
The Seduction Trap
Sara Wood
An irresistible temptation!
Tessa Davis came to France to visit her long-lost mother. Instead she found three cottages and Guy de Turaine, who clearly intended to charm her out of her mother's property! Well, his ploy wouldn't work, no matter how attractive he was.
Guy wanted to return the cottages to his family estate, and if that meant seducing Tessa, then so be it! He was determined not to succumb to his desire for Tessa, however. He'd seen how his father's obsession with her mother had been the ruin of him, and he refused to make the same mistake!
Neither wanted to be trapped by seduction but, as anger turned to passion, they fell right in.
AN ARM, clad in softly tailored linen reached out of the black convertible. A lean, male hand, strong and tanned, traced the letters on the road sign. 'Turaine.' Guy savoured the name, almost reverently.
'Yeah. It's a lovely sign, as signs go,' came the sarcastic tones of the woman in the driver's seat beside him. He grinned. 'Heaven forbid that I should commit the sin of sentimentality,' he said drily in his deep New Orleans drawl. 'Hell, I'll be leaping out and kissing the ground next!' Giselle made a face. 'Exactly how much ground is yours?'
'Ours, sweetheart. What's mine is yours, now my father's dead. The valley-' he gave a careless sweep of his arm, which embraced lush pastureland, walnut groves and vast chestnut forests
'-and the village. Apart from three cottages owned by my father's mistress. But I'll have them within the week. Something tells me she'll be eager to leave when I turn up.' Bleak shadows from the past changed the colour of his eyes, deepening the dark sable to a hard ebony and giving the lie to his confident, casual tone. It had been nineteen years since he'd set foot in Turaine. He brooded over the enforced exile of himself and his mother because of his father's obsession for another woman. And now he was thirty-five and the mother he'd protected and cared for was dead. He'd exchanged his privileged background for poverty, supporting his bewildered mother by taking any job that came along: waiting on tables, working in kitchens and finally marrying into the gourmet food business. At last it was time to come home. Time-almost-to mellow out and enjoy his financial success. Powerful emotions surged in his heart and he chipped away at them in case he did something stupid, like running Sound of Music-style through the meadow. If he wasn't careful, he thought in amusement, he'd lose his reputation for being unruffled under stress. 'Looks a bit tatty,' observed Giselle, frowning at the village on the small hill ahead.
Guy looked closer. It did. A faint sense of foreboding, took the edge off his contentment. 'A few repairs needed, I think,' he said, brushing away anything that might blight his homecoming.
Quite calmly he asked Giselle to drive on-over the well-remembered stone bridge where he'd fished as a child, up the winding lane which skirted the medieval walls where he'd kissed his first girl, and through the narrow arch into Turaine itself.
'Stop here,' he said laconically on their entering the square. He felt amused by his own self-control. Who, seeing the languid unfolding of his long legs from the car, the deliberate pause for a minute adjustment to the designer sunglasses and the orderly smoothing of his windswept black hair, would have imagined that he felt ready to break into song with happiness? It was a pity that no woman had ever given him this sense of joy. Not even, he had to confess, the incomparable Giselle. With no outward or inward enthusiasm, she gracefully unfolded her long tanned legs from the convertible, crossly checking over the small square. What a dump! Maybe, she thought, the chateau would be more to her taste.
'Deserted!' she observed disdainfully. 'Not even a bar open? No cafe? What kind of a French village is this?'
'Temporarily dry, by the looks of it.' Guy's keen eyes noted something else: definite signs of neglect. Well, he'd pull everything together soon enough. 'No matter. Once we're indoors, I'll crack open a bottle of vintage champagne to celebrate.'
A little cheered, she watched Guy saunter with French nonchalance over to a corner of the square, which she knew-since she'd been told ad nauseam-dropped directly to the River Dordogne over a hundred feet below. In that corner would be the gates to the Chateau Turaine, with its long drive flanked by...
Giselle frowned, halting her internal monologue in astonishment. Guy stood motionless before the massive iron gates, his elegant figure displaying all the signs of severe shock.
He had all but stopped breathing, every scrap of air seemingly punched from his lungs by the impact of the scene in front of him. 'I don't believe it!' he grated, allowing the searing pain to force its way out in a raw fury. 'No! It's not possible...' A red haze came over his eyes, blurring what he saw: the crazy angle of the high gates, the rusting wrought-ironwork, the weed-strewn drive and the wilderness beyond. Appalled, he blinked to clear the haze, and focused in impotent rage on the avenue of lime trees, their thin, weak growth reaching feebly upwards for light.
'Mon Dieu!' This was a scene of neglect. Desolation! And beyond ... Harshly he gulped in a rasping lungful of air. Somewhere in that mass of undergrowth stood or did it? the Chateau Turaine. His house. God knew what state it would be in!
'Damn you, Papa! And damn your scheming, conniving mistress to hell!' he raged under his breath, inventing instant vile punishments for Estelle Davis.
The woman had dominated his father, blinded him with her beauty and caused him to abandon his wife, his heir, his responsibilities. And therefore it was almost certain that it was the powerful Estelle who was ultimately responsible for this. Slowly he reached up to grip the barley-sugar twist bars of the gate, as if he'd rend the whole damn thing apart with his bare hands, but his tremendous strength wasn't sufficient to undo the work of an eighteenth-century craftsman. The gates screeched a rusty complaint yet the heavy chain and the lock held firm.
Giselle's arm came around his waist. The place was a mess. They could go back to Paris. Hurray! 'I'm so sorry!' she cooed. Guy detached himself, ensuring that his aristocratic face masked every thought, every feeling. It was the way he dealt with crises and he'd coped with worse. It was just the vandalism he couldn't stomach. 'I think,' he observed tightly, blocking his pain with magnificent understatement, 'I'll have my work cut out here.'
'Doing what?' Giselle wailed. Surely he didn't intend to roll up his sleeves and start weeding?
The finely shaped mouth took on a ruthless line. 'Restoring my home,' he replied in a hard tone. 'And booting Estelle Davis out of Turaine for allowing the chateau to get into this state.'
'What a bore! I want to go home!' Giselle said sulkily. 'This is home, sweetheart. I've been waiting for this day, dreaming of this moment all my adult life.' Emotion caught his words, threatening to mangle them. He paused, counted to ten and began again more steadily. 'You must decide for yourself, but I intend to live here.'
Ignoring Giselle's cry of protest, he moved away, drawn like a magnet to the derelict entrance of his once beautiful house. He knew that Giselle's feelings were hurt because he found Turaine more compelling than her. But Turaine had been violated, ignored, abandoned. And he knew how that felt only too well.
He began to climb the gate. For a moment he hovered on the top, balanced precariously between the wicked spear-shaped spikes, then he'd dropped to the ground and was striding away, towards his beloved chateau.
Giselle felt like stamping up and down in fury. She meant nothing to him at that moment. Turaine had taken over. OK. He wanted revenge. She'd help him get it fast. Then there would be just the two of them, and she wouldn't have to share him with anyone or anything.
Two weeks later, Tessa Davis turned her motorbike off the main road and navigated through a series of twisting country lanes, discovering a slower pace of life entirely. The countryside slept beneath the late afternoon sun and in tiny hills a handful of people were lazily turning golden hay with pitchforks, as they must have done centuries ago. Turaine!
Just as she was about to die of hunger! She pulled over by the sign and switched off the engine in relief. She felt shattered. Over five hundred miles since dawn, and her rear felt as numb as a lump of lead.
Removing her helmet, she flicked down the stand and slid off the bike, easing her seized-up thigh and leg muscles in her close-fitting black leathers by doing a few knee-bends and wiggles till she felt more like her supple self again. She scanned the village on the small hill. Somewhere up there her mother Estelle waited for her.
The sun glowed on the mellow stone, turning it a honeyed gold, softening the cinnamon shade of the steeply pitched roofs. To complete the picture, the wide Dordogne river followed the curve of the base of the hill, offering her a duplicate Turaine on its flat surface. Picture-book stuff. Heaven on a hill.
Excitement took over, bubbling up irrepressibly. The past could be forgotten. The future looked good. No one was around, so she flung up her arms and gave a whoop of joy. 'It's me, Mum!' she yelled. 'I'm on my way! Break out the fatted calf!'
A delighted grin lit her face. She conjured up the image of the laughing woman in the photo that her unhappy father kept by his bedside. He waited at home, ready to forgive his runaway wife after an absence of twenty years. Tessa hugged herself with happiness. Nothing could please her more. Pleasure spilled from her jade-green eyes. Their striking colour gave her quite a shock when she caught a glimpse of them in the side mirror of the bike and she laughed at her reaction. Two weeks ago she'd been a kind of wishy-washy, blue-eyed mouse, wearing spectacles which looked as if they'd been cut from the bottom of a beer glass! May heaven smile on whoever had invented coloured contact lenses! she thought. A blissful silence washed the landscape. All she could hear was the river lapping at the grassy bank, the reedy chatter of swallows overhead and the hum of bees. And then the deep throb of a powerful car.
It drew up behind her-a head-turning Citroen convertible so sleek that it looked as if it might fly to the moon. It boasted French numberplates and the regulation hunk inside, who sported a bone-structure and designer sunglasses to die for. Tessa watched his graceful emergence from the car: elegance oozing wealth, with the usual paraphernalia associated with money-gold watch and cuff-links, mobile phone attached to a Gucci belt and an expensive-looking tan which made him glow with smooth health.
This exotic vision tucked the sunglasses into the breast pocket of his eau-de-nil jacket, gave her road-bike the once-over and then settled a now-what-have-we-here gaze on her. Which she promptly returned with interest. 'Evening,' he drawled lazily.
'Hello!' she said, happy enough to embrace the world at that moment. 'Bonsoir!' she added, recklessly using up one of the five French words she knew.
Tessa leaned against her bike and pondered idly over his accent while he began the boringly obligatory male examination of her body: a studied and frank appraisal, which ranged from her expensively cut bob to the skintight leathers and neat boots and wandered slowly over the curves between. Men! she thought scathingly, doing precisely the same to him. She found it rather pleasurable. He was something of a dish. Their eyes met as they both finished their tours, both smiling in mocking acknowledgement of their insolence. But she hugged a secret to herself. It had been only eight months since misery had made her thin and she'd lost four stones in weight. He wouldn't have given her the time of day back then! But whatever her weight loss, she was still the same person. No, she amended. That wasn't true. She was warier because of old humiliations-and one in particular. Her eyes flickered with the painful memory, attracting a more intense concentration of the stranger's keen gaze. And as he stared deeply into her eyes she wondered if he saw beneath the recent makeover and her apparent confidence and could tell that once upon a time she'd been unloved and unhappy.
Apparently not. 'You must be extremely hot in those leathers,' was all he said. But the deep drawl reached into her bones like the slow ooze of warm sunshine, surprising her with its liquid sexiness.
'Only when I get off my bike and let the heat catch up with me,' she answered drily, thinking that it would be heavenly to take off her leather jacket. But what, she thought with a giggle, would Bedroom Voice make of her cropped cotton top and bare midriff?
And now she'd identified his accent. A Deep South drawl. An American. So much for the French numberplates, his Mediterranean colouring and the stylish clothes! 'You seem to have met those conditions. So why don't you remove your jacket?' he enquired with an unnervingly warm interest in his eyes.
Her eyebrow arched to convey what she thought of complying with that idea with a wolfish male around. 'Too many zips. It's not worth it. I'm only pausing for a short break and to admire the view.'
He gave a lazy grin of regret and a last, lingering appreciation of her firmly toned thighs, then dismissed her with a suddenness that left her slightly disconcerted. She felt she should go, but she needed a few moment's rest and something about the man intrigued her.
His languid manner had subtly changed, becoming businesslike and brisk. He'd removed an impressive-looking camera from the car and was focusing it on the slumbering village, firing off a series of shots.
A camera buff? she wondered idly. Somehow he didn't look the type to be interested in such an amiable pursuit. This was a go-getter, a four-scalps-before-breakfast man. So... why act like a tourist?
Tessa's curiosity got the better of her and she put her much used people-watching technique into serious operation. Suave. Mid-thirties. Achingly handsome, with intelligent eyes. Gym-enhanced body-shoulders you could sit encyclopedias on-but which looked rather tense. His jaw showed signs of strain too, as though his teeth were tightly clenched. In concentration, perhaps? Or did he have a badly placed toffee? Her eyes danced with fun.
He-let alone the camera, she thought in amusement was totally focused, photographing the village with an absorbed intensity. Oddly enough, what he saw didn't please him. His tanned forehead bore the merest hint of a scowl which angled his black brows together a little. And was that potentially sultry mouth a fraction grimmer than before? Perhaps he'd brought the wrong lens. Or perhaps he was on his last toffee!
Fascinated beyond caution, she said provokingly, 'Smashing place, isn't it?' His head jerked around in surprise; as if he'd forgotten her presence. 'Picturesque,' she added, and drew a wilting chocolate bar from her pocket, peeling back the wrapper and nibbling at the dark chocolate with enthusiasm. 'It would look good in a tourist brochure,' she said encouragingly, hoping to glean some information.
'From where I'm standing it looks in a dire state of repair,' he replied, laconically lifting the camera for another shot. 'So would you be if you were that old,' she retorted cheerfully, appropriating her mother's village and defending it loyally. 'It's obviously medieval-'
'I am aware of that. I hope you're not implying I'm a moron,' he said in faint horror, and she shook her head in mock-solemn denial. 'I'm glad to hear it,' he went on, and the sexy mouth twitched in private amusement. 'The medieval period is a particular interest of mine.'
'Then aren't you being unreasonable in expecting the village to be in pristine condition?' she said logically. 'Personally, I think that slightly faded look is part of its charm-'
'Charm is all very well,' he returned, interrupting her again, and the offending buildings were given another faintly sour once-over, 'but it doesn't keep the rain out. I imagine you'd be desperate to leave if you had to live through the winter in one of those houses.'
Tessa's eyes sparkled with anticipation. It was her intention to live in one of those houses! Though maybe not through the winter. She wondered sentimentally which one belonged to her mother.
'You're wrong. I'd love it,' she declared fervently, thinking of the cramped flat she shared with her father. 'Much nicer than being stuck in a characterless modern lump of concrete.'
'You think so?' he murmured. 'Look harder.' She did. 'I see a quaint village with eagles flying over it.'
'Black kites,' he corrected her. 'If you had better eyesight,' he went on, unaware that her eyesight had been beautifully corrected and she could see for miles, 'you'd notice that the buildings are crumbling.'
'Oh!' she cried, a little embarrassed that she hadn't seen anything of the sort, especially as she'd spent five years learning restoration skills. How easily her romanticism could blind her to reality!
'Characterless or not, something modern would be welcomed by the people up there. Probably,' the man said sardonically, 'with open arms and shouts of unmitigated joy.'
'Oh, surely not!' she protested. 'Exchange that setting? Those fabulous views of the river, the-?'
'The poor sanitation, unreliable water and electricity supplies and incipient damp? You bet your life they would!'
'You've shattered my illusions,' she said, deflated. Shading her eyes, she once more studied the buildings advancing up the hill. Or were they tumbling down it? She felt a pang of worry about the state of her mother's house. 'We see what we wish to see-and you wanted to see only the postcard-picturesque,' he said drily, his thick lashes fanning further down on his gilded cheekbones than was strictly fair in a man.
Tessa sighed. 'I did. It's still in a wonderful position above the river,' she said wistfully, stuffing the empty chocolate wrapper in the hip pocket of her skintight leathers and finding that the man's speculative eyes were noting with very masculine interest what a struggle it was. Hastily she grabbed at something else to say. 'I envy the people who live with such a view.'
'Don't.' Half turning, he scowled at the hillside, lost in thought. Tessa wrapped herself in her own troubles. She ought to prepare herself for the fact that her mother might be poor and living in some dump of a building. That had never crossed her
mind up to now and she fidgeted uncertainly, wondering if she could break in on the man's deep absorption in the scene ahead, into whatever thoughts were going on in that handsome head.
Nothing ventured... 'Do you know the village very well?' she asked, her eyes soft with anxiety.
He turned and looked at her thoughtfully. Suddenly he seemed to be pinning her in place with the intensity of his stare, frowning as though something about her reminded him of someone. 'What's your interest?' he enquired guardedly. Some inner alarm made her cautious. 'It's pretty,' she replied lamely, earning herself a scornful curl of his autocratic mouth. She sought to expand her remark. 'You can't deny that, crumbling walls or not! All those roses clambering up walls, orangeblossom heaving over hedges, geraniums dotted about on balconies...' She hesitated, then asked, 'Is-is all of it run down?' And she found herself praying for his reassurance. 'Virtually all, I regret to say,' he replied, bringing the worry lines to her forehead again. 'The landlord didn't give a damn.' That last sentence had been said softly-and not to her. Only the faint breeze had carried his half-audible words to her sharp ears. Yet his icy anger had been un¬mistakable. Alarmed by his words, she wondered why he cared so much. Because he obviously did, and she struggled to understand why his eyes were so cold and his mouth had set in such deep and bitter lines.
She shivered. Something was wrong about the village. And suddenly she felt afraid of what she might find when she reached her mother's house.
'I must go,' she said hoarsely.
'So you know what happened?'
'N-no.'
'I think you should.'
His tone made her whole body tense. What was he trying to tell her, with those knowing, sardonic eyes? Did he know her mother? Was he trying to prepare her for something?
TRYING to sound unconcerned, Tessa said, 'OK, tell me.' The man squared his shoulders. 'It's a well-known scandal. Go into any village or town for fifty miles and mention Turaine and you'll get several lurid versions.' His gaze homed in on her as if watching for her reaction. She stared back with wide, apprehensive eyes. 'The landlord, Lucien de Turaine, had a mistress who held complete sway over his every move. She led him such a dance around the fleshpots of the world that he neglected the village he owned and it gradually fell into disrepair.'
'How awful!' she exclaimed.
'Criminal,' he agreed. 'But she was totally self-centred and de Turaine only too willing to be her slave.'
'Amazing that any woman could influence a man that strongly,' marvelled Tessa.
'She was beautiful. And irresistible. One of those born flirts who are utterly confident about their looks and who use men to their own ends,' he said cynically.
Despising the woman, Tessa probed for more information. 'Lucien de Turaine ... If he's the landlord, does that mean he owns the whole village?'
He nodded, the bright sunlight catching the glitter in his eyes. 'The family has owned the village for seven hundred years.'
'Then I'm appalled that he doesn't have a better sense of duty! It's dreadful that he can't be bothered to look after his tenants!' she declared indignantly, ready to do battle on her mother's behalf.
'Couldn't,' came the languid correction. 'The man is dead. His son has taken over.'
'Is he more caring? Will he do the repairs, do you think?' she asked anxiously, caught up now in the welfare of Turaine. 'The village is bankrupt. The estate coffers are empty. The mistress drained his father dry. Every last damn penny.' Tessa's face showed her shocked disapproval. 'That's outrageous!' she declared. 'I'm so sorry. What a dreadful situation.'
'She's a money-grabbing monster and deserves to be hanged, drawn and quartered.' He sounded grim and she shot him a curious look, but his expression was neutral. 'The damage is done,' she mused soberly. 'What's going to happen if there's no money for restoration? Will the son sell some of the houses and use the proceeds for repairs?'
'I think,' he said, in a casual tone that belied the disdainful curl of his nostrils, 'the current seigneur would rather sell his soul.' A cloud crossed the sun, throwing the two of them into sudden shadow. Though a light remained in the stranger's eyes which must have come from within. The air grew chill without the sun's warmth, reminding Tessa that it was still the treacherous month of May. She gave a little shiver. However intriguing this might be, she was anxious to drive on and find out her mother's situation for herself.
'It doesn't offer much hope for the village if he's strapped for cash, does it?' she commented quietly.
Her poor mother. What conditions would she be living in? More than a little apprehensive now, Tessa unthinkingly bent and vigorously massaged her aching thighs and calves. When she straightened, throwing back the wings of pale blonde hair which had fallen across her face, she found herself the subject of a languid appraisal.
Time to withdraw gracefully, she thought, recognising that maybe she'd chatted for too long and had been overfriendly. In the old days before her transformation, it wouldn't have mattered.
'That's the trouble with long journeys on a road-bike,' she said briskly, thinking she ought to explain away her massage. 'Muscles begin to seize up.'
'Yes.'
He said no more. But somehow he imbued that one word and the expression in his suddenly velvety eyes with more sensuality than she would have believed possible. Tessa lifted a hand to her lips in a hasty defensive movement, wondering why he was staring at them so intently. The reason became clear when she felt her mouth. It seemed soft ... and her lips had parted in a definite pout! Startled, she made sure her wayward mouth behaved itself by giving it something ordinary to say.
'I've driven miles,' she said. And she felt more than a little disconcerted by her staccato delivery. 'From Roscoff. This morning,' she added, hoping to redeem herself by sounding perfectly normal.
Astonished, she registered that his entire body had seemed to contract a fraction, as if she'd said something of significance. 'You came over on the Plymouth-Roscoff ferry?' he enquired sharply.
She hesitated, puzzled by his interest. 'That's right. Why?'
'I've been to Plymouth. You live in an interesting place.' He offered this banal piece of information with a show of great charm. But his eyes bored into hers disconcertingly. 'Plymouth's in Devon. It's my nearest ferry point, but I actually live in Cornwall,' she corrected him, with the pride of the Cornish. 'Just...' Her voice faded. What was it about the tenseness of his body that made her want to clamp her mouth shut? Reluctantly Tessa finished her sentence. 'Just across the river from Plymouth.'
'The town of Saltash?' he asked. She nodded warily. 'An attractive part of the world,' he purred. 'The river there has some of the qualities of the Dordogne, don't you think?'
'Oh, yes. Absolutely.' Tessa pointedly drew her driving gloves from her pocket. She couldn't help a grin. 'They're both wet.' He chuckled, as if amused by her evasion. 'Are you here on holiday?'
Caution put her on her guard again, though she couldn't have explained why. 'Kind of.'
'There's a lot to see and do, if you're staying near here.' And he zapped her with a disarming grin of encouragement. Dragging her eyes away from the dazzling white teeth, she firmly transferred her gaze to the clay-tiled roofs of the apparently deserted village and drew on her leather gauntlets. He was making conversation. He was bored-perhaps without a female companion for the evening.
Even while she tried to explain away his keen interest she sensed something else behind the plausible charm. Perhaps she was being over-sensitive, but his manner made her feel uneasy. After all, they were alone in a fairly isolated place, with no one in sight, and she'd be an idiot to prolong this conversation.
Determined to tell him nothing more, she produced a polite but cool smile. 'I'll bear that in mind,' she said, and added with finality, 'Well, I'd better be going. Someone's expecting me. Goodbye.'
'Safe journey,' he called softly after her. 'Be careful, driving in the dark.'
She'd be at her mother's house before long. Tessa turned her head briefly to say so. 'Oh, I won't be-'
She saw the keen flash of triumph in his eyes and stopped herself in mid-sentence. Devious man! She'd as good as admitted that she wouldn't be driving in the dark. He'd goaded her deliberately! Though what he'd do with the knowledge that she didn't have far to go, she couldn't imagine.
'I won't be frightened of the dark,' she finished innocently, and couldn't resist adding, 'I brought a nightlight and my teddy bear.'
His laughter accompanied her as she prepared to get back on her bike. Somehow she couldn't move naturally. Even though her back was to him, she knew she was under close scrutiny because her spine tingled.
With a casual movement she swung onto the bike and flung back her hair, ready to hook on her helmet. A vital awareness of her own slender throat and the faintly abandoned tilt of her head made her jam the helmet on quickly and slam down the visor.
One neatly booted foot released the stand and her slim body dipped in a supple movement as she lifted the choke. Then she punched the ignition, leaned forward and waited edgily for the revs to pick up.
A furtive glance in her side mirror told her that he was copying down her numberplate. Glory be! What for? As she watched in amazement he reached for his mobile phone. Calling up the gang? Tessa laughed at the idea but gave a little shiver of apprehension nevertheless, and drove off in a flurry of dust without another backward look.
The encounter had disturbed her and made her edgy. She sighed. His behaviour would have to remain a mystery-unless he deliberately tracked her down! Unaccountably her hand faltered on the throttle and she hastily made a correction. It had been a strange meeting-one she would remember for a while. And because of it she was almost dreading the reunion with her mother. In addition to the initial awkwardness she was expecting, now she felt really worried about her mother's present circumstances. Tessa drove up the hill to the village at a slower speed than necessary, deep in thought. Whenever she'd shown resentment or anger in the past, and hinted that her mother had been selfish, her father had denied it. He'd explained that it had been his fault, that his inadequacy had driven Estelle away. Over the years, his insistence had made her believe him. She crested the hill. Ahead of her was a small medieval arch leading into the village. It occurred to her that her mother might have contacted them only because she was in trouble. Tessa tried to feel generous. Her father was willing to forgive. So would she. Whatever her mother's financial state-or her living conditions-it wouldn't matter. They'd be together. And they'd natter till the small hours then go out to buy boxes of throat lozenges and natter some more. There would be someone to confide in at last. A woman, with a woman's sensitivities and emotional experience.
It would be wonderful to unburden herself. Eventually she'd tell her mother about her problem with her weight-though she wouldn't say that she'd ballooned from the age of five, when her mother had left home, because she had found comfort in cakes and sweets. That would be tactless. Nor would she say that she'd felt deprived of love, since her father had been too wrapped up in his own loss to realise that his daughter was suffering too.
But she'd be able to talk about how the kids at school had called her names and made her cry till she'd learnt a few defensive measures-mostly an ability to joke about herself. But it hadn't taken away the misery of always being the last to be chosen for a team, or of spending most of her break-times hanging around the teacher on duty.
As an adolescent she'd apparently been invisible to boys, and she had never felt more alone than when she'd met her classmates out walking with their boyfriends. Boyfriends had been unattainable for her, and so she'd wanted one desperately. Now that her trim figure drew men like a magnet and she could have her pick of them, she wasn't particularly interested!
She smiled wryly. Her face softened, the lines in her forehead ironing out as she remembered the gaiety in her mother's voice.
'After you've been here a few days,' her mother had said during her surprise telephone call the previous week, 'perhaps you'd keep an eye on my house and holiday lets for a couple of weeks while I pop over to England. I can't leave my holiday cottages, you see, but I'd love to see your father again.' Once she'd got over the shock, Tessa had been thrilled speechless. And there had been tears of joy in her father's eyes when she'd relayed the message.
She tried to recapture that happiness she'd felt for her father as she drove into the deserted village square. Battling with confused emotions, she parked her bike against the massive stone base of a pillar supporting the roof of an open-sided market hall with fascinating medieval rafters.
Off she went in search of the Rue Boulangerie, half expecting to see her mother beckoning from a window. Tessa's excitement and nervousness mounted. Half an hour later she was trudging disconsolately back down a narrow, stepped street, her leather jacket slung over one shoulder. She'd explored the whole village in vain. Tiredness flowed over her in dizzying waves as she came in sight of the square. Her cropped top clung to her sweating body. Her feet hurt, her neck ached and her stomach rumbled. An irrational dread nagged at her mind that she'd come on a wild-goose chase.
And, to cap it all, there was the dreaded Citroen convertible parked in the square-as large as life and twice as unwelcome! 'Blow it!' she muttered in dismay, hastily flattening herself against a wall.
The man she'd met earlier was walking beside a high wall in the direction of a pair of ornate wrought-iron gates. No, not walking. He was striding, with an oddly grim and angry expression, as though he'd snarl at anyone who stood in his way and kick them aside.
What a change in his manner! she thought. No longer suave, elegant and charming, but a totally different man altogether. And therefore not the sort to be trusted. He held a large iron key in his hand and she realised he must live-or lodge-here, in this very village. She perked up. He'd know where The Old Bakery was. She'd have to ask, like it or not.
'Beggars and women who can't speak French can't be choosers,' she told herself firmly out loud, dismissing the little flurry of nerves which skimmed around her stomach. 'Hey! Hang on there!' she shouted, striding quickly towards him before she lost her courage.
The broad shoulders seemed to square before he turned. 'You again. What a surprise!' he declared calmly, as if her appearance wasn't at all unexpected.
'Isn't it?' she replied with a little jut of her chin, trying to steer an even course between being downright discouraging and yet nice enough to enlist his help. Aware of his eyes on her silky bare midriff, she hastily tried to reclaim his attention. 'Do you live here?' she asked politely.
Slowly his gaze travelled upwards to her hopeful face. 'Kind of.' Touche! she thought tiredly, seeing the small smile playing
around his mouth. She found a smile from somewhere too. A cool one. Nothing too friendly. 'I'm looking for The Old Bakery... '
'Yes.'
She blinked. Judging by the expression on his face, he was playing with her, making her work for information. Hadn't he anything better to do? she thought crossly. She drew in a deep breath. 'It's in-'
'Rue Boulangerie,' he provided, much to her relief. Yet he made no move to say where it was.
'I know. Where is that, exactly? I've been everywhere looking for it,' she explained, with a patience she didn't feel. 'I've tramped up and down every street. It doesn't exist, as far as I can see.'
Her long fingers pushed damp strands of flopping pale blonde hair back behind her ears as she stood dispiritedly before him. The enigmatic smile spread into a grin of clear delight. 'Do you mean that no one would tell you where it is?' he asked cheerfully.
'I haven't asked yet,' she admitted, puzzled. What was going on here? Her heart began to thump. This was creepy. 'The place is deserted. There was no one to ask. Anyway, I don't speak French and I wouldn't have understood what was said. I thought I could find it on my own.'
'The Old Bakery is where the owner of the holiday lets lives,' he murmured. 'You're staying in one of her cottages?'
'No, I'm staying with her,' Tessa corrected him. 'She's my mother.'
'Ah.' He nodded, as though that explained everything. Tessa paused, wondering if he'd seen some resemblance earlier and had been trying to place her. 'She's expecting me,' she went on. 'And she'll be getting rather worried by now-' He interrupted her with an involuntary snort of disbelief. 'Estelle Davis? Worried about another person?' Tessa bridled at his tone. 'Yes! Of course! Why not?'
'She's not the sort.'
A cold fear ran down Tessa's back. What did he know of her mother? 'You're being extremely rude-'
'It would be difficult to be otherwise,' he agreed, quite unfazed. Tessa felt crushed by his contempt. And increasingly worried. All her life she'd done her best to ignore her doubts, her private belief that her mother had behaved selfishly. This stranger was bringing them back. 'If you know her-'
'I know of her. It's not quite the same thing.' His gaze held hers with a suddenly chilling intensity that she found rather frightening. 'And you are?'
She gulped, pierced by the icy black eyes and his expression of frank hostility. It upset her that someone; should loathe her mother so much, and through her head went the same question, over and over again. Why? 'Tessa Davis.'
'Guy.'
'Guy,' she repeated. 'It sounds French, the way you ' say it.'
'It is.'
Not a man who gave much away unless he wanted to. New Orleans French? She gave up trying to work that one out and returned to the worrying connection between her mother and this Guy.
'You don't have a very high opinion of my mother,' she observed flatly. 'Got it in one.'
Now the dislike was right out in the open, with every line of Guy's face showing a frank contempt that scared her. Unexpectedly, a film of unshed tears washed over her limpid green eyes. This wasn't the situation she'd expected at the end of her journey. She'd worked so hard to sweep away all her uncertainties about this reunion,
building it up in her mind into a moment of joy and laughter. Suddenly everything was going wrong. 'I'm sorry if there's bad feeling between you-' she began, clasping her shaking hands.
'That's too mild a description. I'd call it hostility,' he said coldly. Tessa flushed, and concentrated on stopping her mouth from describing a downward droop, angry with her quickly aroused emotions which made her laugh and cry too easily. She felt so tired. Near to breaking-point, she stood in a pose of utter dejection, furious that a huge teardrop was trickling from the corner of one eye and burning a hot, wet path down her peachy cheek. What a drip she was!
'Emotional, aren't you?' he observed thoughtfully, as if that was an interesting and useful piece of information. With a quick gesture, she brushed the treacherous tear away and sprang to her own defence. 'I'm dead beat and I'm hungry, and I'm worried about finding my mother before it's too pitch-black to see further than my nose!'
'You have a nightlight and a teddy bear for comfort,' he reminded her, his mouth curved in mocking lines.
Callous brute! She planted her hands on her slender hips in challenge.
'And you know where her house is. Whatever your feelings for my mother, you might show some courtesy to me, since I've done nothing to earn your disapproval, have I? So I'd appreciate it if you'd give me directions,' she finished assertively.
He appeared to be giving that some thought. 'I'll do better than that. I'll take you there,' he said at last. And the gleam in his eye as he studied her flat stomach and sensually sheathed thighs suggested that he welcomed the opportunity to prolong their acquaintance.
Tessa took a wary step back. It didn't seem a good idea to go off with this arrogant male to heaven knew where. 'Directions will do. Left, right, straight on-that's fine by me.'
'The route is too complicated,' he said blandly. 'You'd get lost. I'd worry that your teddy bear might lose out on his seven hours of shut-eye.'
'I don't have much choice, do I?' she muttered crossly. 'I'm too ready for a comfortable armchair and a bath to start trudging around and doing mimes on foreign doorsteps. I'll get my bags.' He came with her to her bike, insisting on helping her to remove the panniers. There was a silly, polite tug-of- , war, then she gave up and allowed him to sling them on his shoulder. She debated whether to put her jacket on, but she felt so hot and flustered, and she decided that she wasn't going to be intimidated into doing something against her will. Then, feeling rather like a submissive chattel, she followed in his tracks, blanking out everything but putting one foot in front of the other, each step mercifully one closer to her mother's house.
A SILENCE fell between them as they wound their way up a narrow, stepped street she didn't remember seeing before. They passed a couple of large townhouses with mullioned windows and then a halftimbered cottage, whose walls were bright with highly scented climbing roses and honeysuckle. Tessa's nostrils were swamped with the heady perfume and she couldn't resist pausing to stick her nose in the velvety petals of a dark red rose.
When she straightened and looked around, she had the unnerving impression that they were the only two people for miles. Not even a dog barked. The rays of the late evening sun burned with a final, merciless intensity on the deserted street and she could feel the heat rising from the stone steps and walls, enveloping her in a suffocating blanket. Scary. 'Where is everyone?' she asked in a hushed voice, scanning the shuttered houses.
'Finishing their evening meal. Then they'll go to bed.' Guy frowned slightly. 'Most of the young people have moved away because of the lack of opportunities. There isn't much activity here of an evening.'
'You can say that again! Is it far?' She sighed, sure that her legs would give up at any moment. 'These steps are murdering my calves. I'm just about done in. And starving. I think I should have eaten about four hours ago,' she added mournfully, quite forgetting the chocolate snack.
'It's only around the corner. Allow me,' he said, with a show of great courtesy.
One large male hand moved firmly around her waist, supporting her. Or that was presumably its intention. In fact it made her feel even more unsteady, because his fingers lay on her bare skin beneath the cropped top-oh, what a mistake that had been!-and seemed to have made connections somehow with her entire nervous system.
The pressure on her spine increased. She could feel the warmth of his palm heating through to her very bones. A strange squiggle raced unheeded through a previously unknown route which ran from her breasts to her toes and made an embarrassing stop on the way, warming her loins with an alarming insistency. Tessa blushed, because she knew perfectly well what that squiggle meant.
She'd spent five years yearning for the unreachable David. Years of dreams and longings and imagined kisses which had built up in her mind till she'd felt delirious if he so much as looked at her-which he rarely had, because then she had held no attractions for a handsome man.'
But this-this was a revelation. A total stranger was walking her to her mother's door, and fire was coursing through her entire body as if she were hell-bent on imminent surrender! Despite her tiredness, her eyes burned with that fire. i Her skin tingled. Parts of her which ought to have known better were alert and ready for action. It was too awful! ! Had she lost her inhibitions along with her weight? More to the point, did the unnervingly sexy Guy know that t her body was responding to some wayward call of nature?
She stole a nervous glance in his direction, found his warm, contemplative eyes on her, felt unable to look away because of a sudden dizziness-and stumbled on a broken step. In a purely reflex action he caught her up in his strong arms. And it was harder than it should have been to drag herself free.
Unhappily, she lifted the thick fringe of lashes which shaded her anxious forest-dark eyes. They asked him the unspoken question. What's happening?
'Sorry,' she whispered distractedly, and even more stupidly said, 'I'm so tired. I tripped.'
'Did you?'
That wasn't really a question at all. It sounded horribly like the cool carelessness of a man who was so used to women throwing themselves at him that he treated them all with scant respect. She flushed again, indignant with herself-and with him for making assumptions.
Desperate to prove her sublime indifference to his insidious charms, she said stiffly, 'Look, you don't need to come any further. Just point in the general direction. I'll find it on my own.'
'No. I'll take you to the door.' There was no room for argument in that tone. 'You're almost asleep on your feet., 'That's why I tripped,' she persisted stubbornly, squirming with mortification when he neglected to agree with her. Looking ahead, she saw nothing but the steep rise of steps as they twisted and turned up the hill. It occurred to her that surely, no bakery would ever have set up shop this far from the centre. Suddenly suspicious of his motives, she bit her lip, wondering where he was taking her.
'Rue Boulangerie,' he announced, and pointed to a lane half-hidden on her left.
'Oh!' She'd misjudged him. They'd arrived! Tessa's whole body slumped against the wall in sheer relief. 'That's wonderful!
You've no idea how grateful I am! Thank you. Thank you!' Her beatific smile apparently startled him. For a breathless moment he stared down at her, his expression
puzzled. Then, 'Let's make sure your mother is in,' he suggested with silky smoothness.
'Of course she'll be in!' she said in surprise. 'It's been arranged. Which house is it?'
'The one at the end.'
It was quite small, part of a short terrace of crumbling buildings. The evidence that it once had been a shop was apparent in the large window and faded sign above the door. The house looked uncared-for, and Tessa swallowed back the lump in her throat.
'It needs a lot of work done to it,' she said in a small voice, her heart sinking as she ran an expert eye over the building. 'Aren't you going to knock?' asked Guy, when she hesitated. 'I'm. ..' Her hands fluttered in the air helplessly. She flung a panic-stricken glance up at him, confused by the turmoil of her emotions. 'I'm nervous. It's a long time since I've seen my mother,' she confided huskily. 'Twenty years ago. I was five.' She drew in a deep breath. 'All I remember is a mass of blonde hair and the smell of jasmine. I-I wonder what she'll make of me? I've heard so much about her.'
'Have you?' For several seconds he studied her face, his expression unreadable. 'Then,' he said eventually, 'the sooner you get the next few minutes over with the better.' And he reached up to rap on the door with a fist so hard that it would have summoned the dead.
Tessa swallowed to calm her nerves and hastily tidied her silky hair with her fingers. No one came. He knocked again, with the same result. Bewildered, she exchanged glances with Guy, her stomach lurching sickeningly.
'This is the right house?' she asked. He nodded. Pityingly. And her hands went clammy. 'She must be in!' she cried, her voice wavering.
'Must she?' He was frowning at the peeling paint on the door, his fingers lifting off one or two of the flakes. His thumb investigated the inadequate pointing of the stone facade. 'Perhaps-as I suspected-there's another reason she's not answering.'
There was a sudden silence. Tessa's eyes rounded in alarm.
'You're deliberately trying to frighten me!' she accused him. He looked as if he felt genuinely sorry for her. Caught by an urge to grab him and shake him for upsetting her, she flicked her tongue around her dry mouth and tried to stay rational. There would be an ordinary explanation. Her mother had run out of milk. Lost a cat. Run out of petrol somewhere. Everything would be fine.
'I have a key,' she said shakily. 'Mother sent it in case I arrived early. We didn't know how long it would take me to get here. Perhaps I should let myself in and wait.' He gave a shrug. 'Let yourself in by all means. But don't raise your hopes.'
'What do you mean?' she demanded, tension holding her body rigid. 'And who the devil are you to know so much?' The sardonic eyes chilled her bones. 'My name is de Turaine,' he answered quietly. 'And this is my village. Or, rather, most of it is mine.'
Tessa's mouth fell open. 'You're the new landlord! The son of the man who didn't care about his own village!'
'Correct. I flew over from New Orleans two weeks ago. My father died two weeks before that,' he said in a matter-of-fact tone. And, because he showed no sign of regret or sorrow, the flustered Tessa didn't offer her sympathies. What kind of man was he, she thought, to dismiss his father's death so casually? 'In case you're wondering, the neglect here came as a total shock to me,' he went on tightly. 'I hadn't been near Turaine for half my lifetime.'
While she digested that information he took the key , from her trembling fingers, thrust the door open and waved her in. Astonished, she obeyed his imperious gesture, finding herself in a chilly room which was so dark that she' couldn't see anything clearly. It smelt of damp, decaying timber and saturated stone. It was the same smell she'd encountered when working with the team of restorers on Kernow House, a run-down stately home in the Lynher' Valley.
The cottage must be in as bad a state as she'd feared. It was a depressing arrival, and awful to think of her mother living in dark, dank conditions like these. A concrete monstrosity would have been better!
'Mum?' she called desperately. 'Mum! Where are you?' The house lay as silent and as cold as a grave. She found a light switch and flicked it on, only to stand stockstill in dismay. 'This
place is awful!' she exclaimed, her horrified eyes taking in the chaos. 'And it's been vandalised-!'
'No. I think not. Mon Dieu! What a mess!' muttered Guy, dumping the bike panniers on the floor and looking around at the tumbled furniture and scattered belongings, his mouth grim with disapproval.
'How could your father let it get into this mess?' she raged. 'When I think of my mother struggling to manage-'
'Your mother's responsible for the state of this house. She owns it,' he broke in tightly. 'Though I expect to regain possession of it soon-and the two cottages next ~ door, which are also hers.'
'I don't believe you. No one would willingly live like this!' cried Tessa loyally. 'She'd slap on a coat of paint and wash the curtains-'
'How the hell do you know?'
That made her stop in her tracks. She didn't. 'There's something odd about this,' she insisted, though less confidently. 'No one would leave furniture overturned.' Her voice sank to a whisper. 'Something awful's happened.' He fixed her with a piercing stare. 'Damn right it has!' he answered grimly. 'Which makes me as keen as you to find her.'
'Find her?' Tessa looked at him blankly. 'You think... she's ... missing?'
'No.' The sculpted mouth took on a contemptuous curve. 'She's not missing-I'd bet my life on that. I believe she's disappeared.'
Tessa gulped. 'Disappeared?' she squeaked. 'Of her own free will,' he said tightly, and all the air rushed out of Tessa's lungs in a soft 'oh'. 'When you said you'd come to meet her, I did hope that the rumours I'd heard last night were untrue. She and I have some unfinished business-the sale of her properties. But I'm afraid that her neighbours' suspicions are correct.' He fixed her with a knife-edge stare. 'I believe your mother has run away.'
Tessa glared. How dared he? 'Don't be ridiculous! She rang me. She said she'd be here-' Furious that Guy was ignoring her, and had wandered over to a table covered by a dirty lace cloth, she raised her voice a decibel or two. 'Look, this is meant to be our reunion! She rang me! She wanted it! She wouldn't run out on me!'
He gave an elegantly, derisive snort. 'She'd do anything if it suited her!' he said cynically.
Suddenly Tessa's face crumpled. She thought of all the years she'd longed for a mother to confide in, a mother who would have helped her to cope with the bullying and teasing, who might have loved her and prevented her from seeking love from the heartless David. Her expression became forlorn. 'I'm her daughter!' she cried, pushing back the treacherous thought that her mother hadn't ever been concerned about that fact before. 'I-I've come all this way- 'Well, I'll be damned!'
She hoped so. Tessa scowled at his back, torn between screeching hysterically and bawling her eyes out. He seemed more interested in the things on the table than the fact that she'd been abandoned. 'What is it?' she asked irritably.
He was smiling with satisfaction when he turned around, and clutched a piece of paper. But when his gaze fell on Tessa's quivering lower lip the smile faded and an almost gentle light touched his eyes. She watched him with wary suspicion. Why had he suddenly become all sweetness and light? she wondered apprehensively.
'I found this propped up against that pile of books,' he said quietly. 'I'm sorry. You don't deserve to be hurt.'
Her hand flew to her throat as she looked at the piece of paper.
'Hurt? Why... why should I be hurt?' She thought of several reasons why people left notes. And she licked her lips, backing away from the offered paper. 'I-I don't want to read it!' she husked.
'Relax. Your mother's safe,' he soothed. 'But she has gone. This explains why.'
She tried to concentrate, finding it hard to take in what the words said.
Sorry, darling. Creditors pressing. I've given you the houses. They're a bit of a millstone around my neck! My present to you-the documents are around somewhere ...
'The houses?' she cried in astonishment. 'She's given me the houses? Why? I don't believe it-'
'I wouldn't get too excited if I were you,' Guy said sardonically. 'They're more of a liability than an asset.'
'But ...I don't understand! She can't mean it. What will I do with them? And where will she live?'
'Anywhere but here, I imagine,' he replied drily. She'd run away because of creditors. Tessa felt the familiar hollow sensation in her stomach. Her own experience of debt had been hideous. It had been a nightmare catching up with the back payments on the furniture her father had bought on hire purchase just before he'd lost his last job. Only too well she remembered the burly men who'd accompanied the debt collector, the menacing way they'd looked at her and inflated their chests under their beer-stained vests to the size of barn doors. Once, when she hadn't been able to pay, they'd walked in and taken her portable radio and told her she'd save more money if she ate less. Feeling the nausea crawl up to her throat, she closed her eyes tightly. This wasn't happening. She'd wake up and it would all be a dream.
A hand touched her shoulder, making her jump. 'Are you all right?'
'No! I'm not!' she snapped, her eyes opening and flicking green fire at him. 'I come here, find my mother's gone, that some hulking great brutes have frightened her away...' She bit her lip. Shaking off the supposedly soothing hand, she bent her head and read the rest of the note. 'Had to go. Didn't fancy being beaten up! Love, Estelle.' Almost as an afterthought, she'd crossed out 'Estelle' and substituted 'Mother'
Guy had been right. She'd done a runner. Tessa felt herself trembling. No mother to greet her. No heart-to hearts, no hugs or happy reconciliations ...
Miserably she looked up, her dark lashes blinking furiously as she struggled to hold back the hot tears. 'She knew I was coming...' Her voice turned into a husky croak. 'And-and what it meant to me and Dad...'
Suddenly weak, she stumbled to an armchair. It collapsed under her slight weight and she was left trapped in the midst of the wreckage, howling with surprise and disappointment. Guy came over to extricate her but her arms windmilled in a gesture of furious and stubborn rejection. He shrugged and left the room. And she felt; very alone.
How could her mother do this to her? Tessa thought, despairing. And then she groaned guiltily for being so selfish.
Clearly her mother had been given no choice. She knuckled her eyes quickly, till she could see better. Over and above the disruption in the room, it was clear that very little had been originally spent on the cottage or its furnishings. The carpet was threadbare and stained, with ill-fitting edges, and dust filled the rucks. Two of the cheap lamps in the chainstore chandelier dangled drunkenly, hanging only by the electric wiring. The furniture looked either second-hand or as if it had belonged to some long-dead occupier. Doors were missing from cupboards and the glass in the china cabinet had been badly cracked.
And her beautiful, vivacious mother had lived here.
'Oh, Mum!' she mumbled, racked with compassion and despair.
'I've made some tea.'
Her head jerked around. Guy looked sympathetic, and for a moment her mouth wobbled in a yearning for comfort. 'She was forced to run!' she complained miserably. 'And-and I imagine the creditors, caused all this mess, flinging things around, shouting at her. ..' She swallowed, picturing the scene only too clearly. 'They scared her! If I ever find out who did this,' she added fiercely, 'I'll sue them for the damage; I swear I will!'
'Come into the kitchen,' he murmured in a coaxing tone. 'It's
not so depressing in there.'
'I can't get up!' she wailed. 'I'm stuck!'
Solemn-faced, but obviously trying hard not to smile at her predicament, he came to offer his hand. There was a dreadful tearing sound and she let go hastily, sinking back with a thud.
In horror, Tessa explored the long gash which a rogue nail had made in her leathers at the top of her thigh.
'That's it! That's it!' she cried angrily. 'Everything's gone horribly wrong! I'm exhausted, starving, upset and worried-and now, look, I've torn my one and only pair of leathers!'
'I'm sure they can be-'
'Don't you mollify me with talk of bike repair kits! I don't want to look patched up!' she said crossly, not wanting to be pacified either. 'And I can't afford another pair.'
'Can't you?' He looked surprised. 'That's an expensive bike you're riding-'
'Don't let appearances fool you,' she said in a small, jerky voice. 'I splashed out with my savings and upgraded my moped so I could come here.'
'A little reckless?' he suggested coolly.
'Oh, for heaven's sake! I'd been saving for years because I didn't spend my money on much.' She gave a wry smile. Other than on concealing dresses to wear books for her solitary evenings and boxes of chocolates ditto! 'This was a chance in a lifetime for me to be with my mother,' she explained. 'I'd have done anything to get here. I thought it was well worth the expense.'
'And the classy haircut?'
She touched the beautifully silken strands and sighed. 'Sheer necessity. I looked a total mess. I wanted Mum to like what she saw so I had a makeover,' she explained wearily. 'A...makeover!' His eyebrows rose in astonishment. 'What on earth for?'
'If you'd seen the 'before' picture, you wouldn't ask,' she answered with a sigh. 'Mum looked so beautiful in the photos we have. I knew I'd disappoint her-'
'If she was any kind of a mother at all, she'd love you no matter how you looked,' Guy declared.
'I know that. I'm sure she would. But I wanted her to be really proud of me.'
She didn't voice her fear of rejection, the thought that her mother would have been appalled to discover that her daughter was a myopic and ugly woman with thick spectacles and straggly hair.
Tessa sighed. 'Now I'll have to go about looking tatty... And these trousers were going to last me for years!'
'Here.'
A large handkerchief muffled her wet face and was passed efficiently over it. Too miserable to protest, she closed her eyes and let him dab at them, dutifully lifting her chin up so that he could do it properly. Gently his fingers spanned the curve of her jaw while he took infinite care in wiping the corners of her pouting mouth.
Which tingled. Her wet-lashed eyes snapped wide open and looked directly into his in surprise. For a moment she held her breath, mesmerised by the depth of compassion in their liquid darkness. Then he frowned and briskly attended to drying her cheeks, before stuffing his handkerchief firmly in his breast pocket. She came back to earth.
'I must look pretty stupid.' And she waved a deprecating hand at the broken wood imprisoning her.
There was a very long pause. 'No. You don't.' Avoiding her eyes, he began carefully to clear away the debris. His strong hands snapped off the piece of wood containing the offending nail and he threw it into the huge stone hearth. 'Time for tea,' he said neutrally.
Before she knew it, he had put his hands under her armpits and lifted her bodily from the wreckage, setting her gently on her feet in front of him. He held her arms in support and she welcomed that.
Her huge, swimming eyes met his. 'Sorry to howl. It's the disappointment. I've been building this up in my mind, worrying, feeling excited and apprehensive at the same time ... It's such a let-down to come all this way and find she's not here after all. Dad was so thrilled she'd contacted us.'
'You were five when she left,' he recalled gently, somehow knowing she wanted to talk about it.
'I remember it as if it were yesterday. I'd never seen my father crying before,' she said, Guy's strong hands making her feel secure. 'I shan't ever forget it.' She looked up at him helplessly. 'He cried for days. Can you imagine what that was like?'
'I think I can,' he said softly.
'It seemed like for ever to me. The neighbours fed me. I think I might have gone hungry otherwise.'
And she'd barely stopped eating from that moment on. Anxious to placate her, the neighbours had pushed sweets and food at her while her father had cried and poured bottles of whisky into himself. Scared of this odd behaviour, his strange sour smell, she'd curled up in a corner, wide-eyed, and silently demolished bag after bag of sweets.
She licked her dry lips and cleared the lump in her throat. The memories still sent a dagger through her heart. Her father had looked small and hurt, like a child. And she, a child herself, had run to comfort him and been pushed away. Pain lashed her heart.
'It must have been tough for you,' he said, his rich voice warm with sincerity.
'Worse for Dad. Mum meant everything to him. She was his world, the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him,' she said sadly. 'Poor Dad. He was a different man after she left.'
Guy's eyes flashed with recognition. 'There are women who have the ability to make a very strong impact on men.'
'Like your father's mistress,' she said sympathetically. 'Yes.' And then he said, 'Some women love to wield power. They fill a man's heart and mind and take a hold on him, smothering him as ivy twines around a tree. And in the end they kill him, one way or another. I pity your father,' he added in a low voice. 'I imagine he found it hard without his wife.'
'It's no secret. He hit the bottle a bit,' she confessed, 'and I'm afraid he couldn't keep a job after Mum left. You can't turn up on a building site all hung-over and morose-people won't stand for it. He built crooked walls,' she explained. And found her emotions getting the better of her again. So she repeated what her father had told her at the time. 'One or two of the walls fell over once too often and so did he.' But the forced humour hadn't helped and she still felt miserable. 'But it wasn't a joke, was it?' Guy said quietly, his whole demeanour encouraging her to unburden herself. She was amazed that he should be interested. But in this cold, unwelcoming house she felt a warm swell of sympathy emanating from Guy which was very comforting, and it eased the sense of loneliness a little.
'We muddled through. Friends helped to start with, but Dad was a bit difficult,' she said, glossing over the Technicolor rows. 'I suppose we must have lived in chaos for a while, till I was old enough to get things more organised. Shopping and cooking were easy.' She managed a smile, recalling her careful budgeting. 'I didn't need the greatest brain on earth, thank goodness.'
Guy frowned. 'His responsibility was to you. A father should never put his own needs before his child's-'
She stopped him in mid-flow by jerking up her head angrily. 'It wasn't his fault!' she declared hotly. 'He was clinically depressed! He had a lot of bad luck. When I was fourteen, he had an accident on a building site. He's in a wheelchair now. Paralysed. He hasn't worked since. It's made him understandably bitter about life.'
'I'm not surprised. I apologise.'
Mollified, she nodded. 'He adored my mother. Worshipped her. It was our one point of contact, all he ever wanted to talk about,' she reminisced. 'We'd sit together in the evenings and he'd tell me about the parties they'd had, how she was a magnet to people-witty, captivating, breathtakingly beautiful.'
She smiled sadly. 'Why am I telling you this? You've met her. You know what she's like.'
He looked at her helplessly, as if he wanted to tell her something. But it seemed he thought better of it, because he merely nodded. 'I know,' he said at last. 'But it was your mother who broke your father's will and catapulted him into his depression.'
'No! No!' She shook her head so vigorously that her hair flew everywhere. Impatiently pushing it back from her impassioned face, and trying not to acknowledge that what he'd said was partly true, she said, 'He told me it was love that destroyed him. But it's given him wonderful memories-memories he feeds on now he's paralysed. Personally, I think that a man who can love that deeply is to be admired.'
'I think your loyalty is to be admired. Or perhaps I deplore your blindness. I'm not sure,' he said quietly. 'But if love destroys people then it's the wrong kind. Love should nourish, empower, allow couples to grow and reach out to others.' In a gesture which she interpreted as compassion, his hand briefly touched her hot cheek, which was still a little sticky with tears. 'Your mother swallowed your father whole-and he allowed that to happen. It's clear that you think you should do your best to love your parents unreservedly, but you really should try to see them for what they are-'
'This is none of your business!' Angry with him for resurrecting some of the feelings and thoughts she'd suppressed in herself, Tessa marched into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of tea. There was no milk so she put in a hefty dose of sugar to take the bitterness away. When he appeared in the doorway, she flung him a resentful look. 'You're not to criticise my parents again!' she declared heatedly. He strolled into the room, pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. 'I won't make promises I can't keep.' Annoyed, she slid into a chair opposite and stiffly poured him some tea. After a moment, she saw that he was watching the way her fingers twisted and fidgeted together where they lay on the food-stained oilcloth. Quickly she put her hands on her lap, where they couldn't be seen.
Deprived of any diverting activity, she found her gaze roaming the kitchen, noting the dirt and disarray, the old-fashioned stone sink, the unwashed dishes with congealing food and the evidence of her mother's last meal strewn over the table in front of them.
'She certainly left in a hurry,' Guy observed, a curl of distaste to his mouth.
'Poor Mum. It must have been horrid.'
Tessa felt a huge lump swelling up in her throat and couldn't speak any more. Her shoulders slumped with weariness. She ached with hurt-for her mother, for herself and for her father. Oh, dear God, how was she ever going to tell him that there would be no-reunion? Tears trickled down her face again and she angrily swept them away. Stupid reaction. First things first. Food, before she fainted dead away.
'I don't suppose there's anything to eat, is there?' she asked hopefully.
Guy abandoned his thoughtful study of her expressive face, rose and searched the cupboards. 'Not a lot here... Unless you fancy cereal with tinned tomatoes. Or I could do pasta with anchovy sauce,' he offered casually. He could do it? He looked too masculine to know one end of a saucepan from the other! But Tessa felt too tired to argue. 'OK by me. The pasta, I mean. Thanks. I couldn't lift a finger, let alone an anchovy.'
Two dark eyes twinkled at her in amusement. 'Where are you going to sleep tonight?'
Listlessly she watched him lighting the gas beneath a saucepan of water. 'Here. Where else?'
'In that case, I'll see what it's like upstairs when I've done the sauce. You're exhausted, aren't you?' he said softly, suddenly crouching down beside her chair.
Tessa found herself inches away from his compelling face. Overwhelmed by the urge to hurl herself in his arms and seek solace, she merely nodded and said, 'Whacked. I could sleep for a whole week. It's the longest journey I've ever made. In more ways than one.'
Her limpid green eyes met his. She wondered if she was swaying. It felt like it. Her mouth opened to ask him something but she forgot what it was because his eyes kindled with a gentle warmth which she found irresistible. And which set her off again. 'Oh, Guy!' she cried tremulously. 'It's OK,' he said into her hair.
Tessa's dazed mind tried to work out how she'd landed up in his comforting arms and if it was all right that his mouth seemed to be warming her scalp. I'm in the arms of a stranger, she
thought in surprise. A stranger who hates my mother! Yet she didn't care. The way he stroked her was so soothing. Someone was offering her sympathy, and boy, did she need it at that moment!
'I'm not usually so tearful. In fact it's quite out of character for me,' she mumbled snuffily into the softness of his pale green jacket. 'I don't usually fling myself boldly at strangers.'
'I'm relieved to hear it,' he murmured. 'But you've been badly let down. I understand your reaction.'
The velvet voice flowed into her mind and body, relaxing it and liquefying her exhausted muscles. She sighed. 'I feel flattened.'
'Sure. We'll sort everything out in the morning, eh? Right now,' he whispered, 'we'll stick to priorities. Food, then sleep.'
'Mmm,' she said muzzily. 'Thanks.'
She lifted her head and gave him a wobbly smile, which faded rapidly, turning into horror. Her mascara-a beauty aid she'd only just started using-had made dreadful splodges on the shoulder of his expensive jacket!
'Look!' she screeched. 'I'm sorry! I've made a mess I don't usually wear make-up; it was for Mum, because Dad always told me she was so beautiful-what are you grinning at?' she fumed.
In answer, Guy went to the sink and wet his handkerchief. 'You have mascara all down your face. It looks like a map of the Nile Delta,' he said in strangled tones. His back was to her but she could see that his shoulders were shaking. Tessa looked at him suspiciously when he returned, but his mouth seemed under control. 'Lift,' he ordered, indicating her chin. Sitting there, her huge eyes dewy with tears, sure that her face was as unattractive as it could be, she contemplated the command, the wet handkerchief, and cringed. Something hurt inside her: her own willingness to be soothed by yet another good-looking guy with suspicious motives. First he'd been obstructive, now he was doing a Mother Teresa act. Odd. He took the decision out of her hands, tipping up her chin with one finger and carefully rubbing her face dry. Again. She vowed silently that it was to be the last time, positively the last time. Being soothed by Guy could become habit-forming. 'You amaze me,' he commented. 'When I told you your face was dripping mascara, you didn't whimper, 'Oh! Is it? I must look a sight!' nor did you cover your face coyly with your hands.'
'No point,' Her eyes, green like wet grass, twinkled at his falsetto imitation of a coquette. 'I obviously look ridiculous. Funny enough to make you laugh. I saw your shoulders joggling about.'
'I found it extraordinary that you should be so unhappy, yet find space in your over-stressed mind to worry about my jacket.'
'I suppose it doesn't mean much to you,' she conceded. 'I'm used to worrying about cleaning bills and taking care of my clothes to make them last.'
Guy gave her a bemused look. 'I know what it is to have little money,' he said surprisingly. 'And incidentally, if you're the emotional type, you need to invest in some waterproof make¬up.'
He smiled into her eyes and she gave a shaky little smile back. During the silent seconds he gazed at her she felt her whole face relaxing. Her mouth became solemn. But soft. And she struggled crossly against the attraction she felt for him. 'I don't think I'll bother with mascara again,' she managed at last. 'I am sorry about your beautiful jacket, she added in genuine remorse.
He gave a careless shrug. 'It'll clean. You're not the first female to plaster me in make-up.'
'I can imagine. You should wear luridly patterned clothes from head to toe. That would take care of any shade of make-up happening to collide with various parts of your anatomy,' she suggested ruefully.
He chuckled and left her, moving about the kitchen as he gathered what ingredients he could find. As he began to prepare the food Tessa wondered idly how many women had cried, laughed, languished in his arms, Dozens, she imagined. He had a very welcoming chest.
Being tucked up against it gave her a sense of safety, she thought, slumping in the chair.
'Let me know how much the cleaning bill comes to,' she reminded him sleepily.
'I think I can stand the cost a little better than you.' He gave her an easy smile.
'That's not the point!' she said firmly, coming up straight again. 'Fair's fair. I messed it up; I pay for it. It's the principle of the thing. Anyway, I'd feel better about it.'
After a long and puzzled study of her stubborn face, he nodded.
'OK. I'll let you know the cost.'
'Thanks,' she said in relief, watching his deft fingers chopping onions with a chef's expertise. 'Where did you learn to do that?'
'Backstreet kitchens in New Orleans.'
That was so unexpected that she let out a little giggle. 'You?' He nodded. 'Me. I-'
He broke off. His mobile phone was ringing. Tessa felt disappointed, sure that he'd been about to divulge a little of his past. Though why she should be interested, she wasn't too sure.
'Oh, hi, sweetheart ... Yes, I'll be about half an hour... Right. And dig out another bottle of champagne...' His voice softened, like satin which had somehow been reduced to a pouring consistency. 'Because, my lovely, you and I are celebrating tonight. ..'
There was a pause, while an embarrassed Tessa pretended to be invisible. She didn't like listening in to intimate conversations and this was certainly one. A wife? she wondered. If so, he didn't wear a ring. Current partner? Mistress? Whoever it was, she pitied her. He had something of a roaming eye and, like his father, he probably didn't let fidelity cramp his style.
He chuckled, deep and low and very sexy. 'Sounds great. Break out the flags and dress up in something special. I'll be home very soon ... Yes. Bye!'
A celebration. With champagne! How the other half lived! And a quick picture of Guy with a radiant beauty, chinking their glasses together and sliding between white satin sheets, startled her with its vividness.
'You ought to go,' Tessa suggested politely. 'The bubbles will go flat.' Her eyes suggested that something else might too. He picked up her meaning and seemed to find it funny. 'Don't you worry about my bubbles!' he said, laughing. 'Or Giselle. It'll do her good to wait.' He dismissed the waiting bottle-opener with a wave of his hand. Tessa didn't like his attitude and her face plainly said so, because he shot her a look and smiled. 'Giselle has always been used to getting her own way. She's the most demanding female in the world. I'm trying to show her that other people have needs too.'
'Oh.' Tessa averted her gaze, a little embarrassed by the revelation.
Giselle, she thought, mentally conjuring up a picture of a languid ballerina, all legs and pink tutu, with a classically haughty face and expressive hands. Except Guy would go for the sophisticated society type: perfect body-rearranged surgically wherever it wasn't up to scratch-and stunningly beautiful face.
Conscious of her own plain features, she slumped down in the chair again and wondered why Guy wasn't rushing back to gaze in awe on this beauty, and to hell with teaching Giselle a lesson!
But he seemed in no rush. For a while he hummed and stirred and chopped, and Tessa could sense his happiness. 'It's ages since I did this,' he said with an enthusiastic sweep of his hand in the general direction of the neat piles of ingredients. 'I'm rather enjoying it.'
'Glad for you,' she muttered, feeling low.
'Don't look so glum!' he remonstrated cheerfully. 'All your troubles will be over in the morning.'
'I wish.'
He laughed at her doubtful expression, tipped the contents of the chopping board into a saucepan and turned the gas down to simmer. His eyes locked onto hers in a speculative way. Or... was there something more? She wasn't sure. Her instincts seemed to be unreliable. He couldn't be interested in her, could he?
Guy reached over and drew his fingers across her furrowed brow, laughing when she jerked back warily. 'That's better,' he said approvingly. 'You shouldn't be scowling like that.'
'Why not?' she muttered.
'Obstinate woman!' A forefinger reached out, lifting a lock of glossy hair from her forehead. 'Because you have beautiful skin. Don't spoil it with frown lines.' There was a silence while Tessa stared at him in confusion. 'So solemn!' he sighed teasingly. 'I've a good mind to stay and cheer you up-'
'That won't be necessary. I can tell myself jokes,' she said stiffly, annoyed by his mild flirting. 'I'm grateful for what you're doing, but when I've eaten I want to go to bed.' Tessa drew in a breath, a jolt going through her body. His eyes had suddenly kindled, as if they were smouldering with a newly lit fire, and she realised what she'd said. 'Alone,' she added sharply, to make her position quite clear.
Not a muscle of his face moved but his eyes went cold. 'Stir the
sauce occasionally,' he ordered, 'and I'll take your panniers upstairs for you and check that there's some linen,' he added in a soft undertone, and strode out of the room. Tessa flushed to the roots of her hair. A put-down! Every bit as effective as one she might have made and twice as graceful. She could have kicked herself! Of course he wouldn't be interested in her-blonde, leathers,
bike or not, available or not-if he had a bottle of champagne, Giselle and turned-down sheets waiting for him! Fool! She should never have hinted that he might be. How humiliating! It was as bad as believing David's flattery and thinking that he'd taken her out to dinner because he'd wanted to!
Tessa groaned, remembering with pain her monumental mistake...
After working in a supermarket for some years, at the age of twenty she'd joined a team of restorers for Kernow House, working with each expert in turn, learning the rudiments of each trade before opting to, specialise in carpentry. David had been the handsome site manager. How could she have believed that he'd been attracted to her? Especially as she had been vastly overweight and prone to wearing spectacles and shapeless dresses. Yet that night eight months ago she'd blithely gone along with his solemn declaration that he'd realised he adored big women. Wine and joy had made her delirious and light-headed and she'd believed every word ... because she'd wanted to.
It hadn't taken much persuasion on the drunken David's part to get her up to bed. Only later had she learnt that he'd made love to her for a substantial bet.
She'd cried the whole night long. Seeing her red, puffy face the next morning, she'd felt appalled that she'd had such an inflated idea of her own attractions. She was plain and always would be.
The 'joke' had been all over the site the next day. Tessa's hopeless five-year crush on David had been common knowledge. So, apparently, had the bet. Everywhere she went she had been aware of people whispering: roofers, stonemasons, carpenters, gardeners, plasterers, gilders... Brute. She'd had to leave, of course. And she had been unemployed ever since.
David's legacy had been a slim body, an end to her obsession
with him and a determination to plough her own furrow-but with a prickly response to any men who showed an interest. It was going to take a while for her wounds to heal, she thought with a sigh.
Silence seemed to close around her. And in the kitchen she felt as though there was a void, an emptiness suddenly, as if Guy had filled the space with his vital energy and taken all life from the room now he'd gone. Tessa grimaced. He brimmed with vigour; she flopped like a wet rag!
Not surprising, she mused. Tomorrow she'd bounce back to her usual cheerful self. For now ... she was dogtired. And so she folded her arms on the table and rested her head on them. The next thing she knew was that a hand was gently shaking her shoulder. 'Mmm? What...?' she muttered muzzily, lifting a face flushed from sleep.
'Food's ready and I'm going,' Guy said quietly. 'I've made up the bed. Will you be all right?'
Groggy from being dragged awake, she hauled herself up on her elbows. There was a plate of pasta piled high with sauce in front of her-and it smelled wonderful.
'That looks gorgeous!' she murmured woozily. 'I'm starving!' Surreptitiously she stole a glance at him, her jade eyes soft and drowsy and wary beneath her long lashes. He didn't appear to mind that she'd virtually accused him of harbouring designs on her body, so she ventured a shy smile of gratitude. 'And thanks for everything! I don't know why you've done this. You've been very kind.'
'I could hardly leave you to cope. No gentleman leaves a woman in the lurch. I'll let myself out.' Either Tessa's hearing was faulty, or he sounded husky. She frowned, unable to understand why. 'I'll come round in the morning,' he added.
'No!' she demurred. 'I couldn't possibly let you. You don't need to-'
'I do.' To her alarm, he took her hand in both of his and stared, earnestly into her rapidly widening eyes.
All her hormones were telling her to encourage him. Luckily she found the tag-ends of her common sense and drew back, her face set in disapproval. 'No!' she muttered sharply, her pulses racing like wildfire from the warm intimacy of his hands. Guy gave her one of his heart-stopping smiles. 'I must,' he said with a helpless shrug. 'You know you have something I want very badly. And I think you'd like to give it up.' Did he mean what she thought? 'I-' She cleared her throat. So she'd been right. He was an incorrigible flirt. How depressing. What about Giselle? Were there no faithful men left in the world? she wondered sadly. 'I have nothing that would interest you,' she said in a funny little grating voice. 'That's what you think. I look forward to tomorrow,' he drawled lazily. His hand smoothed her hair, resting for a breathless moment on the nape of her neck. 'Au revoir, Tessa; sweet dreams,' he whispered, his lips provocatively close to hers. And, with an assured smile, he left her to burn in the most unexpected places, her mouth as dry as a desert and her eyes wide with alarm at what he might be contemplating.
TESSA calmed down after she'd demolished the plate of pasta, grudgingly acknowledging that it had tasted fantastic, given the poverty of the ingredients.
Exhausted, she stumbled up the stairs, every muscle in her body aching. Ignoring the bleakness of the shuttered bedroom, with its naked bulb overhead, she slept too deeply for dreams, sweet or otherwise.
A telephone bell woke her. Its insistence penetrated her sleep-dulled brain and eventually she hauled herself from the bed and fumbled her way across the wooden boards to the door, arriving breathless in the kitchen. Without her contact lenses everything was a blur, and she crashed into a chair before she reached the phone, mercifully directed by the shrill ringing. 'Hello?' she said uncertainly, rubbing her bruised thigh and then hopping on one leg as she tried to ease the pain in her stubbed toe.
'Darling!' came her mother's voice, warm, laughing, husky. Tessa froze in mid-hop. 'What kept you? Now, don't interrupt; your father's paying for the call-'
'Father?' squeaked Tessa. Was this a dream? Her aching toe proved otherwise. 'Are you with Dad?'
'Listen!' her mother said, impatience edging through the low tone. 'Sorry I couldn't be there to meet you, but I had to leave urgently for England. Don't tell anyone! Do you understand? Not anyone! Promise!'
'If you say so,' Tessa said, stifling her disappointment. She'd hoped her mother had gone somewhere near, so that they could meet. The creditors must have really scared her.
'You don't mind staying, do you? You were going to look after the cottages anyway,' coaxed Estelle. 'Now they're yours, you'll have more incentive. Check on the guests and solve any problems that come up. Stay put whatever you do, so I can be in touch. Don't let me down, Tessy.'
'No, but-'
'You're an angel! Oh ...and if you come across anyone called Turaine, give them a wide berth.'
'Turaine?' Tessa croaked. 'Guy. He's a swine,' her mother said succinctly. 'Smiles like a cherub but he's the devil himself. He'll want the cottages, Tess. Don't let him have them. They're yours. Understand? You must not sell to him.'
'Oh, glory!' Her mind creaked into working order. 'Why shouldn't I sell them to him-?'
A screech cut her off. 'Don't! Never, ever, ever!'
'OK, OK!' She was shaken by her mother's vehemence. 'What do you know about him?'
Her mother snorted. 'A lot. He came to bully me. Beware of him. He's greedy, vicious and vindictive, and he wants to hurt me. Remember, you don't know where I am. Your father and I won't be here anyway-we're going away for a holiday together-so don't bother to ring or write. I've no idea where we'll be.'
'But surely-'
'Must go. Au revoir, darling. Hold the fort. Yes?'
'Mother-' There was a click. The line went dead and Tessa was left holding the receiver in stunned silence. Thoughtfully, she replaced it, feeling a mixture of anger, exasperation and relief. She'd had dozens of questions to ask her mother and hadn't got a word in edgeways. It annoyed her that she'd been left holding the baby! It seemed she would be stuck here for a while, landed with three cottages she didn't really want. And perhaps with creditors banging on the door. They wouldn't be too happy when they found someone else owned the cottages. Why couldn't her mother have warned her?
Still, her parents were together. She'd dreaded telling her father that there would be no reunion for him. He must be ecstatic. And, Tessa mused, her worries about her mother's well-being had been groundless. That, too, was a weight off her mind.
It was Guy de Turaine who presented the problem. Two-faced and apparently ruthless! Well, she'd had an intimation of that when he'd left last night, putting Giselle to the back of his mind and quite boldly making a pass. But what had caused such hatred on her mother's part? And Guy's vindictiveness? He'd seemed so kind... 'Smiles like a cherub but he's the devil himself.' Some indictment!
She must be on her guard. Her initial instincts had been right. He was a secretive type. Two-faced. Her eyes narrowed. Maybe he'd been nice to her because he thought she was a push-over for any good-looking man and, she thought angrily, no doubt he had reckoned on softening her up and buying the cottages at a knockdown price.
No problem. She intended to avoid him like the plague. All she had to do was to sit tight, give Guy the cold shoulder and wait for her mother to contact her again and explain what on earth was going on.
She shivered. The 'room was chilly and she wore nothing but the oversized T-shirt she'd slept in. The light seemed bright and welcoming outside, and she suddenly had an overwhelming urge to get out of the cold and gloomy house and into the fresh air.
Carefully she groped for the door, cursing her pathetic inability to focus on anything further away than a foot or so. The moment she opened it she felt as if she'd stepped into a warm bath. Her head lifted up to the fuzzy blob of yellow sun and she closed her eyes to let the heat sink into her body. The sound of birdsong
assailed her ears and perfumes drifted tantalisingly past her nostrils.
'Oh, bliss! Darkness into light!' And her spirits lifted in response. She would make the best of it and enjoy the day, before considering the problems ahead of her.
On an impulse she went outside, her eyes peering myopically at the ground in case she stepped on anything sharp or foul. A narrow brick path, warm on her bare feet, led down to a patch of grass, and once there she identified-more by feel than anything else-a hammock, slung underneath a tree.
'This is the life!' she murmured fervently, hoicking up her long bare legs and spread-eagling her body in the hammock in a hedonistic attitude of total supplication to the warm air.
'You took your time.'
'Guy!' Tessa shrieked in surprise.
Confounded, she grabbed the sides of the hammock and found herself hanging beneath it with her face a foot from the ground, like, she imagined in horror, a demented bat. Then the canvas gradually slipped out of her grasp and she dropped flat onto her stomach. Winded, she lay there for a second or two, breathing heavily, cursing fate and men who sprang surprises on her.
'That's a novel trick,' came Guy's interested tones. 'Want any help?'
'No!' She'd murder him! When she got up. If she got up. 'How...
how-did-you-get in?' she gasped furiously, wondering if she'd done any lasting damage to her ribs and if she dared move yet.
'Through the side gate.' Guy said smugly. 'I knew you'd be tempted out into the sunshine eventually.'
She lifted her head a little and peered. 'I can't see a gate.'
'In the fence at the end ...' He chuckled as she narrowed her eyes and tried vainly to focus. 'You can't see the gate, can you?' he said in amusement.
'I can barely see the fence!' she muttered crossly.
A hand-or so she thought-waved in front of her face and she blinked dozily. 'Quite helpless! How appealing,' he mused, in a beautiful, satiny drawl. 'Conjures up all sorts of amusing possibilities.'
Tessa ground her teeth, feeling very vulnerable. 'It's not very amusing when you keep bumping into things,' she said ruefully, raising herself on her elbows. 'I get through a fair amount of plasters. I'm leaving my toes to science.' His laugh warmed her through and through. Why did he sound so nice, she thought irritably, when her mother had pronounced him a swine? 'I'm sure science will be thrilled. They're very cute little toes,' he said gravely. She moved back so that the disconcerting exhalations of his breath wouldn't have such a devastating effect on her. 'By the way,' he went on, in an intimate whisper, 'I hesitate to draw attention to the fact, but your cheeks will go pink in the sun if you don't cover them up. Though I'm game for applying protective cream if you like.'
Tessa tensed every muscle in her body. And cautiously, scarlet from head to toe and horribly aware now of the warm sun on the lower part of her buttocks, she eased down the rucked-up folds of her long T-shirt. She wanted to scream. She'd exposed herself in all waysher over-eager hormones, her ludicrous falling about, and now intimate parts of her anatomy. Not very helpful to her sense of dignity.
'Go away!' she growled fiercely in his general direction. 'And stop laughing! It's not funny!'
'Yes, it is!' he chuckled, almost helpless with laughter. Her mouth wobbled. She might have cried because she felt close to tears, or hurled handfuls of turf at him because she felt so angry with herself. Her sense o humour decided for her.
'OK! It is!' she agreed, opting to let her rueful giggles out after all. It wasn't hard to laugh at herself. Coupled with diverting repartee, that had been the only way to hold her own in the past. At least if he was laughing at her then he'd find it hard to switch the mood to something more sensual. 'I'm practising for pantomime, if you want to know!'
'You have the job,' he told her with mock gravity. 'Sleeping Beauty, is it?'
Hardly, she thought, hoping her scathing glance had hit its mark, because his face was something of a dark blur, interrupted by two brightly glowing eyes. As far as she could remember, Sleeping Beauty had never worn a cheap T-shirt or sprawled on her stomach with her half-naked rear in the air. And the thought of the prince kissing her awake made her skin instantly shiver.
'I know my place. I thought I'd try for the back end of the cow in Jack and the Beanstalk,' she retorted, squinting at him. If only she could see!
'I think a law has been passed preventing beautiful women from taking that part,' he observed solemnly.
Very smooth. A lovely compliment. What a charmer! She thought. And she could come up with no witty reply that wouldn't invite his protestation that yes, she was beautiful. The last thing she wanted was to hear lies.
'I'll let you try my contact lenses. I think you could do with some assistance to reach the dizzy heights of twenty-twenty vision,' she said drily. 'Now, would you mind moving back so I can get up?' she asked, her expression as cool as it could be under the circumstances.
'I think you need a hand,' he said cheerfully. 'Again.'
'I have all the hands I want, thanks,' she said with prim dignity. 'If you want to be useful, you could go up to the bedroom and find the little grey case by the bed. My contact lenses are in there.'
'All right, blue eyes,' he answered amiably, with a wicked gleam in his own, enviably sable velvety eyes, so close to hers that she could actually see their sparkle. 'Any particular colour today?' he husked, almost into her mouth. 'Green,' she said promptly, not at all fazed that he'd noticed her natural eye colour was a dreary forget-menot-blue. Tessa waited till she heard his feet on the path, plus a few seconds more. When she thought she could scramble up without Guy around as an audience to see how she managed the woefully wandering T-shirt, she hastily did so, and grabbed the lichen-covered branch of a tree for safety. And wondered how she could get rid of the man. His behaviour was totally untrustworthy.
She wanted to search for the house documents. Heavens-more to the point, she wanted to eat breakfast and shower and dress! Then she'd explore the village and the other cottages, see if the holiday guests were all right and do a bit of shopping and cleaning up...
She heard him approaching and arranged a neutral expression on her face.
'Contact lenses,' he said, when he came back. 'And a tray in case you drop one, so we don't have to spend the next two hours searching on our hands and knees for... Mmm. Come to think of it, that's rather a good idea-'
'No, it's not! Give them to me!' she ordered imperiously, searching around hazily for somewhere to sit.
'Were you thinking of sitting in a patio chair or having another practice roll under the hammock?' he enquired, interpreting her need and not very successfully concealing a chuckle.
'Patio chair,' she muttered, trying to aim for a white shape in the near distance.
'Look out! You'll trample the irises. I'll guide you, shall I? You might fall over the table,' he suggested unc¬tuously. And, just as unctuously, he caught her hand in a vice¬like grip and led her to a patio chair. 'You can sit down now. I expect the plastic will be a little cold on your-'
'Yes! Thank you!' she said hastily, dragging her T-shirt down to her thighs and tucking herself into the chair. A great deal of her seemed to be tingling, and it wasn't anything to do with cold plastic. It was, presumably, the knowledge that he sat close to her, fully dressed, while she was naked as the day she was born underneath the baggy top. There was something rather deliciously decadent about the situation!
To cover up her embarrassment, she fiddled with the little case and popped in her contacts. Instant vision. Thank goodness! 'Stunning!' he said in admiration. 'I thought the violet would look rather good. Rather fun to change your eye colour, isn't it?'
'Look, I asked for the green-' she began, switching her newly focused gaze on him.
And instantly she felt a lurch in her chest as her heart did a little somersault. Guy looked absolutely devastating. Smooth, tanned, golden, his neat dark hair still a little damp from his morning shower and curling around his ears in a way that made her feel weak. White shirt, crisply laundered, rolled-up sleeves, open at the neck. Glimpses of a broad chest ... Tantalising, she thought breathlessly. Strong arms. Soft silver-grey jeans. Lean hips. Wow.
'I am looking,' he murmured, his white teeth flashing in a lazy grin. 'And enjoying-'
'Don't flirt with me. I don't like it,' she said flatly. She wasn't prepared to go through this buttering up so he could then suggest that she sell the cottages to him.
And, annoyed with his ulterior motive, she rose, drawing herself to her full height, ready to order him to leave. 'Does that mean you already have a lover?' he enquired insolently, as if he'd consider filling that position should it be vacant.
'No. Nor do I want one. I've had men up to here,' she said, raising her hand and slashing her palm across her throat. 'I'm going in to dress and I don't expect you to be here when I return.'
'But I've brought your breakfast and a few other supplies.' Quite unabashed, he heaved a bag of groceries onto the table. 'Hot brioches, pain au chocolat-that's a chocolate-filled croissant-jam, decent coffee, fruit-'
'Wait a minute!' she said, trying to sound irritable despite the incredible smell of warm bread. Her mouth watered. Self-denial was infernally hard! 'How-how dare you take it on yourself to intrude on my life-?'
'I know. It is a nerve. But you've had a dismal welcome and eating is such a pleasure, I find,' he said earnestly, disconcerting her by gluing his eyes to hers with such compelling sincerity that she couldn't look away. 'It's my offering, from Turaine, to make you feel happier about my village.'
His village. Yes, she'd forgotten. Tessa studied the food doubtfully. Hungrily. And wavered. She'd made it clear where she stood regarding his flirting. And although her mother had told her to keep away from Guy she'd never know what he was up to if she just told him to leave, would she? It might be interesting, she thought, her eyes gleaming, to see how he intended to acquire the cottages-and why he and her mother loathed one another.
'You're right,' she said briskly. 'I can't be so ungracious as to turn you down.'
'I knew I could coax you!' He beamed.
'You didn't. The chocolate croissant did,' she said, intentionally flattening his ego. Or trying to. He just laughed, his self-regard not even dented. 'I'll get dressed,' she said, and a mischievous smile lit her face. He was eager to twist her around his little finger. Well, she could take advantage of that. And do a little twisting herself. 'You can make some coffee for us.'
'Of course,' he said at once. And with a surprising enthusiasm. Tessa knew then that he must have a private reason for leaping to her bidding. Men like Guy didn't let women order them around. An unusual excitement fired her body as she walked with apparent demureness back up the path. For her mother's sake, she'd find out what this reprobate was up to. And take a great delight in scotching his plans!
Guy picked cherries from the ancient tree with unnecessarily hard concentration, dropping each pair onto the tray close by. After a while, he judged his testosterone to be under control and eased up.
It amused him that he'd intended to charm her, once he'd discovered she might be the new owner of the cottages, and yet for some reason he'd been dangerously close on a couple of occasions to being captivated himself!
He strolled to the end of the garden and gazed across the fields to where the Dordogne glistened seductively in the morning sunshine. Unusual woman. Not strictly beautiful, but ... beautiful, nevertheless. Child of the mother. Tessa had her mother's fatal vulnerability and disconcerting toughness. Plus Estelle's innate sex appeal. Now he understood his father's
helplessness. Both women had the ability to sock a man instantly between the eyes and at all points south, totally missing the brain. He'd never have believed it of himself!
For a moment, an image of Tessa sprawled like an innocently inviting siren in the hammock came to his mind. Guy scowled. The woman only had to cry and blink at him with those damnably hurt eyes-not even her own colour!-and he felt compelled to forget everything just to touch her, kiss her... And make the same mistake as his father. With Estelle's daughter, damnit! It would invite a slow erosion of his independence, his honour-his bank account! Guy allowed himself a small, wry smile. He needed a hostess for a wife, not a woman who obsessed him. Watching his father crawl for Estelle's favours, become a willing slave and gradually discard Turaine, his inheritance, had been sickening. And it wouldn't happen to him; he wasn't that stupid.
The shutters came down on his desire, willed by the immense strength of his mind to close off everything but the object of his pursuit. He intended to own the cottages by the end of the week, when the architect would come to present preliminary sketches for the village.
Guy went back to the kitchen and made coffee, then wandered back to a lounger, shut his eyes and listened to the jays squabbling in the cherry tree. Nearly mine, he thought in satisfaction. The tree, the garden, the house ... All of Turaine would be under his care.
He found himself tensing with an inner excitement which rolled around his body in an unstoppable wave as he reran his meetings with Tessa-she, dressed in her tight leathers and that provocative little top ... the achingly inviting tight globes of her buttocks ... her blind love for her parents and her self-deprecating humour... The throb came to his loins again, fiercer, hungrier than before.
Irritably he castigated himself for letting his mind wander, and began to formulate some leading questions before she returned.
'I have some questions,' Tessa said briskly, as soon as she was within earshot of Guy's relaxed figure. He opened his mouth and shut it again. 'Fire away, he murmured unsteadily.
Demure in a long cotton skirt and short-sleeved navy shirt cinched in at her hand-span waist, she proceeded to break off pieces of croissant and butter them with a flagrant disregard for cholesterol.
'Why did you record my numberplate when we first met?' she shot at him.
'We have the French equivalent of a neighbourhood watch,' he answered, making the unlikely claim without a second's hesitation. 'Strangers and their vehicles are noted as a precaution.'
Tessa gave him a sceptical stare. She hardly looked like burglar material. 'That'll keep you all busy in the high season,' she said tartly. 'Standing on street corners and scribbling every time a coachload of tourists appears. You'll have no time to do anything else.'
'I know,' he agreed, all innocence and concern. 'We'll have to get a different system or we'll run out of notebooks, won't we? Next question?'
Wretched man, she thought. He didn't give much away! How could she provoke him into an indiscretion? 'I thought it seemed odd that you were taking photographs of the village,' she said doggedly. 'You own it. You can see it any time you like.'
Guy swung his legs off the lounger and took his time coming to sit at the table.
'Photographs?' she prompted, wondering if he was playing for time.
He slid into the chair opposite her, picked up two pairs of cherries and hung them over her ears before she could stop him. And then his amused, contemplative glance temporarily paralysed her hands, because it looked from the way he touched his lips with the tip of his tongue as if he was thinking of taking one of the cherries into his mouth. Right now.
Something drastic happened to her breathing. She swallowed, imagining that lushly carved mouth brushing her ear, and in a panic she reached up with both hands at once and hurled the fruit into the bushes. I know your game! she thought angrily. 'Photographs,' she muttered again, managing to spill the word out on a harsh breath.
'Yes,' he replied idly. 'I'm giving the village a makeover.' He grinned at her startled expression. 'I've been taking 'before' pictures to compare them with the 'after'. I'm not planning anything too complicated just a face-lift and a bit of restyling. No jade-coloured glass in the windows or anything dramatic like that.'
Despite herself, she smiled, quite disarmed by his answer, knowing that she and her contact lenses were being gently teased.
Tessa tried to ignore the appeal of his perfect white smile and to stick to her objective. There must be a link between his ambitions to renovate the village and her mother. It seemed that the cottages were part of that equation. 'I'm really sad about the state of the buildings in the village. I'm glad you're making repairs,' she murmured, and a genuine warmth crept into her voice though she'd begun with just an intention to flatter him. 'Turaine is such a lovely place,' she said earnestly. 'Um ... are you restoring the whole of the village?'
'As much as I can, in time,' he acknowledged modestly. Her eyes rounded. Was he serious? 'Wow. You'll be popular!' she encouraged, letting her lashes flutter in admiration. With a very eloquent and Gallic shrug of his shoulders, he said, 'Overwhelmingly so. To be honest, I've found my reception a little embarrassing. Although I'm only
righting a wrong done by my father, I'm greeted like a long-lost son. People tend to shake my hand and press gifts on me which they can't afford.' He gave her a slightly abashed grin which lit his eyes, and she could tell how pleased he felt about his welcome.
'Like what?' she prompted sweetly, hoping to flatter him with her interest.
'Well, I've filled my freezer with chickens and my fridge seems to be full of freshly laid eggs which I can't eat fast enough before I'm given another dozen or two. And what,' he asked innocently, 'can I do with a crate of asparagus?' He could share it with Giselle, she thought, meeting his laughing eyes. 'Set up a market stall?' she suggested instead, humour tugging at her mouth as she pictured the elegant and sophisticated Guy de Turaine touting for customers. 'Or perhaps offer it to the local orphanage?' he mused, quite remarkably poker-faced and apparently filled with goodness and light.
Tessa looked scathing. But she felt wonderful. Sharp, alive, amused, loving the repartee and the ease with which they communicated. And she shouldn't. This guy might look like a
cherub, speak like one most of the time and utter words about orphanages and doing good works, but her mother had been quite adamant about his underlying malevolence. 'The orphanage?' she scorned. 'Over the top, Guy! You've just lost your credibility. Go and pull the wool over someone else's eyes.'
'I might do better to pull it over my own,' he said ruefully. 'I can't go far in Turaine without someone rushing up for a long chat. I thought of a disguise.' He dug a spoon in the marmalade jar and lifted it close to his forehead. 'What do you think of an orange wig and marmalade eyebrows?' Tessa couldn't stop a treacherous giggle. 'Sticky,' she replied, thinking it would be a travesty to spoil that gorgeous, shiny black hair. It looked soft and silky. She folded her arms, because the urge to reach out and stroke it was making her fingers restless.
'You're right.' Guy slowly lowered the spoon to his mouth. Keeping his eyes on her, he let the tip of his tongue tentatively lick the marmalade, lapping it up in tiny, savouring morsels. 'Delicious,' he pronounced softly.
Something unnervingly like a sexual reaction curled inside her, and she quickly shifted the conversation back to the point. Either he was trying to divert her, or he was inherently flippant. 'It's natural that everyone's delighted with your intentions, after your father's neglect,' she said primly. She struggled with her conscience. She shouldn't admire him. It seemed disloyal to her mother. Yet, if he was telling the truth, he'd be saving the village from ruin. She looked for a drawback and found one. 'I suppose you'll put their rents up?'
'Not at all,' he said firmly. 'In fact I've suspended all payment of rent till I feel I can honourably reintroduce it again. The villagers have been let down by my family. I hold myself personally responsible.'
'You sound far too good to be true,' she suggested cautiously. For a split second his brown eyes flickered with a hint of annoyance, as if he felt offended that she should question his integrity. And then he resumed his expression of benign goodwill.
Mr Cherub himself, she thought, reminding herself to be wary. This man wanted the cottages-something her mother had explicitly warned her about. If she didn't keep on her toes she'd find her sentimental nature surfacing, and she'd be striking a deal with him over the breakfast table.
Tessa tightened her resolve. He was working on her for his own ends. That made her angry. She'd let him play all his cards, ooze his practised charm, and then she'd coolly turn him down. That would please her mother.
Calmly she tilted her head on one side and said sweetly, 'Tell me your plans. I'm fascinated.'
Was that a sardonic smile or just her imagination working overtime? Whatever the reason for the curve to his sensual mouth, he leaned forward confidingly.
'Obviously I have a duty to the village, Tessa. There are people who might envy the fact that I own so much land and property. But with that power comes one hell of a responsibility. I have to maintain the church, the market hall, the very fabric of the village. Each roof, every gutter, window-frame and chimney is my concern.'
'It's quite a load on your shoulders,' she said, shaken by his fervour. 'Do you mind? Doesn't the responsibility prevent you from doing other, more exciting things?'
'Being right here at this moment is incredibly exciting,' he said softly, gazing directly into her eyes. The hidden core of his passion reached her-a raw and consuming passion which would ensure he carried through his plans. She quailed a little at the intensity of it and wondered if he'd meant her to see how powerfully he was driven to succeed, how deep his feelings were for his village. After all, he'd been absent for nearly half of his lifetime and must have dreamed of returning for years.
'Tessa,' he said with quiet urgency, trapping her hand beneath his, 'let me tell you this: I mean to stamp my mark here so strongly that it's never forgotten.'
Not literally here, she hoped, nervously looking down at their hands. She was aware of her pulses leaping strongly beneath his fingers where they circled her wrist. The pressure of his grip increased, causing an erratic fluttering which he must surely feel.
'Don't spoil Turaine,' she urged jerkily. The slow progress of his smile held her fascinated gaze. 'Turaine? That will be an easy conversion, compared with some I'm planning,' he said drily, smiling at some secret thought of his own.
'What other conversions are you involved in, then?' she asked, puzzled.
'Conversions of the mind,' he said enigmatically. 'Oh. Planning consent, you mean,' she said, knowing how red tape could hamper the progress of restoration. He smiled, but didn't comment. 'As far as Turaine is concerned, don't worry. I wouldn't dream of changing something unique. You don't tamper with real beauty. You leave it alone, let it breathe, feed it. ..' He sighed with pleasure. 'I love beautiful things. Don't you?'
'To a point. It depends on how thin the paint is on top and what's underneath. Sometimes there's something rotten there.'
She was thinking of the beautiful David.
'You're right. You have to look deeper, search for signs ...
agitate the surface a little and observe what happens.' He lifted her hand with his and allowed her fingers to trail down her own face. It felt like satin. It also felt alarmingly hot. 'I'm talking about real beauty. Take Turaine, for instance-'
'Yes, let's,' she croaked, failing to sound brisk and castigating herself for that fact. Why did he have to keep touching her?
'Well, it's the people who make it what it is,' he said quietly, playing with her fingers with such concentration that her heart leapt every time she looked at his lowered lashes resting thickly on his strong cheekbones. So she screwed up her toes and took a deep interest in an ant, crawling into the jam-pot.
'They are its heart, its soul,' he went on. 'No one with any sensitivity would dream of altering the essence and spirit of Turaine. Anything I undertake must be done with the greatest of tact and care. Modernising on such a scale and with such sensitivity will mean an upheaval for them and a headache for me, but it'll be worth it. My family name will be respected again. That's very important to me. You do understand that, don't you?' he finished appealingly. Reeling from his fervour, she withdrew her hand on the pretext of brushing crumbs from the table. Guy leaned back in his chair, his intense emotions gradually subsiding, and she felt her pulses returning to their normal beat. But her conviction now wavered. Her mother might be wrong. A misunderstanding, perhaps.
Feeling a little limp, Tessa carefully saved the ant from drowning in a jammy paradise, watching it stagger stickily away. Guy seemed to be watching her closely.
'Too much of a good thing,' she explained, indicating the disappearing insect.
'I'm all for surrendering to hedonism myself.' So was she, apparently! she thought helplessly. The warmth of the sun, the aroma of orangeblossom and chocolate croissant, a sexy man inches away, and she was ready to fling herself into the abyss! Idiot.
'Like drowning in jam?' she flipped defensively. 'I can think of better things to drown in.'
So could she. Like his fluid and eloquent tones, his fathom-deep eyes and the treacherous waters of sensuality which were putting her out of her depth. Aimlessly she fiddled with the jam-spoon, ladling a large dollop onto her plate and fixing her mind ruthlessly on facts, not feelings. Slowly the lassitude in her veins eased and she could think almost clearly again. 'What about The Old Bakery?' she asked hopefully. 'Could you throw that in with your grand plans and smarten it up a little?'
'Sorry.' He flashed her an apologetic smile. 'I couldn't include your cottages in the scheme. All the time they're privately owned, they don't come under my care. I hope you understand,' he went on absently, his gaze fixed on. the piece of croissant she was popping into her mouth. Her face fell in disappointment. She chewed for a moment, a little uncomfortable with his scrutiny. Hastily she licked her lips in case they had jammy edges. His eyes seemed to follow every curl of her pink tongue and she had some difficulty bringing herself back to the point.
A sip of scalding coffee soon brought her mind to heel. She was supposed to be discovering why he'd done his best to charm her. Also if he did actually want the cottages, as her mother had claimed. Only one way to find out. Bull at a gate. 'Would you like to buy the cottages from me?' she asked sweetly, letting her eyes widen with innocent enquiry. He looked blank and she grudgingly had to admire his self-control. 'I had the impression that you were hoping to acquire them from my mother. Was she planning to sell?' she asked innocently.
'I knew she badly needed money and I was willing to offer her a reasonable price rather than see the buildings fall about her ears through neglect,' he said evasively. 'They are part of the fabric of Turaine, part of its history. The Old Bakery was the bread shop. Next door is The Bakehouse, the one beyond is
called Oven Cottage. The equipment should still be around somewhere. I'd hoped to preserve it. But now the properties are yours and I imagine you'll want to keep them.' This time, she thought she detected the merest trace of tension in his voice. And then she saw the give-away. A slight tremor in his hand as he poured himself a second cup of coffee. He must have noticed it too, because he put the jug down even though his cup was only half-full.
Interesting, she mused. He was on edge. Disappointment flooded through her. She'd hoped her mother was wrong. It seemed not. Guy was being nice to her for his own selfish reasons. And this time, she vowed, she wouldn't let herself be bettered by a ruthless man!
TESSA'S eyes narrowed. She resented being played like a fish on a line and felt like making him sweat. 'I might hang onto the cottages,' she said airily, testing his reaction. Not surprisingly, there wasn't one. A plan began to form in her mind. 'I don't have a job at the moment,' she said casually, 'and I have some savings left. I could stay here and work on their restoration myself. They'd be an investment.' She flung him a bright and perky smile.
Guy's face didn't move a muscle. He lifted his cup and drank, then produced a convincing frown and looked deep into her eyes as if he'd thought of something worrying. 'I wouldn't advise it. You'd get yourself into debt, like your mother. You've seen the condition of The Old Bakery. The other two houses aren't much better.' He gave a rueful laugh. 'I imagine they're holding each other up. It'll take considerable funds and time to bring them up to a decent standard-and an expertise I doubt you have. You'd need quite advanced skills, to say nothing of a working knowledge of French to deal with builders and so on. It would be like throwing your money and time into a bottomless pit.'
'I spent five years with a team of craftsmen and tradesmen on the restoration of a stately home. I know more than the next person about damp and dry rot.' She smiled with far more assurance than she felt, and was pleased that he looked annoyed.
What was she going to do with the cottages? Her mother had told her not to let Guy have them. That meant eventually selling them to someone else, or quietly doing them up herself from the proceeds of the income they made from the holiday lets-whatever that might be. Getting a job over here to support herself was out of the question, with her ignorance of French.
'Oven Cottage still retains the oven,' he told her idly. 'It's blocked off at the moment. It's as large as a room and built like a beehive, which gives it immense strength. You'd need a team of navvies with pickaxes to make any impression on it.' Making a great show of quartering the chocolate croissant, Tessa hid her qualms and said blithely, 'I've picked up a lot of skills. I've even wielded a pickaxe. It's surprising what you can do if you persevere. It might be rather fun doing my own restoration. I can see that The Old Bakery has a lot of potential.'
'I'm impressed,' he said doubtfully. 'I think even my builders might refuse to take on such work virtually single-handed.' As bad as that? she thought in alarm, but smiled a confident smile. 'I'll see. I'll do an assessment of each cottage over the next few days,' she said importantly, hoping to impress him. He leaned forward. 'Don't delay,' he advised. 'You'll have one almighty insurance claim from one of your unfortunate holidaymakers if you don't do something soon. From a cursory assessment of the exteriors, I think all the roof timbers are unsafe. At a guess, I'd say you had trouble with termites. Or maybe the capricorne beetle. You know how devastating that is.'
'Er... yes,' she said, hoping she sounded knowledgeable about a creature she'd never heard of. It sounded as bad as the death-watch beetle. Just her luck. 'If I can't tackle the work, I can find a local builder, she said airily.
'No. I don't think you will.'
'No local builders?' she hazarded.
'Two. But I'm afraid,' he said with regret, 'that no local of any description would set foot in any of your cottages.' Her eyes narrowed. He was trying to put her off! 'Surely they're not haunted?' she suggested sarcastically. Unperturbed by her waspishness, Guy reached for the coffee¬pot. 'In a way. Your mother's made them a no-go area.' Tessa bristled. 'Oh, yes? And how has she done that?' He hesitated, searching for the right words. Tessa's lips parted anxiously when she saw his expression. 'There isn't an easy
way to tell you this. But I'm afraid you have to know.' His eyes flicked up, guarded but glittering. 'The local hatred of Estelle Davis is such that her daughter, is not welcome here. You'll be ignored. Maybe worse. And it won't be at all pleasant.' A chill settled about her. Deja vu. Back to her schooldays. The memories surged up, hurtful and destructive. The loneliness, the sense of being friendless and talked about behind her back. Her hand trembled, making her knife clatter on the plate. She let go of it, twisting and turning her fingers together in alarm. 'You'd better explain,' she mumbled croakily. There was a brief softening of his eyes and then they became veiled. 'I'm sorry, Tessa. There's a good deal of bad feeling about your mother. She left debts everywhere-with the butcher, the grocer, the bartender... All of the people who have small turn-overs and small profits and who rely on the honesty and integrity of their customers.'
Tessa hated what she was hearing and the sinking feeling in her stomach sank a little further. She didn't like to think that her mother had behaved so badly.
'Oh,' she said in a hurt little voice. 'Local people.' It was unforgivable. . .if he was telling the truth. She'd have to find out.
'It might make things a little difficult for you, as her daughter, if you stay,' he explained. 'Apart from refusing to do any work for you on any of the houses, people will be expecting to be paid on the nail before they let you buy anything at all, even food. Maybe they'll even refuse to serve you. Memories here are long and grudges grow alarmingly.'
'I'm not the one who owes the money,' she protested. 'They won't see it that way. It's a matter of honour, isn't it? I am sorry. I'd advise you to leave before you get waylaid. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go now.'
'Go?' Tessa looked puzzled, having expected him to slip in an offer for her properties now her resistance had been suitably lowered.
He gave a cool smile. 'Sorry. Can't stay. I only came to put you in the picture. I hope you're not besieged by Estelle's creditors. They terrified her-and she's as hard as nails.' Tessa jumped up in alarm and covered the movement by beginning to stack dishes on the tray.
Guy immediately helped. 'Don't bother with these! I want to be alone now,' she said shakily. Her mind whirled like a clockwork motor out of control-going nowhere, doing nothing, just churning round and round. Her mother had left her in an impossible position. Were the cottage lettings supposed to cover all the debts that had been incurred? Startled from her reverie, she looked down as Guy caught hold of the tray, his hands warm against hers. 'At least let me carry this in for you,' he murmured. 'Listen, I can build a dry-stone wall,' she said edgily. 'If I can heave chunks of granite around and slap turf on the top, I can manage a tray of breakfast things!' And when he raised his hands in surrender she picked up the tray, feeling immediately ashamed. 'I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. I'm just worried.'
'I realise that.' He seemed almost pleased. Tessa put the tray down again. There was something she didn't understand. 'I can see you're protective of the local businesses my mother owes money to, but you actually hate her, don't you? Did you scare her? Did you threaten her and frighten her away?' she demanded. 'I haven't harmed a hair of her head.' There was a husky quality about his voice and a stillness to his body which suggested the deadly calm before a storm. He smiled thinly. 'But I'd like to.'
Tessa found that she'd stopped breathing, and sucked in air to fill her deflated lungs, then pushed out her question sharply. 'Because? This is something personal, isn't it? Something more than her debts.'
'Yes, it's personal.' His eyes lashed hers. 'She destroyed my family.'
In the cold, tight silence which followed, Tessa fought with her desire to turn tail and remain ignorant of the reason for Guy's hostility. But she knew she'd never rest. She'd have to hear his story and decide on its truth, however painful that might be. Taking a deep breath, she said, 'You'd better explain that, hadn't you?'
A flicker of pity touched his eyes and then was gone. 'Your mother came to this village when I was sixteen,' he said in a low voice. 'I understand that she'd been working her way through France for almost a year by then. She turned up here and began work in my father's vineyard. The village men couldn't keep their eyes off her. She had a rare beauty: something intangible which made her seem fragile and vulnerable and sexy at the same time.' Tessa stared. Guy's mouth had become bitter, his eyes hard
with harsh memories. 'And you?' she asked. 'Did you fall for her too? Did she reject you? Is this all about your hurt pride and jealousy-?'
'Hell, no!' He focused on her sharply. 'You haven't made the connection, have you?' He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. 'I didn't fall head-over-heels in love with her,' he said softly. 'My father did. She became his mistress within a week of arrival. And as far as he was concerned neither my mother nor I existed from then on.'
Tessa froze. 'My mother was your father's mistress?' It was unbelievable. What had Guy said? Something about leading his father a dance around the fleshpots of the world. Draining his father dry, causing the village to die slowly from neglect ... 'No! You're lying!' she cried, trying to free herself from his increasingly tight grasp. 'You want to hurt her---and me for some reason-'
'I'm not lying. Think about it. I talked about this before I knew for sure who you were. Ask anyone in the village. They'll confirm my story. Estelle Davis dazzled my father and flaunted their relationship without caring who she hurt in the process. That's why I loathe her.'
'Oh, God!' she whispered, aching with the hurt and embarrassment which rushed up through her body like a tidal wave.
She squeezed her eyes shut in dismay, though the image of Guy's proud, strained face remained vivid and painful. There was more behind that story. It was plain from the simmering anger behind those bleak and glacial eyes. But she didn't want to know any details or to learn that her mother was selfish and cruel. And so she dreaded looking at him and seeing the repulsion on his face.
'I'm sorry,' she muttered. 'I understand now why you're bitter.' It seemed an inadequate thing to say. With a heavy heart, she bravely opened her eyes and dragged her gaze to his. 'People can't help falling in love,' she ventured miserably. 'That's true. They can, however, control how discreet they are-and take steps not to hurt others,' he pointed out grimly. It was as though the resentment of years had begun to find its way out, and he ploughed on in a harsh and bitter voice.
'Papa's affair was the talk of the village. The fact that he'd given your mother three estate cottages as a gift gave rise to meetings with the mayor and escalated into a full-scale row. Whenever Martian or I ventured beyond our gates we were met by sudden embarrassed silences and averted glances, because people did little else but discuss the scandal and they felt sorry for us.'
'I can understand how you felt,' she said, knowing what it was like to be the subject of gossip.
Guy's eyes hardened, showing a glimpse of frighteningly steely anger. 'Maman and I left. We couldn't bear it. No teenager wants to find his father-'
'Please don't say any more!' she cried in anguish, her fingers agitatedly twisting the fabric of her long skirt. The images conjured up by Guy's hard-hitting words had stricken her heart. She couldn't believe that her mother had been so reckless, so thoughtless. Tessa's emotions seemed to be in tatters.
'I was told my mother was wonderful! No one could hold a candle to her... She was beautiful-'
'Yes.'
'Irresistible-'
'Yes!'
'Not cruel, though!' she cried, begging him to agree. The ferocity of his expression and the terrible, lacerating contempt made her cringe. Little pearly tears squeezed from the corners of each eye. 'Oh, G-G-Guy!' In desperation she tried to rid herself of the awful lump in her throat and the misery which was threatening to swamp her.
Suddenly her arms had been caught in a strong grip. Guy was pulling her towards him, against his chest, tipping up her chin, his expression angry, his body shaking with it, as though the fury and bitterness he'd unleashed needed an outlet. 'Damn you! Damn you and your mother!' he growled harshly. Tessa cringed in his arms, afraid of the emotion which consumed him so utterly that it seemed he hardly knew what he was doing. Bereft of speech, she opened her mouth in a helpless, silent protest. And found it crushed by Guy's savage kiss. There was no time to think. Not that there was anything remotely like thought working in her brain. His mouth demanded her attention, bruising her lips, coaxing them into soft and lush pliability. His hands crushed her to him, sliding up her back so that her cushiony breasts met the hard, resisting surface of his chest. Little shudders of excitement flickered over her flesh, melting her resistance as their mouths blended into a perfect whole-warm, whispering, intoxicatingly sensual. Half in defence, half to steady herself, she raised her hands till her palms rested where they seemed to belong, on the broad shelf of his shoulders. Her breasts lifted as she did so, in a slow and exquisite movement as each swollen nipple dragged teasingly against his thin shirt. And he made a growling noise in his throat which electrified her.
Without any thought going through her head, she set free the sharp pang which had lanced through her body by sighing helplessly into his marauding mouth ...
Her sigh galvanised Guy into a different action. Coming to his senses at last, he thrust her back, the force of the movement making her head snap back and her shining hair fly in all directions while he muttered short, sharp curses under his breath in fluent French.
He'd wanted her with a passion which unnerved him. For the first time in his life he'd acted on pure instinct. He'd wanted her-as his father had wanted Estelle-with a passion so unbearable that he'd had to do something to ease it. And that enslavement to animal need had enraged him. God, how he despised himself for losing control! She had been so damn vulnerable, so beautiful in her distress that he'd wanted to protect her from all harm. When Tessa had cried he had known he should walk away.
Recognising that he couldn't do so had made him even angrier. He'd longed to comfort her, to gather her in his arms and murmur soothing words to take away the pain of her mother's betrayal. But that would have led to another, more dangerous situation. It was vital that he stayed detached. His duty was to recover his property, not to complicate his life by getting involved with Estelle's daughter. He had a mission, and Tessa wasn't the kind of woman you played around with. She would expect commitment-and that was something not in his power to give. He'd needed to stop Tessa crying before his heart had softened. A few sharp words would have sufficed. Why the hell had he chosen to ease his hunger and kiss her into silence? What malevolent fate had driven him to take out his anger and frustration on her?
Somehow he must convince her that the kiss had meant nothing. Even if he still wanted to kiss her, again and again, till she was breathless. Far from satisfying his hunger, he had only succeeded in fuelling it.
'Guy!' she said shakily, still reeling from the violent turmoil rampaging through her entire body. He'd kissed her. And she'd loved it. Wanted more. A lot more. Come to think of it, she'd intensified the contact. The damp black lashes fringing her huge violet eyes fluttered as her pupils contracted with shock. 'What did you do that for?' she asked, concealing her panic. He drew in a long, tense breath, and it was several seconds before he let it out in a slow exhalation, almost as though he was counting to ten whilst doing so. 'How else was I to stop you crying?' he asked, with breathtaking callousness. 'Oh! You-you brute!' she gasped indignantly. His mouth pinched in a fraction. 'Then he checked whatever he'd intended to say, turned abruptly and walked away to the side gate, hurling icily over his shoulder, 'It worked, didn't it?'
'A few nice words and a handkerchief would have been kinder,' she mumbled, going brick-red with shame. He studied her for a moment, his expression noncommittal. 'And wiser,' he agreed. 'If I had stopped to think what your reaction might be, I'd never have touched you. I hope you are aware that I have no interest in you as a woman. None at all!' he said, as though she needed the point ramming home when it was already turning and twisting in her body, opening barely closed wounds.
Tessa felt deeply humiliated. He meant that it had never occurred to him that she'd respond with such breathtaking enthusiasm. 'I never imagined that you had,' she replied sharply, her self-esteem on its way to rock-bottom again. The hard slash of his lips twisted and he swore softly under his breath, turning away as though he could bear the sight of her stricken face no longer.
Numbly she watched him fling the gate shut and stride down the little backstreet. And all she could think was that it was like the scene with David all over again. She felt the same squeeze in the pit of her stomach, the same sense of horror.
It had only been a kiss. No great drama, perhaps, to any other woman. But it was to her. She'd vowed never to give her favours freely ever again. That resolution seemed to have flown out of the window with painful ease.
And judging by her abandoned reaction, Guy must think she was desperate for love, comfort, anything re motely affectionate. The scorn he obviously felt for her hit at the root of her security again.
Only when he had disappeared did she sink limply to the ground, her skirts floating about her on the grass. 'I'm a fool!' she groaned hopelessly. How could she live with herself after this?
'Perhaps they make contact lenses for brains,' she muttered gloomily, trying to buck herself up. 'God knows, I need something to help me judge men's motives better.' Tentatively she touched her soft mouth, exploring its lush, rather overripe curves. Her lips still felt bruised to the touch. The remembered pressure of his magnificent body against hers tortured her mind, stabbing her loins with a spasm of need. She'd loved the power and energy that had surged through every inch of him. Had wanted to share it. It was a terrifying thought that she could be so weak-willed. Why hadn't she objected at once? Why had she left it to him to be the one who walked away? She knew the answer. He wanted to unsettle her. He had a devious ability to destroy her defences. He kept throwing her off balance by working on her emotions, destroying her defences with worrying facts and shock revelations and then offering the pretence of sympathy. It was a brutal but highly successful method. And she despised him utterly for it.
'I won't let him get me down!' she ground out, jumping up decisively.
She was determined to ease the sickening anger churning in her stomach. The situation seemed bad, but she'd got through similar difficulties before by taking one step at a time. As a start, she began to search for the house documents. They were hidden beneath a pile of papers in a drawer, with a note attached in her mother's writing which said, 'Cottages for Tess'. Naturally the deeds were
written in French, which meant she couldn't understand a word. A French dictionary went on her list of shopping. Checking the map, she saw that Lalinde or Le Bugue looked the most likely towns for that, and also for the other things she'd need. 'Holidaymakers next,' she said briskly, attempting to fill the silent, empty building with friendly sound. 'An assessment of the cottages and then a trip to the shops.' Tessa finished ticking off the priorities on her fingers. It might even be fun having a friendly chat with the visitors if they were English. Perhaps she'd suggest they meet for a drink in the evening. A little company wouldn't go amiss. Her tense muscles relaxed a little at the thought. But she recognised what a difficult task she had ahead-and the attitude of Guy and the villagers wouldn't make it any easier. She remembered his anger, the dark glitter in his scathing eyes. His determination to acquire her cottages was stronger than any sense of fair play. He'd do anything necessary, she felt sure. And she shivered with a predictive fear.
Two days later, Tessa was sitting glumly beneath the covered market in the middle of the village square. The holiday lets had proved to be a nightmare. The furious guests had pounced on her and taken her on an eyeopening tour of each cottage, complaining unceasingly. Unfortunately they had every reason to do so.
She gazed longingly at the bar. It was eleven o'clock and it was open, the drift of a rich coffee aroma tantalising her senses. But yesterday she'd been told to go away in no uncertain terms, and it hadn't needed any knowledge of the language to understand what the scowls and brusquely waved arms had meant.
Suddenly she heard the clang of the chateau gates. Her body stiffened and she shrank deeper into the shadows. Guy wandered across the square. She watched as he accepted with good humour an invitation to join the handful of villagers sitting beneath the striped parasols outside the bar. Laughter drifted across to her and there was much chinking of glasses. It made a sorry contrast to her reception. 'I want a word with you!'
Dismayed, she turned, recognising the voice of the man staying in The Bakehouse, the cottage next to The Old Bakery. 'Yes, Mr Donovan?' she said politely, fearing trouble. 'My wife and I have talked things over and have decided we want our money back.'
Tessa looked stunned. This was worse than she'd expected! 'I-I don't have it! I've explained that my mother owned the properties until recently. She will have your money-'
'That's your problem, not mine,' he said crossly, raising his voice a decibel or two. Tessa cringed. The whole village must be able to hear! 'I'm not paying hardearned cash to spend my holiday in a damp, poorly maintained, dirty cottage which was furnished in the Dark Ages!'
'Nineteen fifty-something, I think,' she ventured meekly. 'Exactly! So give us our money back or I'll get someone in authority here to impound something you own. That bike, for instance. I won't be cheated! Would you like to sleep on a lumpy mattress in a bed that's rusting? Or have to clean the bathroom and kitchen from top to bottom on the day of your arrival because of the filth?'
'No, Mr Donovan,' she said miserably. 'I wouldn't.'
'And why isn't the bar open in the evenings?' he went on, getting into his stride. 'And the advert said there was a leisure complex on the river, but that isn't open at the moment. There's nothing to do here but read!'
It sounded like bliss to Tessa. 'I can't be held responsible for the opening hours of local attractions,' she said, as politely as humanly possible. 'I suppose there just isn't the custom.'
'Damn place is all but deserted!'
'It's very peaceful,' she pointed out placatingly. A figure appeared just at the periphery of her vision and she knew with a sinking feeling in her stomach who it must be. She squirmed on the seat in embarrassment-both at the present situation and at the memory of the last time they'd been together. Too together! Clamped together like limpets, worth every inch of his muscular body impressing itself indelibly on her mind. Pleasurable sensations spurted through her sensory system and made
her hands shake. Her legs too. They'd been perfectly under control until he'd turned up.
'Having problems?' enquired Guy, mockery in every smoothly drawled syllable.
What would he say, she wondered tetchily, if she replied, Yes, runaway hormones? But she didn't. 'Nothing I can't handle,' she lied, and wished he'd go away and mind his own business. 'Who might you be, butting in on a private conversation?' bristled Mr Donovan righteously, and he and Tessa frowned at
Guy in joint challenge.
Sublimely unperturbed, Guy produced one of his pat, charming smiles.
'Guy de Turaine. I am the seigneur of Turaine-I think you call this the lord of the manor?'
Tessa's eyes grew cynical. He was doing the helpless foreigner bit in order to disarm Mr Donovan-who was clearly falling for Guy's ruse. 'Don't worry about choosing your words carefully. Guy will understand everything you say. He's lived in America for years,' she said sourly, earning herself a little sardonic glance from Guy.
Graciously he extended a hand to the man beside her. 'How do you do? I gather you're not satisfied with your holiday cottage?' he murmured, now all concern and furrowed brow. 'I most certainly am not!' declared the man, clearly pleased and puffed up at having such an important person on his side. 'Me and my wife were chatting to a local woman who came by, and she was horrified when we showed her around. She said the place was a disgrace-'
'A ... local woman?' Guy asked, suddenly alert. 'Not Madame Legrand, from across the lane? Dark, short hair, sixtyish and plump, was she?'
Tessa gave Guy a suspicious look. He was trying to extract information out of Mr Donovan, and, judging by the man's impatient shake of his head, his aim was about to be fulfilled.
'No, no,' he replied. 'Long blonde hair. Very slim and stylish. Young. Wearing baggy trouser things. Raw silk palazzo pants, my wife said. Do you know who I mean?'
'I have a fair idea;' murmured Guy laconically. 'Helpful young woman. She said we would be within our rights if we insisted on our money back. If you have any influence at all,' said Mr Donovan pompously, while Tessa wished Miss Palazzo Pants all the ill luck in the world, 'you'll tell Miss Davis that she's letting the place down.'
'You're letting the place down,' Guy told her helpfully, his eyes as cold as black ice.
Tessa ground her teeth together. But at least he wasn't harping on about her desperately enthusiastic reaction to his kiss. Small mercies. It meant she could fight him on equal terms again. 'Mr Donovan,' she said quietly, pretending to ignore Guy, even though he loomed over her like a dark spectre, 'I am just as unhappy about the condition of the cottage as you are. I'll do everything I can to get your money back to you.'
'I want the full amount-!' he began.
'And you'll get it,' she promised hurriedly. 'Please trust me. I can let you have something now, to start with, she said, unzipping her canvas shoulder bag, 'and if you give me your home address and the total amount you paid for the week I'll settle up with you when I can get the cash. I feel so embarrassed that you've had problems on your holiday. It must have been an awful disappointment when you arrived.'
'Oh. Yes. It was.' Mr Donovan seemed disconcerted by Tessa's frank admission, but took the proffered money from her. 'That's not much! About twenty pounds in English money!' he protested.
'It's all I can manage at the moment,' she said quietly. 'Hmm. I'll see what my wife says. I expect the other couple next door in Oven Cottage will want a refund too. We all had a chat about our rights in the garden-'
'You,' interrupted Guy smoothly, 'your wife, the other couple and this ... er... local woman?'
'That's right,' answered Mr Donovan. 'I must say, she was most supportive-and a mine of information. She said there were probably rats living inside that closedup oven-'
'What?' Tessa cried, flushing with anger. 'I'm sure that can't be true.'
'How would you know?' Mr Donovan glared. 'She said it was highly likely. And that the mayor would close the cottages down on a local health order if something wasn't done.'
'Did she?' grated Tessa, determined to find this interfering blonde and ask her to keep her nose out in future! 'Yes. And I told her that next door's cooker doesn't work. And the drains-'
'I know,' she said hastily, wondering how on earth she was going to cope. Guy had been right. There was a tremendous amount to be done. 'I've spoken to the couple next door to you and I'm intending to deal with that.'
'Yes. You will. By making arrangements to repay us for our inconvenience and spoiled holiday. Or there'll be trouble. We know our rights.' On that firm note, Mr Donovan gave a curt nod of his head to Tessa, graciously took his leave of the courteous Guy then stomped off, very much on his dignity. 'I'm surprised you gave in without a fight,' Guy said curiously. Tessa shot him a look of surprise. 'What am I supposed to do? Lie? The cottages aren't fit for letting! I could hardly deny that.'
'Most people in your position might try.'
'I'm not most people,' she snapped.
'No. I'm beginning to realise that. Well, you're in deep trouble,' he mused. 'Visitors arriving every Saturday of the season, demanding refunds the day after... And compensation for their disappointment ... That could cost you an arm and a leg!' he declared with such false and simulated concern that she let her contempt show in the hot blaze of her eyes. He merely smiled mockingly. 'You've seen your mother's bookings schedule, I presume?'
'N-no. I haven't found it yet.'
She tried to stop her calculations of how much she might have to pay out during the season. It would be more than she possessed, whatever it might be. Her heart began to race with a sickening irregularity.
'Pretty awful of your mother to leave you in this situation,' he observed casually.
'She couldn't help it!' flared Tessa. 'She would never have fled unless things were desperate.'
'But surely no decent mother would deliberately leave her daughter in that same, desperate situation, would she?' His quietly clipped words hung in the air between them, the truth of what he'd said quite painful. Tessa stared ahead, her breath shallow in her breast. An awful suspicion came into her mind that she had been left to carry the can-but then, dismayed by the thoughts Guy had put into her head, she jerked her head up, her eyes aglow with hot violet fire. 'You're biased! You would think the worst of her!'
'God! You really are blind and stubborn-' he began irritably. 'I give people the benefit of the doubt till I know all the facts! Mother had a reason for doing what she did,' she flung at him, clinging to a forlorn hope that this was true. 'She'll contact me and tell me soon-'
'And if she doesn't?'
That wouldn't happen. Her mother had promised. 'Then I'll make my own arrangements,' Tessa said stiffly.
Guy's eyes narrowed. 'Ah. Until then?'
'It's early days,' she said firmly. 'I'll see how things go for a week or so. I can take the flak. I've taken plenty before.'
It seemed as if she were back at school, being blamed for things that weren't her fault just because she was an easy target. Crossly she rummaged inside her bag for the bar of chocolate she'd spotted when she'd reached for her wallet, and proceeded to demolish it angrily.
Guy watched her furious progress through the defenceless bar. Her small white teeth drove into the dark chocolate and all the time she scowled at him defiantly.
'You turn to food for comfort. I know better ways to release the emotions,' he drawled.
She had a large chunk of chocolate in her mouth and it was several seconds before she could reply. 'This is my mid-morning snack,' she defended.
'I go to the gym,' he confided. Her gaze whipped up and down his perfect body. 'I need strenuous activity after sitting around in board meetings and on transatlantic flights,' he explained. 'I'm a very physical man and I hate being confined.' She could believe it. Energy leapt from him in waves to batter her with its force. And she could imagine another way he'd release some of that excess energy, over and above a heavy indulgence in sit-ups and bench presses. She felt sure he'd enjoy the physicality of sex: Her eyes glazed over as her treacherous mind produced a clear image of him in all his muscular perfection, sweat glistening on his thighs. . . 'Try a marathon-right now,' she suggested grumpily. 'And leave me in peace to organise one or two things.' Her teeth snapped off another piece of chocolate.
'I probably will. I need physical release rather badly.' His mouth was far too suggestive for Tessa to cope with. She glared, knowing he wasn't interested in her and furious that he should still flirt and try to provoke her.
'You have a lot to organise,' he remarked. 'The cottages need urgent attention and a lot of money spent on them. What will you do?'
Tessa knew what he was getting at. A quick, cheap sale. It was tempting; she'd be free of all hassle. But until she spoke to her mother and explained the situation her hands were tied. 'They need' a bit of work,' she said grudgingly, between mouthfuls.
'Face reality! You'll have to sell. No one will buy them on the open market. Why don't you let me do what I was intending to do for your mother?' Guy suggested, pushing his hands casually in his pockets.
'She wouldn't have sold to you,' Tessa declared belligerently.
'I don't think she would have had any choice,' he answered with an airy wave of his hand. 'Why? You're not the only buyer in France.'
'I'm probably the only one who'd be prepared to offer a reasonable price for three collapsing, beetle-ridden, mouldering piles of stone,' he countered, studying her hot, angry face with maddening insolence. 'There's a sentimental value involved where I'm concerned. No one else would show any interest. French villagers are voting with their feet and moving into smarter, modernised accommodation with larger gardens.'
'I bet someone back home would be interested,' she said, feeling an urge to goad him into thinking that he'd never get his hands on the cottages.
'Possibly,' he agreed sardonically. 'The British have a manic attachment to the picturesque and a passion for restoring the unrestorable.'
'We appreciate character!' she defended. 'And the cottages aren't beyond all hope. You're exaggerating!' I've a good mind to test the market-'
'Know much about it, do you?' he taunted. 'The legal aspects, the surveys, the land searches ... No. I thought not. You'd never do it, Tessa. It's far too complicated. Why make work for yourself? It must be obvious to you that I'd like to unite the village under the Turaine umbrella again.' He smiled at her appealingly. 'Sell up to me. That's your easiest way out. And then you can go home with money in your pocket-before you're bankrupted by irate visitors.'
Unreasonably stirred by the persuasive, velvety timbre of his voice, Tessa did her best to switch him off. She leaned back against the cold stone wall and gazed gloomily at the happily chatting villagers in the bar.
Someone was offering a flat wicker basket filled with strawberries to the owner. An ancient tractor rumbled by, bearing a driver in the ubiquitous blue checked shirt that most of the locals seemed to favour.
Swallows and swifts flew in and out of the church bell tower, the church looking more like a fortress with its massive stark facade and grim entrance. Little halftimbered houses virtually surrounded the square on three sides, with Guy's chateau walls and entrance gates making up the fourth. ' It was all quite fascinating and she didn't want to go. Of course, she couldn't leave anyway till she'd heard from her mother, but apart from that she wanted to have some fun exploring the lovely countryside. It was her first time abroad, her first holiday away even. How unfair, then, that she'd been branded as an undesirable, along with her mother, and had been landed with her debts!
'I don't know what to do,' she admitted morosely.
Guy's hand rested on her shoulder in a deceptively warm and friendly gesture. 'Let me help you. I can get you out of this mess by taking the properties off your hands. I can deal with the visitors' complaints and compensate them if that's what they want. All you need to do is to let me pay you a good price. You'd be mad to refuse, you know that.'
True, she thought, wishing she could say yes. But she'd given her word and she couldn't go back on that. There must be a way.
And although she'd promised not to sell the cottages to Guy she could sell one of them-to someone else! 'Give me a day or two,' she said calmly, lowering her eyes so that he wouldn't see her excitement. 'I'll think about it.' A scheme began to form vaguely in her mind. Daring. Exciting. Sell one-and do up the others to bring in an income for herself. It was an idea she'd need to give some careful thought. But, for the moment, she'd deal with the most urgent problems presented by the visitors. And Guy could cool his heels for a while!
He patted her shoulder and smiled into her eyes. 'You know it makes sense,' he said, making her legs shake with the husky warmth of his voice.
She nodded meekly. 'I know,' she breathed, puzzled to find that her chest had tightened up inexplicably. There was the lightest of touches on her cheek. 'I'll wait. Two days. Then I'll come to see you.' It was several long seconds before he moved.
Tessa felt unable to answer. The tension of being near him was too much. His promise filled her with a strong sense of excitement. He seemed to be waiting for a response but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. It seemed to her that an electric charge was leaping between them and it was all she could do to stand there with her head lowered and fight her attraction for this man who intended to use her for his own ends.
'Bye, Tessa,' he said softly.
She searched for something-anything-in her bag. And dragged out a barley sugar. 'Bye,' she said, frowning in deep concentration as she unwrapped it. And he was gone.
Tessa hurried back to the Rue Boulangerie and Oven Cottage, where she checked over the Kennedys' cooker. It was a simple case of a burnt-out element. The job would be fiddly, but not beyond her capabilities-though it would make a hole in her finances. Then she went outside to the garden and lifted the manhole cover of the septic tank, with the Kennedy couple looming over her, their hands pressed over their noses. 'Well?' asked Mrs Kennedy, her voice muffled. Tessa replaced the cover. It didn't fit very well. 'I'm going into town,' she said decisively. 'We need some activator. If you could refrain from putting bleach or disinfectant down the sink till I get back-'
'It stinks!' protested Mrs Kennedy.
'The bleach is killing the bacteria which make the system work.'
'Good Lord! I never heard of such a cock-eyed system!' Tessa smiled. 'It's the only method possible in rural areas,' she explained. 'It's the same in England, I can assure you. And it's eco-friendly. Why don't you go out? I'll have everything sorted when you return.'
After shopping, she changed into her most disreputable clothes-an ancient T-shirt and threadbare jeans. Gathering up the tools she needed in an old curtain, she grabbed the key to Oven Cottage and found to her relief that the Kennedys had taken her advice and gone out for the day. The new element was a piece of cake to fit. Pleased with herself, she then distributed the activator. As she reached for the kitchen tap something flashed past the kitchen window. A woman. Long blonde hair.
Tessa flung open the door just as a shout came from the other side of the garden. Whirling, she saw Guy standing over the open manhole, a bottle of bleach in his hand and a look of surprise on his face. Sabotage, she thought in fury. Caught in the very act!
'WHAT,' Tessa demanded, folding her arms menacingly, 'do you think you're doing?'
'Checking the drain,' Guy replied, with insolence. She wanted to hit him. Her hands clenched into tight fists. 'You don't check septic tanks by dumping bottles of bleach in them!' she said scathingly. 'You're trying to ruin it! And what was that woman doing? Miss Palazzo Pants, was it? Is she in this with you? Are you both trying to run me out of town?'
'Have we succeeded?' he enquired lazily, unconcerned enough to be examining her ragged T-shirt with interest. Tessa squashed the warm feeling that that produced, and flung up her head, pushing oily fingers through her hair in a defiant gesture. 'Like hell, you have!' she spat, striding forward intimidatingly. 'I've decided to stay in Turaine. I might settle here even. Now get out of my garden and don't let me catch you or your accomplice anywhere near these cottages again!' It seemed that Guy couldn't believe his ears. 'You you can't stay!' he said, appalled. 'Tessa ... it's not a good idea.' From his expression, it looked as if he was casting around for reasons. 'There are ... regulations.'
'I know,' she said confidently.
He frowned. 'You can't live in this squalor. You can't afford to restore the cottages-'
'Yes, I can. I have found the means,' she said happily. 'I don't believe you,' he muttered. His dark eyes glittered as his chest rose and fell. She imagined he must be very angry that his plan wasn't working out. 'I think
you ought to know, Tessa,' he said quietly, 'that if you stay both you and I will regret it!'
Her stomach contracted. 'Is that meant to be a threat?' she demanded, more bravely than she felt. 'The truth,' he growled.
There was a silence while his anger poured over her like boiling oil. He was very powerful in Turaine. A force to be reckoned with. But, \_darn it, she wasn't going to be pushed around by anyone! She jutted out her chin aggressively. 'So you're going to make life difficult for me?' Guy impaled her with his hot, penetrating gaze. 'Life will be difficult for both of us.'
'Because?' she challenged.
'Because of who and what you are. And I think there are plenty of people here who'll make your life hell without my help.'
'I'm sure,' she said crossly. 'Miss Palazzo Pants for one.' His mouth tightened.
'Leave her out of this. Take my advice and leave.'
'I can't walk away from this, Guy,' she said soberly. 'You talked about duty and responsibilities; I have those too. Mr and Mrs Donovan and the Kennedys have booked holidays which have turned out to be less than perfect. While I'm waiting for news from my mother I want to make that up to them-and not only financially. My first act will be to clean The Bakehouse and Oven Cottage through for them-cheering up the rooms with flowers, mending what can be mended and slapping a coat of paint over the kitchen units where they've been left bare.'
'You think that'll make any difference to the disappointment they feel about their holidays?' he asked scathingly. 'Not much, at this stage, but I'll feel I've done what I can and they'll see I'm doing my best.'
She felt happier than before, happy enough to smile. 'I want to see the whole season out. It's a matter of pride. I feel ashamed of the conditions the visitors are living in, Guy. I have to do something to ease my conscience. Besides, I think it'll be fun. I've already repaired the cooker-'
'You?' he scoffed.
'Oh, yes, me!' she said airily, sure of herself now. Handling men wasn't her forte. This, however, was something she could do. 'At home in our flat, the cooker was constantly in need of repair. It was a case of learning how the thing worked and what usually goes wrong or eating cold food. We couldn't afford to get someone in. That's how I knew what to do here. And now I'm doing the drains.'
'That's one of your talents too?' His eyebrow crooked up in disbelief about as far as it would go.
She smirked and knelt beside the manhole in a proprietorial way. 'Alarmingly versatile, aren't I?' she said serenely. 'I helped in the installation of the septic tanks for the big house we were working on. Plus the laying of all the pipes from the bothy and the coach house. I don't want to blind you with science,' she added patronisingly, 'but I don't think there's a serious problem providing you and Miss Whatsis Drawers don't empty any more bleach down the tank,' she remarked, and he had the grace to shift uncomfortably. 'I'll probably replace the manhole cover when I can. It isn't airtight like the British ones.'
'I'll be damned!' he said faintly.
'Very likely. So,' she said, feeling rather perky and quite capable of tackling the world, 'there's not much wrong with this particular cottage that I can't put right quite quickly and bring up to a saleable standard. It could be idyllic. There's such a lovely view of the river from here, and from the bedrooms at the back of the house.'
Her quick, triumphant glance caught Guy's frown before it was wiped off and replaced by neutrality.
'But the others need considerable attention,' he warned her. 'I'm sure the mayor could be prevailed upon to slap a ban on your holiday lets till they're up to standard-'
'You'd do that?' she asked, appalled. -
'If I don't, someone else will,' he said grimly. 'Let me know if you do decide to sell. I might still be interested. But the price drops every day you hold out,' he drawled, and turned on his heel, heading for the gate at the bottom of the garden which led to the open fields.
Tessa fumed, incensed at his threat to close her down. Anger made her reckless. Too many people had crushed her in the past. Too many men had scorned her ideas and her eagerness. This was one man too many and she was going to stand up to him.
'I am selling,' she called, loud and clear so that he didn't miss a word. 'Definitely. I'm putting this one on the market.' When he froze, then looked back over his shoulder, she wasn't sure she'd done the right thing. He wanted to claw back the properties so badly that when she carried out her hastily formed plan of luring him into making an offer for one-and then refusing-he'd be as mad as hell.
But, as he'd pointed out, she knew nothing about selling property in France. He did. He'd know about prices, taxes, surveys ... and she needed to be thoroughly armed with that information before she tackled the French equivalent of an estate agent. So she'd pick his brains on the pretext of making a deal.
Sneaky. But he deserved to be slapped down. He'd threatened her. And he had slunk into her garden to sabotage the septic tank. She was justified in giving him no quarter. Besides, she had to get some money together and improve the remaining two cottages before the mayor intervened. Her eyes gleamed.
'I wish you luck,' he replied coolly, giving her a moment's alarm. What if he didn't repeat his offer?
Yet he didn't walk away. That gave her some hope. Despite his nonchalant pose, there was tension in the air. She'd hooked him. She knew that in her bones, and felt something of a triumph.
'Would you come closer? I have something to say and I'd like it to be private,' she said casually.
Obediently he strolled to within a centimetre of her knees, forcing her to crane her neck up. 'Close enough?' he drawled. Her pulses raced. The sun touched his cheekbones with a shimmering light. He radiated power and a compelling masculinity. It was a battle of wills, she thought. But she'd win. He had no idea she could be devious.
'Perfect,' she said sweetly, resigning herself to a crick in her neck because she didn't have the courage to stare directly at his loins. 'I wanted you to know as a matter of courtesy,' she went on. 'As I said, I intend to sell Oven Cottage on the open market-complete with the asset of one season's holiday visitors-to whoever gives me the best price. Maybe a builder will be interested in knocking down the place, come to think of it. He might want the tiles on the roof, or to take away the stone,' she improvised, aware of the fleeting expression of glazed horror on Guy's face.
'And you think that'll cover the cost of restoring the other two?' he asked with remarkable coolness.
She had to admire his self-control. 'If I do it myself, yes.' Her eyes shone. 'First,' she said eagerly, 'I'll work on The Old Bakery, because no one will be in it except me and I won't mind the chaos. When it's in good order I'll let it, then move into The Bakehouse and do that up, bit by bit.'
'You?'
His involuntary shout of laughter brought a malevolent fury to her face. Just you wait! she thought, hurt that he should find it so ridiculous.
'I was going to ask for some advice,' she said, all qualms about her deception evaporating in the face of his scorn. 'But I can see I'm wasting my time.'
'You need more than advice. You need your head seeing to!' he said, laughing at her in an infuriatingly superior way. 'You'll never do it.'
'I will,' she muttered angrily.
He sighed. 'Look, I can see you're determined, but don't decide anything yet. Don't put anything up for sale. Come to the chateau for drinks at six the day after tomorrow. I'll have something by then that may make you change your mind. Do this as a favour. You owe me one, after ruining my jacket,' he added drily.
He'd taken the bait! She managed to look doubtful. 'I can't see any point. I won't sell to you. My mother wouldn't like it.'
'She left you with serious problems. You're in financial trouble. I'm sure she'd understand if you felt driven to do so. Wouldn't it be easier, since you know so little about the property market,' he said logically, 'to let me buy the place and give you immediate cash in hand this week-to play around with?'
Concealing a leap of glee, Tessa solemnly drew the shape of a house in the dust at her feet, adding a large stick woman on one side and a small man on the other. 'We could talk about it,' she conceded, looking forward to playing him along, and, she had to admit, to visiting him in the chateau. It was a pity she liked being with him so much. They wouldn't be on speaking terms when she'd finished with him. A wash of sadness crept unexpectedly through her body and she found it hard to pull herself together. 'OK. But I'm promising nothing!'
He stepped carefully over the dust house and deliberately stood on top of the female figure. She met his twinkling eyes and had to acknowledge an overwhelming sense of regret that they couldn't be friends.
'I have every confidence that you'll see sense,' he said arrogantly. 'Bring proof of ownership. Though I'd advise you to reconsider your hare-brained idea of renovating the other two properties. It's just not feasible!'
Chuckling to himself, he strolled out of the garden. Annoyed by his put-down, Tessa rose to his challenge, determined to prove him wrong and to force him to respect her capabilities more. When she'd picked his brains about selling properties, she'd refuse his offer and try for a better price on the open market. He was bound to bid below the market value. Back at the bakery, she pulled the furniture away from the walls and made a preliminary survey. The surface needed wire-brushing to clean up the mould and fungus, drying out ... perhaps with dehumidifiers ... then repointing. She'd already seen where the damp had come in, and would repoint the walls outside and fill the gaps around the windows.
Upstairs, some of the massive chestnut rafters would need replacing-she'd need help for that. The wooden furniture was sound and would be vastly improved by a coat of cottagey-green paint. Maybe some flower stencils .. . Enthused, she made lists, wandering from room to room, spotting eyesores and features. The kitchen ought to be reorganised so that a larger sink and draining-board could be installed, and she'd rip out the ghastly lino, tear off the wallpaper on the beautiful panelled larder door.. . Her eyes shone. The Old Bakery was big. It had four bedrooms and could easily sleep eight. If she got a good price for Oven Cottage and lived like a pauper for a
while, she might end up with something of real value after six months or so.
It was feasible. Of course, she'd need to find out how long she could legally stay in France, but if that was a problem then she'd go home whenever her time ran out and then come back again.
'I can do it!' she exulted, and sat down to list the tools she'd need-and how much she dared to risk spending before the cottage was sold.
Renovating the cottages was now the most important thing on her agenda. It would prove something to herself-and to Guy, and the villagers. Perhaps they'd admire her in the end for her tenacity. And she'd make friends eventually-of that she was sure.
That night, she imagined how impressed Guy would be. She imagined him looking around each cottage, exclaiming over her taste, her skill, her resourcefulness. She wanted him to think well of her, she thought wistfully, and she fell asleep smiling.
After a day in town spent changing traveller's cheques, ordering goods-with difficulty-and arranging for them to be delivered, Tessa decided it was about time she explored the village.
The pattern of streets began to make sense. However much they twisted or narrowed, they all led to one of four stone arches in the walls, to the north, south, east and west. And immediately beyond the arches lay countryside. The sudden contrast between houses and open fields was quite startling. It was as though all building had ceased within the medieval walls centuries ago and not a stick or stone had been allowed to
extend the village from that time on.
It felt rather spooky, and Tessa turned from the silent field at the north, where two sleek horses dreamed shoulder-high in kingcups, and made her way back to the square. A while ago she'd spotted a tiny chapel by a little bridge, where irises bloomed by the slow stream and grey willows draped into the water, filling the air with willow fluff. A wooden gate led her into the surrounding graveyard and she wandered around it for a while, charmed by the individual plaques on the graves. 'From a friend'. 'Regrets'. 'To our aunt'. 'My dearest love. ..' Even she could translate those! Smiling gently, she went into the chapel and stood for a moment in the centre of the bare, empty building, absorbing the utter peace, feeling it flooding through her.
'Do you mind if I come in?'
Calm and relaxed and very sure of herself now, she turned amiably at Guy's soft request and shook her head. 'Of course not. It's probably your chapel anyway.'
'God's, I think,' he said, and lifted his strong head, breathing in the coolness, the serenity. 'Healing, isn't it?'
'Very.' But the atmosphere had changed, the silence now stretching tautly between them. 'How old is it?' she asked, to break that silence.
'It was built on the orders of Richard the Lionheart,' he said, his expression openly revealing the pride he felt for the simple building.
She laughed in surprise. 'I thought he dashed about on crusades! What did he have to do with the Dordogne?'
'It was owned by the English crown at that time Richard's mother Eleanor came from Aquitaine, and huge areas of France formed part of her dowry. Richard built this chapel as a penance.' He touched the whitewashed wall with reverential fingers.
Tessa felt deeply moved. Turaine was in Guy's blood, in his flesh and bones, bred into him by hundreds of years of care and nurture-perhaps battles, sieges, celebrations ... Of course he would fight to the bitter end to preserve what was his. How could she expect him to do otherwise?
Yet the cottages had been freely given to her mother, and the gift had been quite legal. She accepted that Guy and his mother had been hurt, but he had almost a whole village under his care. She, Tessa, needed the three properties he coveted to provide a living.
This village, this chapel could become familiar to her in time. She smiled, liking that idea. Then she remembered what Guy had said about a penance.
'What had King Richard done wrong?' she asked dreamily. 'Not Richard,' he answered, smiling at her. 'His father had ordered Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to be murdered.'
'Yes, in Canterbury Cathedral. I remember.' Her brows angled together. 'But why build a chapel here because of that?'
'Becket was the governor of Cahors, not far to the south,' Guy explained carefully. 'Richard knew that if his men were to live in this region in peace-and if they
wanted to be supplied with food and the necessities of life-he would need to make a public apology for the wrong his father did. You understand?'
She did. His expression made it clear enough. If she wanted to stay and be accepted by the villagers, she would need to show that she abhorred her mother's behaviour.
But that would mean accepting the rumours as fact something she shrank from admitting.
'Perfectly. You think I should build a chapel.' He grinned. 'I don't think you need go that far.'
'What do you suggest? A corner shop?'
He ignored her facetiousness. 'Make sure the cottages are returned to their rightful owner,' he said quietly. Tessa moved to the low arched door without comment.
It seemed so black and white when he put it like that. Outside, she stood in front of a grave, seeing nothing.
'Shall I translate?' he murmured, close to her shoulder.
'Yes! Please!' she said hastily, pretending to be frowning at the lengthy inscription in front of her and not at her rather bleak outlook.
'Charles de Turaine. One of my ancestors. Born two hundred years ago, as you see. Officer of the Legion d'Honneur, fought campaigns in Spain, Portugal, Leipzig, a prisoner in Mexico-' He gave a small laugh at her surprised expression. 'My family gets around. Where was I? Yes ... attached to the secret service, retreated to the peace of rural life and died happily in his bed.
'A man with good fortune on his side,' she said with a little sigh, wishing some would rub off on her. What powerful people lurked in his background! It made her understand his innate arrogance a little better. 'I think it ran out with my father.'
She turned at the low, unhappy remark, sad to see Guy's brooding face. 'Was it an awful shock when he fell in love with my mother?' she asked gently. 'Were you and he very close?'
'We did everything together.'
Her hand touched his bare arm lightly, a gesture of sympathy. 'I am sorry.'
'I lost my father and --my friend.'
Guy moved on a little stiltedly and stopped at another grave. She realised that there was a row of them-all de Turaines, she surmised because each one blazed with deep containers of fresh roses, irises, peonies and orangeblossom. 'Who does this?' she asked, pointing to the flowers. 'The chapel committee. The baker's wife, the basket-weaver, a farmer, the electrician,' he answered with evident affection. 'Fresh flowers every week-or sooner, if they wither. Except. ..' Tessa followed the direction of his brooding gaze. At the end of the line was a grave without a headstone. 'Your father.' Guy nodded, seemingly unwilling to go near it. 'Everyone thinks he betrayed the village?' she ventured. 'But should he have stayed with your mother and lived out a lie? Pretended that he hadn't fallen in love?'
'I told you, it was the way he crawled after your mother without a thought for the feelings of others or the welfare of Turaine that made us bitter,' he growled.
'You... met my mother. You saw her...' Tessa desperately wanted to understand what fatal attraction had been woven around a man who'd had everything: a wife, a child, riches, the devotion of a whole village... 'Tell me about her. About how you know where she came from. Because you suspected something when you heard I'd come from Saltash, didn't you?' Harsh-featured as he dwelt on the past, he leaned against the warm stone of the little chapel and stared unseeingly across the small compound where the white clusters of elderflowers hung low over the enclosing wall.
'I guessed who you were, yes. The likeness is strong. Your mother is, without a doubt, beautiful. Captivating, with a gurgling laugh and dancing eyes. Sexy. I felt the pull of her sensuality the first time I saw her. Father tried to explain to me
how helpless he was, how
his brain melted when she was around, but I didn't want to hear that. We rowed. God! How we rowed! He told me a little about her-that she'd come from a poor background and had felt trapped in her marriage, that her husband didn't understand anything about women's emotions and she'd run away because she felt terrified at being a mother when she hadn't even lived.' A great sadness swept over Tessa. 'She married too young,' she mused, watching a black-and yellow-striped butterfly that had settled on Guy's shoulder. 'If only she'd spread her wings and enjoyed life first,' she sighed as the butterfly flew away, 'there wouldn't have been all this trouble.'
Guy's eyes locked with hers, drawing her in. 'You wouldn't have been born.'
A little breathlessly, she said, 'No. But it's useless to mourn the past, isn't it? We have to deal with the present.,
'But the past overshadows it,' he muttered. 'Because of your mother, my father ignored and abandoned his wife and only son. He made us outcasts in our own village. I spent half my life in exile, Tessa, denied my heritage, scrabbling for a living. Those memories will be with me for the rest of my life and the wounds they've left won't heal easily. When an injustice happens in your life, you rage against it because you feel impotent. And you have to take some kind of action to stop it destroying you.'
Her heart gave a little bump of apprehension. Guy's sense of injustice had burned for too long to be put aside. He'd want to think he had put things right. It was up to her to persuade him that he didn't have to steamroller her in the process. 'What did your mother do? How did she fend for herself?' she asked helplessly.
'She didn't. We went to live with her married sister in New Orleans. Mother took a typing course but wasn't much good. Like you, I became the breadwinner as soon as I could. She died six years ago.'
'And?' she prompted.
'Why are you interested?' he asked, his eyes narrowed. Everything about him interested her. Her need to know it all-how he had felt in a strange country, deprived of his home, his father, his wealth-overcame her caution, but she dressed up her burning curiosity a little. 'Maybe if I know more about you, it will make a difference.'
'To what?' he asked warily.
She alighted on an answer he might accept. 'To my plans,' she said, and she worried that this might be true-that he'd fill her with guilt then make her change her mind and betray her mother's explicit request.
Guy considered her answer for a moment and then said, 'In that case, we have nothing to lose if we get to know one another a little better. Come and walk by the river. It's a little less tough on the emotions there.'
Tessa sensed a new softness in him. He was letting her see the rawness of his feelings. That meant he trusted her a little more. But she felt muddled, unsure whether she wanted his trust. When she did betray him, he'd be doubly angry-unless she could explain, rationally, what her own needs were. A surreptitious glance at his face showed the turmoil underlying his silence. Walking beside him, past the rose hedges, the small bridge and the honey-gold houses crushed beneath the weight of their limestone tiles, she felt a tug in her heart which almost made her flinch with pain, and she wanted to reach out and say that she knew what it was like to lose a parent, to feel abandoned and alone.
The almost claustrophobically crammed houses on the west side of the hill gave way to sudden freedom when they passed beneath the medieval arch, releasing them into fields of poppies as far as the eye could see, which led down to the glistening river with its bright yellow clumps of irises gleaming like gold beneath the willows.
They sat in the shade of a willow tree, their backs against the trunk, Guy's long legs stretched out in front of him, hers curled beneath her as she waited expectantly for him to speak. 'So... you want to know all about me,' he said slowly. She nodded, her eyes solemn and wary.
For a while he said nothing, holding her gaze with that strange, intense stare of his, churning her mind and her body into tangles. Everything around her vanished, leaving only the darkness of his smouldering eyes, and she felt herself becoming dizzy as her heartbeats increased to a rapid thudding, somewhere high in her breast. 'God help us all. You are very much your mother's daughter,' he grated harshly.
And she drew in a shocked breath, knowing what he meant. He'd read her like a book. He knew she was helplessly caught up in some chemical, physical... or worse, she thought morosely, some deep, irresistible at traction. 'No!' was all she could manage. Cynicism hardened the recent warmth of his eyes. 'It doesn't matter. I'm not my father, who found it im¬possible to resist an alluring woman. After being forced to give up a life of luxury in the relative shelter of the French countryside for the realities of New Orleans, I reckon I can deny myself anything, if necessary.'
His head came up, as if he was denying himself something at that moment. Tessa's brow furrowed as she wondered what he meant, but he didn't explain.
'You had a rougher ride than I did,' she conceded. 'We both effectively lost a parent, but you lost the only world you'd ever known. I've never experienced anything other than daily struggle. I think it must be even harder to know the good life and then have to get used to poverty. Something of a culture shock, I imagine.'
'The French quarter in New Orleans sure toughened me up.' Her eyes lingered on the strong arms. 'Was it hard, finding a job?'
' No, but it was hard coping with the tedium of it,' he admitted. 'I started in the kitchens and then worked as a waiter in a restaurant chain.' He smiled ruefully. 'You learn a lot about life as a waiter. You get a sixth sense about who's going to show off, who's feeling intimidated and which ageing Lothario will find fault with everything just to impress his trophy bimbo. That's where I learnt to control my temper and conceal whatever I was thinking.'
'Thanks for the warning.!
'I think you'd worked that one out for yourself, hadn't you, Tessa?'
She nodded. 'You didn't stay a waiter. You became very successful.'
'I was driven, wasn't I?' he replied, his eyes remote and hard. 'I intended to return to Turaine a wealthy man. I graduated to commis chef and then...' He paused, took a deep breath and said, 'then the restaurant owner's daughter told me she was pregnant-and I knew I must be the father.'
TESSA froze. Her eyes reproached him. He must be talking about Giselle. 'Was that deliberate?' she asked unhappily. He looked away. 'No. We'd been going around together and she'd been coming on strong for a while. I'd been holding out. I had principles in those days,' he said with a grim smile. She shivered. He was suggesting that he had none now. 'Did she love you?'
He shrugged. 'Who knows? She said so. I thought I might love her. She was seven years older than me, though I think I looked pretty mature for my age. Eventually we made love. Later, she admitted to me that she got pregnant deliberately and told her father that she wanted to marry me.'
'How did you feel about that?' she asked curiously. He shrugged. 'I was young, ambitious and we had good sex,' he answered bluntly. 'I was very hungry. I enjoyed having a woman to hold. Someone who wouldn't tear my heart from my body.' A small, sardonic smile briefly touched his sombre mouth. 'I was determined to avoid my father's mistake. I never want to feel I'm dying of love.'
'You'll miss a lot,' she said huskily. 'Sure. Pain,' he scathed.
'True friendship. Sharing. Happiness.' She felt very heavy, as if a weight held her down. Perhaps it was sadness at the thought that Guy would go to his grave with an untouched heart. A sigh escaped her parted lips.
'I told you,' he said, his voice a little thick with emotion, 'I can be ruthless with others and with myself. I was promoted to managing the gourmet food business her father had started as a sideline. My mother continued to spend money indiscriminately, so I continued to work all the hours God gave me, fighting to promote the business and make my name. Things weren't so bad, though I didn't love my wife.'
'Didn't?' she picked up quickly.
'We parted a few years ago. She took me to the cleaners. Women seem to have a habit of emptying de Turaine pockets,' he said wryly.
'And you were longing to come home, all the time,' she mused. So Giselle was someone new. Tessa frowned, not wanting to know about the woman, though she wasn't clear why. She couldn't be jealous-that would be too ridiculous.
A depression settled on her. Through the willow leaves she could see the tinges of pink in the sky. Time to go back. But the lethargy in her limbs held her there.
Gentle fingers touched her shoulder and she started like a frightened fawn. 'Hey,' he murmured in smoky tones.
The hand almost withdrew, then came to rest, his fingers touching her bare neck. She liked him, she realised. And knew that was a fatal thing to admit to herself. Tessa knew her breathing had shortened and she was helpless to prevent her lips from parting to release the quick, rapid puffs of sweetness which must, surely, be fanning his close-too close-face. 'I must go,' she said heavily, dismayed to hear how reluctant she sounded.
'Yes,' he whispered. 'I think you should.' Neither of them moved. Tessa became acutely aware of Guy's breath-sharp, hard, hot. It wafted over her lips and made them quiver in anticipation. And slowly,
inexorably, his head was angling, moving closer and closer... 'I'll walk you back,' he murmured, almost into her mouth. But she couldn't move. Desire had paralysed her. Bewildered, she begged Guy for help with her eyes, because nothing else seemed to obey her sluggish brain. 'On second thoughts...' he drawled.
And she closed her eyes, seeing his intention and unable to bear the sight of the eloquent sensuality of his mocking mouth. Their lips met softly, tentatively. Almost too gently. The pain of it-the uncertain, faltering touch-was a delicious torture. Kiss me, she thought recklessly, her whole body tense as a drumskin. Kiss me, she wished silently. Or had she spoken aloud? She didn't care. Cared only that he should-properly. Fiercely. Because the heat, the need, the pounding desire in every vein and muscle and brain cell were all at screaming pitch as Guy hovered, lightly brushing her lips with his. And she might have let out a sigh of desire. She wasn't sure. But Guy had heard it. And had taken her in his arms, crushing her against him, relieving at last the terrible emptiness of her body as he kissed her with a thoroughness that left her breathless but exhilarated.
'I think,' he said quietly, somewhere in the far distance, 'I should not take advantage of the sunset and the warm afternoon like this.'
Why not? was her first wild, unthinking reaction as the emptiness, the loss of his mouth, made her want to take the initiative and catch his dark head in her two hands so that she could bring their mouths together again and drive away the overwhelming feeling of deprivation.
But slowly sense returned and her protective shield wrapped itself around her. He was giving her an excuse, like the gentleman he was. Or escaping from an entanglement he didn't want.
Maybe he hadn't noticed that she'd been out of her mind. She went pink, knowing how easy it would have been for him to murmur sweet nothings into her ear and seduce her. Even now her body was yelling in protest, lungs desperate for air, heart flipping about in her throat, all her heat concentrated in one hungry, aching place.
And the madness that possessed her, the hurting, aching longing, gave her an unwelcome insight into the unstoppable passion that Guy's father had felt.
No matter that reacting to Guy in that way was stupid, or that it demeaned her, wiping away her self-respect because he already had a relationship with Giselle. No matter that Guy had probably kissed her to make her malleable. Reason had fled. She needed his touch so badly that she could almost fling caution to the wind and invite him into her arms. For a second or two she pictured herself slipping languorously to the ground and offering her body. Then, appalled at her weak moral fibre, she hunted around for something brisk which would obliterate the smouldering atmosphere, and said crushingly, 'Forget the warm afternoon and the sunset; I have to check the drains.'
His cynical smile tormented her. Because she wanted to kiss it away and bring back the urgency of his mouth, the hot, driving passion ... She shuddered deliciously. And turned it into a shiver as if she felt cold.
'Ever practical. Or is it the humour you use when you're scared, Tessa?'
Clever. So close to the truth that it hurt. 'It's the humour I use when I have to check the drains,' she muttered, getting to her feet unsteadily. 'My legs have gone to sleep!' she declared, with a small laugh to excuse her shakiness. 'Massage?' he suggested wickedly.
Her eyebrow managed to answer for her, offering a jaundiced and cynical reply in the way it arched. And, to her relief, he didn't press home the advantage he had. Either he didn't know how weak she felt or he thought he'd gone far enough in his bid to soften her up. She hated him for playing on her emotions-and herself for behaving like hand-softened putty. 'I know what you were doing,' she said, managing some semblance of sharp reproof. 'Enlighten me.'
'Softening me up,' she muttered resentfully. 'How did I do?' he asked, with no expression in his voice at all. 'Hopelessly,' she lied. 'A kiss here or there doesn't sway me.'
'Lucky you.'
Shading her eyes against the low, shafting sun, she tried to identify something in his expression that would explain the odd response. But he returned her gaze with a calm detachment which she envied because she felt as mushy as jelly inside. Returning with him across the fields, the orange sun warming her back, she fought the tension knotting her muscles and screwing up her heart as it flung itself recklessly against her ribcage. This was an ordinary man, she told herself crossly. He breathed, he lied, he kicked people out of his way. Sometimes he was kind and cooked pasta for starving waifs, but only if it suited his purpose.
And she'd better remember that, or she'd be hurt so badly that the episode with David would be something she'd look back on and laugh merrily at in contrast.
'Still on for tomorrow evening?' he asked quietly, when they reached the lane to her cottage.
'I don't know.' She tried to sound casual, as if she wasn't afraid. But now she had no faith in her ability to rebuff him and that scared her.
'Think about it. Let me know,' he said gently. 'Don't let a casual kiss interfere with business. There's only one thing I'll have on my mind tomorrow evening, Tessa. Perhaps that will relieve your anxieties?'
No, she thought, watching him saunter away. She knew how she felt. Nothing would change that. This time her feelings were well out of control. Her anxieties wouldn't go away, however much she tried to divert them. Hungrily her eyes devoured him-the easy, confident walk, the carriage of his head, the narrow hips. And she turned, thrusting her key in the door angrily, knowing with a sinking feeling that she was obsessed by him
and temporarily insane.
Fortunately she had a lot to do the next morning. At seven, the van delivered the building materials she'd bought with some of her precious savings. She flung herself energetically into work on The Old Bakery, finding something soothing in the physical effort of mixing sand and lime and cement together for fresh mortar, and she even enjoyed chipping out the old with the little pick-hammer.
Voices murmured down the street but she ignored them, intent on balancing on the ladder she'd found in the old storeroom in the attic. Carefully, using a pointing trowel, she scooped up some mortar from the hawk-board in her hand, then expertly flicked the mixture into the gap between the stone. A quick scrape to compress it, and ...
Two men below, she registered. One must be Guy, judging by the wobble of her legs as some part of her brain recognised those wide shoulders and the smooth dark head.
Solemnly she worked away at the pointing, proud of her skill and her composure, even if she felt the ladder shaking with her treacherously trembling limbs.
'How's your capricorne beetle?' yelled Guy.
'Fine. How's yours?' she called back, intently slicking a fresh dollop of mortar into a deep crack.
'Munching away at my beams from inside out, without any sign they're there-you know how sneaky they are.' Were they? Perhaps she had them after all! 'The place is crawling with sneaky creatures,' she said, unable to fiddle around any more. She'd almost run out of mortar. Darn it! 'Yes. Speaking of them, have you heard from your mother?' he called insolently.
Tessa tightened her mouth and let loose the last remaining dollop of mortar from her trowel. In Guy's direction. 'Oh, whoops!' she cried, seeing it land on his highly polished shoe. No. Someone else's! 'I'm sorry!' she called, blushing. And hurried down the ladder. 'Let me get it off-' The man rattled away in French.
'He says,' drawled Guy, 'not to bother.' The man had already taken a rag from his pocket and wiped the shoe clear. 'This-now you've descended from your lofty perchis the telephone engineer. The village is having new lines put in. You'll be without a phone for a day or so. No problem, I hope?'
'N-no,' she said, reluctantly postponing her decision to ring her father, no matter what her mother had said. Guy apparently told the man to go ahead, because he dumped his set of tools and strode off to the van at the end of the lane. 'You're pretty skilled,' Guy observed, watching while she measured out more sand and cement. 'Where did you learn that? From your father?'
'No.' She sloshed water on the board and hefted the shovel, ready to mix everything together. 'At the stately home I helped to restore in Cornwall.' She bent to the physically demanding task. 'It was-gutted by fire and we had to-start almost from scratch.'
She paused to wipe the back of her hand across her sweating brow, wishing she hadn't worn such short shorts. Guy was unfairly good at making her aware of her own body! And everything-hips, breasts, bottom---
seemed to be rolling around while she cut and patted at the mortar. 'I started off as a tea-girl,' she said, taking a breather, 'and graduated to concrete, gravel paths, puddling ponds and repointing. Then I acquired a load of other talents,' she added airily, 'ending up with my special skill: carpentry.'
'So many talents in one woman. I could use you,' he purred. She nearly snapped that he was doing his darnedest to, but stopped just in time. 'I'd be glad to-'
'Offer your services?' Primly her lips pinched in. 'To join your restoration team,' she said haughtily. And suddenly realised that she meant that. Surprised, she turned to him. 'I'd like to do the work,' she said seriously. 'I love seeing the transformation. Would you employ me?'
'If I like what you do,' he said meaningfully, 'then I see no reason why not.'
She understood that look of his. Sell the cottages to him and she could have a job-one that might last years. A little ripple ran through her body at the thought of being here, near Guy, for that length of time. It reached the core of her body and created such a pleasurable feeling that her alarmed eyes flew up to his, in case he'd seen the betraying flush of shame that warmed through her.
'Thanks,' she mumbled, loading up the hawk. Herr face fell. It wouldn't happen. She wasn't going to sell to him-and he'd be furious. So she'd have to manage on her own. She slopped the mortar about on the board to hide her disappointment. 'Can't stop. This'll set,' she said shortly, starting up the ladder. 'You've got yourself well organised. Are these things hired, or did you buy them?' he called.
'I bought them. I had them delivered this morning. Why?'
'Just interested. You're clearly determined to go ahead, aren't you? Come to see me this evening, Tessa,' he said persuasively. 'I really want to show you the architect's sketches for the village. Promise?'
She really wanted to see them too. Looking down at Guy's upturned face, she felt a wrench at the pleasure on his face. 'I will. See you this evening, then,' she said, feeling as if her lungs had been constricted.
'Look forward to it.' His eyes crinkled in a lovely smile.
Later that day she finished the pointing. Feeling hot and dusty and deeply satisfied with her achievement, she hauled the ladder, the tools and the sacks into the woodshed at the bottom of the garden before cleaning herself up for the meeting with Guy.
Pink from her bath, she munched on a jam sandwich for sustenance, studied the limited range of outfits on the bed and wondered which to wear. Something prim, of course. Except... Giselle would be there. Vanity, self-respect and pride flung themselves together and did their darnedest to coax her to make the best of herself.
Though it wouldn't matter what she wore; he'd only have eyes for Giselle. The forest-green skirt, then. She wriggled the skirt up and fastened the wide-banded waist with a little difficulty, recognising that she'd put on a couple of pounds over the last few days. But it still sat smoothly over her curvy hips, flowing to the ground in soft folds. The effect was rather flattering, and she decided she preferred herself with a little more flesh on her bones.
'No law says I can't look as good as possible!' she declared, and slipped on the matching top-a sleeveless halter-neck which scooped down low to the middle of her spine. Dark green eyes, she decided. And stared at her reflection in momentary surprise. The light here was incredibly kind! If only she could take it with her! Grinning, she found a headband and drew her newly washed hair back from her face, discovering that somehow it made her cheekbones stand out more than usual. Things were looking up.
A touch of the dreaded mascara, since she wasn't expecting to cry, and a coral lipstick brought her features into strong focus. She might not be drop-dead gorgeous but she'd done miracles with unpromising material. She'd feel confident faced with the undoubtedly lovely Giselle, and that was the main thing. Stuffing the deeds to the cottages in her capacious canvas shoulder-bag, she carefully locked the door and walked to the square, very conscious that she was being watched by a group of villagers chatting by the old market hall. So she gave them a wave. Whereupon they turned their backs. It was a challenge. She'd win them round. And, quite determined to show Guy that she wouldn't be intimidated by him-or the hostile villagers-she strode decisively to the imposing chateau entrance, lifted the rather rusty latch and pushed at an excruciatingly squeaky gate, as nervous as a young girl on her first date.
Her eyes rounded as she stepped into ... She grinned. Sleeping Beauty country! Weeds grew up through the tarmac of the drive, though a track had been recently made through them by the wheels of a car. Overhead, an avenue of overgrown limes formed a dark tunnel, and on all sides the garden romped and flowered untamed, as though it had been let go for fifty years. The fairy-tale chateau showed similar signs of neglect. As Tessa walked slowly towards it, her soft forest-green skirt brushing a pathway strewn with poppy petals, she saw that one of the pepper-pot towers had lost its conical roof, which now lay in ruins. Dark green shutters hung by rusting hinges or were scattered where they had fallen fifty feet to the ground and shattered.
Deeply saddened by the decay of what must have been a beautiful house, she stopped short at the incongruous sight of a large obviously second-hand caravan parked to the side of the courtyard. Her eyes only briefly took in the stunning view across the river to miles of verdant countryside before she saw something even more extraordinary.
'Guy?' she called with a little laugh of surprise, realising who was sitting on the caravan steps.
'Welcome to my home.' A casual wave of his arm indicated the caravan.
'Good grief!'
'Please come in.'
In amazement, she followed his tall figure as he ducked to
avoid hitting his head on the low doorway. 'I was expecting to meet Giselle,' she said cautiously, noticing no traces of female occupation.
He gave a faint smile. 'She wouldn't be seen dead in something as primitive as this. She's comfortably ensconced in a hotel nearby.' His head tipped to one side contemplatively as he raked a calculating glance up and down her neat figure. 'Do you think we need a chaperon?'
'I certainly don't,' she said crisply, annoyed that her pulses were thudding heavily. 'Do you need one?' She took the bull by both horns, hoping to joke away her enthusiasm for his kisses. 'Are you afraid I'll pounce?'
Grinning lazily, he indicated for her to sit on the narrow banquette at the back of the caravan and took up a position opposite her, leaning forward on the table between them, his eyes immediately capturing hers.
'I'm afraid you'll turn me down,' he admitted.
'You'll just have to be very persuasive, won't you?' she advised sweetly, and fended off the effect of his limpid eyes by asking, 'Why aren't you in a hotel too?'
'I've been away from the chateau for too many years. I have no intention of leaving it now,' he said gravely. 'But ... to live here! Is the house so awful inside?' Something dark flickered in his eyes. 'Appalling.' She thought of the expense ahead of him. He'd told her he'd won a grant from the European Community for restoring the village, but it was unlikely he'd get any help with the chateau. And she remembered that his exwife had taken him to the cleaners. Impulsively she said, 'What a worry. You must be awfully stretched, financially.'
'Would it make a difference if I were poor, Tessa?' Quick-witted, she turned that to her advantage. 'Yes. Of course. You wouldn't buy my cottage. Oh!' A little coyly, she let her fingers fly to her mouth, as if it dismayed her that it was too late to take back what she'd said.
'So you were playing hard to get,' he said softly. 'You do want to sell to me!'
'I keep changing my mind,' she replied, feigning reluctance. 'But I have to admit that I hadn't meant to let you know my interest quite so quickly! I thought I'd try to drive the price up.' She sighed. 'But I'm no good at this wheeling and dealing.' Her eyes were pools of green innocence. She smiled a silly-me smile. 'I don't think I'd ever be a success bargaining in a souk for a camel. I'd come home with a herd of them, all lame and humpless!'
'No. They'd abduct you,' he murmured.
'The camels?' she asked, deliberately misunderstanding and trying not to giggle.
Guy's mouth twitched. 'Every red-blooded male in the souk,' he corrected her, his sultry eyes and gravel tones doing outrageous things to her body.
She could feel the tips of her breasts hardening, pushing lustfully at the soft cotton. And he could see them, his gaze riveted by the wayward peaks and his mouth taking on that hungry, carnal arch which made her stomach contract.
Tessa tried to breathe as normally as possible and searched furiously for her wits. It was hard when he loomed inches away, projecting smouldering desire. Or was he? She'd been caught by that one before. Maybe he was trying to divert her! That brought her down to earth! 'In the absence of red-blooded males panting to abduct me,' she said sardonically, noting with fascination the way Guy's mouth shaped into a wry smile, 'I have to face reality, as you said. You want the cottage; I want to sell. Name your price.'
'You have the transfer of sale?' He took the papers from her and checked them over. 'Fine. They're definitely yours. Drink?' he suggested.
'Thank you. Shouldn't you hand those back?' She could see how reluctant he was, as if it went against the grain to return the deeds. And she wished she didn't feel for him as he silently watched her pushing them back into her bag. Guy stood up, went to the door and gestured for her to follow. A little impatiently, she did so, and found that he was leading her towards the house.
'My father left rather a good wine cellar,' he explained, answering her querying look. 'We might as well begin to empty it.'
Stepping into the cool stone-flagged hall, she scanned the room with interest. 'How lovely it must have been,' she said quietly. 'Thirteenth-century. Sixteenth and seventeenth additions. Chestnut beams. They have to be massive to support the weight of the stone shingles, you see,' he said, warming to his subject. 'There's a weight of one tonne per square metre.
Except where there are holes in the roof, of course,' he added ruefully.
It must upset you to see it in such a state. Your family home, reduced to this! I can't imagine how you felt when you first saw it.' And her face saddened to think of Guy's distress when he had discovered his ruined inheritance. 'Sick.'
'Yes. I'm sure.'
Her fingers ran lightly over a dusty table. Beneath the layer of dust was the most beautiful dark wood, but one end of the table had been splashed by rain. She craned her neck and identified a small patch of sky high, high above, where the plaster had collapsed from the weight of water and opened the hall to the elements.
'So much damage,' she said in consternation. There were bits of birds' nests on the floor, twigs and other debris. Tall candlesticks had fallen over, vases lay in pieces, and it sounded as though a squawking magpie had taken up residence in the panelling. Her eyes lifted to his and for once his expression wasn't masked. The hurt on his face sent a knife through her. 'Guy, this must be breaking your heart! How long will it take to repair? Can you do it?' she asked passionately. 'I can. But I promised myself that I'd restore the village first,' he said quietly. 'I couldn't spend time and money on the chateau knowing what I do about the conditions in some of those village houses.'
Tessa felt a helpless little lurch of her heart. Mr Wonderful again. 'What time-scale are you talking about?' she asked, wandering around the hall, trying to make her own assessment. 'Three years for the village. Five for the house.'
'Five!' She whirled around, an ache filling her throat. 'Guy, how can you bear it? That's terrible-'
'That's authentic seventeenth-century wallpaper,' he said quickly, suddenly turning away from her and pointing at the fungus-laden wall. 'I'm hoping to duplicate it. The panelling's mostly rotten, but some can be saved. The pipes froze and burst last year and flooded
the whole interior. That's when most of the damage occurred. We'll go to the west wing. It's not so bad. The salon. We'll talk there.'
She understood his reason for cutting her sympathy short. It must hurt like hell to see the damage and to know that it would be years before it could be put right. The only way he could cope with it was to forget it for the time being. But what a strain!
He lit seven candles wedged in a branched candlestick and led the way through dark and gloomy corridors. Tessa kept close behind him, a little intimidated by the devastation. 'I thought my mother's cottages were bad enough,' she said in a low voice. 'But their condition pales into insignificance beside this.'
'Sheer vandalism, isn't it?' he agreed, his mouth tight with anger.
And she had to agree silently. His father had been negligent. But had her mother really persuaded her lover to abandon everything but the pursuit of pleasure? Or had it been the other way round? She had to know. It was agonising, being torn this way and that.
They walked into a sunny room whose floor-to-ceiling windows were intact and which looked out onto an ornate turn-of-the-century conservatory. Or it had been a conservatory, once. A banana tree had pushed its way through the glass lights and was thrusting its massive paddle-shaped leaves up to the peerless blue sky.
Tessa sat where Guy directed, perching on the edge of a chaise Tongue while he disappeared to the cellar, taking the candlestick with him. Feeling a little subdued by the sadness surrounding the house, she waited for Guy to return. Her mind seemed incapable of matching facts. Guy was ruthless and vindictive. He manipulated people, managing to hide his feelings and ooze charm at will. Yet he adored Turaine with a deep and abiding passion,
and the villagers evidently adored him-though they would, wouldn't they? He did seem to have a core of decency in that he acted like a gentleman and with honour. He baffled her. And the more he baffled her, the more fascinated she became. When he returned, she accepted a glass of beautifully chilled Chablis and waited nervously for him to make his move.
'I WANT you to see what I'm planning because I think you'll understand my motives more clearly,' said Guy, bringing over a folder which he placed on the elegant table in front of her. 'Here,' he went on, showing her a series of sketches, 'is a group of cottages by the river. This is how they look now, and what I plan to do with them. I need to make the village viable again. Half the inhabitants of Turaine have left. I want to encourage people back.'
'By providing stylish restorations?' she asked, frowning over the faintly arty looking adaptations. But they were attractive-keeping the character of each ramshackle stone cottage but adding an arch here, an iron balcony there ... 'Partly. The idea is to attract hi-tech hermits.' He grinned at her surprised face. 'The village will be reborn. Everyone here is in favour of the plan. Not one dissenter. The Internet global network makes it possible for the revolution in home-working to take off in a big way.
'I for one will be working from home in future; I don't need to be in London or New York, Paris or New Orleans, battling my way through traffic or suffering jet lag. And I've already had enquiries from people I know who are tired of the rat race, who want to bring their families to somewhere safe, somewhere on a human scale, where food comes out of the ground instead of some vast warehouse where it's been blasted with some gas to keep it from rotting.'
'It's a stunning concept,' she said in awe, poring over the designs. If he could attract enough new blood into the village he'd be bringing prosperity to the region, with a spin-off in services. 'You're not worried that the highfliers will take over and alter the nature of Turaine?'
'No. The existing villagers will have a powerful say in what happens. And I'll step in if I feel unhappy about the way things are going. We want to create a sense of identity and community and to stop young people from moving away. I think we can offer the best of both worlds: the pursuit of world-wide business without the attendant stresses-a small, intimate community in the country with all the attendant benefits.' He shut the book. 'I'm glad you like the idea.'
'I think it's admirable,' she said honestly.
'And what do you think about your mother knowingly causing the destruction of this house because she wanted to obliterate it before I inherited?' he asked bluntly.
She flinched. 'Is that what you're claiming? I only have your word that she did,' she replied uneasily, her eyes narrowed over the wafer-thin rim of her glass. Her mother couldn't be that vindictive, could she? Her heart thumped with fear.
'You know the attitude of the villagers,' he reminded her. 'Think, Tessa. Could a whole village be wrong?'
'It's possible,' she said defiantly, willing them to be unfairly prejudiced about her mother.
'Everything I've told you is true. I couldn't lie about something so painful,' he said, very quiet and intense suddenly. 'I think you know that.'
Her teeth snagged at her lip. Intuition told her to believe him, but her intuition wasn't always reliable. 'If it were true,' she said slowly, 'I'd feel terribly upset. It seems an extreme thing to do.'
'Your mother is extreme.'
She looked around the room in a hunted way, as if the de Turaines in the portraits were silently accusing her. She noticed that the silk drapes had rotted and were hanging in tatters, and that part of the ornate plaster ceiling had collapsed. It was a crime to neglect something of such beauty and it made her feel distressed so she could imagine what it must do to Guy.
'But to do this deliberately? It seems so spiteful!' she argued. And winced at his curt nod. Uncomfortable, she said, 'If what you claim is true then she must have had a reason. A hatred of you. What had you done to her?'
He grimaced. 'Plenty. I made her life hell. Let down her tyres, dumped half a pig's carcass on her lap, threw a bucket of slops over her...'
Tessa gasped, recoiling in horror. 'You did all that? If you treated me like that I'd fight you too!'
'Even as far as letting a beautiful chateau and an entire village go to rack and ruin?' he asked grimly.
'No. That would mean hurting others. But you behaved
dreadfully-'
'I was sixteen,' he reminded her tightly. 'My passions were raw and I had no hold on them.'
They were still raw, she thought. But he held them in check-for the moment. What would happen, though, if he was pushed beyond the limits?
'I was watching my mother shrink with shame every day,' he went on. 'I had to do something to drive Estelle away.'
'But you drove her' deeper into your father's arms,' she said with sudden perception.
He looked at her in surprise. 'That's right. Estelle was tougher and cleverer than I thought. I think it became an obsession with her, to make Papa forget not only his wife and son but Turaine itself, to make everyone who'd condemned and ignored her suffer.'
'This isn't fair. She can't answer for herself.' Tessa prayed that Guy was exaggerating, that there was a reasonable explanation for the deterioration of Turaine.
'She will, one day,' he muttered with determination. 'And answer for her vindictive behaviour. She swore that I'd wish I'd never crossed her. This was her legacy to me: a father dead before his time from a hectic life of travel and parties, and seven hundred years of history dangerously close to destruction. Do you understand why I am bitter, Tessa?'
'If-,
'It's true. I swear on my mother's life.'
Tessa's eyes were huge with dismay. He didn't know for certain what had happened. He was biased. He'd listened to tales from the villagers who'd had an axe to grind about her mother. No one could be that malevolent. It would break her heart to discover that her mother wasn't the beautiful woman described so graphically by her father.
'You have to understand that I am terribly sympathetic to your cause but I have loyalty to my mother. And I must give her a chance to explain. I hate the situation,' she confessed. 'When will it end, Guy?'
'You tell me. It's in your hands. I want the cottages.' She couldn't look at him. Her heavy lashes dropped to conceal the guilt in her eyes. Somehow she had to straighten up this mess-but at the same time she must keep the right to own the cottages, which her mother had given to her. 'I think a line should be drawn, right now. I don't like people to hurt one another.' She thought of what she intended and blushed. 'I abhor selfishness,' she said, stumbling on. 'But...' She was going to hurt him. She meant to be selfish. Suddenly she couldn't bear it.
'Yes, Tessa?' he prompted softly. 'You were about to defend your mother, I think,' he said, when she looked at him blankly. 'Only to say that it seems when people are in love they tend to exclude everyone and everything else,' she said huskily, transfixed by Guy's utter stillness.
'For as long as my father excluded my mother and me?' he asked quietly.
'Perhaps. I don't know. Can you hate my mother for making your father happy? Maybe she couldn't stand the disapproval here and hated living in the village. If your father had loved her, he'd have gone along with her wish to be anywhere but Turaine, wouldn't he?'
He frowned. 'And if she'd loved him she'd never have asked him to.'
'You can be so crazy about someone that you don't think of the consequences,' she mumbled, her head lowered. 'You act without thinking.'
'Ah. Someone hurt you.' His voice caressed her and she felt her barriers melting. 'Your father?'
She shook her head. After a short silence, she said, 'A man. He humiliated me.'
'The man you loved.'
She grimaced. 'I was overweight, plain and miserable and I thought I loved him for five long years, but I suppose it was only a crush. He hardly noticed me. I was a joke to him. He thought it would be hysterical to lead me on and see how far I'd go.'
'And you obliged?'
'Mmm.'
Guy let out a low, harsh expletive. Startled, Tessa jumped, the wine from her glass spilling over her. 'I'm sorry,' he said contritely, leaping to his feet, handkerchief at the ready. And then he thought better of it, sinking back into the vast armchair again, watching her intently as she took out her own hanky and wiped her wet hand and one or two splashes on the green top. 'I think you're far too vulnerable to stay here,' he muttered. 'You'll get hurt.'
The threat unnerved her and made her feel sad. Astonishingly, she realised she'd wanted them to go on talking all evening, without touching on the controversial sale. Her soft mouth quivered, but his mouth
tightened and he scowled at her. She was being stupid again. Angry with herself, she said coolly, 'So make your offer.' She sounded shaky. With a sigh, he reached out and put his hand on hers, frowning at the way it trembled, and when his gaze met hers it was as if he'd set her alight. The atmosphere had somehow become electric between them, filling the room with high tension. And she didn't know why, or how, but he'd weakened her resolve; she knew that. Either by teasing out her hurtful past, or by sitting there, quietly simmering with some inner tension, his chest rising and falling faster and faster, as if his heart pounded at the same impossible rate as hers. Even though she realised that this was his calculated method of persuasion, her heart foolishly wanted her to be generous, and it took all her determination not to blurt out that he could have all three cottages. Fortunately her sense of loyalty to her mother meant that was impossible. His lashes lay dark and achingly appealing on his fine cheekbones. Slowly he began to stroke every inch of her hand, as if it fascinated him: the grazed knuckles, the faint marks around her cuticles where no amount of scrubbing could remove the evidence of mortar, the short, work-friendly nails. Then his fingers stilled, leaving her skin feeling as if it danced. 'Make your offer,' she croaked, not sure whether she wanted to hit him or kiss him.
He looked at her then, long and hard and with such a yearning that her breath caught harshly in her throat. 'I thought I was doing just that.'
His voice was almost inaudible. When she scanned his face, she saw that it was tense to the point of rigidity and his hand now gripped hers tightly. He wanted something. So badly that it was taking every ounce of control for him to hide that desire from her.
Me, she thought, and blinked open her eyes wide at the ridiculous notion that had leapt into her mind. Down! she ordered her hopelessly incompetent intuition. He wants those cottages, not you!
'You...' She reached for her glass of wine, needing something to clear her throat. 'You haven't mentioned a price,' she said huskily.
His mouth twisted and a darkness came into his eyes. 'The price is probably unacceptable to both of us.' She didn't understand. It sounded as if he was talking about something else entirely. Did he mean that if she stayed he'd be uncomfortable with her around? And that she'd never be accepted in the village?
Feeling wretched, she dragged her hand away, jumping up and going to stand by the conservatory in an effort to break the spell he'd cast on her. Guy came up behind her, his hands possessive on her gleaming bare shoulders, and she clenched her fists. Why didn't he leave her alone? she thought, close to
screaming with the strain.
'Take my advice,' he said, his gently moving palms sending her spinal cord into rigid spasm. A tremendous tension communicated itself to her. For a moment she thought he might crush her fragile bones, and then his hands fell to his sides. 'Sell up. Get out of here,' he said quietly. 'You've no idea what'll happen if you don't.'
A direct threat. His meaning was clear. Go or expect trouble. That decided her. She shook off her lassitude and her stupid imaginings. Time to go into business mode. 'OK,' she said coolly, turning to face him. 'Give me a price. Tell me what I'd have to do if we made a deal. I want to know everything that would be involved, from start to finish.' To her surprise, he didn't react with instant pleasure as she'd expected. He seemed to be struggling with conflicting emotions. But then he nodded curtly, walked to the table to fill his glass again and drained it dry. When he faced her, his expression seemed as detached as hers. Quietly he told her in clipped tones what she wanted to know, explaining the intricate details of the French housing market. Each of her questions he answered comprehensively. Now she could go it alone.
When he'd finished, and she had nothing more to ask, he lifted a questioning eyebrow and said, 'Well?'
To her utter dismay, Tessa felt her throat constrict. She had all the information she needed and now she could say thanks and goodbye. But now that the time had come the words stuck in her craw. It didn't matter how he'd behaved. Suddenly what she had done seemed both crude and cruel. He loved Turaine. He had wonderful plans for it. To him, her cottages were properly part of those plans. And she'd played a game with his emotions.
'I'm sorry,' she mumbled, feeling wretched. 'I won't be accepting your offer.'
He stiffened warily. 'Wrong price? You expect more?'
'No, I expected less, to be honest. I can't-' She bit her lip, seeing the flash of black anger in his eyes, and she sought to explain, a sickening misery filling her whole body. Without thinking, desperate to show that she wasn't entirely heartless, she opened her mouth and blurted out, 'I'm sorry, Guy, I really am. But I promised Mother when she rang-'
'What?' Guy drew in a sharp breath, instantly incandescent
with rage. She backed against the wall as he came over to her like a whirlwind, slamming his hands either side of her, offering no escape, his face a few seething inches away. 'You're telling me you've known all along where your mother is?' he fumed. 'Yes!' she squeaked in alarm.
'Then you never had any intention of selling to me!' he snarled, terrifying the cringing Tessa with the ruthless glitter in his eyes. 'You took me for a sucker. She put
you up to this. That vindictive harridan told you to taunt me with what is rightfully my property. Mine, Tessa!' he roared, grabbing her arms and hauling her up till she stood on tiptoe, her eyes blasted by his. 'No! You're wrong!'
'You listened to me chuntering on about hi-tech communities and you offered platitudes about the state of this house-and all the time you were waiting to stab me in the back. I could kill you for leading me on!' he raged. 'God help me, I could!'
'I couldn't avoid it!' she yelled in frustration. 'I'm sorry!'
'Sorry?' He thrust his face right up to hers, his breath hot and fast on her tremulous mouth. 'You'll be that all right by the time I've finished with you,' he growled. 'I can't sell to you!' She winced, finding it hard to breathe. 'Please, let me explain-'
'I think I've given you enough rope,' he said tightly. 'Now it's time for you to hang-and fall.'
And he let go of her so suddenly that she staggered and slipped to the floor, her legs sprawling in a display of silky tanned flesh.
It seemed safer there, so she stayed, hastily covering her thighs and adjusting her top where it had gaped to reveal rather a lot of cushiony bosom.
'I need those cottages,' she began grimly.
'Then why lead me a dance? And do note that I remember your mother's way of amusing herself with my father and that I use those words advisedly!' he snarled.
She winced again but thought better of trying to defend the indefensible. 'I like what you're planning for the village. But you must see, Guy, that you have a huge estate bringing in rents; I have nothing to call my own no income, no job. This is a golden opportunity for me to make a little money by the sweat of my brow. I want to make it work. It's important to me-'
'Then you should have said so straight away!' he snapped. She hung her head. 'Yes. I should.' Her chin tipped up defiantly again. 'But you started flinging bleach about and that made me mad! It was obvious you'd do anything to get what you wanted-even-even ...' Her mouth tightened. 'Yes?' he drawled, his eyes ice-cold.
'Even kiss me,' she mumbled uncomfortably. 'You don't know how that makes me feel. One man has already used me.' Her voice strengthened with determination. 'I won't let you try to wind me around your little finger! My mother said to beware of you,' she said shortly, 'and she was right. You accuse me of not being straight with you, but you've consistently concealed your real intentions from me, haven't you?' He was silent, his grim mouth and defensively folded arms telling her the answer to that question. Weary now, she felt her shoulders droop with fatigue. 'It makes no difference what I want to do anyway,' she said dully. 'I can't break my word.'
'To Estelle?' he scathed. 'A woman who breaks her word twenty times before breakfast? Where is she?' he demanded roughly.
'I'm not prepared to tell you.'
He pushed a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. 'I thought I could trust you, but you're as devious and as manipulative as your mother. Congratulations,' he bit out, giving a mocking bow. 'You fooled me for a short time into thinking you were rather innocent. You've played a blinder, Tessa. Your mother would be proud that you're following in her footsteps.'
Tessa's mouth was trembling. She might have wormed all the information she needed out of him, but she wished with her whole heart that she hadn't. 'I'm sure it's not true what you say about my mother!' she said jerkily.
'Careful,' he warned, his eyes glittering and hard. 'You know what happened the last time you were near to tears.'
She scrambled awkwardly to her feet. 'Yes!' she blazed. 'You embarrassed me! You made me feel that big!' She showed him how big with her thumb and forefinger. 'And you've been playing me along all this time, so I'm not taking all the blame. You pretended to be kind and helpful but you didn't really feel like that, did you? You wanted to get your greedy hands on those cottages and enjoy a sweet revenge on my mother! Well, you won't! And I don't feel ashamed of what I've done! I'm glad. I've never hurt anyone before, but in your case I'm glad to make an exception!'
Like a raging tornado, she turned and strode furiously to the door, hardly able to see for the angry tears. Every second she expected to hear him running to stop her. Or some scathing verbal attack. Nothing.
She reached the door and paused, her nerves making her shake. An invisible force was making her look back, and when she did she knew it had been a mistake. There was angry pain in Guy's dark eyes. The despair on his face lanced through her, causing her to let out a little groan. 'Guy!' she whispered brokenly, torn in two by his bleak expression. 'I'm so sorry!'
'Divided loyalties?' he asked cuttingly. 'I pity you, Tessa.' Her mouth quivered. He'd do his best to ruin her plans. But it wasn't that which made her body ache with misery. It was the fact that he looked like a wounded bull. Appalled, she clutched at the doorframe. She cared about him. Dear heaven, had she no sense at all?
A week passed-a week of hot, sultry weather that made Tessa's clothes stick to her perspiring body every time she did any physical work. Which was constantly. In that time she scrubbed right through both holiday lets till they gleamed and put little Oven Cottage up for sale in the town of Lalinde. Guy seemed to haunt the village-and her-in dreams and in reality, confronting her time and time again, hovering outside one village house after another as he discussed plans with his architect. Every time she saw him her stomach flipped. Well, she thought, when she opened her door one morning and found him standing there and her internal organs did their usual tricks, it's cheaper than paying for a roller-coaster ride. 'Yes?' she asked imperiously, to try to counteract the scruffy look she was sporting that morning. With the immaculate, achingly handsome Guy before her very eyes, she felt horribly conscious of the plaster-dust whitening her entire face and clothes, the thin old shirt knotted under her breasts, her minimal shorts and the way her hair had been whisked back with a cotton scarf.
Just as frosty but a million times cleaner, in a casual shirt and tight denim shorts which strained against strong, unnervingly strokable thighs, he gestured to a denimed and check-shirted man in his forties who stood glowering at her.
'This is Yves Clemence. The mayor. He wants to inspect the holiday lets.'
Her eyes whisked up from their appreciation of the rippling muscles in Guy's legs and widened in dismay. 'Oh!' Flustered, she glanced at the mayor and then at Guy. 'Come in a moment while I turn off the gas and get the keys.' She hurried into The Old Bakery's kitchen and removed the huge iron pot of farm chicken and vegetables from the stove. When she returned, she saw that the two men were inspecting the chaotic room critically.
'I'm hacking off the damp plaster on the communicating wall,' she explained unnecessarily, since the dust-filled air and wounded wall were quite obvious. But, anxious to fight her corner, she foraged for the keys to the lets in her bag and continued with proud authority,
'I've repointed the stone inside and out and sealed anything else with mastic. The walls ate watertight. Something you'd approve of, I think, Guy.'
'And the roof?' he enquired, his gaze resting on her as she tried to brush plaster off her face and failed dismally. He looked so clean, so tidy, so darn perfect! Tessa yanked off her scarf and shook her hair vigorously, sending dust flying everywhere. Lord, she must look a sight! With a sigh of resignation, she gave up any thought of appealing to the sour mayor's better nature and marched to the door, anxious to get this over with as soon as possible. 'The roof's next.'
'Rain is threatened. You have several lauzes missing,' said Guy. 'I know,' she said sharply, irritated that he did. Had he been counting? Thanks to the new lot of holidaymakers in the other two cottages, she'd been able to order some more. 'I'm waiting for a delivery of replacement tiles.'
'If it should rain-'
'Yes,' she interrupted impatiently, 'I'm aware of what happens when you have a hole in the roof and rain falls. Let's hope it doesn't!'
She challenged him to complain any more. She was doing her best, drat him! He captured her eyes, held her gaze effortlessly, driving the memory of their kiss back into her responsive body. Her curving lashes fluttered down to conceal the earthy thoughts clamouring in her brain. Coolly she said, 'Shall we go?'
They went. The mayor and Guy peered and probed and poked about in The Bakehouse while she fidgeted anxiously and tried to avert her eyes from Guy's hard, tight rear when he went up the stairs in front of her. With all three of them squashed in the small bedroom,
she felt his physical presence even more strongly, her skin touched with a tingling heat. When Guy brushed past her, on his way to the window, she jumped back, afraid of the dreadful, wickedly pleasurable fire in the core of her body.
'You've made it very... comfortable in here,' he murmured, looking back at her faintly stunned face.
She swallowed as his eyes drifted over the bed and then back to her. And then to the bed again. It took several seconds before she dared trust herself to speak normally.
'A slap of paint on the old furniture-flowers. It-i makes all the difference.'
'And the perfume in here?' he enquired softly.
'I don't think there is any-perhaps the couple who are staying here-aftershave- deodorant. ..'
'I think it's yours.' He moved towards her. 'Carbolic soap or turps,' she said hastily, and walked out, dizzily wondering why he had such a disastrous
effect on her. She hurried downstairs to escape him. 'He thinks you've done a good job,' Guy pronounced, when he and the mayor had finished their inspection. 'Of course I have,' she retorted, ignoring the spread of his chest and fixing her eyes somewhere to the right of his ear. 'And if he'll give me a month or so I'll be able to sort out Oven Cottage too, but I can't do much while it's occupied.'
'Perhaps we can see that for ourselves?' he murmured. Heaving a sigh, she showed them next door and into the large living room, where once a team of bakers had laboured over the endlessly long table, kneading bread. In the corner, looking rather incongruous, stood the giant mixer, and still on their original wall-hooks were the two twelve-foot wooden paddles which had slid the loaves in and out of the oven. The two men homed in on these and chattered away. 'What's he saying?' she asked defensively. 'We were reminiscing.'
Guy didn't seem interested in telling her any more, so she asked, 'What about?'
'Coming in here as children and being given hot chunks of bread, straight from the oven.' He slanted a glance at her rapt face. 'Have you seen inside the oven?'
She shook her head and he forced up the latch on the solid iron door. It was like a room inside. She would need a pneumatic drill if she demolished it, she thought apprehensively. 'We think this ought to be preserved,' he announced firmly, startling her. 'Don't do anything other than superficial decoration until you hear from us.'
The mayor disappeared upstairs. Tessa felt the temperature in the room rise as if the oven was in operation. But it was only the heat from her body. Anxious not to reveal her agitation, she flung a quick excuse in Guy's direction and hurried after the mayor.
He ignored her and continued to make copious notes. He'd filled several pages by the time he'd finished his tour and she waited on pins for the verdict.
'That's all,' Guy said coolly, after a hurried consultation. 'Do I pass muster?'
'We'll let you know. He's not too impressed with this one.' Crossly she slapped at an insect dining on her thigh. Guy stretched forward and lazily flicked off the squashed remains with his thumb, which seemed to remain an interminably long time in contact with her soft skin.
Somehow she directed her brain away from the resulting sensations and back to the problem in hand. She wasn't going to let them leave without contributing to her own defence.
'The new intake of holidaymakers are impressed,' she said truculently. 'Tell him that they're perfectly happy. I did them a barbecue on their first night and they think Turaine is wonderful.' Guy shrugged, as if that didn't make any difference. She drew in an anxious breath and cried, 'He can't close me down! You can't be so mean as to let him!' Guy translated. The mayor gave a careless shrug-of his own, shook Guy's hand, ignored her completely and walked out of the house. She stood on the worn doorstep and scowled at the mayor's retreating back.
'I can't stand injustice!' she muttered. 'If he closes me down because he's miffed with my mother, then that will be totally unfair.'
'Standards must be maintained. You'd be foolish to pour any more money and effort into these cottages,' warned Guy, close
behind her.
She whirled to confront him, her eyes blazing, and, seeing her clenched fists, he took a step back in surprise. 'Let him take action-but only if he gets any complaints!' she cried hotly. 'All the time I can keep the visitors happy, it's business for Turaine, and it wouldn't make commercial sense to ignore that. Don't you care about the small shopkeepers here?'
'Oh, I care,' he said insolently. 'Did your mother?' She winced. 'Below the belt, Guy! I'm doing everything I can to show that I care about the community. Leave my mother out of it. The fact is that I have five people in this house alone, and they're all eating like horses-to the delight of the baker, the butcher and the grocer! Please, Guy, use your influence-'
'I can't recall,' he said with a frown, staring over her head at her cottage, 'that you had any broken windows when we left.'
'I-didn't!' Her head jerked around and she sucked in a sharp breath, hurrying over to stand in front of the cracked panes of glass, the anger rising to boiling point inside her at the wanton destruction. 'How convenient,' she snapped, rounding on Guy, 'that I was occupied elsewhere!'
She thought of how he'd thrown her those warm glances, made her mind dizzy with the sensual messages in his eyes. Now she knew why. A neat revenge, using physical attraction to divert her while someone vandalised her windows ... Perhaps the blonde woman. She felt a twinge of pain, deep in her chest. How low!
'Who did you arrange this with?' she stormed, furious with herself for ogling him while her house was being vandalised. 'Miss Palazzo Pants herself? How smallminded can you get?' Her fists clenched tightly as she fought her anger. 'Why, if I-'
'Hold it! Tessa, this-'
'I don't want to hear your lies! You must be involved. You have the motive! You threatened me. Well, I can repair windows, Guy. And let me make this perfectly clear: I won't be driven out by you or anyone else, and the more you try, the more I'm determined to stay and be successful!'
Upset and seething with rage, she stomped into the house and slammed the door, hearing the tinkle of glass as the rest of the pane fell out. War, she thought grimly. He'd declared his colours.
Hell. She sat on a pile of cord wood, the coppiced Spanish
chestnut cut for the log fire, and surveyed the mess, suddenly overwhelmed by the tasks she'd taken on. The sale of a cottage. The restoration of two more. Defying Guy and an entire village. Changing hostility into friendship. Impossible. Madness.
What the devil was she doing?
TESSA groaned, wishing that she had someone to confide in, to be her friend when things got tough. If only her mother or her father could have been reached she'd have felt better. She could have talked to someone on her side, someone who cared. Moodily she lit the gas to finish cooking her meal, tied on her scarf and proceeded to hack away at the plaster without much enthusiasm. Her mother might write or phone any day. She'd hang on a little longer.
The trouble was that Guy could jeopardise her income if he prevailed upon the mayor to put some kind of embargo on Oven Cottage. And she didn't know how to stop him. All she needed was to hear a friendly voice, a consoling word and some advice.
In the morning she flung open the front door and unlocked the postbox attached to it in the hope that there would be a letter from her mother. But the metal door swung open to reveal an empty interior.
'Oh, Mum!' she sighed, disappointed. 'If only you knew how much I need you right now!'
And her feelings of desolation intensified later, when she discovered that her ladder and some tools were missing from the woodshed. Guy again! Or one of his accomplices! Her frustration made her want to scream. Perhaps she would, she thought darkly. At Guy.
Instead, armed with a dictionary and some carefully rehearsed phrases, she went to the mairie, the town hall, since there was no gendarmerie nearby. She hoped the officials might help or offer advice, and she did her best to explain what had happened. As she'd suspected they might, they stubbornly refused to understand anything she said. Eventually she gave up, wearied by their indifferent shrugs and blatant hostility. There didn't seem to be any point in driving to Lalinde to make a complaint. The police wouldn't get far in their enquiries, she felt sure.
The villagers were entrenched in their hatred of her, she
thought miserably, making her way back to the cottage. And Guy encouraged them. Her spirits sank and she lost much of her will, working because she had to, not because it was fun any more.
Over the next few days it became overpoweringly hot and sticky. Every morning she expected the threatened thunderstorm. Every day she expected a letter from her mother. No storm, no letter-and no word from the French agent in Lalinde about the sale of her cottage. Every day she tucked into a bar of chocolate for comfort, not caring that her body was rounding out, because she felt more at ease with herself when she couldn't see her ribs. At the end of one uncomfortably sultry day, she decided to down tools early and go for a cooling walk by the river before she bathed and changed. With sweat plastering tendrils of her hair to her neck and moulding her ancient shorts and carelessly tied shirt to her now curvaceous body, she hurried down the stepped street to the square.
Where she pulled up short, her heart thudding violently. More trouble. Both wheels of her bike were missing. And beside the bike crouched Guy de Turaine. Only one man in Turaine could have such a magnificent back and narrow waist. Caught in the act again! He really was a petty, spiteful kind of guy. And disappointment
overwhelmed her, gluing her to the spot, because that wasn't how she'd seen him in her dreams.
He straightened then, and turned, searching the square angrily as if hunting for someone. His gaze alighted on her and he stiffened, watching her with narrowed eyes as she forced her reluctant legs into motion towards his elegant figure. 'I'm sure you have an explanation,' she said coldly, halting a few feet away from him. 'I'm dying to hear it. Don't tell me-you found it like this?'
'Yes, I did. I was on my way to the post office when I noticed the wheels had gone.' Seeing her scathing expression, he frowned. 'It's true. I don't know how it happened. I'm as puzzled as you.'
'Puzzle no more!' she said with bitter sarcasm. 'Oh, Guy, how could you? This is my only transport! I can put up with having my windows broken and my ladder pinched, but this is plain vicious!' She thrust grubby fingers through her damp hair in exasperation. 'I rely on my bike. I need it, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. You know I have to shop in Lalinde because nobody will serve me here. If I can't use my bike, I'll starve. Is that what you want?' she cried wildly.
There was a pause while he considered the likelihood of that, his gaze roaming over her smooth, bare shoulders, her lush breasts fighting the tight top and resting for a moment on her now comfortable hips. Tessa felt mortified. OK. She was plump again. Did he have to rub it in? Miserably she met his eyes, and saw to her astonishment that they smouldered with an earthy hunger.
'Please don't starve,' he said huskily. 'You're perfect as you are.'
Mockery, she thought contemptuously. Brute! She tossed her head and planted dirty hands on her bare waist, leaving oily marks. 'Don't try to flatter me!' she snapped. 'I'm not falling for that! All I want is for this harassment to stop. Hell, I'd rather you dumped a dead pig in my lap any day!'
'I don't go in for teenage tricks-'
'What kind do you favour, then?' she demanded.
He frowned. 'Did you say your ladder had been stolen?'
'Please! Give me some credit and don't act the innocent,' she snapped impatiently. 'You must know what's going on. I'm being victimised. And this-'
She stopped in annoyance. Her voice was cracking. Not only was she stamping mad and upset about the bike, but she really hadn't imagined in a million years that he'd stoop so low. What a rotten judge of character she was! Her teeth chewed her lower lip.
'Put it right,' she croaked. And she lifted distressed eyes to his. 'Return my wheels. Go search for dead pigs instead and hurl them at me. At least I could barbecue and eat the damn things!'
'I can't put it right,' he said gruffly. 'I don't have your wheels because I didn't remove them.'
He sounded very stilted. Tessa stood helplessly, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth or not. In the end she decided it didn't matter. 'No. But you know who did.' He shifted. 'I might,' he conceded.
'Whoever's responsible,' she said jerkily, 'has turned one or two minor incidents into a nasty vendetta. Do you encourage this sort of thing? Turn a blind eye? Is only one person involved or
does everyone take turns at harassing me? Is it amusing to see an uneven struggle between a single woman and a whole village plus its obsessed despot owner?' she flung at him furiously.
Quite poker-faced, he studied her for a moment: her belligerently thrust-out chin, her hurt and angry eyes, the defiant stance of her tanned legs. There was the faintest hint of admiration in his eyes when she continued to stare him out despite a treacherously quivering lower lip.
'Tessa, I regret what has happened. I agree that things have gone too far. I'll show my good faith by replacing your wheels,' he offered quietly.
'I accept your offer,' she retorted, not at all mollified. It was ghastly knowing how much she was loathed, and her face must have shown that because he said quite gently, 'I am very sorry you've been upset. It'll be the last time, I promise.'
'You're going to stop tormenting an innocent woman?' she muttered truculently.
He winced. 'I'll make it known that I won't tolerate this kind of behaviour,' he corrected her.
'While you're about it, make it known that I'm not a monster,' she shot back. 'That I have a right to be here, a right to work on my houses-mine, Guy! You can change the way I'm treated in this village.'
'That's true,' he said evenly.
Her face became earnest. This could be her chance, her only chance to improve the situation. Stepping a little closer, she fixed him with her liquid green eyes and said huskily, 'It's in your power to make life bearable for me. As the seigneur, the man everyone respects, you can change the whole way I'm treated merely by showing that you don't bear me a grudge, that you're not blaming me for hanging onto what is legally mine.'
Impulsively she touched his arm. 'Guy,' she said softly, pleading with her entire body, 'all you have to do is to drop a word here and there, make sure people see you smile at me when we meet, pass the time of day with me-'
'You're asking something I'm not prepared to do,' h interrupted curtly.
'Why? You owe me! It wouldn't cost you anything!' He glowered at his shoes. 'It would. Too much-'
'Oh, your pride!
Your honour!' she scathed.
'No. Not that.' And his tone was odd, as if something else prevented him. 'Let's take one thing at a time,' he said heavily. 'I must go to the post office. I'm overdue. After that, I'll organise your set of wheels. My mechanic can fit them.'
'Not on your life!' she muttered. 'I wouldn't trust him. I'd rather do it myself.'
There was a hiss as Guy's breath was drawn in sharply. 'You're not suggesting I'd deliberately arrange an accident for you, I hope?' he queried, tight-lipped.
She stood her ground. 'What am I supposed to think? How could I know? I can't take the risk. You have to admit that you'd be glad to see the back of me.'
The ensuing pause stretched and stretched uncomfortably, a million thoughts seemingly chasing through Guy's mind. 'I will admit that you are a complication I could do without. And that I've contemplated ways of making you leave,' he said eventually.
Her muscles went rigid. In his own, guarded way, he had revealed his complicity in the harassment, even if he hadn't been personally responsible. Suddenly wanting to howl, she turned her back on him and listened to the slow tread of his feet as he walked to the post office.
She had to pass it on her way to the river. As she did so she noticed that the door was locked, with a notice on it which declared, 'Service minimum. A cause de la tristesse'. Clear enough, she thought. Through the glass window, she could see Guy's tall figure, his face solemn, his body in an attitude of sympathy as he listened to a frantically gesturing woman. Suddenly her face crumpled and Guy drew her into his arms, his expression tender and gentle. The scene touched a chord in her, reaching deep into her emotions, and she wanted to cry too.
He cared so much for the people of Turaine. And he saw her as a threat to them. But she wasn't! How could she make him realise that? She clenched her fists, determined to do so and yearning to be accepted. It wouldn't be long, she promised herself, once she'd spoken to her mother and learnt the truth.
Before she could move on Guy emerged, looking sad and drained. Tessa felt a lurch in her heart and realised her emotions had been dangerously engaged. 'Something wrong?' he asked quickly when he saw her. Hastily she rearranged her face.
'Only... I saw you in there with a woman,' she said. 'Has someone died?'
'Yes. Her husband. Very suddenly. They've been married for forty years. She can't come to terms with it.'
'How awful. Poor woman. Does she have family?' Tessa asked, full of concern.
'The village is her family. We'll all support her,' he answered shortly.
'It's upset you, hasn't it?' Extraordinarily, she wanted to touch his hand, to offer him her sympathy because he'd taken the woman's unhappiness to heart, and she struggled with her desire to soothe him.
'Her husband organised the funeral for my father when he died. He persuaded the villagers to pay their respects, despite the bad feeling, and eventually he traced me m New Orleans. I owe my homecoming to that man. I'm sorry that he hasn't lived to see my plans for the village fulfilled.'
'Oh, Guy!' she sighed. It hurt her-physically hurt in her chest-to see him so upset. And that worried her. Guy's dark eyes seemed to melt into hers. 'I don't like to see people unhappy when I care about them.' He inhaled and exhaled slowly. 'Love!' he muttered under his breath. 'You can be very kind,' she said in a small voice. She valued kindness. And she wished he'd be compassionate to her. His jaw tightened. 'To those who deserve it.'
'I deserve it,' she said with quiet insistence. 'Even if my mother is all the things you claim she is, that's nothing to do with me. And you can't condemn me for wanting to provide an income for myself-'
'I condemn you for your method,' he said in a hard tone. 'It was underhand and cruel. You gave me hope where there was none.'
'I told you why. Besides, that's no reason for people to break my windows or steal my belongings or ruin my bike,' she muttered.
He gave her a sharp look, then frowned. 'I told you you'd get hurt if you stayed here. It was bound to get rocky.'
'And now you've said it will become smooth again,' she reminded him hopefully.
'Not smooth,' he denied. 'I promised that you wouldn't be harassed any more. I can't guarantee you an easy life. You've too many problems for that.'
She gave a sigh. 'Tell me something new!' She decided that she'd try ringing home. Right now. There was a remote chance that her father might be back. 'Guy... I need some change for the phone. I wonder if-'
'Here.' He thrust into his pocket, took her hand and poured coins into her palm. One or two heavy spots of warm rain fell on his outstretched arm and they both looked up anxiously. 'I'll go to the garage now,' he said abruptly. 'Are you by any chance trying to contact your mother?' When she nodded, her eyes huge on his, he hesitated then said very softly, 'I'll wait a moment, then.'
She blinked in surprise. 'Why?'
'In case you need me.'
The soft warmth of his voice made her breath ragged. But she knew how unwise it would be for her to encourage him. Too much about him pulled at her heartstrings and threatened her protective defences. Every time he came near, her pulses went into overdrive. Her body leapt into life as if opening for him. She
lowered her head and blushed at her thoughts, knowing that she must keep them to herself. 'No, Guy.' He'd promised that the vendetta wouldn't continue. With that out of the way, everything would be fine. With difficulty, she lifted her head and looked him straight in the eyes, almost wavering when she saw the tenderness lurking there. Why? she thought in panic.
'Stick to your promise to bring the vendetta to a close and I won't need you,' she said quietly. 'Now or at any time in the future.'
And with that she walked back to the phone box to phone home.
'Dad!' she cried in relief, when he answered at long last. 'It's me, Tessa! Are you OK?'
'No, I'm not OK!' he replied crossly. 'I've been waiting to hear from you. I need some help around here. When's your mother coming?'
She went ice-cold. 'She-she's with you ... isn't she?'
'No! Don't you think I'd have noticed?' he asked irritably.
'Oh, Dad, she must be there!' Tessa gasped. 'She said she was-she rang me from home and said that you were paying for the call!'
'Of course she's not here. I've been waiting all this time for news. Some American rang, asking for her.'
'Guy!' she muttered.
'And,' continued her father, not hearing her, 'I'm getting in a bit of a state. There are things I can't manage on my own.' Guilt swamped her. Her father had been alone all this time! She'd left him with prepared meals and promised it wouldn't be for long... 'Oh, Dad! This is awful. I-I didn't call because I thought Mother was with you and that the two of you had gone away,' she said faintly. 'And...' Her stomach rolled as she remembered what her mother had said, her sense of panic making her voice
rise half an octave. 'Mum said there wasn't any point in ringing-'
'It's no use giving me excuses. I'm going to Edith's across the road. I can't manage on my own any longer,' her father said grumpily, mentioning a friendly neighbour. He began to speak again but the pips obliterated whatever he was saying. Then the connection went dead. Automatically Tessa replaced the receiver, her face ashen. Her father had been trying to cope on his own. And she'd only felt able to stay away because she'd thought her mother had been with him!
Her mother knew he was disabled. She'd known that Tessa couldn't leave him for longer than a few days. Appalled, she realised that her mother had deliberately and cheerfully lied. Everything she'd said had been a lie. Everything? Dazed and bewildered, she pushed open the door and stumbled out, unable to grasp what had happened. The shock had disorientated her. She didn't know what she was doing or where she was going. And then she realised that it was raining heavily and she was already soaked.
Guy's face loomed into view. 'She's not there, is she?' he asked urgently.
His hair had been flattened to his head in a mass of black jet, the tendrils on his forehead sending rivers of water pouring down his face.
'No!' she yelled hysterically against the noise of the hissing rain. 'Are you glad?'
'Tessa-Tessa,' he said gently.
She took one look at his tender expression and the urge to fling herself into the protection of his arms sent her panic-stricken in the opposite direction, running for all she was worth through the deluge.
Half-blind with tears, she slid and slipped on the wet cobbles as she leapt puddles and splashed through swirling streams which tumbled down the steep streets and made them a nightmare to negotiate.
At last she arrived at the end of Rue Boulangerie, sobbing with relief. And skidded to a halt at the sight of the graffiti someone had scrawled across the facade of her house in hideous yellow paint.
'Oh, God!' she groaned. This was the last straw! She crumpled against the wall, forlorn and defeated. 'Mon Dieu!' came Guy's harsh voice in her ear. And to her secret delight he pulled her to him protectively, encircling her shoulder with his arm.
This time she didn't try to escape. She needed him. And she clung to him in gratitude. 'Guy!' she whimpered, shaking from head to foot.
His arm tightened and she felt the thrust of anger stiffening his whole body, each muscle group tensing to its limit. He didn't do it, she thought with relief. And he doesn't approve. It was some comfort.
'Come away,' he growled. 'I have to see.'
Soaked to the skin, she numbly approached her house, trying to hold onto the last vestiges of control. 'What does it say?' she cried hoarsely. When he didn't answer she lifted her face and screwed up her eyes against the pounding rain. Guy's expression was grim. Defined by the shimmering rain, his skin stretched tautly over his cheekbones and his eyes glittered with a lethal brilliance. 'What does it say?' she yelled. Coal-black eyes met jade. He seemed hurt, as if he'd never imagined anyone would do this. Someone in his beloved village had acted viciously and it disturbed him. Her heart thudded as he crushed her shivering, quivering body closer, still holding her gaze with his.
Suddenly she didn't care about the graffiti. He'd seen that things had gone too far and he wanted to shield her from further revenge. That was strangely uplifting. 'It says, 'Go home, daughter of a whore',' he said grimly.
'Oh, no!' she gasped, and he hugged her against his chest, his arms protecting her from the rain as far as possible. 'The rain... come in,' she ground out shakily.
When she moved, he tugged her back and stared down at her with an intense expression. 'No,' he said softly. 'You're coming home with me.'
'Why?' She felt scared of him. This new, sympathetic Guy could mould her into any shape he wanted. She struggled, but his grip was too firm, his arms capturing her too securely. 'Please, Guy!' She whimpered into his saturated shirt, feeling the warmth of his skin against her lips.
'I don't want you to be alone,' he said roughly. 'I don't want you going in there.' She froze. 'You think ...?'
'I don't know what to think,' he said rapidly, 'except that I can't risk your safety. And, for God's sake, let's not stand out here getting drenched any longer. I don't want to leave you here on your own and I'm not staying in your house. Your roof will be inviting in several gallons of water an hour. You're coming back to the chateau whether you like it or not.' Suddenly she felt too limp and wet and upset to care or protest, and he must have known that because he hurried her along, taking the safest route to the chateau. The feeling of sanctuary when he slammed the big chateau door behind them was tremendous.
With a sigh of relief, she slid from his grasp and turned grateful eyes on him from between curtains of dripping hair. He too was soaked to the skin, his muscles shaping the now transparent shirt and claiming her hungry gaze.
'Thank you,' she whispered shakily.
'Warmth, food and a drink is what you need,' he muttered.
Tessa saw where his eyes had strayed and hastily crossed her arms over her body. If his shirt was transparent, so was hers. Already she could feel the cold, hard peaks of her breasts pushing against the sodden material.
'Someone must hate my mother very much,' she said unhappily. 'A creditor, perhaps?'
'Perhaps.'
'Guy!' she cried plaintively. 'I can't bear to think of someone out there, trying to hurt me! And... the awful thing is that I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that my mother might have been.. . d-d-deceitful,' she stammered.
'That's what I meant when I said you'd get hurt,' he said gently. 'I knew you'd find out the truth sooner or later.'
'You waited outside the phone box because you knew she wouldn't be where I expected,' she croaked, licking at the drips falling onto her parted lips. 'I know her type,' he said simply.
Tears welled from her eyes and ran down her face, merging with the trickles of rain. 'That hurts,' she said helplessly. 'I trusted her, Guy, I told her that Dad couldn't be left on his own for long. I'd only cooked enough meals for a certain number of days. We'd arranged that she should go and be with him while I stayed here. She said she was with him when she phoned! She knew he couldn't fend for himself. How could she do this to Dad?'
'Or to you.'
Tessa nodded dumbly. Her mother had let her down. She thought of her father, waiting for news, wondering why there was no phone call. She remembered how her mother had insisted that she shouldn't ring home. That had been cruel. 'Dad must be very upset,' she mumbled, ridden with guilt. 'And you.'
The velvet tones were too gentle. She squeezed her eyes tightly to stop the tears, but they kept on coming. And Guy drew her into his arms. Their bodies were hot beneath their damp, clinging shirts. She felt the hardness of his thighs, the pressure of his hand on her spine as he held her. Touching him unlocked her resistance. It seemed they melted together, merging into one body.
I never want this to end, she thought helplessly.
Guy muttered something against her hair. Then he gently detached himself. 'You'll get ill if you stay in those wet things,' he said thickly.
The nerves in her body tightened almost to breaking-point. The thought of taking off her clothes in the same building as him was suddenly fuel to the flames burning inside her. 'And you,' she said, unconsciously mimicking his concern. 'Besides, we'll flood the hall. Warp the marble,' she added inanely, because her voice had been far too husky.
With a smile, he held out his hand and she grasped it tightly, revelling in the warmth, the huge protection it seemed to afford her. Her legs trembled. Anticipation rippled through her entire nervous system.
'You and your jokes! Escaping again?' he murmured, pulling her close once more. 'I-don't understand.'
Her voice lay thick on her tongue, slowing it up. Everything about her seemed slow: her hands where they spread on his beautiful chest, her blood flowing turgidly through her veins and her infinitely delayed brain, which was noting the fact that he meant to kiss her but for some reason didn't seem to be doing anything to make her jerk away.
Instead it was Guy who drew back. The disappointment flooded through her in icy waves, thrusting her mouth into a pout of denial. Light fingers touched her throat and wandered tantalisingly down to rest in the wet hollow. Then, as she held her breath, he pushed at the open neckline of her shirt, moving only an inch
or so beneath her collar-bone, but with such deep concentration on his rapt face that she wanted to groan with pleasure.
'We ought to dry off,' he husked.
No, she thought. I want to stay here. Somewhere, far away, her voice replied, very, very slowly and thickly, as if she had been drugged, 'Y-y-yes.'
Guy's body shuddered and she closed her eyes in dissatisfaction. He must be cold. He'd insist that they parted and she didn't want that at all. Her hands clawed involuntarily at his shirt and she found herself drawn hard against his body. Her eyes flicked open in alarm when she felt a rigid pressure against her pelvis, the sheer feel of him and her own body's reaction making her go limp with desire. 'I don't want you to get cold,' he whispered. Then warm me. She tried to send the message but it became lost in the depths of his smouldering eyes. 'Mmm,' was all she could manage.
With infinite care, he peeled back the neck of her shirt and laid his fingertips on her sensitive skin. 'But you're hot.'
'Oh.' And so was he, she realised; she could feel the heat of him through her palms. Puzzled, she looked at her hands. They'd travelled up to his shoulders. Some terrible urge was encouraging her to touch the smoothness of his tanned neck, where his dark hair curled and glistened with jewelled droplets. But he diverted her, lifting her chin and stroking her parted lips.
I want to snatch at his fingers, she thought. Bite him. Feed and lick and crush ... The savagery shocked her. To stop herself from bearing him to the ground and covering his mouth with hers, she screwed up every muscle and clamped her jaws together hard.
'I want to kiss you,' he whispered. 'No,' she moaned.
'Yes, I do!' he said in gentle amusement. 'Mustn't.'
Oh, Lord, what a fool to be driven so wild by his touch, his voice, the warm, male smell of him that she could hardly string two words together! But she could step back if she really wanted to; she could demand a shower and a change of clothes and insist ...
'Why not?' Guy touched her forehead with his lips, the tip of his tongue lapping at her wet skin. 'You taste of rain. It's wonderful.'
Wickedly she let him continue, revelling in the sweetness of his mouth as it travelled over her blissfully shut eyes and across her cheekbones. A hand pressed against her buttocks, thrusting her deep into his pelvis so that she could be in no doubt as to the fact that his arousal had intensified. And miserably she knew she had to call a halt.
'Giselle.' The name tasted sour in her mouth. Damn him. Damn him for being everything she'd always wanted but also a two-timing opportunist.
'She's not here,' he murmured, hungrily contemplating her mouth.
Tessa's loins contracted. He knew they did because a slow smile came to his face, seducing her with its promise, sending her quivering body into a spiralling excitement. 'She-wouldn't--like this. It's-not-fair,' she mumbled jerkily. 'You're very thoughtful,' he said thickly. 'But Giselle has her own life to lead. She has several boyfriends. I'm not the only man in her life and I've been trying to loosen the bonds that tie us for some months now. I have to prepare her for a parting some day.' His head had angled; it descended. Not like this! Tessa thought. She didn't want to be the means of ejecting another woman from his life! Frantically Tessa jerked her head back and he paused. 'I can't,' she whispered miserably. 'You and she-Guy!'
she gasped in shock. He'd ignored her protest, his fingers now busy with her buttons. 'No!'
'Tessa!' he muttered, 'don't let Giselle come between us.'
'She is between us!' she moaned. 'No. Never has been, never will be. I care about you. I care very much.' His fingers fumbled at the knot of her shirt. 'Oh, Tessa!' he groaned, exposing her breasts to view. And he knelt in front of her as if in worship, apparently stunned by the throbbing creamy globes he cupped in his gentle hands, his palms sliding around the contours of each breast with exquisite care. 'You're so beautiful. More beautiful than I ever imagined all these weeks.'.
'All...?' Her throat dried at the idea that he'd been thinking of her body just as she'd been thinking of his. But for her it was more than that. She put her hands on his shoulders, ready to push him away. But his thumbs brushed across her nipples and her brain closed down as the sharp-sweet pain radiated out through her nerves, destroying her opposition.
Slowly he stood, his eyes dark with passion. Watching her all the time, he put his hands to his shirt and ripped it open, as if he had no time or patience for buttons. Tessa swallowed nervously. She had to stop him. Convincing her mouth to open and say so was painful because she really didn't want to. 'I'm not beautiful. You can't pretend for ulterior-'
'I don't have to pretend.' Impatiently he unpeeled the rest of his sodden shirt and flung it from him, lifting her hands and placing them on his magnificent naked chest. 'Touch me,' he urged. 'Feel me-'
She swayed, the feel of his firm, satin skin an aphrodisiac to her senses. Suddenly he lost all control and his mouth came down hard on hers, fierce and ruthless, as if he wanted to devour her whole. As desperate as he,
she kissed him back angrily, knowing this was as far as she would go but incapable of holding back any longer. If nothing else, she would leave with a memory of this kiss. Savage, wild, uncontrollable. Their mouths meshed, nibbled, burned into one another while she pressed hard against the back of his head to deepen his kisses and he did the same with hers, driving her backwards with his passionate, explosive onslaught.
The wall met her back. They continued to kiss, his mouth driving hers open, the bitter-sweetness of relief from some of the tension making her sigh with pleasure. But now it was time to stop, she told herself hazily. Just one more kiss. Perhaps another...
'Tessa. You are wonderful!' he breathed huskily into her mouth. It took a moment or so before she recognised that his hands were at her waist, wrestling with the tough and fearfully overstrained button of her shorts. To her dismay, he had managed by sheer brute force to undo it and had already eased her zip down.
'No!' she cried in alarm, grabbing the waistband. And she groaned because she was aware that he'd let go all restraint and had unleashed the passions he'd suppressed for too long. He was kissing her throat ardently, along her collar-bone, across her shoulder ... making small sounds in his throat as if the taste of her intoxicated him.
'Why not, Tessa?' he growled, absorbed in unfairly enclosing one painfully hard nipple with his mouth and tugging gently. Her head tipped back. It was everything she'd ever dreamed. But dreams could be shattered. She felt the sweep of his palm over her rounded stomach, the nip of his teeth on the flesh at her waist. And groaned.
'I've put on weight!' she gasped. 'You...' She blushed, miserable that this was the truth. 'You'll hate my body-' He kissed her mouth tenderly. 'I love your body.'
'You can't.' She turned her face away.
He turned it back and kissed her mouth tenderly, reproachfully. 'I love your curves, the fact that I can't see your ribs. I love the swell of your stomach and your sexy hips and bottom. I adore the way you eat-with enthusiasm. It suggests an earthy appetite for life and it's a powerful turn-on for me. I loathe thin women who look like boys or, worse, who have hard muscles. I found you attractive when I first saw you because your personality hit me between the eyes, but now...' He swallowed, and when he continued he sounded croaky. 'Now you are rounded like a real woman and I can't keep my hands off you. I've tried-I didn't want to get involved with you. I didn't want to be obsessed, like my father, particularly with Estelle Davis's daughter. I kidded myself that I was flirting with you because I might persuade you to give me the cottages. But that wasn't true. I kissed you and touched you because I couldn't keep away.
'I want to hear you laugh, to see the way your mouth curves into a gentle smile. I want to see those incredible eyes gazing into mine. I love the way you fight adversity without losing your femininity, how you can wear paint-stained jeans and plaster in your hair and still look good enough to eat. I love everything about you. I want you, Tessa. I want you very much.' She was stunned into silence.
'No comment?' he whispered into her shell-shaped ear. 'I-I-,
'Well!' he said, with a feral grin. 'Now I know how to silence you so I can do whatever I want.'
'I daren't trust you,' she said chokily. 'I'm scared, Guy. I've heard this before. I was fooled before-told I was beautiful. It was a joke-a filthy, mean joke.'
'I could murder that little runt who hurt you!' he growled. 'I'm interested in you. Tessa. The person inside. Haven't I made that clear? I've watched you working, seen your reactions to the ups and downs of life. You did your best to help the Donovans and the Kennedys. You felt sorry for your mother's creditors. I have an overwhelming urge to care for you and protect you, to be with you twenty-four hours a day. I think about you all the time. I can't get you out of my mind. 'I've never felt like this before. It scares me too. And you know perfectly well I'm not stringing you a line. This is different,' he murmured, slowly, teasingly kissing her unhappy mouth. 'You know this is different. I can't fake my reaction to you.' And he took her hand, boldly placing it on his loins. 'Let me make love to you. Say yes,' he groaned, 'before I die of longing!'
'I-' The words stuck in her throat. She felt frightened. 'I'm terrified of getting hurt.'
'Life's a risk!' he said fiercely. 'But I won't hurt you, I promise. You know and I know that there's a chemistry between us. We're on opposite sides of the fence with barbed wire, guard dogs and 'Keep Out' notices all round, but still we've got through to each other, still we've reached this moment when we can-' He broke off.
'When we can what?' she asked, beside herself with curiosity. He sighed. 'When I lost everything I loved-my father, my home, my country-I built a shell around myself and swore that no one would ever penetrate it and hurt me again. Coming back here has made me want to live again. More so, now I've met you.' He grinned affectionately. 'I've been fighting a losing battle
ever since you fell out of the hammock. I wanted to pick you up and hold you close because you brought out all the tenderness in me I thought had been obliterated by circumstances. I want you to be a part of my life. A real part. You and me together. That's my risk, telling you that. Now I expect you to take a risk in return.'
'Oh, Guy!' she said chokily.
'Kiss me,' he growled. 'For God's sake, Tessa, kiss me!'
Her lips parted and she closed her eyes. He tasted so sweet as he murmured to her, telling her how lovely she was, how he'd wanted to touch her, hold her, from the moment they'd met. The tone of his voice was so rough and broken that she felt certain in her heart of hearts that he meant every word.
Joy lit her whole body and it gave her boldness to explore him, sliding her hand beneath his waistband to the lean, hard hips, the taut buttocks. Without a qualm she felt her shorts drop to the ground and let him carry her up the stairs and through huge double doors to a bedroom with a four-poster bed covered in clean dust sheets. He kicked the door shut, kissed her passionately and knelt to kiss her stomach and thighs. 'Beautiful,' he sighed. 'Soft.
Silky...'
She looked down on his dark head, on the heart-wrenching crescents of black lashes and his softly searching mouth, and knew then that she loved him.
He was holding his desire in check for her sake. Although he shook with sexual tension, he ... Oh, help me stay sane! she thought wildly as he drew down her briefs and touched her gently. 'Guy!' she moaned, gripping his shoulders. 'Enjoy,' he said roughly, lifting her to the bed. She writhed with pleasure as he stroked her creamy skin, kissing her, enthralling her with the sensual magic his body could bring to hers. And she responded to his relentless seduction, gasping, crying out, beating him with her fists, pulling at him till he laughingly came to cover her with his body. For a while he kissed her, his hands touching, inciting, sliding over her skin madden¬ingly. Then she felt her inhibitions vanish and she let herself go. Like a tiger, she took what she wanted: his mouth, his shoulder
between her teeth, the taste of his flesh on her tongue, the sensation of his body where she curled sensually against him. She rubbed her nipples against his, rolling on top of him and enticing him with her eyes, her hair, her mouth, her breasts... Till with a woman's instinct she knew he could take no more, and nor could she. There was a terrible ache inside her, a desperate need to be fed by his body, to ease the violent hunger he'd aroused.
'Make love to me,' she murmured in his ear. Her tongue curled around the sensitive lobe, a feeling of intense exhilaration powering through her body.
'You're crying!' he cried roughly, with concern.
'I know!' She forced her lashes open, blinking through a clouded veil. 'Isn't it stupid? I'm so happy! Don't you think I'm beyond all hope?'
'Endearing,' he said huskily. 'Oh, God, Tessa! I need you so much!'
He buried his head in her neck while she tried to bring herself down from the dizzy heights where he'd just flung her. I love you, she said silently, raising her hips to his. I love you, she cried helplessly and wordlessly as he covered her mouth with his and began to move insistently against her. She wasn't scared that he'd find her sexually lacking or frigid. With him, everything flowed naturally. She could touch him... there, and it would bring a shudder to his body, a spasm of the rigid manhood against her thighs. Her hands seemed to sweep gracefully, sensually over his skin, finding places to delight in, erotic and inciting, and she responded to his touch with sinuous movements that seemed to drive him crazy. It felt wonderful to be desired so much, she thought muzzily. Wonderful to give pleasure.
Guy rained passionate kisses on her face, her neck, her shoulders, his body tense like hers-clamouring, she was sure, for that coil of tightly sprung tension to be released.
'I want you,' she groaned, feeling nothing but liquid heat at the core of her body. 'Now!'
Gently he eased into her. There was no pain, only a feeling that she'd come to a haven, that this glorious possession was rightfully hers. A groan escaped her parted lips and she arched her hips to urge him on. The sensation as he moved rocketed through her body, filling every corner with deep joy.
'Tessa!' he muttered hoarsely. 'My darling Tessa!'
Her hands gripped his shoulders convulsively. A wildness captured her as the perfect harmony of their bodies drove them to a loving frenzy. For a while she felt as though she didn't belong in her body, that she was floating on pure pleasure somewhere in the air. The ecstasy was sweet and somehow painful, almost too much to bear.
'Oh, Guy!' she cried in joyous anguish. 'I love you!'
He gave a choking groan, shuddered throughout the whole length of his body and lay very still.
Every inch of her body felt totally satisfied. But she worried. Her heart thudded hard. Pressed beneath his weight, she couldn't, dared not move. This was the moment she'd unconsciously dreaded. A short while ago desire had obliterated caution. She'd believed her instincts-trusted his sincerity. Now.. . His head lifted and he shifted drowsily, stroking her hair, kissing her mouth. 'You're one hell of a woman,' he mumbled, crushing her to him passionately. 'I'll want second helpings later. But now I want to hold you and keep you close.' Tessa's face shone with happiness. 'I was all right?' she ventured with a grin.
Guy laughed and shook his head in affectionate exasperation. 'You were fantastic,' he said gently, tracing the lines of her shapely body with his forefinger. 'You look...' His dark head nuzzled her hip, nibbling with enthusiasm. 'You taste, smell, ooze sexuality.'
'I like sex,' she confided dreamily. 'It makes me feel like a million dollars.'
'Only if it's with the right person,' he said. 'Shall we stay here for the night? In the morning we can walk around the village and I can show you off.'
'You said you didn't want to do that because it would cost you too much,' she reminded him quietly. 'It will,' he sighed. 'My protective shield against emotion.'
'Guy... about the cottages,' she said drowsily. 'My mother hasn't played fair with me. I feel I'm released from any obligation towards her. I'd like to give them to you-but only on one condition.'
He twisted a lock of her hair thoughtfully in his fingers. 'What's that, my darling?'
'Let me work for you. I need a job! I'd love to see the changes in the village and be a part of the team restoring it. Please?'
'How can I resist you?' he sighed. 'Of course. Deal. Thank you. I'll buy them from you, though. A fair price, I promise. No argument!' he laughed when she made to protest. 'Or I'll pin you to the bed and force you to obey!'
'Mmm. Wonderful,' she murmured. 'Let's pretend I've refused, shall we?'
They slept deeply that night, snuggled between the huge linen dustsheets. Tessa dreamt of her relationship with Guy developing-blossoming, perhaps, into something very, very special and long-term. But those were dreams and she didn't dare to hope too much.
Once in the night she thought the door had opened and woken her, but when she wriggled from beneath Guy's heavy arm to look it was firmly closed, and she decided it must have been the movement of the old house itself.
The next morning passed quickly-in bed, making love.
'I'm good at this!' she said smugly, sprawling across the mattress in delight.
'Too good,' he muttered, rubbing his hand over his rasping beard. 'If you had your way, I'd starve! Let me get showered in the caravan. I have a couple of things to do in my study, then I'll go and get something for lunch and pop into your cottage to collect something for you to wear. If you want a shower before I come back, wrap a sheet around yourself and totter into the caravan-I'll leave it open. OK?'
'Uh-huh,' she mumbled drowsily.
He kissed her. 'Sleep for now,' he said softly. 'I'll be back soon. Then we'll arrange for your roof to be seen to-and for some wheels for your bike.'
After drawing on his still damp trousers, he went to the door, blew her a kiss and quietly left. Tessa dozed. Then she woke and stretched luxuriously. She'd never been happier in the whole of her life. In Guy she'd found a man who loved her. She was incredibly lucky. How often did that happen? she wondered blissfully. He was kind, thoughtful and a brilliant lover. At last she felt confident. A whole person. Guy had given her a sense of her own worth and that was priceless. Thank you, she said to him silently. Happily she scrambled out of bed and designed herself a sarong from the sheet, pattering barefoot down the stairs, since her canvas shoes were still soaked, and edging carefully across
the gravel drive to the caravan.
The small shower delivered a blast of hot, stinging needles of water and she all but danced out, invigorated and deliriously happy because she and Guy were going to spend the day together.
'How could you? Haven't you any shame?'
Tessa dropped the towel with which she had been drying her face. Her wide eyes took in an angry and very beautiful woman, whose arms were full of what appeared to be Guy's clothes. 'What the devil are you doing here?' she asked in surprise, hastily covering up her nakedness.
'Snap!' came the reply. 'I live with him. What do you do? Or is that a superfluous question?' she sneered, looking Tessa up and down.
Tessa went white. 'Giselle?' she quavered. 'You and Guy are...? You're...?'
'You bet!' snapped the slender, frighteningly elegant blonde. 'So don't muscle in. You might think you've got your hooks into him but so did a dozen before you. And where you're concerned he was only out for one thing and that wasn't sex, even if you think it was!'
'Then what?' asked Tessa, her mouth suddenly horribly dry. 'The cottages, of course,' Giselle said scathingly. 'Are you dumb or what? Your mother enslaved his father. It seemed only right for him to do the same to you. He can get any woman he wants. It was hardly an effort to seduce you. He's ruthless and don't forget it. He'll coo and smile-'
Tessa heard no more. She sat down, too wobbly to stand. Her head spun. Giselle could be lying. Perhaps she had a grudge against Guy-and his new girlfriend. 'I don't believe you,' she said quietly.
'OK, you do his damn washing!' Giselle screeched, and flung it at Tessa.
It landed in a blur, masking Giselle's departure. But when Tessa pulled it off her face she saw with horror that one of the shirts-and a pair of jeans-had yellow paint on it. The same colour as the graffiti on her house.
'Oh, Guy!' she whispered. It couldn't be possible. Yet the evidence stared her straight in the face. It had been Guy who'd scrawled abuse on her house, Guy who'd removed her wheels, her tools, who had encouraged the mayor to close down her lettings. That was bad enough. Worse was the fact that he'd lied so beautifully, and she, like a fool, had believed every damn excuse he'd made!
TESSA let out a low groan. Guy had kept the pretence going, hoping to acquire the wretched cottages before telling her the truth-that he and the alarmingly young-looking Giselle were living together and he had no intention of dumping a slender beauty for an increasingly plump plain Jane. 'Damn you!' she said savagely, tearing ineffectually at the shirt. 'Damn you!'' she yelled, hurling the clothes at the kitchen area of the caravan. Spoons and spatulas clattered to the ground with a satisfying noise. So she grimly flung open cupboards and hurled crockery anywhere, everywhere, with increasing force as her temper erupted, adding cereal, rice, tins, saucepans 'Hey! What the hell ...?'
'Yes!' she yelled, rounding on Guy's astonished figure in the doorway and loosing a frying. pan in his direction. 'This is hell, and this ... and this. ..'
His crossed arms fended off a flying pudding bowl and cheese grater. Quickly he dumped his bags of bread and pastries and came for her. 'What is it?' he demanded, pinning her arms to the cupboard. 'Tessa, you're naked!'
'I don't care!' she said defiantly. 'The towel fell off! And you love my beautiful body, don't you? So-so don't complain-'
'Darling, what is this?' he said gently.
'Don't you speak tenderly to me!' she stormed. 'Want a bit of rough?' He grinned.
'No!' she screeched. 'I want the truth! I want to know why you've got paint on your shirt and jeans-yellow paint, Guy!'
'Yellow...' His eyes narrowed. 'Oh, my God!' he said faintly. 'The little...'
'I want to know why Giselle is still under the impression that you and she are an item, and why she claims you're living with her.'
'Well, I would do, wouldn't I?' he said with a frown. 'Would what?'
'Live with her.'
Tessa felt all the fight going out of her. He'd admitted it. Goodnight happiness. 'Oh.'
'Well, what do you want me to do? Kick her out now? I love her,
little rapscallion though she is. I know what she did to you and I roared at her so loud, for stealing your tools and scrawling that graffiti and so on, that her eardrums were in danger of bursting. She was scared of losing me, Tessa. She lacks confidence, no matter what you might think looking at her. But, if you and I are going to make a go of it, she'll have to welcome you or go back to her mother-'
'Wait a minute!' Tessa felt muddled. 'You're saying it was Giselle who tried to run me out of Turaine?'
'I'm afraid so.'
'Miss Palazzo Pants!' she muttered angrily. 'I suspected as much.' Of course they'd been in it together, as she'd first thought. Her fists clenched. 'It was my fault-' he began. 'I know,' she grated.
'I made the mistake of telling her about the things I did to Estelle,' he said quietly. 'I think she decided to help me to get rid of you. Trouble was, I wanted you to stay-and when she knew that she tried even harder to drive you out. I don't condone what she did. The graffiti was the last straw.'
'You're blaming it on her now, are you?' Tessa said coldly. 'Well, I'm not having you think I could do something so vicious. If there's paint on my clothes then she put it there-presumably to stop our relationship.'
'I heard the door open last night. I imagine that was her,' she said dully, going scarlet at the thought that Giselle had seen her in bed with Guy.
'That explains it,' he said, his mouth tight with anger. 'I'll deal with it, Tessa. It was an inexcusable thing to do and if she's damaged the rather fragile trust between us then she's got me to apologise to as well as you.' He took her hand in his. 'Please understand. She loves me-'
'And what are your feelings?' she asked, trying not to shake. 'Whatever I feel for her is irrelevant. Tessa ... do you think,' he said thickly, 'you could put something on? I find your nakedness very distracting... '
'Sure.' She freed herself from his grasp and stomped over to the guilty shirt. 'How about this?' She pulled it over her head and stood in a defiant pose.
'Looks better on you,' he said wryly. But she didn't smile and he sighed. 'Tessa, I do love you-'
'Is that a fact?' she scathed, knowing that he had to say that-didn't he?-because he didn't have the cottages safely in his possession yet. 'I certainly don't love you!' she flung at him, too wounded to care what lies she told, only determined to save face and protect herself.
Silence fell. 'Run that by me again?' he said, in a sinisterly soft voice.
'I don't love you. How could I?' she snapped. 'You only made love to me to get my property back. You and Giselle masterminded a foul, vicious campaign against me and you seem to think it's fine to run two women at once! Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but in my book that kind of behaviour is despicable. Sing for your wretched cottages! I'm hanging onto them!'
'Stay right there!' he warned as she took a step towards the door. 'You're not leaving.'
'Why?' she tossed back.
'Because you have no shoes and no knickers on and because you seem to be under a misunderstanding,' he said, his mouth twitching.
'Oh, don't try that one,' she said wearily. 'Be graceful in defeat, Guy. I've sussed you out. Let me go!' she yelled as in a lightning move he picked her off her feet and deposited her on the kitchen unit. Her naked thighs were on either side of his body and immediately she felt herself contract with need. To her horror, her eyes had closed briefly and her lips had parted, betraying her. And Guy was kissing her sweetly, cruelly, reminding her of the pleasure they'd shared. 'No,' she mumbled into his mouth. 'Don't hurt me, Guy.'
'I'm stopping you from walking out on me because I happen to believe in us,' he said softly. 'Look at me.'
'I won't!' she wailed, knowing what would happen if she did. 'Then damn well listen,' he said grimly. 'I wasn't involved in Giselle's campaign. She did that all on her own. When you saw me with the bleach bottle, it was because I'd taken it from her as she was about to pour it down your septic tank and yelled so loud she took to her heels. Didn't you hear me shout?'
'Y-ye-es,' she admitted.
'Then you found me bending over your bike. I'd seen that someone had taken your wheels and was wondering what to do. If I'd taken them, where were they? Do you think I swallowed them?'
'Ha-ha.' But his story made sense and she felt herself wavering.
'You saw how angry I was. I couldn't believe Giselle would go that far. And I offered to replace them, didn't I? I couldn't tell you my daughter was doing vicious things to you because she was scared and jealous-'
'Your what?'
Guy met her startled eyes with an expression of affectionate exasperation. 'I told you I'd been married and had a daughter-'
'No, you didn't!' she squeaked. Then she eyed him suspiciously. 'You said you'd got the boss's daughter pregnant. But... Giselle? She's a young woman!'
'Can't you count, you idiot?' he said tenderly. 'You didn't say when this happened! It could have been a few years back, for all I knew,' she protested sulkily. 'I'll find Giselle's birth certificate if it'll shut you up! Pay attention,' he said sternly. 'I was seventeen when I married and Giselle was born a couple of months later. She's eighteen-and horrifically mature, I grant you. Her mother didn't want her. I was the one Giselle loved. She's become very, very possessive. But she needs to start living her own life, and I'm trying, as compassionately as I can, to help her to move out of my shadow.
'I made it clear to her that I wouldn't tolerate her harassment of you. She could see how agitated I was and told me that I'd fallen for you and I was a traitor. That shook me up, I can tell you!' He grinned. 'She's a minx, Tessa, and I'm sorry for the distress she's caused you. But she's no more a monster than I was.'
'She stopped short of the dead pig,' she conceded. Her hand reached out to touch his cheek, her heart thudding hard with hope. He leant closer and she could feel the heavy beat of his pulse against her thigh. There was a glazed look in his eyes. 'She'll hate me,' she said sadly. 'Not if I tell her I love you.'
'But you said a father should never put his child second,' she reminded him unhappily. 'That bond between parent and child shouldn't be broken-and you'll' threaten it if you tell Giselle she must be nice to me.
Her anxious eyes scanned his. Men had been known to abandon relationships because their children hated the new women in their lives. Giselle hated her. Tessa recalled her confrontation with Giselle and knew Guy was being over-optimistic. If there had to be a choice, the blood tie of father and daughter would win out
especially if theirs had been such a long and close relationship as Guy and Giselle's.
'The bond can be broken sometimes,' he said quietly. 'It was severed between my father and me, between your mother and you-'
'But both of us were unhappy. We missed them terribly.'
'Maybe they weren't the wonderful people we wanted them to be. Maybe they were selfish. We'll never know the whole truth. But my sadness stems from the fact that I wanted my father to be strong and honourable-and to be there for me,' he said soberly.
'I wanted my mother to be there for me too,' Tessa said, absorbing what he'd said.
'I don't think she ever will be,' he told her gently. 'I've been looking for her ever since she disappeared. My lawyers have finally tracked her down to Martinique. They assure me that she doesn't want any contact with you at all.'
'Oh,' Tessa said in a small voice. 'Perhaps if I spoke to her. ..'
'Sweetheart,' he said gently, 'I spoke to her myself. She says she's making a new life for herself. I gather from my lawyers that she's latched onto an older man a playboy she met here, in nearby Domme. I got the lead from Madame Legrand, your neighbour across the lane, who saw his car in the square once and recognised him. Anyway, your mother persuaded him to take her out to Martinique and she doesn't want to complicate the arrangement with a long-lost daughter. I'm sorry.' His hands found hers beneath the over-long sleeves of the shirt and he held them tightly.
'I suppose she doesn't even want to see my father,' she said sadly.
'She made it clear that she'd washed her hands of him years ago, and that she'd only given you the cottages to spite me and confound her creditors.'
Poor Dad! He'll be devastated. I must talk to him-'
'You can use my mobile phone in a moment. I'll leave it here.
But I had a chat with him too, and told him everything that has happened. I think it's been strangely liberating for him to know that he'll never see Estelle again,' Guy said surprisingly. 'He joked about eventually getting hitched to a neighbour across the street who's been very kind to him.'
'Good grief! Edith!' she said faintly.
Guy smiled at her astonished face. 'He sounded very happy. Your mother's spell has been broken, and I, for one, am relieved. And I have to tell you, the image you have of your mother is a distorted one-and out of date.'
'What do you mean?' Tessa asked, puzzled. 'I almost told you once before,' he said gently. 'You went on and on about how beautiful she was and I wanted you to know then that she has changed. Her beauty has gone. I was shocked when I arrived from New Orleans and saw how gaunt and wrinkled she is from taking too much sun. I pity her now, though I can't forgive her. I wish you and she could have been reconciled. But it's not to be.'
Tessa sighed deeply. 'It's very sad. I've missed out on having a mother; she's missed out on having a daughter. She's very self-centred, isn't she? I hate saying that, but it's true. I see that now.'
'She's never been able to love someone more than she loves herself,' Guy said quietly. 'What about your father? Will he be happy with this neighbour, do you think?' She brightened. 'Yes, I'm sure! She's a lovely, generous person. I hope Dad takes the plunge, for both the' sakes.'
'Giselle will find that you're a lovely, generous person, he said confidently. 'She'll come around, you'll see.' Tessa wasn't so sure. There was so much unresolved. She didn't dare allow herself to be caught up in his optimism. Giselle could come between them and shatter any dreams they might have.
'She's already lost her mother's love.' Tessa sighed heavily, seeing no way out of the problem. 'You mustn't withdraw from her.'
'I must, for her sake. Slowly. I love her dearly and so I must help her to grow away from me. It's a parent's job to encourage children to fly the nest. It's partly my fault she's been such a thorn in your flesh,' he admitted, kissing her anxious mouth. 'From birth she's been fed promises of 'when we're in Turaine'. And when we arrived and found my home in a state of disrepair she decided to help me fight my battles. Once she sees you're not the enemy, she'll relent, I promise.'
'I hope you're right,' she said, managing to smile and conceal her doubt. But she felt worried. Now she'd found the man she loved, she didn't want to lose him. It would have been easier to fight any other woman than his only daughter.
Guy smiled. 'Care for a croissant?' he asked hopefully, reaching for the bags.
'I'll be huge!' she said wryly, making herself more comfortable on the kitchen unit.
Guy moved closer between her bare legs and her pulses quickened. 'I doubt it. If I have my way with you, you'll never be still long enough to get fat,' he said, with a theatrical leer. Tessa munched. He didn't seem to realise but he was stroking her inner thigh, and she wished it didn't make her feel so wickedly ravenous for him.
'You're wearing nothing under that shirt,' he mused, his fingers crawling nerve-rackingly higher. 'Guy, I-'
'You're not sure about us, are you?' he said softly. Slowly she shook her head. 'I'm not.'
'Then I'll make you sure.' The wonderful anticipation fled as he moved away, his jaw set hard. 'Eat your pastry-finish the whole lot if you like. Get dressed and get out of here. I have things to do.'
'But-'
'Do as you're told,' he said hoarsely. 'Go back to your cottage and smash the living daylights out of that wall. I'll send a team in to mend your roof.'
'Do you mean you don't want the cottages, or-' There was an arrogant tilt to his aristocratic head, a calculating and determined look in his dark eyes. 'Give me a little time and I'll prove to you what my feelings are. But stay away from me. I don't want to be accused of seducing you and using you.'
'Oh,' she said, astonished, struggling with the desire to be seduced again-very soon.
'Tessa, I love you!' he said, chuckling. 'I'm out of here.' His voice grew deliciously husky, making her shiver. 'I think a long run to the point of exhaustion might stop me from coming back and making love to you wherever you happen to be at the time.'
The look he threw her nearly made her slide to the floor and fling herself into his arms. But he turned and walked out before she did such a mad thing.
In the days before she saw or heard from him again, Tessa decided that this time her instincts were right. Guy was the man for her. She knew it with a quiet conviction that warmed her through and through.
So, when an invitation appeared in her letter box and invitation to dinner with Guy the next evening at Il Vieux Logis, an exclusive hotel in nearby Tremolat-she danced around in excitement. Guy had found a way to prove his love. She'd tell him he didn't need to. Over the pudding, she decided with a giggle. That way they'd get through the meal before he rushed her off to bed!
'I have nothing to wear!' she wailed, when he turn up on the doorstep half an hour later. 'Then wear nothing.'
Her mouth went dry. The two of them stood gazing at one another hungrily, longingly. 'I do love you,' she said in a small voice.
'And I love you.' Long seconds ticked away. 'What eyes will you choose?' he asked softly, tenderly. 'Don't know,' she said stupidly, her tongue clogging up her mouth. Her brow furrowed. 'Can't we go somewhere else? I've nothing posh-'
'I've told you before,' he said gently, 'that it doesn't matter what you wear. To me you will always be my Tessa.' When she made a little crying sound, and clutched the door for support, he swallowed, his eyes darkening. And, clenching his fists, he took a step back. 'Do you think Madame Legrand will be shocked if I make love to you here?' he asked in a heart-achingly hoarse voice.
She nodded dumbly, needing him, delighted that he needed her. 'Yes,' she squeaked.
'In that case, I'll wait. OK. The Logis is a classy country hotel. It's used to French dignitaries turning up. Also to people in jeans and casual shirts. Don't worry. I'll think you're beautiful and that's all that matters, isn't it?'
A slow smile lit up her face. It was. They both liked her new rounded shape. He loved what she was, not what she wore. That was a good basis. It meant that when she fell ill, or grew old and her body lost its bloom, he would still love her. 'I'll wear green eyes,' she said breathily. 'Pick you up at seven tomorrow evening,' he muttered, and turned quickly on his heel, giving a hasty nod to the passing Madame Legrand before striding at an alarming rate down the lane.
Tessa wore a white tube dress in the end, which gave her figure a Marilyn Monroe look-sexy and vulnerable. It surprised her.
Only three hours earlier she'd been wielding a pickaxe! But now her skin gleamed satin-soft and her hair, which had grown at an amazing rate, tumbled in soft sun-bleached waves about her face.
'Let's forget dinner!' Guy croaked when she opened her door. She nearly agreed. It was the first time she'd seen him in a dinner jacket, and the shape emphasised his physique and the shirt set off his handsome face in a way that had her heart racing.
'Let's do everything,' she husked, correctly identifying what he'd had in mind as an alternative. 'Dinner first!' she said, laughing, when she saw the intention in his smouldering eyes.
'Brutal woman!' he complained, and handed her a small package.
'For me?' Excitedly she tore at the wrapping, ignoring his comment that he was glad she wasn't the kind who carefully saved paper, and then her hands stilled. It was a jewel box; she knew that. From Cartier. And it was old. 'Guy-'
'Open it,' he encouraged softly.
Tessa stared at the emerald necklace, the dark facets of the large stones glinting in the evening sun. Since she made no move to lift it out, seemingly paralysed by the gift, Guy intervened, taking it in his hands in a flash of sparkling diamonds and forest-green emeralds, fixing it around her warm throat and kissing her bare shoulder lovingly. 'Family heirloom,' he said unsteadily, passing her the matching earrings.
Slowly she unhooked her chainstore 'pearl' droplets, her hands shaking. 'Oh, Guy!' she said with a sniff. This was his proof. An almost ceremonial declaration that she would one day belong to the Turaine family. 'I'm going to cry!' she squeaked. 'No, you're not,' he said briskly, tucking the box into his pocket. 'You're going to dinner.'
She kept touching the necklace all the way to Tremolat. Even the respectful welcome from the maitre d' and his staff completely flowed over her, whereas normally she might have been nervous. The hotel was less formal and intimidating than she'd imagined and they strolled in the pretty gardens of the four-hundred-year-old manor house, saying nothing, just holding hands in a blissfully contented way.
After drinks in a cosy but exquisitely decorated salon, they were summoned into the dramatic dining room, with its scarlet colour theme.
'What if I'd said I'd wear violet eyes?' she asked with a grin, tucking into her asparagus with mousseline sauce and wondering if she'd ever stop floating on a cloud.
'I would have given you amethysts,' he said promptly, and took her hand. 'You look so beautiful. Radiant as a bride. Do you know everyone in the room is staring at you?'
She flushed with embarrassment when she saw that this was true. 'Have I a lump of plaster somewhere?' she whispered.
He laughed. 'Nowhere I can see. I love the idea of having a tame builder in the family! Think of what I'll save! Tessa,' he said, suddenly serious, 'I'm taking you for granted. I have something else for you. Proof of my love. I hope it'll show you how confident I am that we were made for each other and will never, ever be parted.'
'Two presents! I have nothing for you!'
'Yes, you have. Yourself.'
'Oh, Guy!' she quavered, touched to the heart.
Nervously she took the long envelope he handed her with its bright red seal. The maitre d' appeared by magic with a knife and, at her silent nod, slit the seal for her, then disappeared discreetly into the background.
It was a very old document in Latin, with an English translation typed neatly for her which she read with growing shock. The deeds to Turaine.
Tessa sat there with silent tears pouring down her face. He'd given her the whole estate. Gently the deeds were taken from her limp fingers and put to one side and Guy was kissing her tears away.
'I love you,' he said fondly. 'I give you all I have, all I treasure. Now will you damn well believe me?' She nodded, unable to speak. 'And marry me?' Another nod, this time with a blissful smile through the tears as he solemnly slipped an antique emerald ring on her finger. 'With this ring, I thee worship,' he said huskily. 'Uh ... you're not going to let this spoil the best dinner we're likely to have this week, are you?' he murmured teasingly, wiping her face with great tenderness. 'I-don't-think-I'll-ever-eat-again!' she said jerkily. But she did, starting with that perfect meal, and champagne, while music drifted gently across the elegant room.
And there they talked about their plans for the future and the offer of a village house for her father, should he want it.
And later, when they arrived back in the village, it was to a party which he had arranged in the square, complete with the village band and long tables groaning with more food. Intensely happy to see how he'd won the villagers round, she danced with every man who asked her.
Then, as a noisy and chaotic conga ended and everyone headed for the newly arrived cask of wine, she was confronted again by Giselle.
'Are you going to take my father away from me?' asked Giselle miserably.
'Of course not!' Tessa cried, her tone sympathetic. 'You saw him before I did,' she said with a friendly smile. 'I'm the interloper.'
'He's crazy about you. Never takes his eyes off you. I-I don't want to lose him!' she said passionately.
Tessa reached out to her, her eyes full of understanding. To her relief, Giselle didn't draw back. She needs loving, thought Tessa, and she gave the young woman's slender arms a gentle squeeze of reassurance.
'I think there's enough of him to go round, don't you? If not, we'll stuff doughnuts into him till there is.' She waited anxiously. And was relieved when Giselle giggled. 'Talk to me,' she coaxed warmly. 'Tell me what kind of life you want to lead. Let's see what we can do to make your dreams come true, shall we?'
And, after Giselle had poured out her heart and spoken of her longing to go to Paris, Tessa promised that she'd ensure Guy helped Giselle to find a job in the city, and that they should not let Turaine obsess them but would spend some time in Paris with her.
In the early hours of the morning, the party broke up. She and Guy hugged Giselle and then watched her drive off to the hotel. 'Where,' murmured Guy in her ear, 'are we sleeping tonight, Beauty?'
'Surprise me,' she suggested saucily.
'You on your back, me on your front. Or me on my back-'
'Guy! Hush!' she giggled.
'How about the enchanted forest? My garden? I have a rug, a bottle of champagne and a basket of strawberries waiting for us beneath the rose arbour.' He paused to kiss her. It was a very long pause and a very thorough kiss which left Tessa weak at the knees. 'Love beneath the stars. Will that do for tonight?' The cicadas whirred their approval. And with their arms around one another, Guy and Tessa strolled towards the chateau.
Harlequin Presents ®
Copyright © 1997 Sara Wood
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