by Penny Jordan
‘Can’t you leave me alone?’
A spasm of anger tightened his face.
‘You weren’t saying that a while ago,’ he reminded her tautly. ‘Far from it.’
Panic filled her. Another moment and he would have guessed how she felt about him. How he would deride her! How could any man who had made a marriage such as theirs be anything other than cynical about love?
‘It was for Nicky’s sake,’ she flung at him. ‘I don’t want him to be an only child!’
For a moment she thought he was going to hit her. His face had gone white and almost ugly. ‘My God, you mean you actually.… But of course it was for Nicky; whose needs are paramount, and for whose sake his mother so nobly sacrificed herself to my repulsive embrace and possession. I don’t know whether to laugh or throw up,’ he told her brutally.
‘You were the one who said he needed a family,’ Briony pointed out in a shaken voice. She had come too far to back down now. ‘It was what you wanted too.’
‘Was it? How the hell do you know what I wanted? You’re incapable of knowing because you’re incapable of human feelings. You wouldn’t even begin to have the faintest idea about the needs which motivate real people. And to think I actually thought all that damned play-acting.…’ He turned away abruptly. ‘One day Nicky is going to grow up, and then what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Well, somewhere deep down inside that calculating little mind of yours lurks a real live woman, and I won’t rest until I dig her out.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ He watched her broodingly. ‘Perhaps because you’ve just dealt me the biggest insult a woman can give a man, and my pride won’t rest until I’ve held you in my arms and made you into a woman. Don’t worry that I’m going to try tonight, though,’ he added, surveying the large bed. ‘My ego’s taken just as much as it can for now. You really know how to emasculate a man, don’t you, Briony? I’ll sleep in Nicky’s bed for tonight, I don’t think I could stand to share yours.’
What had she done? Briony thought numbly when he had gone. Oh God, what had she done? He wouldn’t rest now until he had totally destroyed her, because that was what would happen if he carried out his threat. And she knew that he would.
As she lay sleepless in the huge bed she contemplated taking Nicky and leaving straight away, but Kieron had her passport, and besides, she had no money. If she could just survive this holiday, once they got back to England she would tell him that she wanted a divorce. She drifted off into nightmare-fractured sleep where a judge was calmly ordering that Nicky be chopped in half to be equally divided between his arguing parents.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE shops in Nice drew awed gasps from Briony. Marian employed a taciturn, grizzled expatriate Scotsman to drive her car and care for the villa gardens, and he had taken them into the capital of the Maritime Alps.
Briony had already apologised profusely to her hostess for burdening her with Nicky and falling asleep, but Marian had swept her apologies aside with a charming smile, assuring Briony that she was not to worry.
‘Héloise was thrilled, and Nicky is already the apple of her eye,’ she informed Briony, who had observed the truth of this statement for herself at breakfast.
Kieron had not put in an appearance at the table on the sunny patio and when Marian mentioned that he had gone swimming and was not likely to return until after they had left, Briony felt able to relax properly and enjoy her breakfast of croissants and apricot preserve.
In fact Marian had been wrong, and he had appeared just as they were leaving, his lean body tanned and glowing with health, Nicky clinging excitedly to his shoulders.
Kieron hadn’t looked at Briony, and she had been astounded when as they were getting in the car, he had pulled her back against him, feathering a lazily explorative kiss along the curve of her throat, before turning her into his arms and kissing her properly. But then she had remembered that Marian was watching them and guessed that the embrace was for her benefit. Unless—and she shivered to think about it—he had already begun his hunt for the woman he claimed she was concealing.
‘What do you think of that bikini?’ Marian asked, drawing Briony’s attention to a brief bandeau top of emerald green silk and minute briefs that tied in bows over the hips.
‘It’s outrageous,’ Briony said frankly. ‘And so is the price.’ Marian laughed. ‘It’ll suit you. Let’s go in and we can see how it looks on.’
It was useless for Briony to protest; Marian intended to have her own way. The bikini was purchased, despite Briony’s scandalised protests, and so were a pair of skimpy matching shorts and a soft green and white striped toning tee-shirt.
‘Have you brought anything special with you for evening?’ Marian asked her later. ‘Kieron is bound to take you to one of the casinos and although anything goes during the daytime, in the evening, especially in the casinos, high fashion is very much the order of things.’
Briony had packed a couple of cotton dresses, her swimwear, jeans, tee-shirts and one thin jacket for chilly evenings, but there had been no time to think further than that. However, she had no intention of allowing Marian to spend any more money on her and said so quite firmly.
The older woman’s eyebrows rose.
‘My dear, I’d love to spend some money on you—I have far too much of the stuff—but your husband seems to share your views and I have strict instructions that all the bills are to be handed to him and that you’re not to be allowed to count the cost. His own words. I’m so happy for him, Briony,’ she went on. ‘There was a time when I thought I’d never see him smile again. You know, you aren’t a bit as I imagined,’ she added, going off at a tangent. ‘Let him spend his money on you if it gives him pleasure. You’re lucky, you know, so many husbands won’t.’
Having elicited the information that Briony didn’t have anything dressy with her, she took her to a small boutique in a shady courtyard filled with pots of geraniums tumbling over the grey stone in scarlet-orange splendour.
Madame was elegantly and chicly dressed in black. Marian said something to her in French and she clicked her tongue, assessing Briony with snapping black eyes.
‘Well, madame,’ she said at last in heavily accented English, ‘do you wish to be une grande madame; une coquette, or une fille bien élevée—with such hair and eyes all are possible.’
‘What she wants,’ Marian interrupted, ‘is a dress très romantique, for a husband from whom she has been parted for three years.’
Briony was just about to correct these misconceptions when the vendeuse rolled her eyes and said dryly,
‘Ma foi, what you ask for is impossible! You wish to be all three!’
Marian laughed. ‘And you will have the dress to enable her to do so, am I not right?’
The black eyes twinkled. ‘Perhaps. Sit down, madame,’ she instructed a bemused Briony, ‘and I shall see what I can find.’
She was gone fifteen minutes, during which time Briony tried several times to question Marian about what she had said to her, but each time her nerve failed. And then, when they heard her footsteps returning to the salon, Marian said quietly, ‘We shall talk later if you wish, Briony. I told myself before you arrived that I would accept you, for Kieron’s sake, but I find already that I’m beginning to love you for your own, and I’m sure.…’
She broke off as the door opened, Briony’s eyes widening appreciatively at the dress the vendeuse carried over her arm. In black paper taffeta, the full skirt billowed out over net petticoats and the top was little more than a brief backless shell, moulding her breasts.
‘Try it on,’ Marian urged her, watching her face.
The taffeta rustled pleasantly against her skin, the stark colour emphasising her pale, creamy skin and the vivid intensity of her hair.
When she stepped rather hesitantly out of changing cubicle to show Marian, the older woman caught her breath in delight.
‘Oh, my dear!’ she exclaimed softly, ‘you look quite ravishing!�
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‘If I may suggest an ebony comb studded with diamanté, to catch Madame’s hair back so,’ interposed the vendeuse, pulling back Briony’s hair deftly. ‘Or even satin flowers…?’
The dress was boxed and they were on their way out of the boutique before Briony thought about the price.
Marian told her, chuckling at her stricken expression. ‘My dear, it’s a model and I’m sure it will be worth every penny in Kieron’s eyes. Surely you’re not frightened he’ll be angry?’
It wasn’t his anger that made her heart lodge uncomfortably in her throat, Briony admitted worriedly, but the thought of what conclusions he might draw when he saw her wearing the dress, that whispered seduction with every teasing rustle.
‘I think I’ll keep it as a surprise until we go out,’ she said nervously to Marian, suspecting that the older woman might suggest a fashion show of their purchases when they returned to the villa. To judge from her disappointed expression Briony’s suppositions had been correct, and her guilt at disappointing her kind hostess of this little treat was intensified when Marian insisted on buying Nicky a delightful lemon and white playsuit, which she told Briony defiantly was her present to him and was not going to be paid for by Kieron.
‘You can’t know how much seeing Nicky means to me,’ she confided to Briony as they drove back to the villa. ‘You see, Kieron is like the son I never had, and Nicky…well, he’s Kieron all over again and seeing him has revived many happy memories.’
‘And unhappy ones, I’m afraid,’ Briony said softly remembering what Kieron had told her about the death of his parents. ‘Don’t think me inquisitive, but have you never considered marrying again? You must only have been young when.…’ She bit her lip, fearing that she might be treading on sensitive ground, but Marian patted her hand and smiled.
‘Don’t worry, my dear, you aren’t upsetting me. I was thirty-two when Gérard was drowned. We’d been married eight years and although we hadn’t had the child we’d both longed for, our time together was so full of love and happiness that I could never bear the thought of another marriage. You see, Briony, when you’ve known true love, true happiness, you never want to replace it with counterfeit coin. The happiness I shared with Gérard has sustained me through the years of my widowhood. I have many pleasant friends, I have Kieron, and Héloise, and now I have you and Nicky, so I still have happiness—it’s just that it’s a mellower version than that one shares with a lover.’
The first thing Briony saw when she climbed out of the car was Kieron’s lean frame, sprawled out on a sun lounger by the side of the pool. The second was the curvaceous brunette bending over him and stroking suntan lotion into the smooth muscles of his back. Jealousy stabbed through her with white-hot knives, and she stood transfixed while Marian hurried past her, exclaiming in surprise, ‘Louise, I thought you were in Paris?’
The brunette poured more oil on to Kieron’s back, smoothing it in seductively.
‘As you can see, Tante Marian, I’m not.’ She shrugged petulantly. ‘It was hot and I grew bored. Where, I thought, will be entertaining?—and then I remembered my Tante Marian.’
‘And I thought I was the attraction,’ Kieron mocked lazily, rolling over to shade his eyes from the sun and stare unblinkingly at Briony. Compared with the French girl in her minuscule scarlet bikini Briony felt overdressed and pallid. Her blouse was sticking uncomfortable to her back, her thin cotton skirt suddenly schoolgirlish and old-fashioned.
‘Louise, come and meet Briony, Kieron’s wife,’ Marian instructed, and beneath the pleasant tones, Briony thought she caught a note of warning. Did Marian think that Louise might prove to be a tempting proposition which Kieron, man-like, might not be able to refuse, and that she, Briony, would be upset?
Even without Louise’s proprietorial attitude towards Kieron, they could never have been friends, Briony decided. The French girl was one of those women who plainly despised her own sex, although her eyes did narrow fractionally when Kieron raised himself up on his elbows to study Briony’s flushed face and enquire softly, ‘I hope you carried out my instructions.’
‘What is this, chéri?’ Louise pounced acidly. ‘What instructions did you give your wife?’
‘That she buy herself a sexy bikini,’ Kieron drawled, making Briony flush deeper.
Louise raised her eyebrows.
‘The English are so stuffy about these things, unlike us French, although if I were married to such a man as you, I think I should dispense with the bikini altogether,’ she finished provocatively.
Briony stiffened in outrage. Louise was flirting with Kieron right under her nose, and he, male that he was, was lapping it up. She glared at him with unguarded resentment, gasping when he turned to look at her his eyes narrowing with comprehension.
‘Ah, but then you see, Louise, my wife knows that I enjoy discovering her beauty for myself, especially when it’s temptingly packaged, with pretty wrappings and lots of bows,’ he added thoughtfully, his eyes resting for a moment on Briony’s slender hips almost as though he had already guessed what her packages concealed, and Briony’s cheeks burned anew, as she made a vow never to wear the green bikini when her husband was around.
It came as a shock to discover that Louise was staying at the villa.
‘It really is naughty of her to invite herself down here like this,’ Marian complained to Briony over lunch. They were eating some deliciously fresh bread and home-made pâté, Nicky seated between them enjoying something a little less rich. Louise had persuaded Kieron to take her into Nice, claiming that she hadn’t a rag to her back, and although Marian had suggested that François, the gardener and handyman, could take her, Louise had insisted provocatively that she wanted to go with Kieron.
‘You won’t mind lending me your husband for a while, will you?’ she had pouted at Briony. ‘After all, we are such close friends, and besides, Kieron tells me that you spend a lot of time with your little boy. Personally I find children extremely boring.’
Close friends! No doubt by that she meant lovers, Briony thought bitterly. Had Kieron been complaining to Louise that as a wife she left an awful lot to be desired?
As the heat of the sun started to increase, Briony took Nicky inside. He was telling her about how his daddy had taken him in the water and how he was teaching him to swim, and Briony listened halfheartedly with one ear while her mind tormented her with pictures of Kieron and Louise together.
When Nicky had gone to sleep she went to find Marian, but Héloise told her that the older woman usually rested in the afternoon.
‘As that Louise knows,’ she told Briony fiercely. ‘And so you are here all alone while that she-cat takes your husband.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Briony assured her unconvincingly. ‘I think I shall go and sunbathe for a while. Louise’s tan has made me feel quite envious.’
‘Your skin is fair and you will burn if you are not careful,’ Héloise warned her.
Bearing her advice in mind, Briony armed herself with some sun-screen and changed into a black swimsuit, picking up a towelling robe to cover her if she needed it.
She smoothed the cream into her arms and shoulders and lay back trying to relax.
The light touch of someone’s hand on her shoulder roused her, and she stared sleepily up at Kieron.
‘Where’s Louise?’ she asked, looking round for the French girl.
‘Still shopping,’ Kieron told her dryly. ‘I’d had enough and I left her to it. She can phone for François to pick her up when she’s ready. I wanted to come back and see my beautiful wife.’
‘Stop it!’ Briony demanded fiercely. ‘There’s only the two of us here and you don’t need to put on a show of being a devoted husband.
His fingers were toying with the strap of her swimsuit and she pulled away in irritation, her eyes darkening stormily as he said curtly, ‘What is this? Some relic from your schooldays? I thought I told you to get something new?’
‘And if I don’t choose to put myself on d
isplay like your “close friend” Louise, that’s my affair.’
‘We’ll see about that!’
Before she could divine his intentions he had scopped her up, and carried her kicking and protesting to their bedroom, where he dropped her on the bed, and held her there with one powerful arm, while the other rummaged among the packages she had left on the bed, a cruel smile curling his mouth as he stared at the one holding the beachwear.
‘Unless my memory is at fault we should find what I want in here. I think I can trust Tante Marian to carry out my instructions even if you won’t.’
His low whistle of appreciation as he picked up the minute bikini brought Briony’s rage to boiling point.
‘What are you trying to do? Turn me into some cheap tart?’
She could have bitten out her tongue the moment she said the words, but instead of being angry, Kieron merely lifted his eyebrows sardonically. ‘Oh, never cheap. And for your information, my dear wife, what I’m trying to do as you put it, is turn you into a warm, living, breathing, loving woman, who isn’t ashamed of her sexuality, or my appreciation of it.’
His eyes flared smokily over her for a moment, and Briony shivered under his gaze, gasping as he pulled her to her feet, thrusting the bikini into her trembling hands and opening the bathroom door.
‘You’ve got five minutes when I’ll keep my back turned, but after that, if you aren’t wearing that bikini, I’ll put it on you myself, and enjoy doing so.’
It took her four, her fingers clumsy over the bows, and then when she was ready she shivered uncertainly in the cool bathroom, frightened to face Kieron in the brief, sexy costume.
‘That’s it,’ he drawled unmercifully, stepping in through the door. ‘Well, well!’ His eyes roamed probingly over her slim body. ‘It’s even got the bows.’
‘Don’t you dare!’ Briony gasped anxiously, stepping backwards, her eyes widening slightly.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at her reflection as she stepped into the bedroom, already knowing full well how brief the bikini was.
