so carefully. 'Will you do something for me, Tara Vil-liers?' she asked quietly, and Tara nodded automatically.
'Yes, of course, madame, if I can.'
Madame Hautain did not look directly at her now, as she spoke, but somewhere in the middle distance, her eyes dark with the seriousness of her thoughts. 'I would like to see Philippe married,' she said softly. 'And I would like to see him married to you.'
Tara was too stunned for a moment to do anything but stare at her in disbelief, then she hastily scrambled to her feet and stood looking down at her, shaking her head slowly. 'I - I don't think you realize what you're saying, madame,' she said faintly. The thought refused to be dismissed that she had in some way betrayed the mind-shattering effect that Philip had on her and she was appalled to think that perhaps others beside Madame Hautain had noticed it too.
'I realize perfectly well what I am saying,' the old lady told her firmly. 'I am not senile, my child.'
'But you—' Tara shook her head, trying hard to counteract the dizzying succession of ideas that such a suggestion put into her mind. 'I'm going to marry Cliff,' she said in a far from steady voice, and the old lady's shrewd black eyes regarded her steadily.
'Are you?'
Something in her voice set Tara's pulses racing wildly as she considered the possibility of the matter having been discussed by Philip and his grandmother. She could think of no other reason why the old lady should have made that incredible request otherwise.
*I - I am engaged to Cliff,' Tara said, husky-voiced.
'But he has bought you no ring, hmm?' The probing was relentless, and Tara hastily covered her naked left hand and shook her head.
'A ring doesn't mean so much these days,' she said. *Lots of people get engaged and never have a ring, madame. It's - it's just a convention.'
'But one which most girls like, I think.'
'It doesn't matter,' Tara insisted.
'Philippe would buy you a ring,' the old lady told her softly, yet insistently, and Tara almost stamped her foot in frustration and alarm at having allowed herself to be cornered like this.
'I'm not marrying Philip!' she cried in exasperation. 'Now please, Madame Hautain, don't - please don't say any more about it!'
The black eyes watched her unrelentingly for a moment longer, then she nodded her head. 'Very well, child, but you are being very foolish.'
'Only in your eyes,' Tara told her, and looked at her through the thickness of her lashes, judging her reaction. 'Philip would be quite horrified at the idea of marrying me, and even more horrified to think you'd spoken to me about it,'
The old lady smiled, her small wrinkled face creased knowingly. 'I am quite sure he would not,' she vowed softly.
It was hard to believe that it was really happening, Tara thought wildly, and she certainly never expected anything of the sort when she had been so free and easy
with the old lady. She had had no idea that such plans were even in her head, let alone that she would voice them so openly. Surely Philip must be in ignorance of his grandmother's plans for him, or he would have said something about it himself, and only a week ago he had referred to himself as poaching on Clifford's preserves when he kissed her.
'You have arranged those roses beautifully.' The unexpected change of subject breaking into her thoughts took Tara by surprise and for a moment she simply stared. Then she bobbed her head in a brief acknowledgment of the praise and carried the finished arrangement over tc a corner table.
Her heart was hammering heavily at her ribs and her hands were trembling as she set the vase down on the table, so that she closed her eyes in a momentary prayer of thanks that there had been no one else present to overhear the conversation. It was disconcerting enough having to meet Philip each day, without having an added source of embarrassment making her even more self-conscious.
She heard the sound of a car outside and hoped against hope that it was Clifford returned. She badly needed moral support at the moment, although she would never dare tell Clifford what his grandmother had suggested. Even his fear of his grandmother, she felt, would vanish in the face of such an outrageous suggestion.
'If - if you'll excuse me, madame,' she said, and hurried across to the door.
It was not Clifford she collided with in the hall,
however, but Philip, and her heart skipped like a wild thing when he put his hands round her upper arms to soften the collision, while her own hands spread instinctively on his chest. He wore no jacket and the warmth of his body seemed to burn her fingers through the softness of a white silk shirt, so that she hastily curled the sensitive fingertips into her palms and tried to draw away from him.
'Where are you dashing off to?' Philip asked, and his dark eyes were smiling at her in a way that caused a strange curling sensation in her stomach.
'No - nowhere!' she gasped breathlessly, anxious to be away. 'Please excuse me!'
'Tara! What's wrong?' He retained his hold on her, pulling her close against him when she sought to escape. 'What is it?'
'Nothing! Please, Philip, let me go!'
He looked at her steadily, obviously puzzled, and Tara tried not to notice the way he watched her mouth, the way his grandmother had said he did. He looked through the open door at the old lady and evidently thought he guessed the reason for her hasty exit, squeezing her arms gently. 'Have you tangled with Grand'mere?' he asked softly.
'No - not exactly!' She prayed that Madame Hau-tain would be more tactful with him than she had been with Tara herself.
Philip smiled wryly. 'Is there anything I can do to -iron things out for you?'
'Oh no!' Tara cried, desperate to be free. 'It's nothing to do with you, Philip, nothing at all. Now
please will you let me go?'
He held her for a second longer, his eyes curious and, had she raised her own and seen it, a little hurt. 'Very well,' he said, and shrugged, dropping his hands from her arms and standing back to let her past. 'Clifford's putting the car away, he shouldn't be long, and I'm sure you'd rather cry on his shoulder.'
Tara looked at him appealingly for a moment, then turned and hurried cut of the open front door to find Clifford, only realizing as she went down the steps that she could no more unburden herself to Clifford than she could to Philip. Madame Hautain had put her in a position where she could not turn to anyone for support, and it made her feel quite alarmingly vulnerable suddenly.
'What does femme d'occasion mean, exactly?' Tara asked, sitting on the garden seat with Clifford later that day.
She was still feeling very unsure of herself after her interlude with the old lady, and lunch had been a nightmare of uncertainty, wondering if Madame Hautain would see fit to be inquiring about Clifford and her plans. An hour in the garden with Clifford had at least done something towards calming her, but she was still very conscious that a great deal of what the old lady had said was probably true, although she hated to admit it.
Clifford frowned at her curiously. 'What on earth do you want to know that for?' he asked.
'Isn't it - respectable?'
He laughed, still curious, it was evident. 'I don't know about respectable,' he told her. 'It's hardly flattering.'
'I gathered as much,' she said. 'What does it mean?'
He used his hands in a fair imitation of the old lady whose words he was interpreting. 'Second-hand woman, is nearest, I suppose,' he told her. 'Now for Pete's sake, darling, tell me where you got that phrase from. Who told it to you?'
Tara looked at him for a second from the shadow of her lashes, before answering. 'Your grandmother,' she told him then, and he stared at her.
'Grand'mere?' It was clear he only half believed her, and he frowned. 'What on earth was she talking about?' he demanded. 'Not you, I hope!'
'Of course not me,' Tara agreed. 'I'm not, am I?'
'No, no, of course you're not, but—'
'Elwyn Owen-Bragg,' she enlightened him, and he nodded understanding at last.
'Oh, I see. Grand'me
re doesn't approve of Ellie, of course, she belongs to the old school.'
'I think I do to a certain extent,' Tara told him. 'At least I wouldn't like to think that I went to my wedding with the comforting thought in the back of my mind that I could always get an easy divorce if it didn't just work out to suit me.'
Clifford pulled a wry face. 'You do sound a little puritan, darling. I never suspected it.'
'I'm not a puritan,' Tara denied defensively, and again looked up at him through her lashes. 'Are you
consoling yourself with that thought?' she asked, and he looked away hastily, so that she felt a sudden skip of alarm in her pulse. 'Cliff?'
'Not quite as slaphappily as that,' Clifford told her, and grinned. 'But then I'm not really thinking about anything much at the moment, except kissing you, my lovely.'
He would have suited the deed to the words, but Tara held him off, a small doubtful frown between her brows as she looked up at him. 'But you are thinking of marrying?' she asked, and he laughed softly and pulled her into his arms.
'I'm thinking about it,' he told her, and kissed her hard until she wriggled free in protest.
'Cliff! I'm not a - an all-in wrestler,' she protested. 'Don't grab me like that!'
He looked at her for a moment with a curious kind of hardness in his eyes, then he smiled again. 'You are in a funny mood, darling, aren't you? Has Grand'mere Hautain been at you?'
'She - she asked when we were getting married,' Tara said, watching his reaction from beneath her lashes.
'She often does,' he said. 'She'll get tired one of these days, and let it drop.'
'I told her next spring,' Tara said quietly, and looked at him steadily while he stared.
'Oh, did you?' he said at last.
'Well, I thought it was time I made it something a bit more definite than my usual don't know,' she said, and when he said nothing she put her head on one side
and looked up into his face. 'You don't sound very pleased about it,' she told him.
'I just don't like other people interfering in my life, that's all,' he said shortly, and Tara smiled ruefully.
'Not even me?' she asked softly.
'Oh, of course not you, darling!' He hugged her close in his arms and his voice was muffled by her hair. 'You know I love you, but please don't try and pin me down with things like definite dates and wedding plans, not when I have so much on my plate already, with the works and learning the ropes and everything. And especially don't make plans to suit Grand'mere Hau-tain.'
'I - I wasn't exactly trying to pin you down,' Tara denied, and the hurt she felt sounded in her voice. 'I - I just thought—'
'Darling!' He kissed her lightly on her mouth, then smiled down at her, full of self-confidence. 'You don't have to think, leave that to me. You just look beautiful and be here when I need you, hmm?'
'Z)o you need me?' Tara asked, and he ki.'^sed her again.
'Darling girl, of course I do!'
'But not enough to marry me?'
'Tara!' He looked down at her for a moment, a shrewd speculative look in his eyes, then he laughed. 'You weren't thinking of leaving me, were you, darling?'
Tara watched the strong steady pulse at the base of his throat and sighed, putting a finger over the throbbing beat. 'I had thought of going back home,' she
confessed, hoping against hope that he would decry the very idea without hesitation, and to her relief he did just that.
'You're not going back home,' he told her, after a brief study of her solemn face. 'I want you here,'
'But if you're so busy and—'
'I want you here,' he repeated, and pulled her into his arms, resting his face against her hair. 'All right, my sweet,' he conceded with a mighty sigh. 'If you want to plan a spring wedding, go ahead.'
Tara raised her head and looked at him, her dark eyes anxious and a little wary. 'You mean it. Cliff?'
He nodded, then laughed as he buried his face in her hair again. 'Why not?' he asked.
Although it was Saturday Clifford had gone with Philip into Glandewin to the office, and Tara was left to her own devices again. She had come out into the garden to avoid spending too much time alone with Madame Hautain, for since that embarrassing interlude of yesterday she felt almost as uneasy in the old lady's company as she did in Philip's.
It was a very warm day again and she found herself wishing that Clifford was not barred from driving his car. Not only was his own vehicle still at the garage under repair, but Philip had firmly refused to lend him his, because, with the court case still to be heard, he was uncertain of the legal position. If they went out at all, therefore, they either had to walk or ring for a taxi.
She had come for her favourite walk, down the length of the garden to the trees that skirted the river,
and she shook back her hair from her face as she walked into the welcome relief of the shade. The ground underfoot was soft and yielding, a carpet of fallen leaves and rich loam that smelled cool and spicey.
If her own progress was silent, so was another's, and she turned swiftly with her eyes wide and Ups parted when she caught the faint sound of someone behind her. 'Did I startle you?' Philip asked, and Tara shook her head, too dismayed to answer for the moment. She had rather it had been anyone but Philip.
In deference to the heat of the day he wore a pale blue shirt open at the neck and with short sleeves baring his already brown arms to the sun. Dark blue trousers that fitted snugly over his lean hips, moulded to the muscles of his long legs and made him look taller than ever. Here, under the cool shadow of the trees, he looked darker and more foreign, more dangerous, as his black eyes glittered with amusement at having startled her, and Tara's senses responded uncontrollably to that unerring gaze on her mouth. PhiUp was the most dangerous and sensually exciting man she had ever had to cope with, and she sometimes worried why she did not react in the same way to Clifford.
'I - I didn't realize you were back,' she said, trying to sound casual. 'Is Cliff back too?'
Philip smiled, one of his slow smiles, as if he suspected her uneasiness at being alone with him. 'He's back,' he said, 'but he wanted to do something in the garage, so he said.'
'Oh! Oh, I see.'
'I needed a breath of fresh air after being in town all morning, that's why I came down here.' The dark eyes surveyed her steadily for a moment or two, then he moved nearer, and Tara's pulse fluttered nervously in anticipation. 'Aren't you coming in for lunch?' he asked, and Tara could have laughed hysterically at the anti-climax of the question.
'I've been hoping ChfT would take me out to lunch,' she said. 'But it's too late now, by the time we can get a taxi.'
Another slow smile showed in his eyes with a hint of malice. 'You sound as if you're blaming me,' he suggested softly.
'Of course I'm not blaming you!' She turned and walked further into the shade of the trees instead of going back to the house to find Clifford, and she did not even stop to think why. 'I know Cliff's car's out of action, but I can hardly blame you for that.'
'But you think I should lend him mine?'
She shrugged carelessly. 'Not if you don't want to.'
She started walking along the river bank and he walked beside her, the fingers of one hand catching at hers and starting the whole chaos of emotions into action again. He seemed relaxed, and yet there was something on his mind, she would have sworn it, and his next words confirmed it.
'I hear there's to be a spring wedding,' he said, and Tara looked at him warily through her lashes, trying to guess his reaction. 'My grandmother told me,' he added. _ ,
Tara, praying that the old lady's revelations had stopped there, looked at him warily. 'I like Madame Hautain,' she said, without quite knowing why, and she saw a faint smile touch his wide mouth.
'And she hkes you.' He brought them to a halt suddenly and put a hand under her chin, raising her face to him, looking down at her steadily while she kept her own gaze lowered. 'What made you tell her, Tara?' he asked softly, and she looked up
at him warily, wonder-ink why there were small, tight lines at the corners of his mouth and a deep, unfathomable look in his eyes.
'Because it's - it's true.'
'Is it?' His hand cupped her chin firmly, the strong fingers curved around her jaw, the thumb moving over her mouth in a slow, sensual caress that aroused deep and disturbing desires in her. 'I think it more likely that you told my grandmother about a spring wedding on the spur of the moment,' he said quietly. 'And then broke it to Clifford when he came home yesterday.'
Tara tried to shake her head, putting up a hand to dislodge the hold on her chin, but he simply turned his hand and curled his fingers over hers, holding them tightly while he looked down at her. 'Well, suppose I did?' Tara said, defiantly, trying hard to control the relentless beating of her heart.
'I thought so,' Philip said softly, apparently satisfied he was right. 'Ever since last night he's had a shifty look about him that I don't like. Tara, if he's trying to squirm out of it—'
'Oh, he isn't, I'm sure he isn't,' Tara assured him hastily, as anxious to convince herself as him. It would
be unbearable if he thought she was forcing Clifford into marrying her.
He studied her silently for a while, his black gaze sweeping slowly over every feature of her small, oval face and coming to rest again on the soft fullness of her mouth. Then he nodded as if satisfied. 'Just as long as he isn't trying his tricks with you and making you unhappy.'
It was pointless to presume that she was the first girl that Clifford had ever been involved with, so she did not question his meaning about tricks, and she could well imagine that Philip Hautain was even more practised in the art of seduction, but some little devil of mischief prompted her to sweep her long lashes up suddenly to reveal a wide-eyed and soulful gaze that challenged his right to care one way or the other.
'What would you have done if he had been tricking me and making me unhappy, Philip?' she asked.
For several nerve-shattering seconds he did nothing, then he smiled suddenly and his fingers tightened on hers, a dark gleam of something in his eyes that told her how rash she had been, but it was too late now and her pulse was racing out of control again. 'I told you what the alternative wa5,' he reminded her softly, and she drew a sharp breath, realizing she had probably started something she would probably regret. Things all too easily got out of hand with Philip, and she had had no real intention of being provocative for the mere pleasure of teasing.
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