Summer's Awakening (47 page)

'It's beautiful, Raoul—but I can't possibly accept it. Not only because of its value, but because of its associations. It should be kept in your family.'

He said, 'This is a piece which I found on a visit to England, It was in a little back-street junk shop, and the dealer didn't know what it was. She thought it was plastic and marcasite, and I bought it for a song. If it had any workmaster's initials, they've been worn away.'

'You're not making that up to overcome my scruples, are you?' she said doubtfully. How could anyone mistake this exquisite object for a cheap trinket?

'I would never lie to you, Summer.'

He removed the little box from her hand, put it on the coffee table and then took her gently in his arms.

Today he didn't kiss her on the mouth but put his lips lightly against her forehead and began to brush many soft kisses all over her face. Her eyes closed, she felt him kissing her temples and cheeks while the fingertips of his right hand stroked her neck and explored the delicate skin behind her ears and under her chin.

At last his lips came to hers and found them already parted and eagerly responsive to his long, tender kiss.

'I wish you weren't going away,' he murmured presently. 'It will seem a long two months without you... more than two months if you're not coming back till September.'

She rested her cheek on his shoulder, one arm round his waist and her other hand playing with
a
button on his shirt.

'Don't you go to France every summer? While you're there, why not come and see us? The chalet we're going to stay in is quite large. I think it has six or seven bedrooms.

He stroked her hair and her back. 'Perhaps I will.'

She was suddenly filled with a longing for more than these gentle caresses. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she slid both arms round his neck and pressed herself against him, offering her mouth for another kiss.

This time he embraced her less gently. But just when she was beginning to feel all kinds of pleasurable sensations spreading through her entire body, he suddenly broke off the kiss and put her away from him.

Springing up from the sofa, he said thickly, 'You don't know what you do to me,
chérie.'
He walked away to the window and stood with his back to her.

Watching him, she wondered why he had cut short something they were both enjoying. Was it because of her inexperience? Or because he still wasn't sure of his feelings for her?

Either way, she couldn't see that it would have done any harm to let things go a bit further. However, as he had just said, she couldn't judge his reactions. She only knew how she felt—as if something lovely had been snatched away before she had had time to enjoy it to the full.

Still with his back to her, Raoul said, 'I will come to Switzerland. No one stays in Paris in August. My family have a house near Annecy in the Haute-Savoie. It's not far from Geneva.' He turned. 'You must give me your address and telephone number.'

'I don't know them yet. As usual all the arrangements have been made for us. I'll write to you as soon as we arrive.' She stood up. 'I'd better get back and finish our packing. Thank you for lunch, Raoul—and for this lovely birthday present.'

He accompanied her down to the lobby, but when he would have asked the doorman to get a cab for her, she said, 'No, I'd rather walk. Goodbye, Raoul.'

'Perhaps it's a good thing we shall be separated for a while.' He took her hand in both of his. 'Till August. Take care of yourself.' He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into the palm.

As she walked home, Summer found her thoughts and emotions in considerable confusion. Even if it meant not seeing him till September, she couldn't pretend to be sorry to be going to Switzerland tomorrow. Travelling to new places was always exciting and New York, when the temperature soared as it did in July and August, was not a comfortable place to be for anyone who disliked humidity out of doors and the unnatural coolness of air-conditioning indoors.

On the other hand she was conscious of disappointment that he hadn't seized his opportunity and swept her into bed. Would she have resisted him if he had tried to make love to her? It was impossible to tell.

Probably she ought to be grateful that he had behaved with such rare old-world chivalry. It was yet another proof of what an exceptionally nice man he was. She had told him she wanted her husband to be her first lover and he, not being ready to ask her to marry him, had remembered and respected her wish.

If he had proposed, what would she have said? Not yes... not yet. She needed more time. They both did. Marriage was such an awesome commitment. The rest of one's life in day and night partnership with another human being. She felt reasonably certain that she was never going to meet anyone with whom she had more in common than with Raoul, but they had known each other only a few months.

Thinking about marriage to him reminded her of the proposal she had received—if such a cold-blooded offer could be called a proposal.

We'll leave the subject in abeyance for a month or two,
James had said.

She wondered if he would visit them while they were in Switzerland.

In winter a smart ski resort, the village of Wengen, was ringed by high peaks which were white with snow at all seasons. From their chalet, its balconies bright with crimson and pink pelargoniums, Summer and Emily could see across the Lauterbrunnen valley to another mountainside village, Mürren. Just below Mürren the lush, wooded pastures were cut by a tremendous cliff down which plunged the Staubbach waterfall, dissolving in spray before it reached the floor of the valley a thousand feet below.

In spite of the very hot weather throughout their stay, they explored both sides of the valley, toiling up steep, narrow paths to rest in high alpine glades with dazzling views of the Jungfrau, the Eiger, the Mönch and other famous mountains.

One baking August afternoon Summer was alone at the chalet while Emily played tennis with some other young people whose parents had taken a house at the far end of the village.

After a strenuous morning Summer was relaxing on the main balcony. Because it was completely private she had dispensed with her bikini and was lying face down on a sun-bed, browning her already brown back and her paler golden behind.

The local people had been hay-making in a nearby meadow, and the scent of mown grass—the quintessence of summer—wafted on the warm breeze which from time to time caressed her bare skin.

For a while she tried to concentrate on
Pens
é
es,
a book of philosophical reflections by Pascal, a seventeenth-century French writer, which someone had left at the chalet. Then, surrendering to languor, she put the book aside and lay down, her head cushioned on her forearms and the line,
The heart has its reasons, which are quite unknown to the head
floating in her mind like a mantra.

Lost in a drowsy day-dream, at first she thought that the delicate ripple of sensation from her nape to the base of her spine was the breeze. Then it happened again, going the other way and feeling almost like a finger.

By the time she realised it
was
a finger, it had been joined by three other fingers, and a thumb and a palm. A whole hand was passing lightly over her sun-warmed left buttock and down the back of her thigh. A hand which, for all its gentleness, was unmistakably male.

'Raoul?' she queried, without moving.

He was expected to arrive the following afternoon. Naturally her first thought was that he had come a day early. When he didn't answer and the hand returned to her bottom, she pushed herself up on her elbows and twisted to look over her shoulder.

'You!' she exclaimed, aghast.

For it wasn't Raoul who was squatting beside the sun-bed, casually fondling her backside as if he were stroking a cat. It was James.

He gave her smooth rounded cheek a final pat and stood up. His smile mocking her startled confusion.

'Disappointed?' he asked.

'W-what are you doing here?'

'Passing through. I thought you would probably be out and I shouldn't see you till later. It's an unexpected pleasure to find you at home to welcome me.'

As his amused gaze swept from her head to her heels, she wondered if her body was blushing to match her face.

'Maybe I should get into the sun cream market and use you to advertise my product,' he murmured musingly.

Peering up at him, over her shoulder, was beginning to add physical discomfort to her mental discomfiture.

She said, 'If you'll turn your back I'll put something on and... and make you some coffee.'

James's reaction to this was not to do as she requested but to seat himself in a cane chair facing the sun-bed.

'I'm not embarrassed by nudity,' he announced smoothly. 'The beaches round the Mediterranean are littered with near-naked bodies. Even in Spain, once so prudish, bare breasts are a common-place sight. Don't cover up on my account.'

As she gritted her teeth, he added, 'And I have seen you undressed before, if you remember.'

There was—and she felt sure he knew it—a big difference between lying on a Riviera beach among hundreds of women in monokinis and being totally naked and alone with a fully dressed man. Particularly this man.

The only wrap she had with her was a large scarf of printed cotton which she had left draped over the back of another chair. To reach it she would have to stand up and turn in his direction, giving him a clear view of her front.

Well... so what? her common-sense asked. He's not going to rape you, you idiot. Why are you in such a stew?

Why indeed? The answer to that was too complex for her to analyse it right now. But it wasn't because she was still ashamed of her body. Considering the size she had once been, she was in good shape. A gradual weight loss combined with an exercise programme had succeeded in slimming her down without loss of firmness.

Nerving herself for his scrutiny, she rolled into a sitting position and forced herself to move without haste as she retrieved her scarf and wrapped it round her like a sarong.

'Why did you think it was Santerre who was touching you a moment ago?' James enquired, watching her tuck in the corner of the scarf.

'He's staying with his family near Annecy. We're expecting him to visit us tomorrow.'

'And I take it his hand on your bottom is more acceptable than mine?' His lion's eyes were no longer smiling and his tone held an edge of sarcasm.

What perverse impulse made her say 'Yes' when it was so far from the truth?

'But Raoul would never touch someone unless he were sure it was welcome,' she added. 'He... he would have coughed or something.'

'Damned gentlemanly of him. It was more than faint sarcasm now. 'He sounds in the same league as Bayard—
sans peur et sans reproche.'

'Yes, I think he is,' she retorted. 'And I don't know why you should sneer. He's been a very good friend both to me and to Emily. I thought you liked him yourself.'

He shrugged, and his voice was indifferent as he said, 'I have no objection to his coming here if you feel the need to see each other while you're in Europe. I'm only staying here for one night. I shan't interfere with your plans. Excuse me, I'm going to unpack.'

The chalet had four bedrooms. She opened her mouth to offer to show him the two unused rooms, but he was already walking away and she realised that he didn't need her to conduct him upstairs. He had only to open doors to discover which rooms she and Emily were occupying.

Listening to the sound of his footsteps crossing the wax-polished wooden floor of the living room, she wondered for a moment if his snappy remarks about Raoul could have been prompted by jealousy. No, jealousy was too strong a word. But he might feel some resentment that she seemed to prefer the Frenchman's approach to his own.

If only he knew her real reaction to his touch. What her inner self had wanted to do when she looked round and saw whose hand was stroking her behind had been to turn on her back and give him her most glowing smile.

What would he have done if she had, she wondered.

It was something she would never know; a chance she had failed to take and which would never come again. Had she been bolder, more daring, she might now be locked in his arms instead of being left on her own, regretting her mishandling of the encounter.

Soon afterwards Emily came back. For the rest of James's stay she was always present and Summer was never alone with him. He had gone before Raoul arrived to spend three pleasant days in their company.

After that, every time Summer sunbathed she remembered James's hand on her flesh. She tried to close her mind to the memory and to think instead of Raoul's kiss as they soared high above the fragrant meadows on the Grindelwald chair-lift. But somehow, in spite of the heavenly setting, the kiss itself had not thrilled her.

In mid-September the two girls left Wengen with unforgettable memories of their Swiss summer. But although on the long flight west across the Atlantic she tried not to let herself dwell on that afternoon on the balcony, it was undeniably the most vivid and disturbing of Summer's memories.