twisted in her, keeping her silent.
Anatole, too, was silent for the remainder of the short journey.
When they arrived back at her house she got out, preparing to bid him goodnight before he drove back to the White Hart. But instead he said, in a perfectly conversational voice, ‘I could do with a nightcap. As the designated driver I got very little of that excellent claret over dinner—and none at all of the port that Barcourt Senior tried to press on me! So I could still have one more.’ He glanced expectantly at Christine. ‘He mentioned that he gave Vasilis a bottle at Christmas...’
Reluctantly, she let Anatole follow her inside. The house was very quiet—the Hugheses were in their apartment in the converted stables, and Nanny Ruth was away for the weekend. In the drawing room she switched on the table lamps, giving the elegant room a soft warm glow, and extracted the requisite bottle and two port glasses from a lacquered cabinet, setting them down with a slight rattle on a low table by the silk-upholstered sofa.
Anatole strolled across and seated himself, but Christine chose the armchair opposite, spreading her velvet skirts carefully against the pale blue fabric. He poured her a generous measure, and himself as well, then raised his glass to her. His gaze was speaking.
‘To us, Christine—to what we can make together.’
His eyes held hers—dark, long-lashed, deep and expressive. She felt their power, their force. The long-ago memories they kindled within her. Emotion swirled, dark and turbid, troubling and disturbing.
It was as disturbing as feeling Anatole’s lambent gaze upon her, which did not relinquish her as he took a mouthful of the sweet, strong, rich ruby port. She took a mouthful herself, needing its strength to fortify her.
The bottle had not been opened before—Vasilis’s health had worsened steadily, remorselessly after Christmas, and he’d openly prepared her for the coming end. She felt her eyes blur with a mist of tears.
‘What is it?’ Anatole’s voice was quiet, but she could hear the concern in it. ‘You’re not worrying about Nicky, are you?’
She shook her head. ‘No—I’m used to leaving him for a night or two. He never fretted when I went to London with Vasilis.’
Her voice trembled over her late husband’s name. Anatole heard the emotion in it and it forced a recognition in him. One he had held back for many years.
‘You cared for him didn’t you? My uncle?’ he said.
His voice was low. Troubled. As if he were facing something he didn’t want to face. Something he’d held at bay for five long bitter, angry years.
‘Yes—for his kindness,’ she said feelingly. ‘And his wisdom. His devotion to Nicky—’
She broke off. Thoughts moved within Anatole’s mind—thoughts he did not want to think. His uncle—decades older than Tia and yet she’d had a child with him.
His mind blanked. It was impossible, just impossible, to envisage Nicky’s conception. It was wrong to think of Tia with anyone else in the whole world except himself. Not his uncle, not young Giles Barcourt—no one!
The same surge of possessiveness he’d felt in the car swept over him again as his eyes drank her in, sitting there so close to him, looking so beautiful it made his breath catch.
How did I last this long without her?
It seemed impossible that he had. Oh, he’d not been celibate, but there had been only fleeting liaisons, deliberately selected for their brevity and infrequency. He’d put that down to having had such a narrow escape with Tia, when she’d so nearly trapped him into marriage—into unwanted fatherhood—exacerbating his existing resistance to women continually seeking to marry him. And yet now that he did want to marry her—the same woman who’d once dreamt of that very thing—she was refusing him.
Her words to him echoed in his head, giving him a reason for her obduracy that he could not accept. Would not.
‘But that does not mean you cannot marry again!’ he said.
Her gaze shifted away. ‘Anatole—please. Please don’t.’
Her voice was a thread. It was clearly unbearable to her that he should say such a thing. But he could not stop.
‘Did he...care...for you?’
He did not like to think of it. It was...wrong. As wrong as Tia having feelings for a man who had probably been older than her own father, had he lived.
‘He was fond of me,’ she said. Her eyes went to him. ‘And he adored Nicky.’ She took a breath. ‘That was what I valued most—that I was able to give him Nicky. He would never otherwise have had a child had he not married me.’
There was defiance in her voice, and Anatole knew the reason for it. Felt the accusation. Knew he had to answer it. That it was time to face what he had said, what he had done.
He took a breath—a difficult one—and looked her in the face, his expression sombre. ‘I’m sorry, Christine. Sorry that when we were together I did not want a child. That I welcomed the fact you were not pregnant after all.’
He took a mouthful of port, felt it strong and fiery in his throat.
‘I was not ready to be a father.’ His eyes met hers. Unflinching. ‘But now,’ he said, ‘I am. I want to be the father to Nicky that Vasilis did not live to be. I feel,’ he swallowed ‘I feel my uncle would want that. And I want so much for you to want it too.’
There was a choking noise from Christine and immediately Anatole was there, his port glass hastily set down, kneeling on the Aubusson carpet before Christine’s chair, taking her hand. The mist of tears in her eyes was spilling into diamond drops on her lashes.
‘Don’t cry, Tia,’ he said softly, lifting a finger to brush away the tears. ‘Don’t weep.’
His hand lifted the hand he was holding, which was trembling in his grasp, and he lifted it to his lips, smoothing his mouth across her knuckles.
‘We can make this work—truly we can. Marry me—make things as right between us as they were wrong before. Make a family for your son with me—for his sake, for my uncle’s sake. For my sake. For your sake.’
His eyes were burning into hers and she was gazing down into their depths, tears still shimmering. He took the half-empty glass from her trembling hand, then retained that hand, getting to his feet, drawing her with him. Light from the table lamp illumined her and his breath caught. How lovely she was...how beautiful.
His mouth lowered to hers. He could not stop—could not prevent himself. Desire streamed within him, and the memory of desire, and both fused together—the past into the present. Her lips were honey to his questing mouth, sweet and soft, and he felt arousal spring within him, strong and instant. His kiss deepened and he heard her make a low noise in her throat, as if she could not bear what was happening. As if she could not bear for him to stop.
His hands slipped from hers, sliding around her slender waist, pulling her gently, strongly, against him. He felt the narrow roundness of her hips against his. Felt his own arousal surge yet more. His blood coursed through him and he deepened his kiss as passion and desire drove him on.
She
