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‘I don’t care. I want to do it alone. I want to do something for myself,’ Fern told her. ‘I can manage, Cress. I’ll find work, cleaning, childminding… any thing. I don’t care how hard it is, I’ll do it. I want to do it,’ she added with fierce energy. ‘I need to do it.’
Cressy looked at her. ‘Yes,’ she agreed softly. ‘Perhaps you do, but remember, I’m always here, and remember as well that I want you as my wedding attendant—and you still haven’t met Graham. Are you sure you can’t stay?’
‘Positive,’ Fern told her, hugging her, adding as they embraced, ‘Thanks, Cress.’
‘For what? Telling you the truth about Nick? It was my pleasure,’ Cressy told her forcefully.
Fern laughed.
‘Don’t you dare change your mind,’ Cressy warned her as she got into her car.
‘I shan’t,’ Fern promised her. ‘I shan’t.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SOMEHOW, like hospitals, airports, wherever they were, all smelled the same, Eleanor reflected tiredly as she stepped out of the terminal at Marseille and came to an abrupt halt, dizzied not so much by the strong Provençal sunshine but by the unexpected intensity of the light, pure, brilliant, sharply clear, its intoxicating effect somehow heightened by the scent of the air, hot, dusty and yet underlain with a giddily hedonistic warmth and earthiness.
‘I shall send someone to meet you,’ Pierre Colbert had told her when she had telephoned to accept his invitation, and now, as her eyes adjusted to the brilliant clarity of the light, she looked hesitantly around her, searching for someone carrying a placard with her name.
There wasn’t anyone. Momentarily her attention was diverted by the sight of the man getting out of an expensive open-top convertible car. Tall and dark, his looks were typically French, his clothes expensively casual. He was about her own age, perhaps slightly younger, and very good-looking… almost too much so.
She flushed slightly as he turned his head and caught her watching him. Before she could look away he smiled at her, and then started to walk towards her.
Cursing herself under her breath, Eleanor was just about to move away when he reached her, holding out a hand as he said her name and introduced himself.
‘I’m André; my uncle asked me to come and meet you. He described you well,’ he added, smiling at her. ‘He told me,’ he added, giving her a small sideways look, ‘that you were extremely beautiful and extremely clever. And I, I’m afraid, am extremely susceptible to beautiful, clever women.’
He laughed as he said it, his expression winsomely rueful, inviting her to share his amusement and his carelessly insouciant flirtation.
To her own surprise Eleanor found herself laughing, and as she heard the sound of her own laughter she recognised how unfamiliar with it she was.
How long was it since she had last laughed like this, since she had felt so light-hearted… so light-headed almost?
It was a question which kept repeating itself to her over the next two days, forcing itself upon her whenever she was on her own, which was not very often, or for very long.
When she was not involved in discussions with his uncle, André insisted on filling her time with sightseeing trips into the countryside surrounding Arles.
Normally he would not have been her type; he was too egotistical, too flirtatious, too dangerous—and it made her all the more aware of the rift which seemed to have developed between herself and Marcus to recognise how surprisingly vulnerable she was allowing herself to be to André’s outrageous compliments and flirtatiousness.
It was not that she was in any danger of taking him seriously, she recognised after he left her at her hotel late one afternoon, having failed to persuade her to spend the evening with him.
It was just that it felt so good to be paid that kind of attention; to feel desired and wanted; to feel feminine and valued. She could almost feel the pressure lifting from her, her self-confidence, her self-esteem flowing energetically back into her as she soaked up the heady combination of André’s outrageous sexual flattery and Pierre Colbert’s assertion that he wanted her to take on a large part of his translation work.
Boosted both profes
sionally and personally, warmed by the sun, freed from the draining pressure of her problems at home, she not only felt but looked a different person, Eleanor recognised as she stared at her reflection in the mirror.
This evening she was having dinner with Monsieur Colbert while they haggled over final terms for their contract. In the morning she would fly home.
She paused as she recognised the feeling that knowledge brought, the reluctance and tension.
She had spoken to Marcus twice since her arrival and on both occasions he had sounded curt and distant.
Of course she wanted to be back home with him… with her sons. With Vanessa?
She looked in the mirror again. It was amazing to see how much just thinking about home and the problems waiting for her there changed her. She could see the tension tightening her face, drawing it into sharper, ageing lines… causing her mouth to turn down instead of up, her body to stiffen defensively, her posture to change.
By rights she ought to be looking forward to going home to Marcus, not… Not what? Not almost dreading it?
