‘Thanks to you. I would never have survived without your help, Etienne,’ she admitted quietly.
‘Yes, you would. You have all the qualities needed for success, Gwen. I merely developed your potential—in all sorts of areas.’
Gwen felt herself blushing.
‘You’ll never know how grateful I am, Etienne.’
‘I’m sure something can be arranged!’
There was that slight chuckle in the back of his throat again. It still affected Gwen as easily and completely as ever. Heat rushed through her. She was glad this conversation was going on over the telephone. One pass of Etienne’s rapier glance over her body would have told him all he needed to know. The slight flush to her cheeks and her dilated pupils would only encourage him. If he got close enough, he might just be able to hear the pounding of her heart.
She gave a little cough and tried to shake her thoughts back into some sort of order. ‘Yes, I’m sure it can, but I’m afraid it won’t include a table here today, Etienne. We’re fully booked all the way through until closing time tonight.’
He clicked his tongue. ‘I enjoy solitude, but I eat here alone at the chateau too often for it to be any sort of treat. Send me up a selection of the dishes you have on offer. Bring them yourself, and we can talk while we eat.’
Gwen’s laughter diluted his heavy hint of seduction. ‘I can’t take time off from the kitchens when we’re so busy! I’ll have something ready by the time you’ve sent a car down from the chateau. But don’t tell your friends. This isn’t a takeaway. It’s a special service for my very own business angel.’
‘You’re too kind,’ he said in honeyed tones. ‘But I can imagine what my chefs would say if I allowed you to do that. For you to bring me some titbits made with your own beautiful hands would be one thing. To send out for them would be disastrous. My staff would think I was heading down the trail leading to dial-a-pizza and popcorn in front of the flat screen. I would have a riot on my hands. They would abandon me. I’d be forced to exist on fast food and fizzy soft drinks.’
Gwen gave up and laughed. ‘Fine, then. Even I can’t condemn you to such a fate.’
‘Good. Then I shall see you for lunch at the restaurant in a few minutes.’
‘You’ll have to sit at the table in my office, mind. It’s the only place I can fit you in!’ For a few seconds Gwen laughed with an ease she hadn’t felt for weeks. Talking with Etienne always made everything all right again.
‘That doesn’t worry me at all. The satisfaction of walking through a packed restaurant will make up for having to eat in the office!’ He joked so warmly it almost took Gwen’s mind off her sudden, unexpected swell of nausea…
Etienne was still smiling as he reached the restaurant, a few minutes later. He had been furious at the news that there would be no table waiting for him. Then Gwen had come on the line and he remembered switching into seduction mode automatically when he first heard her. But, for the first time in his life, it had not worked immediately. Gwen had laughed and humoured him, but she hadn’t giggled like a schoolgirl. She had kept a firm grip on the situation. In Etienne’s experience, women rarely objected to charm and the chance to stop what they were doing to talk to him. Gwen certainly did make him work a little harder and, to his surprise, he thoroughly enjoyed it! She was playing hard to get and he’d heard it mentioned that a pleasure postponed was always sweeter. This was going to be a lunch to remember.
It was just as well he didn’t realise exactly how memorable it would turn out to be.
As Etienne strode into the restaurant his smile soon faded. Greetings and waves were ignored as he scanned the packed tables. Gwen was nowhere to be seen. It was one of her inflexible rules that no guest was left to linger in the reception area. Within seconds the new receptionist appeared and directed him towards the bar.
‘Where is Mademoiselle le chef?’
‘I’m afraid she’s indisposed at the moment, monsieur. Can I help you?’
‘Gwen is arranging a table for me in her office,’ he said smoothly, as the girl looked in need of an explanation.
‘That might be rather difficult, monsieur. Her office is in use at the moment. I’ll get you a drink.’
Etienne ordered a martini he didn’t want. He scanned the crowd, looking for Gwen’s beautiful face and listening for her laughter. He was getting impatient but when he looked at his watch it was to see that barely ten minutes had gone by since he arrived. It felt like several lifetimes. What was going on? She was always a professional to her fingertips, but there was no sign of her anywhere today. He took his drink over to a seat in the corner of the bar area. It gave him a good view of the whole restaurant, but not the one thing he really wanted. Running a finger idly around the rim of his glass, he waited. Time passed, but she did not appear. Unused to waiting for anything, Etienne became restless. Something must have happened. It was unthinkable for his arrangements to be delayed like this. She knew he was coming. Where was she?
He was about to walk over and rap on her office door when it was flung open wide. Gwen emerged with a smile and a quip for the nearest diners, but Etienne was not fooled for a second. Pausing only briefly to give a distracted greeting to his cousin the duke, he moved quickly across the room to her side.
‘Gwen? What is it?’
‘Etienne! I hope we haven’t kept you waiting!’
‘That doesn’t matter. It’s you I’m worried about. You look terrible.’ His gaze sharpened. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. I’m fine. It’s all perfectly under control.’
She turned to walk away. He grabbed her arm to stop her, but used a little too much force. She yelped, causing him to release his hold but it was too late. Everyone within earshot looked up.
‘I’m sorry, I trod on mademoiselle’s toe,’ Etienne explained, smoothly bundling Gwen back into her office. There he slammed the door and leaned back against it.
‘There’s no escape until you tell me what is going on.’
‘You wanted lunch here.’
She hesitated, and her features moved in a way that worried him. When she spoke again it was with an obvious effort.
‘I was getting the room ready. After all, I can’t expect a French count to eat off a tray, can I?’ She tried to laugh, but it was no use. Looking around the office with its neatly ordered files of paperwork and pot plants, Etienne knew she had been doing nothing of the sort. There was a cold compress, a glass of iced water and a large bowl on the coffee table.
‘I’m not buying that excuse. You’re too pale, Gwen. And you’ve got such dark circles under your eyes.’ Stretching out one finger, he touched her cheek experimentally. Gwen shrank away from his touch.
‘You’re sick, aren’t you?’ he persisted.
Her eyes popped in horror. ‘No! Don’t say that word in here! If the customers hear, they’ll think it’s food poisoning. I’ll be closed down!’
‘It isn’t, is it?’
Gwen was horrified by his suggestion. ‘Of course not, no! I’m scrupulous about hygiene. I eat exactly the same thing as all the rest of the staff, and no one else has suffered so much as a headache for weeks.’
Etienne watched her closely. Now he came to study her with a financier’s mentality rather than the eye of lust he noticed that the curves he remembered so fondly were not quite as generous as before.
‘When you can keep it down,’ he suggested. ‘You’ve lost weight, Gwen.’
‘Everyone does in summer. It’s the heat and all the salads. I’m fine, Etienne, really.’
He made a noise in his throat, hinting at his deep scepticism.
‘OK…as long as you’re sure.’
Gwen had hardly finished nodding before the most awful feeling washed over her again. She lurched for the bowl and was heartily sick. Etienne was there with words of encouragement, but his attitude changed the moment she tried to tell him it was nothing.
‘It’s far from nothing, Gwen. You’re too ill to work. I’m going to call my doctor, a
nd then I’m taking you home. You’re not setting one foot inside this restaurant again until we’ve found out what this is all about.’
The fact she was too weak to argue gave him no pleasure at all. Hustling her out the back way with a quick word to the receptionist, he drove to her cottage at top speed. She was still wobbly as she got out of the car. When he tried to carry her upstairs she was well enough to put up a spirited defence.
‘I don’t need your help, Etienne. I’m fine and I certainly don’t need you carrying me up any more stairs!’
He was affronted. ‘If I wasn’t a gentleman I would laugh at the suggestion that something might happen today. I would never take advantage of a sick woman.’
‘I keep telling you, I’m not sick! It’s nothing. It’ll pass off. It always does.’
‘You mean this has happened before?’
‘Once or twice, maybe.’ She shrugged like an insolent child.
‘Really? So exactly how long has this been going on?’
‘I don’t know!’ She pushed her curls back irritably from her forehead. ‘A couple of weeks? Maybe longer. I haven’t been taking notes. I’m too busy working. As I’ve told you before, I don’t have the time to be ill.’
Etienne’s personal doctor was there within minutes. He took one look at Gwen and frowned.
‘We have not met before?’
‘No, I’m Etienne’s business partner.’
Gwen waited for the man to laugh or make some suggestive comment. Instead he smiled quite innocently before asking if there was a Mr Williams. For the first time, Gwen felt fear. She looked at Etienne with terrified eyes.
‘Next of kin, you mean? Oh, my God! It’s that serious?’
‘Not necessarily.’ The doctor was quick to smile. ‘If it was anyone but you who had called me in, Etienne, I’d start by asking Mademoiselle Williams the obvious question.’
‘Which is?’ Gwen looked from one man to the other. She was really scared now.
‘I’d merely enquire if there’s any way you could be pregnant, Mademoiselle Williams,’ the doctor said in a matter-of-fact way. Gwen stared at him. He smiled back, his expression gently prompting.
It was the one cause Gwen flatly refused to acknowledge. She had made a million excuses to herself and tried to ignore all the signs, but this was the showdown. She felt like the SS Titanic, steaming towards a giant iceberg labelled disaster.
‘I—I don’t know.’ Shocked, Gwen appealed to the doctor with her eyes. But he had turned away, preparing to take a blood sample.
‘It’s a question I ask all young women as a matter of course, that’s all. When they present with bouts of sickness but are otherwise fit and healthy, it’s the most natural thing in the world to suspect pregnancy.’
She blinked at him, lost for words. Etienne was equally staggered.
‘What? But I can’t see how you could possibly be pregnant,’ he said faintly.
‘That’s staff for you, Etienne.’ The doctor grunted.
Gwen was appalled at his bedside manner and in other circumstances would have called him on it, but she was too shocked by the possibility of pregnancy to say anything. She looked away quickly as the blood started to flow from her arm and into the vacuum container. There was silence in the room. It was broken only by the warble of birdsong outside, floating in from the garden. The doctor wrote Gwen’s name on the phial of her blood, his pen scratching through the tension. Finally Etienne walked over to the window. Hands on hips, he stared out across the valley. His voice, when it came, was as parched as the landscape.
‘It’s impossible. We only spent one night together.’
It was the doctor’s turn to stop and stare.
‘You mean you and Mademoiselle Williams…’ Frowning, he turned his full attention on Gwen, aghast.
Gwen sprang up to defend herself, but Etienne was already there. Whirling away from the window, he caught her by the shoulders. The look in his sloe-dark eyes was enough to silence her.
‘It can only be me. That’s right, isn’t it, Gwyneth?’
He called her by her full name. Gwen shuddered. She had thought she was in trouble. This confirmed it.
The doctor looked distinctly uneasy. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘But why should you automatically think Etienne wasn’t the father of this…’ her nerve almost failed her, and she took several attempts to force the word out ‘…baby?’
It wasn’t the doctor who answered, but Etienne himself. ‘The doctor knows my views. I think a child should have two responsible parents,’ he said stiffly.
It was an answer. Whether it was the whole truth, Gwen wasn’t sure. She couldn’t help but think about the baby Angela Webbington had aborted. Which part of that unhappy couple had been the irresponsible one?
‘What can I say?’ The doctor shrugged, addressing his gesture of exasperation to Etienne.
‘Nothing. Don’t say a thing, Doctor. If Gwyneth is pregnant, then she and I will sort this out together, between us.’
His smooth reply sounded almost practised. The icy calm was certainly enough to freeze Gwen’s blood. Alerted to the possibility she might be carrying Etienne’s child, the doctor carried out the rest of his examination with that in mind. All the signs were there, he told them, but official confirmation would have to wait.
‘That’s fine. You have the number of my mobile. Ring the moment you know. I’ll deal with everything here,’ Etienne said, hustling the doctor out of the room.
A cold knot of dread tightened inside Gwen. She had a horrible suspicion she knew exactly what he meant.
She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the floor. Her hands were clasped so tightly together the knuckles ached. She heard Etienne and the doctor muttering outside her window. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, and didn’t care. Her whole life had stuttered to a halt. From now on she would have to exist at second hand. All her time and energy would have to be devoted to the little life growing inside her. She could feel motherhood closing in on her like the walls of her room.
Several centuries later, she heard a car drive away. It was only one car, and it lacked the high-class purr of Etienne’s pulling machine. She waited, expecting him to leave too. Instead, she heard slow, heavy footsteps come up the stairs. He was coming back. She braced herself for a confrontation. It was only a matter of feet across the landing to her bedroom. Gwen did not move as she sensed Etienne reach her threshold. There was no point. He would have a face like thunder, and the smallest movement from her would unleash his fury. She tried to concentrate on the hum of bees, busy in the thyme flowers growing on the sun-drenched terrace. It was supposed to be a diversion. Instead it reminded her of the buzz of disapproval this news would provoke among all her relatives back home.
‘How do you feel?’
Gwen’s head jerked up before she could stop it. She had expected anger. Strained compassion was the last thing she anticipated. His expression was impassive. She knew he must have been fighting to keep his true feelings under control, exactly as she was.
‘Terrible. I’ve ruined everything,’ she muttered, dropping her gaze back to the rag rug.
She heard him take a step towards her. The room wasn’t very big, but he was still as far away from her as it was possible to be while still sharing the same space. After a pause, he took another step, and then a third. Now the tips of his leather shoes intruded into her narrow field of vision. She waited. Eventually, a shadow moved and she felt his touch. It fell lightly against her shoulder. When she did not move, he dropped its full weight on her, stiff and unyielding. She couldn’t be sure if it was meant as a comforting gesture. His fingers felt like wood. Like my heart, she thought bleakly.
‘You aren’t entirely to blame, Gwen. It took two of us.’
It was an admission wrung from him like blood, she could tell.
‘I must have been mad when I agreed to stay with you. I’ve never done anything like that before. What was I thinking of?’ Her voice was an a
gonised whisper. The pressure of his hand released and then fell again in something that was supposed to be a reassuring pat. Gwen was beyond appreciating his efforts.
‘I’m always scrupulous about…’ the hand on her shoulder twitched with his discomfort ‘…precautions. I don’t understand how this can possibly have happened—’
He spoke slowly, but Gwen’s response was like quicksilver. ‘You aren’t trying to deny this baby is yours, are you? You can’t control everything—accidents happen, Etienne.’
Pulling away his hand, Etienne looked down on her with naked scorn.
‘You must believe it!’ she said frantically. ‘You said as much yourself, to the doctor!’
‘Of course I know it’s mine,’ he growled. ‘What do you think I am?’
‘I don’t know.’ Gwen subsided onto the bed again.
‘And I don’t know what I’m going to do, either.’
At her words he moved more quickly than he had done since entering her house. Sitting down beside her, he whipped out his mobile phone.
‘You don’t have to do a thing. Not a single, solitary thing. This is my responsibility, so I shall take care of everything.’
Gwen’s brain sprang to life. All the news reports she had seen about Angela Webbington rattled through her brain with the urgency of Etienne’s fingers on his keypad. With a scream of horror she leapt away from him.
He stopped and stared at her, dismayed at her reaction. ‘What is it? What have I done now?’
‘Nothing. You aren’t going to do anything to me!’
Gwen began to panic. Backing towards a corner, she wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. She stared at him, wild and wide-eyed. Etienne watched her. His expression hardened from alarm to pity. As it did so, he went back to tapping out a number on his phone.
‘Oh, yes, I am,’ he announced sharply. ‘I’m going to marry you.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
GWEN was too amazed to speak. This was the last thing she had expected and she didn’t know what to think. There was a moment of relief—he was not threatening her baby—but then panic loomed again as Etienne continued.
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