Etienne’s expression was guarded.
‘That’s up to you,’ he said at length.
It was a start.
‘OK,’ Gwen said slowly, feeling her way towards a conversation they should have had long ago. ‘Get the doctor back in, and I’ll promise to listen to his advice this time, as long as he’s a little nicer to me and minds his manners!’ She smiled softly and then went on. ‘Pregnancy has been the biggest shock of my life—you can’t imagine what it’s been like. But I’m getting used to it,’ she said, still trying to convince herself. ‘And I’m going to take the greatest care of our baby, believe me. But in return, I need something to do. I can’t sit around all day, being waited on hand, foot and finger. It will drive me mad, Etienne!’
He put a hand tentatively on her shoulder. ‘If I let you go back to Le Rossignol, you’ll overdo it.’
‘Of course I won’t!’ she scoffed, sliding her arms around his waist and giving him a reassuring squeeze. They both knew taking it easy would be a struggle for her. There was another long, uncomfortable silence.
‘Perhaps I could prove it to you,’ she offered eventually. ‘If you came to work with me, you could enjoy yourself in the restaurant while I’m fiddling about in my kitchens. You’ll be on hand to make sure I don’t lift anything heavier than a paring knife, and I’ll have one eye on you, watching for the first signs of boredom. You can be the one who says when it’s time to go home. I might even let you drive me, in my car!’ She threw his old insolence back at him archly. ‘But only when I get too big to fit behind the wheel.’
Etienne looked down at her with a sudden spark. ‘You called the chateau “home”!’
Gwen looked equally startled. ‘I did, didn’t I? Am I allowed to do that?’ She tried to coax a smile from him. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Of course I don’t,’ he whispered into the fragrant silk of her hair. ‘I went overboard in trying to do the right thing, but it was only when I thought I’d lost you that I realised why. It isn’t only the baby, Gwen. I want you, pure and simple—you, and our own family, and our real, living home.’
‘That’s what I want, too,’ she said. ‘If only we had both realised from the start what that word meant, it would have saved us all this heartache.’
She had felt so helpless in the face of Etienne’s relentless efficiency. Now she saw she had been deaf and blind to his feelings, too.
He looked into her eyes. His expression was filled with such uncomplicated emotion that she held her breath.
‘Gwen, I thought Angela had killed all the human parts of me. Then you came along, and showed me how to live again. I never imagined you would leave me. When you seemed to walk out of my life, I realised that love is like sand. The harder you try and hold onto it, the faster it slips away between your fingers.’
Gwen knew this was as close as he would come to opening his heart to her. His skin felt warm and firm beneath her fingers. She felt his soft breath stir her hair. It tickled, but nothing would have tempted her to move. For long, wonderful moments she relaxed against him. They were together again, and she was in his arms. That was all she cared about. And then something he had said filtered back through the misty happiness filling her mind.
‘Love?’ she repeated. ‘Etienne…?’ She paused—unable to summon the courage to finish the sentence.
He stirred. She felt it through the creased, damp ruin of his designer shirt. When he spoke, she realised it was the movement of a restless spirit trying to settle.
‘That depends on you.’ He spoke with an alien hesitancy. She laid her head against his chest again, and listened to the familiar sound of his heart beating. It had lost the hectic rhythm of a few moments before, and now her own pulse quickened.
With her face safely hidden from him, Gwen allowed herself a small smile. ‘No, it doesn’t. I was a victim of my heart the first moment I saw you, Etienne. I didn’t know it then, but one look at you across that crowded restaurant and I was lost. You came and found me, and that was it. Although I never thought you could feel for me in the way I feel for you now.’
When she said that his arms tightened around her, but he said nothing. She smiled and closed her eyes. Silently, he was giving her all the reassurance she needed.
‘My body took control that night. To become anything more than your mistress was a hopeless dream. I realised that. It was why I had to end things. We were opposites in everything.’
‘Well, they do say opposites attract,’ he said quietly.
Gwen nuzzled against him. She was so happy words were barely necessary but Etienne had exposed his soul to her. It only made her love him more, and she wanted to make the next time easier for him.
‘Could we begin all over again?’ she said softly. ‘Can we start looking forward as a couple now?’
In answer, he bent and kissed her. He did it so reverently she could hardly believe he was the same vigorous lover who had blazed through her life like a comet. She melted against him. Her response fired him with all the passion that had waited so long to be released.
‘Does this reaction mean there’s one part of our past you might still want to remember?’ he murmured huskily into her neck. At the touch of his lips, Gwen quivered and went limp in his arms.
‘That was an incredible night, Etienne,’ she breathed.
He was holding her captive against his hard, hot body. She had dreamed of this moment for so long. Now it was here, she could not wait.
‘I need you, Etienne…’ Her voice was a long, slow gasp of desire.
‘How much?’ he growled. ‘As much as when I gave you our baby?’
‘More,’ she moaned. ‘More…’
His hand moved to cradle her ripening breast. As his thumb described slow, thoughtful circles over her nipple it reacted by swelling to a full peak.
‘Your body delights me more and more each day,’ he murmured into her ear. Then without another word he lifted her up and carried her back to the bed. Sculpting pillows into soft shapes beneath her tender body, he lay down beside her. His eyes were soft, but his voice was hoarse with anticipation. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Gwen.’
She chuckled. ‘If you’ve missed anyone, it’s that girl in four-inch heels and the beautiful dress. Not Our Gwen from the valley with her morning sickness and a desperate need to get back to work.’
‘You’re wrong. Knowing that you’re far too stubborn to change is one of the many things I love about you. One of the things that makes you so special.’ He silenced her with another kiss, this time as light as thistledown. ‘And now…I want to see you naked again. It has been such a long, lonely time for both of us. Let me look at you.’
Without a word he undid her blouse, one button at a time. His movements were slow and considered. Anticipation rose up in her like a fountain. Flicking the sides of her shirt apart, he looked down with pride at the taut white lace of her bra. With movements so slow they made Gwen want to scream with urgency, he slid his hands beneath her arching body and unclipped the strap. Lifting the bra up, he exposed her breasts. Both showed the delicate tracery of pressure marks where their increasing size had been compressed.
‘Oh, poor baby,’ he murmured, and Gwen knew he wasn’t speaking to the tiny creature growing inside her. Lowering his head, he started by laying a gentle network of kisses over each breast in turn. Then, as the warm fragrance of her femininity aroused him, his foreplay quickened. His fingers were greedy for the experience of her body. His skill made her writhe beneath him. As he towered over her she prepared for the onslaught her body craved but Etienne had other ideas. He rolled over onto his back.
‘You do it. You’re in charge.’ His words were ragged with desire. ‘I don’t want to hurt either of you.’
‘I won’t let you,’ Gwen whispered, sliding over his body until they connected with a mutual moan of pleasure.
Etienne’s delight in Gwen’s body increased her hunger for him. Their lovemaking excited her beyond the point of distraction. She forgot eve
rything except what he meant to her. It was only hours later, when she woke in his bed at the chateau, that it all came flooding back on a tide of morning sickness.
Etienne sat up the moment he felt her stir. Instantly, he hit the remote control to pull the curtains right back from his tall windows.
‘Is that enough light for you to reach the bathroom?’
Nodding, Gwen made a bolt for anonymity. His cool and luxurious wet room was a perfect sanctuary. When she felt better, she had a shower and washed her hair. Emerging refreshed, she revelled in the sight of Etienne gazing at her like a connoisseur admiring his latest treasure. There was something about being desired when she felt so unlovable that warmed Gwen’s soul. Hot summer sunshine pouring through his windows thawed her still further. Padding back to his big, wide bed, she stretched out across it like a cat.
Etienne smiled as though he were the one who had been at the cream. ‘Flaunt yourself like that, Miss Williams, and I shall make you very late for work,’ he drawled.
‘Good,’ Gwen said smartly.
‘You’re humouring me.’ He chuckled. ‘From now on, I’m never going to forget what Le Rossignol means to you.’
She reached out, trailing a finger around the outline of the face she loved so much. ‘Myself, I’m beginning to wonder. You’ve opened my eyes, Etienne. While I was working all hours, I kept telling myself it was the most important thing in my life. It was only when I realised what you’d been through that I began to get things into perspective. I was kidding myself. You are the only thing I truly can’t live without. But I still don’t know how I’m going to cope with a family of our own—’
‘We’re a team, Gwen,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I want to make things better for you, but I don’t always know how.’ As he spoke he gathered her up, wet hair, damp towels and all.
‘Talk to me. Tell me things, Etienne. Give me something to think about outside of work, and I’ll do the same for you. Up until now I’ve sacrificed my social life and worked extra hard, because I thought no one could love me as much as my family did. Then I found you, but it went wrong and I missed out on all the romance of a proposal. You took control, and that was that. I wanted to be wooed and won, not organised out of existence. That was why I needed that break after my spell at the beautician’s!’
With a gasp of relief, Etienne seized on her words and pulled himself onto firmer ground. ‘You want romance, mon amour? I can at least manage that, in one small way.’ Slipping from her arms, he went to find his jacket. It was on the floor, where he had dropped it the night before in the throes of passion. Rifling through his pockets, he pulled out a small leather box and returned to the bedside.
‘You appeared in my life like a dream, Gwen, and I want to keep that feeling alive,’ he whispered softly.
‘That’s why I want to give you this. It’s a family heirloom. I was going to present it to you at the exact moment our baby is born. That’s why I’ve been carrying it everywhere, in my pocket. But I think it would be much better to give it to you now…’
‘What is it?’ she probed, like a surgeon looking for trouble.
He raised one eyebrow, mocking her gently. ‘I’m going to make at least one of your dreams come true right now.’
Before Gwen knew what was happening, he went down on one knee in front of her. Then he held out the little box.
‘Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife, Gwen?’
‘But, Etienne…you’ve already decided that’s going to happen…’ she said, teasingly.
‘I know, and that was wrong of me. I want us to start again, too. This is my proposal. When you accept—’
‘When?’ She laughed, ruffling his hair playfully.
‘You still sound very sure of yourself!’
‘If you accept,’ he corrected himself gravely, ‘then I shall sweep you off to Wales, where you can have such a big church wedding and lavish reception that it will be talked about for years to come. Then we’ll have a honeymoon. When and where is entirely up to you. I want it to be this instant, but when it comes to our life together, Gwen, I’ve issued my last direct order.’
She was floating on a cloud of disbelief. ‘Are you sure? After all, ordering people about is what you do.’
He had a swift answer for that. ‘And so do you, when you’re at work. That was part of the problem. I under-estimated how much you enjoy being in control.’
She smiled. ‘I moved away from my family to get a taste of independence. Once I had it, I didn’t want to let go. That’s why I was so unhappy. You changed so much once we found out I was pregnant.’
‘That’s why I want you to feel we’re together because it’s what we both want, Gwen. Now I know what makes you so independent, I can allow for that. We may have got things out of sequence but this can be our second chance. What do you say?’
She put her slender, pale hands over his wide brown ones and drew him to his feet.
‘I can’t think of anything I would like more than to be your wife, Etienne.’
She wanted to say a lot more, but he was in no mood to listen. Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her until she was breathless and laughing with delight.
‘Then you’ll need this.’
Taking a stunning diamond solitaire from the little ring box, he placed it gently on her finger. With a gasp, Gwen watched it split the sunlight into a rainbow of colours. Then she looked at him with eyes full of longing.
‘This ring is absolutely wonderful, Etienne, but all I really need is you!’
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1669-3
THE COUNT’S CHALLENGE
Previously published in the U.K. as The French Aristocrat’s Baby
First North American Publication 2011
Copyright © 2010 by Christina Hollis
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