Vacation with a Commanding Stranger

by Penny Jordan

The disgust on their observer’s face deepened. He had the most extraordinarily powerful, harsh bone-structure, Livvy recognised, and such an air of cold austerity about him that the look he was giving her actually made her feel as though the temperature had physically dropped.

  As he turned his back on them and returned to his room, closing the door behind him, her awareness that he had dared to assume that she wanted the Frenchman’s obnoxious caresses made Livvy so angry that she was actually physically able to take him off guard and push him off her.

  She wasn’t sure which of them was the more surprised by her show of strength, she or he. He stared at her and then shook his head, cursing her under his breath as he came towards her.

  Livvy was not going to be taken off guard a second time. She bunched her fists as aggressively as she could, facing him down, speaking to him in French as she told him that she was going to report him to the police.

  He was obviously shocked to hear her speaking perfect French, but Livvy doubted if that would have been enough to give her time to escape from him if the hotel manager and one of the waiters hadn’t suddenly emerged from the fire escape to take hold of him and forcibly march him away.

  The manager returned later to apologise. He would not blame her if she went ahead and pressed charges, he told Livvy.

  ‘By rights I ought to do so,’ she returned crisply, ‘if only to ensure that some other woman doesn’t suffer the same fate, but since I can’t afford to delay my journey I shall have to leave it to monsieur to see that he is fittingly punished. He seems a rather old companion for your son,’ she added pointedly.

  A long discussion about the problems of bringing up teenagers followed, leaving Livvy wishing she had simply closed her door and wished le patron a goodnight. The incident had shaken her more than she realised, she admitted as she prepared for bed. She was jumping at every tiny, unfamiliar sound and had been twice to check that the door was securely locked.

  Additionally, for the first time in her life, she was going to sleep in a room with the windows closed. She might be on the second floor, but there was no point in taking any more risks, not after what had already happened. After all, as she had already discovered, she could scarcely rely on anyone to come to her rescue, could she?

  She was still seething with bitter resentment over the reaction of the Englishman. How dared he assume that she had actually encouraged, never mind wanted, that lout’s attack on her? Surely he could see that she had been struggling against him, not abandoning herself to the mindless passion he seemed to think she had been experiencing, if the disgust in his eyes had been anything to go by.

  What kind of women was he used to, for heaven’s sake, to have thought that?

  The more she thought about the way he had behaved, the more angry Livvy became. She could have been raped and it would virtually have been his fault.

  Much he would have cared what might have happened to her. Look at the way he had behaved in the car park—that should have warned her what kind of man he was. Arrogant pig. Thank goodness she had never been the type to be susceptible to that kind of darkly powerful male sexuality. It was personality that mattered to her, not looks. Uncomfortably, she suddenly remembered that odd and unwanted frisson of sensation she had experienced when he’d looked at her.

  It had been caused by shock…fear…everyone knew that very strong emotions could have the most disconcerting effect on people. Her reaction had had nothing to do with the man himself. How could it have done? There had been nothing…nothing about him that she had found remotely attractive…nothing about him as a human being that could have caused that sharp, jagged lightning flash of sexual awareness.

  She had probably imagined the whole thing…exaggerated the force of it. In her heightened emotional state it would have been strange if she had not done so, she comforted herself as she climbed back into bed.

  She needed a good night’s sleep if she was to be fresh for her journey in the morning. Resolutely she told herself to put the evening and its entire events firmly out of her mind.

  An hour later she had to repeat this admonition more severely to herself; she reminded herself that she was a teacher, and a firm fan of self-discipline, someone who prided herself on her logical, calm approach to life’s problems.

  So what was going wrong? Why were the arrogant, contemptuous features of a certain man coming between her and her attempts to go to sleep? If the thought of anyone was keeping her awake, it should have been the man who had tried to attack her, but disconcertingly she could barely remember his features, while the other…the Englishman’s were so firmly etched on her memory that she might have known him for years, not merely glimpsed him for a handful of seconds.

  No doubt, after closing his door on her, he had not even given her a second thought.

  * * *

  Across the hallway in his own room, the object of her thoughts was also trying to sleep. He moved irritably in his bed, his body tense and unrelaxed. This was the last thing he needed.

  The whole purpose of this trip to France was to allow him to unwind, to give him a small breathing space, not to…

  Not to what? Make him remember things he’d far rather forget?

  Damn that woman. He had known she was trouble the moment he saw her in the car park, standing there, all lissom, delicate, provocative feminine sensuality.

  He had watched her walking away from him, her movements confirming what his senses had already told him.

  She had look so vibrantly, so sensually alive, her hair an unfettered banner against the sky, her skin soft, glowing, her body…

  He turned over, cursing. What the hell was wrong with him? He had seen for himself what type she was. That soft, full-lipped mouth was not as vulnerable as it looked, and certainly nowhere near as untutored.

  He felt his muscles bunch. Why the hell hadn’t she and the man she had so obviously picked up in the auberge waited to begin their lovemaking until they were inside her room? Lovemaking. What was it about some women that made them want to degrade themselves with that kind of involvement…?

  To judge from the things her companion had been saying to her, theirs was no tender, emotional coming-together… He doubted that they had even bothered to exchange names.

  He frowned as he turned his head towards the window. Why waste his time thinking about her…letting her get under his skin?

  Why?

  He already knew the answer, and it wasn’t just that, for a moment, outside in the car park, not only his body but his senses as well had responded to the feminine sensuality of her.

  It was well over a decade, thirteen years ago today to be exact, since the ending of his marriage. His marriage…what a farcical black comedy of errors that had been. What a fool he had been, to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book.

  She had been taking precautions, Claire had assured him tearfully, but something had gone wrong, and now she was pregnant with his child.

  His child… He had had no option but to marry her.

  Thirteen years, and surely in that time he had come far enough down life’s road to know far better than to let himself be disturbed by his awareness of a woman, especially a woman like that one.

  What would she have done if he had been the one to approach her, to…?

  He cursed again. What in God’s name was he thinking? He didn’t want her really, of course he couldn’t want a woman like that.

  Could he?

  CHAPTER TWO

  ONE o’clock… Livvy sighed as she heard the town clock striking the hours, acknowledging that she was no closer to sleep now than she had been when she first came to bed.

  And since she couldn’t sleep, why waste time trying…? Why didn’t she give some thought to the events which had brought her here to France instead?

  Everything had happened in such a rush that she had barely had time to think everything through properly, a fact which her cousin Gale had used to her advantage, she reflected wryly as she admitted the way Gale
had manoeuvred her into doing what she wanted.

  Her pupils and her fellow teachers would have found it hard to believe that she had let Gale get her way so easily, but then the offer of several weeks’ holiday in such a lovely part of France had been too tempting to resist, even if she had initially had doubts about the reasons Gale had given her for wanting her to stay at the farmhouse.

  It had all started three weeks ago, when Gale had rung her and said that she needed to talk to her urgently.

  This on its own had surprised her. Gale was not in the habit of needing to talk to anyone, much less her ten years younger and in her eyes far less worldly cousin.

  At that stage, Livvy had assumed that the ‘urgent talk’ must have something to do with her nephews, and that Gale, who despite her husband George’s having a well-paid job considered thrift not just a virtue but a positive pleasure, wanted to persuade her to give the boys some free private coaching.

  Livvy had all her arguments ready. She was quite genuinely far too busy to be able to be of any help to her nephews. The fact that the long summer holidays were only three weeks away did not mean that she had time on her hands—far from it. Not only did she have to sit down and give some serious thought to whether or not she really wanted to take the job of assistant head which she had been offered, she also had to prepare the coming year’s work.

  However, once Gale, in her normal self-confident, slightly bossy way had told Livvy that her Busy Lizzie needed re-potting and that she had known she had been right to warn her not to paint her kitchen that bright yellow, Livvy discovered that it wasn’t her sons whom Gale wanted to discuss, but her husband.

  ‘I’m worried about George,’ she announced once they were both settled in Livvy’s pretty sitting-room with their cups of coffee.

  Gale had disapproved of Livvy’s choice of colour scheme for her small home. The soft pastel colours were not really suitable for a schoolteacher, Gale had told her; they did not create the right impression.

  Livvy had laughed. Other members of the family often complained that Gale drove them mad with her bossiness, but Livvy liked her elder cousin and was often amused by her. Unlike other people, she refused to allow Gale to dominate her, dealing calmly and quietly with her cousin’s dominating personality.

  ‘There are other aspects to my life than my work,’ she had pointed out mildly, when Gale had said that a stronger, more purposeful colour scheme would have been more appropriate.

  What she hadn’t gone on to say was that sometimes she needed the soft, pretty pastel comfort of her home, that sometimes, after a particularly difficult day at school, she needed to come home to a place that helped her to get back in touch with the more feminine and vulnerable side of her nature.

  When she had first chosen teaching as her career, her counsellors had suggested that she might find the work too much of an emotional strain, that the work might be too stressful for someone of her rather gentle personality.

  Being gentle was not the same thing as being weak, Livvy had countered. And in the years since she had qualified she had gone on to prove that her sometimes deceptively mild manner did not mean that she was incapable of exerting control and discipline.

  Unlike Gale, Livvy had never felt any need to prove to others how strong-willed and dominant she was; it was enough that she know that, if necessary, she could summon up that strength from within herself.

  Knowing that gave her a serenity that others often envied.

  Not Gale, however. Gale, who for all her high IQ seemed to be pathetically lacking when it came to reading people’s personalities.

  Perhaps that was why she was inclined to make allowances for her, Livvy reflected. Where others saw Gale as a bossy, demanding woman who steamrollered over everyone around her, Livvy saw her as someone who had never known what it was to have the gift of being sensitive to others’ feelings and, because of that, was disadvantaged.

  ‘George!’ she exclaimed in some surprise. ‘What’s wrong with him? Is he ill? Is he…?’

  ‘Ill? No, he’s not ill. But he’s changed completely, Livvy. He’s just not the man I married any more. Since the company was taken over last year…’ She pursed her lips. ‘Well, for a start we hardly ever get to see him any more, and when he is at home he locks himself away in his study, claiming that he needs to work. And now—would you believe?—he says that he wants to sell the farmhouse.’

  ‘But you only bought it last year,’ Livvy protested, remembering how thrilled and proud her cousin had been at its acquisition, and yes, perhaps a little boastful as well, but then that was Gale’s way; material things were important to her.

  ‘I know, but George claims that the loan he took out on it is costing him too much and that, with the boys about to go on to secondary school, the cost of their fees will mean that we have to cut down. I know for a fact that he’s just had a very good rise, and if Peter passes his common entrance when he sits it he’ll get a free place to Hadyards.’

  ‘Times are hard and getting harder,’ Livvy interrupted her firmly. ‘George has always been financially cautious, and you did say yourself that the farmhouse needed completely renovating…’

  ‘Yes, I know that, but there’s more to it than that. George knows how much the farmhouse means to me, and to threaten to sell it when he knows that I don’t want him to, and that I can’t do a thing to stop him… He borrowed the money from the company, you see, and because of the legal ramifications the deeds are solely in his name. I’m not going to let him do it, though, Livvy, and I’ve warned him that if he tries… Look, what I want you to do is to go and stay there for a few weeks just to…’

  ‘To what, Gale? I sympathise with you, but I can hardly stop George selling the place if that’s what he intends to do.’

  ‘No, but if you’re there it will give me a breathing space…time to talk to him and make him see how unreasonable he’s being. He’s always had a soft spot for you, Livvy. I’ll tell him that you need to get away somewhere peaceful because of all the stress of your job…’

  ‘Gale,’ Livvy protested warningly, ‘I’m perfectly capable of dealing with any stress I might suffer from by myself, thank you very much.’

  She could see from Gale’s expression that her cousin knew she had pushed her too far. She changed tack.

  ‘Please, Livvy. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t so important to me. You know how I’ve always felt about France, and I know that you feel the same. It’s a part of us, after all…of our heritage, and I want to pass that heritage on to the boys…I want them to experience at least a part of their childhood growing up in the French countryside as we did…’

  Wryly, Livvy mentally acknowledged the skill of her cousin’s argument. She had enjoyed those childhood times in France, and treasured the memory of them. They had given her a view of another nation’s way of life that she felt had broadened her horizons and her awareness in a way that very few people were fortunate enough to experience.

  ‘And it’s not just that,’ Gale continued, sensing victory. ‘I’m not just being sentimental. There’s the fact that their French is bound to improve, and by the time they’re adults the ability to speak a second language will be a very important career asset. You’re the one who’s always said that the inability to understand one another’s languages is one of the greatest barriers between peoples.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Livvy acknowledged.

  ‘All I want is enough time to make George see reason… To make him listen… If only we could get away ourselves, but it’s impossible at the moment. He’s working virtually twenty-four hours a day. Ever since Robert Forrest took over the company…’

  ‘Robert Forrest?’ Livvy was interested.

  ‘Yes. I told you, the millionaire entrepreneur who bought out the company last year. George thinks he’s wonderful. Personally I blame him for the way George has changed, the way he’s behaving. He’s completely dominating George, making him work virtually twenty-four hours a day. Just because he’s not marrie
d…

  ‘At least, not any more. He was once, but his wife left him for someone else. Small wonder. She got an enormous divorce settlement, apparently. She’s dead now…a car accident with her new man…’

  She broke off as Livvy made a small sound of compassion and exclaimed, ‘Poor man, what a dreadful thing to have happened. It’s bound to have made him a bit bitter.’

  ‘A bit bitter? The man’s a misogynist. A marriage-wrecker,’ Gale stormed. ‘I’d love to tell him exactly what I think of him and what he’s doing to our marriage…to our children. He hasn’t got any of his own. Men like that never do, do they? Of course George defends him like a dog protecting a bone.’ Her eyes flashed, her face flushing.

  She was a very striking-looking woman…commanding rather than pretty. Despite Gale’s bossy way, Livvy was genuinely fond of her cousin, who had been very generous with both her advice and more practical help in the form of rent-free accommodation in the early days when Livvy had first been teaching.

  She was fond of George, too, and of their children, and a summer spent in the Dordogne was a tempting prospect.

  There was nothing after all to keep her at home for the summer; no plans…no special relationship. Yes, a couple of months in the Dordogne was certainly a far more enticing prospect than the same period of time spent in her small flat.

  Even so…

  ‘Look, Gale, are you sure that you’re not being a little bit unfair to George? With so many people losing their jobs…’

  ‘Unfair?’ Gale turned on her indignantly. ‘Just how fair am I supposed to be? How fair is he being to us, to me? I told him, Livvy…I told him that he owed it to us to spend more time with us…that he was neglecting us and that if he wasn’t careful he could lose us. I told him he had to tell Robert Forrest that he had a right to his private life; I even gave him an ultimatum and warned him that, unless he did so…’ She broke off, shaking her head.

  ‘That was last week, and since then nothing’s changed…nothing. He left for work at seven o’clock this morning and he won’t be back until close on midnight. That’s if I’m lucky…