AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Jules is flattered,’ Andre translated. ‘But the credit must go to his aunt, who has been cook here for many years. Madame Rameau is busy elsewhere tonight, but you will meet her tomorrow.’
Jules got to his feet, still grinning. He said, ‘Bonne nuit, Andre, mam’selle.’ His dark eyes danced as he looked from one to the other. ‘Et dormez bien, n’est ce pas?’
Well, she didn’t need a translation of that, Ginny thought, flushing angrily as Jules sauntered across the kitchen and out into the night.
She said tautly, ‘Where has he gone?’
‘Home to sleep. He lives in a house on the edge of the vineyard. La Petite Maison is always occupied by the manager.’
He picked up her coat and suitcase. ‘And I think it is time that you, too, Virginie, went to bed. Viens avec moi.’
A door in the corner led up a winding flight of wooden stairs to a curtained archway. He held the velvet aside to allow her to precede him and she stepped through to find herself in a broad corridor, its pastel walls illumined by elegant gilded sconces, which appeared to lead to a pair of ornate double doors at the end.
Conscious that with Jules’ departure, she seemed to be here alone with him, she felt her apprehension mounting.
Swallowing, she saw he’d reached the doors and was holding one of them open, motioning her to enter. Ginny obeyed warily and stopped dead, gasping, as she gazed round the biggest bedroom she’d ever seen.
All the elaborately carved furniture—the enormous armoire, the dressing table and chair, the night tables and the linen chest at the foot of the bed—were clearly very old and made from wood the colour of horse chestnuts. While the bed itself...
It was easily more than double the width of the queen-size bed she’d slept in at Barrowdean, making it what? Emperor-size? Dictator-of-the-world-size? And rendered even more imposing by its four carved posts, and its canopy and curtains in pale gold brocade.
And totally inappropriate for single occupation—if that had ever been his intention.
Her heartbeat faltered then steadied as Andre set her coat and case down on the chest, then walked across the room to open a door on the other side and reveal the gleam of ivory tiles.
‘I am sure Clothilde has provided all that you need,’ he said. ‘Permit me to wish you goodnight.’
As he reached the bedroom door, she said huskily, ‘Just a moment. There must be some mistake. This is not a servant’s room.’
‘Tu as raison,’ he agreed. ‘This is the room always occupied by the Baron de Terauze and his wife. Papa Bertrand, being a widower, chooses to sleep elsewhere. And although I am not yet the Baron or a husband, I have decided you will sleep here as my chosen bride until I am legally entitled to join you.’ His smile touched her like the stroke of a hand across her skin. ‘I live for that night, ma belle.’
Her throat tightened. She said dazedly, ‘But that’s tantamount to a public announcement. You can’t do that.’
He shrugged. ‘Nevertheless, it is done.’
She gave him a challenging look. ‘And when it’s confirmed that there is no baby and I go back to England, what will you do then?’
‘I shall cross that bridge,’ he said softly, ‘only if I come to it.’
‘When,’ she said. ‘Not—if. And another thing. You told us all—you let us think you worked in a vineyard.’
‘And so I do,’ he said. ‘Very hard, and so do Papa Bertrand and Jules. If your mother wished to believe that as well as a bastard I was a peasant toiling in a field, that was her concern.’ He added reflectively, ‘But I do not think, Virginie, that you were fooled even for a moment.’
Her skin warmed as she remembered with blazing clarity that strange shock of recognition when she opened the door to him and—later—the exquisitely practised sophistication of his lovemaking.
She said, ‘I think it was a lousy trick to play.’
‘Vraiment?’ His smile was edged. ‘I thought it would please you, ma mie, to find that you also will not be required to live in a hovel.’
‘You’re wrong,’ she said shakily. ‘Nothing about this—arrangement pleases me, or ever will.’
His mouth hardened. ‘Then let us hope a night’s rest will bring you to a more equable state of mind. Because this is my future as well as yours, and you would do well to accept it as I am prepared to do.’ He inclined his head curtly. ‘À demain.’
For a moment, Ginny stood staring at the door he had closed behind him and then, with a little inarticulate cry, she ran to it, twisting the heavy key in the lock. Wanting the physical bulk of wood and iron to create a barrier between them.
