Desperate Measures (21 page)

somehow before Gavin returned.

She would pack her things, walk down to Montascaux and take

the first bus to anywhere.

She'd tackle the studio first, she thought. Meet the pain head-

on.

She wouldn't be able to carry all her equipment. Some of it

would have to stay here. Maybe she'd be able to come back for it,

later. When she could stand it.

It took a long time to bring her painting things down from the

pigeonnier. Even though the easel folded up,

it was still heavy and difficult to manoeuvre on the narrow

stairs, and she was glad of this, because it made her concentrate on

the job in hand, and left no room for other thinking.

She left her unused canvases. The portrait of Alain at the table

she turned to the wall.

She was about to go upstairs to her room and fling her clothes

into her bag when she heard the sound of the car. She paused,

tensing, staring out through the open door.

Alain's car, she thought, her throat muscles tightening

agonisingly. But it couldn't be. It was an hallucination. Alain had gone, and he wasn't coming back.

As if paralysed, she watched him climb out from the driving seat

and cross the courtyard towards the door.

She didn't know why he'd come back, and she didn't want to

know. The only certainty was that she couldn't face him—couldn't see

the triumph in his eyes—or the pity.

She tried to slam the door, her hands fumbling for the massive

key in the lock, but as she did so, Alain reached it and pushed it open, using his shoulder.

'Are you crazy?' he demanded roughly, as she backed away

from him. He looked around, his brows lifting. 'Why is your painting

gear down here?'

'Because I'm leaving.' Her voice cracked a little. 'Travelling on.

I'll make sure you have an address eventually—for the lawyers.'

'For the lawyers,' he repeated slowly. 'What in the name of God

are you talking about?'

'The divorce.' Philippa lifted her chin. 'That's what we agreed,

wasn't it? So there's nothing more to be said. I—I can't imagine why

you chose to come back.'

For a moment he was silent. He was very white, she saw, and

there was a tiny muscle jerking beside his mouth. Then he smiled.

'D'accord.
As you say, madame. There is nothing more. I'd

thought, maybe, we should say adieu—but I will not detain you any

longer.'

Head held high, Philippa went past him, and up the stairs to her

room. She opened the door, and stood, aghast. It was in such turmoil

that, for a moment, she thought the unthinkable had happened in this

backwater—that a thief had got in.

Then, slowly, it dawned on her what the mess confronting her

consisted of.

It was Alain's clothes, she realised, stunned, her eyes roving

over the sweaters, shirts and casual trousers, strewn across her bed.

And over on the dressing chest, his brushes and razor. The leather

toilet bag he used for travelling.

She heard him follow her upstairs and turned slowly.

His face expressionless, he said with cold formality,
'Je vous

demand pardon
. I was—presumptuous. Perhaps it would be simpler if I packed first.'

He made to move past her, and Philippa caught his arm.

She said hoarsely, 'Why did you put your things in my room?'

'Do you really need to ask?' There was a wrenched harshness in

his voice that caught at her heart. 'Because I thought—I hoped that, at last, I would be sleeping here tonight. That from now on you would be spending every night in my arms.' He gave a bitter

laugh. 'What a fool I was! Because it meant nothing to you, did

it,
ma femme
, that—heaven that we shared together only an hour or two ago.' He shook her hand from his arm. 'Be good enough not to

touch me.'

'Alain, no, listen to me.' Her hands gripped the front of his shirt,

clung. 'I thought you'd gone—that you'd left me. You said you would,

as soon as the car was fixed. I woke up alone, and your room was

empty, and the car had gone. I—I didn't look in here. I didn't think...'

She took a deep breath. 'I was so unhappy, I wanted to die. That's why I was leaving. Because I couldn't bear to stay here without you.'

The green eyes narrowed in disbelief, but he didn't push her

away. 'Leave you? You truly thought that?' He shook his head. 'No,

mon amour
. Whatever I may have said, I never had the least intention of going. Even without the intervention of Monsieur de Thiery, I would have found some excuse to stay, until I got what I came for.'

'What was that?' Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

A smile twisted his lips. 'It was you, my reluctant wife. All of you, body, heart and sweet, stubborn mind.' His hands covered hers, and

she realised they were trembling. He said, 'Philippa, don't pretend any more. You know that love you. Will you stay here with me—share the

honeymoon we never had? Begin our marriage all over again?'

She said brokenly, 'Alain, it's you that's pretending. It's not me

that you want. It's the Baronne— Marie-Laure—and I—I can't live with

that, no matter how much I love you. It's too much to ask.'

He said gently, 'But I don't ask it,
mon amour
. Marie-Laure

means nothing to me, and never did. Oh,

yes, when I first met her she was alluring—an exciting adventure,

but that was all.'

'How can you say that?' she whispered. 'Alain, I saw you

together—at that party, on the terrace. You know that. You—you were

kissing her and ...'

'Ah, no.' He gathered her into his arms, held her against him, his

lips against her hair. 'It was over— all over between us long before.

She followed me— threw herself at me. Treated me like the fool I must have seemed. Only by that time, of course, I knew ...'

'Knew what?' Philippa's voice was a thread.

'That like your friend Fabrice, she had been hired, in the first

instance, by my uncle,' he said grimly. He met the incredulity in her eyes, and nodded. 'You find it hard to credit? So did I—at first. have my share of male vanity, you understand? I met this beautiful woman

who made it clear she wanted me, and I believed, to begin with,

everything she wished me to believe.'

He smiled cynically. 'When the scandal broke, I was astonished. I

was not, after all, the first man in her life. It was all—too neat,

somehow. So I had enquiries made, and discovered that she was

heavily in debt. The Baron was a wealthy man, but not a generous

one. And Marie-Laure liked to gamble. There wasn't a casino in the

South of France that she hadn't visited. For my uncle, she was the

perfect weapon. So I ended the affaire.'

He paused. I had, of course, the perfect excuse. I was going to

be married.'

Philippa said bleakly. 'I see.'

'No.' A laugh shook in his voice. 'You do not see,
ma femme
, and you never have.' He cupped her face in his hands. 'Since that evening in Lowden Square

when I first saw you, there has been no one in my life. No one

but you. Don't you know that?'

'No. How can know it? I was an expedient for you. I wasn't

beautiful. I didn't belong in your world...'

'Not beautiful?' he questioned softly. 'Ah, Philippa, for an artist,

you can be very blind. And what does the world I belong to know of

the kind of love and loyalty you had to offer? I found myself thinking—

tonight, she only thinks of her father. One day, perhaps, she will think of me.'

She felt his heart thudding against her. He said unevenly, 'I

could not believe what was happening to me. The next morning, at

the hotel, I was in agony, asking myself what I would do if you did not agree, if you did not come to me. Knowing that, wherever you went, I

would follow. As I did when you left me.'

She looked into his eyes, saw her own pain, her own uncertainty

mirrored there. She said, with a little gasp, 'Alain...'

His arms went round her fiercely, holding her so that their

bodies ground together. His mouth on hers was heatedly passionate—

demanding, questioning, and Philippa answered with her heart on her

lips.

When he lifted his head, his eyes were emerald-bright, the flame

in them scorching her. 'Tell me you love me,' he said. 'Say it. Say you will be my wife in truth, this time, and that you'll never leave me

again.'

'But it was you who kept leaving,' she protested, her fingers

shyly stroking his face. 'In Paris, I was always alone. There were all those nights you didn't stay at the apartment...'

'Do you think I could bear to be there with you?' Alain demanded

roughly. 'Watching you hating me—

shrinking every time I came near you. I didn't blame you for

that. I'd intended to wait, to be patient, and instead, I behaved like an idiot and a brute.'

He groaned. 'All that time in London, I had hardly dared allow

myself to touch your hand in case I frightened you away. On our

wedding night, the knowledge that you belonged to me at last made

me forget everything else. I was crazy with wanting you, and so sure

that I could make you want me in return.

'Afterwards, I hated myself. I didn't sleep for the rest of the

night. All I could see were your wounded eyes, ma chere. All I could

think was that I'd ruined everything between us forever.

'There's a suite of rooms at the company building for use in

emergency. I started sleeping there at night. I had to stay away,

because I couldn't trust myself to be near you. You only seemed

prepared to tolerate the minimum contact between us, and there were

times I needed much more than that, and I was scared I might shock

you—disgust you—create even worse barriers between us.'

'And I thought you were with Marie-Laure.' Philippa looked up at

him reproachfully. 'And you let me think so, Alain. You gave the

impression you were still having an affair.'

He grimaced ruefully. 'Well, perhaps—a little. Your hostility about

her intrigued me. It made me wonder if you could actually be jealous

—if, under all that polite neutrality you showed me most of the time, you were beginning to care. It was the only hope I had to cling to. I kept telling myself that if you were really as indifferent to me as you made out, then my having an affaire shouldn't affect you as it

obviously did. So I decided to lead you on a little. And Marie-Laure

help in her determined attempts to get me back again?

He bent his head and kissed her very gently. 'Can you forgive

me? If I hurt you, I was more than repaid when I thought you'd fallen in love with Fabrice. Then I began to know what jealousy really is, and I suffered. I also realised that by dangling Marie-Laure in front of you as bait, I'd trapped only myself. You were distressingly eager to free me so that I could marry her, and then, when I tried to explain—to tell you the truth—you wouldn't listen.'

'I thought that was what you wanted. A real marriage with the

woman you loved.'

'It was you that I meant. It was our marriage I wanted to be real,

but I would have had you under any terms—any conditions. I'd have

spent the rest of our life together wooing you, praying that one day

you'd turn to me.' He sighed. 'I thought maybe if we had children, and you cared for them, you might eventually come to love their father.

That's how desperate I was.'

'I was desperate too,' she confessed in a low voice. 'That's why I

ran away. I—I couldn't take any more. And today, when I thought you'd left me, I wanted to die.'

'You were sleeping so sweetly I thought I'd have time to

complete my errands and return before you knew I'd been away,'

Alain said wryly. 'I had phone calls to make to Paris—to tell colleagues I was taking an extended leave, and that as it was my honeymoon I

did not wish to be disturbed. Also we needed more food. I have to

keep up my strength, you understand.'

'Do you?' She gave him a limpid look.

'Why, yes,
mignonne
. It's very tough work being an artist's model Particularwhen one is obliged to make love to the artist.'

'Oh God!' Philippa clapped a hand to her mouth. 'I've just

remembered—I tore it up—that beautiful drawing of you.'

'Well, I'll make sure you have plenty of opportunity to draw me

again, if you wish.' He kissed the tip of her nose. 'I do not intend to wear many clothes over the next week or two.'

'Is that all the time we have?' she asked wistfully.

'No,' he said. 'After we leave here, we are flying to the States to

bring your father home. He can come with us to Fontainebleu, and rest up there for a while.'

'I hope finding out that I'm married won't be too much of a

shock for him,' Philippa said worriedly.

'Maybe when he sees how happy we are, he'll forgive us both.'

'And are we going to be happy?' she asked demurely.

'Very.' Alain kissed her mouth softly. 'We have nothing to do,

after all, but eat, drink, enjoy the sunlight—and each other.'

'And I shall paint, of course,' she reminded him, then grimaced.

'I shall have to move all my gear back to the studio again.'

'Later,' he said. He took her hands and carried them to the

buttons of his shirt. 'After our wedding night.'

She said breathlessly, unfastening the buttons with fingers that

shook a little, 'But our wedding night was ages ago.'

'Au contraire, mon amour
.'His hands stroked down her body,