a fool.’ His voice bit at her. ‘My son was to blame for bringing you here. The responsibility now rests with me. Just how do you propose to return to England? Did you buy a return ticket for the ferry?’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But that’s no problem.’ She tried to sound careless—a seasoned traveller, and saw his eyes narrow speculatively as he looked her over.

‘You have travellers’ cheques?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘Or are your resources restricted to those few francs you have in your bag?’

For a moment she was stunned, then she blazed at him. ‘You dared—you actually dared to look in my bag?’

‘Yes, I dared,’ he said calmly. ‘I wished to check your passport and make sure you had a right to the identity you were claiming. Or did you think I would trustingly let any strange waif into my house, merely because she professed kinship with a man no longer alive to support or deny her claim? It seemed to me that you had planned only on a one-way trip.’

‘The more fool I,’ she said tightly. ‘But it really isn’t any of your concern. I’m sure if I really had been an actress with an eye on a part in your latest film you would have thrown me out without a second thought. Just because Martina Langton, starlet, doesn’t exist, Martina Langton, secretary, doesn’t require your charity either.’

‘There are arrangements you can make? Relatives in England you can cable for money?’

Marty suppressed a wry smile as she visualised Aunt Mary’s reaction to any such demand.

‘No, there’s no one,’ she acknowledged quietly. ‘But I’ll manage. I’m quite capable of working, you know, and Les Sables is a seaside resort. I can get a job at one of the hotels—waiting at tables perhaps, or as a chambermaid.’

‘Les Sables is a small resort. Most of the hotels are family businesses and do not make a habit of employing outsiders, especially foreigners. Any casual work available has already been snapped up by students,’ he said unemotionally. ‘What other ideas have you?’

‘None,’ she was provoked into admitting. She lifted her chin defiantly and looked at him. ‘But I’ll think of something.’

‘I have already thought of something.’ His voice was cool and almost dispassionate. ‘You can remain here.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘THAT,’ Marty said after a heart-thumping pause, ‘is the last thing I shall do.’

She spoke carefully, anxious to keep any betraying quiver out of her voice. Her pulses were behaving very oddly all of a sudden, and she wanted to wipe her damp palms on her jeans, but she restrained herself. The last thing she wanted was to let Luc Dumarais know the turmoil his suggestion had thrown her into.

Frantic thoughts began to gallop through her head. If she screamed, would Madame Guisard hear—and if she heard, would she bother to take any action? Could she manage to get past Luc Dumarais to the door? Thanks to Bernard, it was shut. Would he catch her before she could get it open and make her escape? Then there was the dog. Her mouth felt suddenly dry, and she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

‘Mon dieu,’ he said very softly. ‘It’s really true. The prototype English virgin, spying rapists behind every bush. Calm yourself, ma petite,’ he went on, his mouth twisting sardonically. ‘I’ve never been forced to resort to rape yet. And if I wanted a little adventure, believe me I wouldn’t choose an inexperienced child as a partner.’

Marty felt the hot blood invade her cheeks. ‘You’re quite wrong,’ she protested without conviction. ‘I wasn’t thinking …’

‘Don’t lie,’ he said. ‘Has no one told you, mon enfant, that your face is a mirror to your thoughts? Did you really imagine that you had inflamed my passions to such an extent that I could not bear to let you go?’

‘You,’ she said very distinctly, ‘are quite the most loathsome man I have ever met.’

‘But then I would say such encounters have been rather limited, have they not? Nor is it exactly courteous to describe a prospective employer as loathsome.’

‘You’re not my employer. Nothing would prevail on me to work for you,’ Marty declared tremblingly.

‘No? But do you imagine you have a great deal of choice?’ he enquired. ‘You haven’t sufficient money to eat, and travel to a larger place to find work—even supposing there was anyone willing to give you a job. You have no relatives or friends to help you, on your own admission, and I should warn you that the authorities do not look kindly on indigent foreigners.’

‘How dare you call me indigent! I’m a trained secretary.’

‘So I read in your passport,’ he said almost negligently. ‘I should not otherwise be offering you work.’

Marty gave a gasp of utter frustration. No matter what she said, he seemed to have an answer.

‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ she declared. ‘I—I’m going.’

She tried to march past him to the door, but his hand closed on her arm detaining her. She was aware of an almost overwhelming impulse to forget her upbringing and sink her teeth into his tanned flesh.

‘I advise against it,’ he said infuriatingly, almost as if she had voiced the thought aloud. ‘I can promise you that you would not enjoy the inevitable reprisals.’

She stood very still, her eyes downcast, conscious only of the firm pressure of his hand upon her arm.

‘Will you let me go, please?’ she asked politely.

‘Will you stop turning my salon into a battleground?’ he returned, but he released her arm. ‘You are in no fit state to discuss anything rationally at the moment. You have had a number of shocks today, which I regret. At least let me make amends by offering you a meal and a room for the night. In the morning you may feel better disposed to listen to what I have to say to you.’

‘I doubt that very much,’ she muttered. ‘All I really want to do is get away from this place.’

‘Then your most sensible course of action is to earn sufficient money to make this possible,’ he said unemotionally. ‘You would not find me ungenerous in the matter of wages. In any case, earnings in France are higher than in England.’

There was an awful kind of logic in what he said, Marty told herself despairingly. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of asking him to advance her the fare home on the understanding that she would repay him when she got back home and found another job. But she herself could see the flaws in this. For one thing, with unemployment running rife, she had no real guarantee she would find another job very easily. And when she did, she would need somewhere to live, and had little idea how much she would have to pay for rent, and heating, not to mention her food and clothes. What money would she have to repay anyone?

An involuntary sigh broke from her lips. He had not exaggerated when he had said she was in no state to consider his offer. She wasn’t just physically tired from her days of travel. She felt emotionally battered as well, her grief and disappointment at what she had discovered at the Villa Solitaire now being joined by a very real fear of what the future might hold. She had destroyed what fragile security she had had to snatch at a shadow. It had been the first reckless act she had ever committed, this journey to France, and it had ended in disaster.

And as in a kind of dream she heard Luc Dumarais summon the housekeeper and order her to escort her to a guest room, it occurred to her with a little shiver of disquiet that this might only be the beginning of the disaster …

In spite of her forebodings, Marty fell asleep on the bed Madame Guisard somewhat grudgingly made up for her. The room itself was charming, with its white-painted walls, contrasting with the smooth modern lines of the furniture, and the deep velvety green of the fitted carpet. There were no curtains at the windows, but Marty had grown accustomed to using shutters, and she was used too to managing the long rather hard bolster that fitted under the bottom sheet in place of a pillow. Sleep when it came was dreamless, and she felt oddly refreshed when she woke to find the shadows lengthening in the room, and Madame Guisard bending over to tell her stiffly that dinner was on the point of being served.

Adjoining her room was a tiny cubicle containing a shower, a handbasin and the ubiquitous bidet. As she hurriedly rinsed her face and hands in the basin, and dragged a comb through her sleep-tousled hair, Marty wondered whether she ought to have made the effort to change for dinner. But a swift mental review of the clothes she had brought with her soon convinced her it would only be foolish. She found herself wondering whether Luc Dumarais would subscribe to convention sufficiently to put on a shirt before sitting down to dinner. After a final slightly disparaging glance at herself in the mirror, she went out of her room and downstairs to the hall where she hesitated, wondering where she would find the dining room.

As she stood there, Luc Dumarais walked out of the salon and stood watching her, his dark face enigmatic. He was wearing close-fitting dark trousers, and though he was tieless, his frilled white shirt was immaculately white. A dark blue velvet jacket hung casually over his shoulders. He looked totally and arrogantly masculine, and Marty felt the force of his dark attraction reach out and take her by the throat. She swallowed, every instinct urging her to deny these new and troublous feelings which were invading her tranquillity.

She was defiantly glad she had made no effort to change. It would have been humiliating if he had interpreted such an action as an attempt by her to persuade him of her own femininity. The casualness of jeans and a top made her feel less vulnerable.

‘I have decided that we will eat outside tonight. It’s a perfect evening,’ he said. ‘Would you care for an aperitif?’

‘No—I mean—yes, I suppose so,’ she said, feeling unutterably gauche.

‘What do you drink?’ he enquired.

She was tempted to reply, ‘A glass of sherry—once a year for the Queen’s speech,’ and see what his reaction was, but she controlled herself.

‘What do you recommend?’ she countered brightly.

‘Perhaps you should try a pineau,’ he said. ‘It’s the local aperitif, and you probably won’t have come across it in England.’

How very true, Marty thought, as she followed him into the salon. He left her there with a quick polite word of apology while he went to fetch the drinks, and she wandered over to the glass doors that led out to the patio. A table set with a white linen cloth had been placed there, and Marty noticed with a sinking heart that place settings had only been laid for two. It appeared that Bernard would not be joining them, and she was going to have to suffer a dinner těte-à-těte with the master of the house—the very last thing she wanted under the circumstances. She gave a little barely perceptible sigh. The setting, the warm summer night, and the man who was soon to join her were all of the stuff that dreams were made on, and the sooner she remembered that she was prosaic Marty Langton, the better it would be for her. She had listened to the other girls who worked in her office gossiping about their boyfriends, but none of them had ever warned her that you could be physically attracted to a man you did not even like. She’d imagined there would be a safe pattern to these relationships—an enjoyment of a man’s company leading steadily on to warmer, more intimate feelings in the fullness of time.

But Luc Dumarais did not fit into any pattern that she had ever conceived, even in her wildest dreams. He was quite simply beyond her scope, and it worried her to realise how much of her thoughts he was beginning to monopolise.

‘Martine.’ She turned with a little start, to find that he had come silently back into the room and was standing close behind her holding out a glass to her.

‘A votre santé,’ he said rather mockingly, raising his own glass in salute.

She bent her head, muttering an embarrassed, ‘Cheers,’ and sipped at her drink which in spite of the fact that it was icy cold, spread a new and welcome warmth through her body. Its flavour was sweet and rather rich, and she smiled at him with rather shy appreciation.

‘It’s good.’

He inclined his head in acknowledgment. ‘Shall we take our drinks outside?’ he suggested.

The heat was not as intense as it had been earlier now that evening was approaching, and the merest whisper of a breeze came sighing through the clustering pines only yards from the house to disturb the stillness of the warm air.

César was lying on the patio, his head sunk on his paws. He lifted his head and barked as Marty appeared, but at a sharp word from his master he resumed his somnolent pose.

‘Are you frightened of dogs?’ Luc Dumarais held the chair for Marty to sit down.

‘I’m not really used to them,’ she answered truthfully.

He smiled slightly. ‘César will soon come to accept your presence here.’ He lifted a water jug from the table and added some water to the liquid in his glass, watching it appraisingly as it turned cloudy.

He spoke, Marty thought indignantly, as if it was all cut and dried that she was going to stay and work for him. She was just about to voice her thought when Madame Guisard appeared with the tureen of soup that constituted the first course, and she had perforce to save her comments for later.

‘Is Bernard not joining us?’ she asked tentatively as she picked up her spoon.

Luc’s dark brows drew together. ‘He is eating in his room,’ he said briefly. His tone did not encourage any further discussion, so Marty let the matter drop. She recalled Jean-Paul telling her that afternoon that Bernard had only come to live with his father a year ago. It seemed that even in that short period the relationship between them had deteriorated drastically. And she still wasn’t clear about Bernard’s motives for posting Uncle Jim’s letter as he had done. It seemed such a pointless thing to have done. Yet, she supposed philosophically, at least through his action she had learned that Uncle Jim had died, however painful the knowledge was. At least she now knew she had nothing to hope for, and that she had to put that childish dream of loving security which Uncle Jim had inculcated behind her for ever.

Had it really been a burden to him, she wondered, as she drank the delicately flavoured vegetable soup, that rash promise he had made to her all those years ago? The thought grieved her almost as much as the news of his death had done. She could imagine him becoming increasingly desperate as the years went by, and there seemed no way to redeem his promise, then this final reckless splurge on this villa he could not really afford. But even then he had hesitated to send for her, as if aware that it was all going to go wrong for him. Why else had he written the letter and not posted it? And his forebodings had proved only too real, it seemed, and she sighed imperceptibly as she laid down her spoon.

‘You look sad again,’ Luc Dumarais remarked as the fish, cooked in cream and mushrooms, was set in front of them. ‘Is the food not to your liking?’

‘Oh no, it’s magnificent.’ Marty glanced up startled. She had not realised he was observing her so closely. ‘I—I was just thinking about Uncle Jim.’

He shrugged. ‘That is natural. I hope these thoughts will persuade you to act sensibly.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked guardedly.

‘I should have thought it was obvious. Jacques must have had a deep concern for you to act as he did. Can you imagine his reactions now if he knew you were alone, without friends or money, refusing help when it was offered?’

She bent her head. ‘I think, like myself, he would have wanted to know a little more about what that help entailed before committing himself,’ she said in a low voice.

‘You surely don’t still suspect that I have designs upon your virtue?’ His brows rose. ‘Please believe, Martine, that I do not steal from cradles. And there are moments when you seem hardly older than Bernard.’

‘No, I don’t suspect—that.’ She felt that betraying colour rise in her cheeks again and prayed that he would not notice. Was it any wonder, she asked herself bitterly, that he had written her off as another gauche adolescent? ‘But—was it some kind of domestic work you had in mind or …’

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