Lizette welcomed the chance to have Charlotte's exclusive attention again now that Mademoiselle Duclair was back on duty, although she did Utde else but read the inevitable magazines once they had dealt with what litde correspondence there was. Charlotte was quite certain now that Lizette was English in origin despite her name, although she never spoke about a life in England, and her
English had lost something of its French accent since Charlotte arrived.
They were going through the mail one morning when Charlotte came across one addressed to Bernard Menais and put it to one side. Looking at her curiously, Lizette frowned. 'What is that one?' she asked. *One for you, Charlotte?*
*No, madame, it's for Monsieur Bernard,' Charlotte said with a smile. *I must have picked it up by mistake when I collected your mailo'
Lizette reached across for the long blue envelope and studied it for a moment, then thrust it aside with a gesture of disdain. 'Business!' she decided. 'You'd better take it down to him, Charlotte, in case it is important. We have no more mail to open, have we?'
'No, madame.^
'Then you'd better take it downstairs,' Lizette advised with a wry face, 'or someone will be crying out for it!'
Charlotte left her drafting replies to her own letters and slipped downstairs to Bernard's office. A tentative knock on the door brought no reply, so she opened it a fraction and peered in. Neither Bernard nor his secretary was there and she remembered having seen one of the cars drive off a litde earlier. Probably Bernard was needed at the factory, for he was the technical one and quite happily left the administrative side of the business to Raoul and Michel.
The room was much the same as Raoul's office, only here somehow the atmosphere was different, less businesslike and more homely. There were photographs hung on the walls and more stood oa the desk—a huge old-fashioned piece of furniture with a leather-covered top and twin columns of brass-handled drawers either side. Its top surface was literally covered with a chaos of papers and objects including, right in the centre of the mess, a large buff-coloured folder with rolls of drawings poking out top and
bottom. Not at all the neat and tidy kind of desk his son kept.
Uncertain where to put the letter so that it would be immediately obvious, Charlotte spent a second or two looking for the best place. Among the rest of the chaos was a small bronze statuette of a nymph, and she eventually decided to prop the letter against it, leaning across the desk to do so.
It was when she started to draw back that her eye was caught by a family photograph just beside the statuette, and she leaned further forward to get a better look at it. There were eight people in the group, including a boy of about ten or eleven whom it took her a moment or two to recognise as a youthful version of Raoul, taken probably more than twenty years ago.
Standing beside Madame Menais she recognised younger versions of Bernard and his wife Marie, dieir hands on Raoul's shoulders; and beside the man she assumed was Hilaire Menais stood two young men and a girl. One of the men, she realised after a moment or two, was the same one she had seen portrayed in the photograph beside Madame Menais's bed, and the other was unmistakably Michel.
It was the identity of the girl that eluded her for just a second or two until she peered even more closely at the pretty face and wide eyes, the blonde head angled with a suggestion of defiance. She stood with the arm of the older Raoul about her shoulders and Michel standing rather stiff and serious the other side of her, and Charlotte put down the heavy silver frame carefully when realisation dawned at last.
*Lizette! * she said to herself, anid went on gazing at the group as she drew back.
But the wide sleeve of her dress trailed across the desk as she did so and caught on the comer of a pile of papers, sending them plopping to the floor, followed by the buff
folder and its contents. Charlotte made a wild grab for the folder, missed it and knocked over the photograph. She managed to prevent the folder from reaching the floor, but its contents spilled out and landed among the rest of the papers, scattering plans and closely typewritten sheets in every direction.
She felt incredibly guilty about it, as if she had done something dreadful, and she scrabbled up the sheets she thought had come out of the folder and was busily pushing them back into it when the door opened. Glancing up swifdy, she knew just how guilty she must look, as if she was caught in the act of going through Monsieur Bemard^s papers, and she noted the sudden narrowing of Raoul*s eyes with a sickening sense of inevitability, as he stood there for a moment in the doorway.
*I trust,' he said as he came across the room, 'that you have a good reason for being in my father's d£ce, mademoiselleV
It was annoying to realise it, but Charlotte felt like bursting into tears. The framed photograph lay flat on its face and seemed to tell its own story, and with the folder still in one hand and some of the papers from it in the other it looked bad for her. She knew too that Raoul would be putting the worst possible interpretation on it, no matter what she could produce in her own defence.
Putting down the folder, she placed the loose papers from it carefully down on top, then clasped her two hands together in front of her, the tip of her tongue anxiously moistening dry lips as she looked at him. 1 brought down a letter for Monsieur Bernard that I took by mistake among Madame Lizette's mail,' she explained.
Her voice sounded very small and uncertain, and she had no doubt he would take note of that fact as well. Facing her across his father's desk, there,was disbelief in every line of him> and a chilling glint of suspicion in his eyes. 'And
did you propose concealing the letter in that file you had in your hands?" he asked.
Charlotte flushed, instinctively putting her hands together in front of her and wishing she could feel more sure of herself and less as if she had been caught out. It was discomfiting to remember that he had once accused her of working for one of their competitors, and being found there with that file of papers in her hands must have seemed like proof positive to him.
*I—^I accidentally knocked it on to the floor when I put the photograph back,' she explained, then immediately realised that by making that her excuse she had let herself in for another kind of suspicion.
*A photograph?' Raoul asked, and his voice was deceptively soft, bringing an involuntary shiver from her responsive senses. He noticed the group picture lying on its face then and reached over to right it, replacing it carefully. *So it was a photograph that had your interest,' he said. 'Who is it there that catches your eye, Miss Kennedy?'
'No one in particular.' But her eye was drawn irresistibly to the two Raouls standing there together and she could not help herself. 'You knew the other Raoul Menais,' she said, obviously intrigued by the fact. 'I hadn't realised that.'
Raoul's eyes narrowed and fixed themselves inescapably on her flushed face for a moment, then he glanced briefly at his namesake's handsome smiling features and frowned. *You know him?' He dismissed the likelihood of that with an impatient wave of his hand. 'But of course you cannot have known him; he died when you were no more than a baby! How is it then that you know of him?'
'I saw his photograph in Madame Menais's bedroom,' Charlotte told him, 'and she told me who he was.'
He looked down at her for a moment, narrow-eyed and still suspicious, although she thought slightiy less so than he had been to begin with. 'Ah, Grand'm^re,' he said with
a touch of iraay. *You have her confidence, eh?'
'Not exactly,' Charlotte denied uneasily; it was so difficult to be as cool and confident as she wanted to be with those disturbing eyes on her. 'I noticed the picture by accident, and Madame Menais told me who he was. Then I saw him again in that photograph and I was—curious.'
*0f that I have no doubt,' Raoul said sardonically. *I believe you are possessed of a great deal of curiosity. Miss Kennedy, but I still do not trust you. Grand'mere may confide in you and Lizette depend upon you, but I still do not completely trust you. Not while you continue to harbour diat—that se
cret that you so skilfully conceal.'
Charlotte searched his strong, adamant face warily, wishing this eternal suspicion of his need not always be there, making a barrier between them. 'You have no reason to
suspect me of ' She gestured helplessly towards the file
with its pile of scattered papers and shook her head. She felt an incredible need to convince him, to have him on her side, and it troubled her that he did not respond to her obvious appeal. 'I'm not here to—to steal your secrets, whatever they may be, nor am I working for one of your rivals as you once suggested. Please believe me, I haven't the slightest desire to harm you, your family or your business interests. Please believe me.'
*You are pleading with me?' He looked momentarily astonished and Charlotte uneasily avoided his eyes. *Would you have me believe that you have no other motive for being here dian looking after Lizette? But you forget, Charlotte, you have already confessed to me that your objective is something quite different!'
His use of her first name sent a little flutter of pleasure shivering through her body, even in this situation, and she sought more earnestly than ever to convince him. She had, she recalled, implied that she was looking for someone; an answer made on the spur of the moment and bom of
panic, but Raoul was not a man to forget that. It would have been so much easier if his eyes had the same laughing warmth as his namesake's, instead of regarding her so critically.
*I have nothing to confess, Monsieur Raoul,* she told him, 'because confession implies guilt, and I have no reason to feel guilty.*
*You deny that you told me you were—^hoping to find someone?* he demanded, and was so obviously quoting her that she shook her head uneasily.
*I—^I don't remember what I told you.' She made the admission reluctantly because it was not easy to be evasive with that steely gaze fixed on her. 'I was probably so nervous I didn't know what I was saying! *
As always when Raoul had her feeling cornered, she glanced at the door with escape in mind and, as he had done before, he noticed it. A slow and slighdy menacing smile sent shivering responses trickling up her spine and reminded her uneasily of a sleek cat with a mouse at its mercy, anticipating every move and blocking it.
*I hope you do not depend upon someone coming in,* he said. *My father and Mademoiselle Lebrun will be at the factory for the remainder of the morning, and Michel is giving dictation to Mademoiselle Villeaux. There is very litde chance that anyone will disturb us! *
There was a curious intimacy about the way he said it that did nothing to reassure her, and her heart was rapping urgendy against her ribs. The sheer sensual masculinity of him seemed to reach out to her, making her nerve-tinglingly aware of the man and momentarily heedless of the power he could probably wield to bring her job with Lizette to an end. A charge of prying about among the papers on his father's desk stood more chance of being believed by his family than her own denials.
But it was not the danger of her situation that was pro-
minent in her mind at the moment, but the remembrance of the twice he had held her so tightly in his arms that she could scarcely breathe. And of the way he had kissed her, with the passion of anger in the bruising hardness of his mouth. It was instinctive to step back away from him and she almost tripped over the big swivel chair behind her, catching her breath when he reached out his hands to prevent her falling.
*I have to get bade to Madame Lizette,' she toki hixn, and turned swifdy away from those long brown hands. 'I must go, Monsieur Raoul!'
He did not grip her arm as he had on other occasions, but merely touched her forearm with his long fingers, lighdy and almost caressingly, but it achieved the same end. Charlotte stopped and turned to look at him once more, her eyes wide and wary. *Have you discovered the man you seek, Charlotte?' he asked, steely grey eyes shadowed by black lashes, and she shook her head. *The lover you came to find,' he reminded her.
^Not a lover!' Charlotte insisted huskily, and walked away from the light touch of his fingers on her arm, turning once more in the door. *I told you it wasn't a lover!'
She turned the handle and opened the door just a fraction, ready to escape, but he was not yet ready to let her go. 'Who then, if not a lover?' he demanded relendessly, and Charlotte held the steady gaze for just a second, then shook her head firmly before stepping out into the empty hall. Then she fled without even a backward glance, banging the door closed behind her.
It was with the idea of forestalling any damaging report that Raoul might make to his father that Charlotte went out of her way to see Bernard Menais as soon as he returned from the factory. Mademoiselle Lebrun, his secretary, was with him and looked vaguely surprised when Charlotte called
to him as soon as he set foot inside the door. A short, plump and middle-aged woman, she was unlikely to cause Marie Menais the same kind of problems that troubled Lizette, and she took the briefcase her employer handed her, then disappeared discreetly into the office.
Bernard looked at her curiously but not discouragingly and as she came across the hall towards him Charlotte compared him with his son. Raoul was like him to a degree, she supposed, but Bernard was somewhat shorter in build and he was beginning to put on weight as he approached his middle fifties. He was pleasant and kindly whenever Charlotte came into contact with him, more like Madame Menais in character but less forceful.
'Monsieur Bernard,' Charlotte began after a brief greeting, 'there's something I feel I should tell you.' She glanced automatically over her shoulder at the solid blankness of Raoul's door and hurried on, noticing Bernard's faindy puzzled frown as she did so. 'I brought a letter down to your office this morning, one I must have picked up by mistake with Madame Lizette's mail.'
*Oui, mademoiselle?'
Obviously he had expected much more than that, and Charlotte hastened to enlighten him, still casting swift and slighdy wary glances at that closed door. 'I'm afraid I was radier clumsy,' she explained. *I propped the letter against a little figurine on your desk and I caught the sleeve of my dress on some of the papers on your desk and knocked them on to the floor.' She indicated the wide, three-quarter length sleeves of her dress, then fluttered her hands vaguely in apology. 'I'm sorry about it. Monsieur Bernard. I made rather a mess and Monsieur Raoul caught me—^I mean,' she amended hastily, *he came in while I was there and—^well, he suspected me of prying into things that don't concern
me.*
Just for a moment his eyes narrowed slighdy in much the
same way that Raoul's so often did, and Charlotte felt the thudding beat of her heart while she waited for a verbal reacticm. Then once more he shook his head, a half-smile making him look a lot more like Madame Menais and much less like Raoul. It was no doubt an accident, mademoiselle^' he allowed, and Charlotte hastened to assure him of the fact.
*Oh, but of course it was, monsieur, only ' She
hesitated, wondering if Raoul would include the cause of her clumsiness in his report too. *I was—^I noticed a photograph on your desk, Monsieur Bernard; a family group taken quite a long time ago, and—well, I was looking at it and that's how I came to catch my sleeve. I was being inquisitive and Fm sorry, I really am sorry.'
Bernard pulled a wry face and the faint twinkle in his eyes once more emphasised his likeness to his mother. *There is such chaos on my desk always^ ma chere mademoiselle,* he told her, *that I doubt very much if I would have even noticed that anything had been disturbed. My secretary despairs of my untidiness. It is even possible,' he added as if to exonerate her from blame entirely, *that my desk is tidier than it has ever been, thanks to your ministrations!'
*It probably is,' Charlotte told him, not without irony. *I was putting things straight when Monsieur Raoul came in, and he took over.'
jiist for a moment a gleam of amusement showed in Bernard's eyes and he shook his head. Then we need not fear that all is not in perfect order,' he told her. *There is no need to concern yourself further, Miss Kennedy— Charlotte, is it not?' He was seeking to put her at
her ease just as Madame Menais would have done in similar circumstances, and Charlotte thanked heaven that Raoul seemed to be the only member of the family who suspected her motives. *So, ma chere mademoiselle, please forget that it
happened, yes? And diank you for bringing me die letter.'
*Thank you, monsieur !'
Once more she used her hands to express her relief in a faindy helpless gesture that had always been one of her mannerisms, and she saw Bernard frown at her for a second.
*Is it possible that ' He frowned more deeply for a
second, then shrugged and shook his head. *But no! We have much to do, mademoiselle^ and Mademoiselle Lebrun will be impatient to begin,' he told her. 'Concern yourself no further with the matter, there is no damage done, eh?'
*You're very imderstanding, monsieur^ thank you.'
Bernard smiled, his eyes sweeping slowly over her face for a second before he turned away. *And you are very pretty, mademoiselle^ he told her with unexpected gallantry, one eyelid briefly lowered to give point to his meaning. *Maybe my son should exchange you permanendy for Mademoiselle Duclair, eh?'
He went off chuckling to himself, striding across the hall in a way that reminded Charlotte discomfitingly of his son. She could ignore Bernard's hint that Raoul should employ her permanendy; she could not at the moment imagine a more uneasy post. But at least she had spiked Raoul's guns should he report the incident to his father, although she wondered why the knowledge did not give her the satisfaction she felt it should.
Quite often after she had eaten her evening meal and seen Lizette setded, Qiarlotte took«a stroll in the chateau grounds. Always providing she was not seeing Jean, of course, or had letters to write for herself. She found the lush expanse of grassland incredibly peaceful in the evenings, and the nights were drawing out now, it was light for much longer.
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