and pulled again at the loose thread.
‘Nothing. Things will go on just as they are.’
Bell felt a small, unpleasant shock as the words sank in, then wondered half-consciously why.
Divorce is not a possibility, Charles’s voice came back to her.
‘Can’t they divorce?’ she asked Juliette, knowing the answer.
The other girl looked at her, unsurprised, before she answered.
‘No, Bell. Charles is a religious man. It’s part of him, unchangeable. Catherine is his wife, and always will be his wife before God. They can’t live together, but they can’t be freed from each other. Ever.’
Bell closed her eyes for a second. She saw Hélène’s face and the bitter lines etched around her mouth. How painful it must be for her, sitting here in her empty château, alienated from her children and denied the chance to see her grandchildren growing up to inherit it all.
Bell put down her hairbrush and turned to face Juliette.
‘I’m just going to change …’
The other girl, sensitive, saw at once that she wanted to be left alone. She got up quickly and then turned back in the doorway.
‘Don’t worry too much about changing. Mama always stays in her rooms the day after a scene. You know,’ she added, ‘your hair suits you like that. Shows off the lines of your cheeks and neck. Beautifully modelled.’ Bell waved her away and she went, calling back from down the corridor, ‘I am a sculptor, you know. These things are not lost on me.’
Bell was frowning as she took off her jeans and stepped carefully into a soft crêpe de chine dress patterned with tiny wildflowers.
Something awkward and unexpected had happened, and she had to force herself to face up to it.
Charles de Gillesmont had stopped being just someone she had to interview for the paper. He was a man, and he attracted her. More, she knew intuitively that he was drawn to her too.
But that must be all. Nothing else could happen. Nothing should happen. It was sad, but that was the only sensible answer. Charles was irrevocably married. He had told her that himself, and so had his sister. And he lived in a world totally apart from her own.
What’s more, what about her own determination to make her way alone? Charles de Gillesmont was altogether too powerful to fit into the category of lighthearted love-affairs along life’s wayside.
Bell went over to the window to look out at the rich acres of Charles’s vineyards. She rested her forehead against the cool glass and laughed at herself. English Cinderella falls head over heels into life in an exotic French château and succumbs within minutes to the mysterious baron.
No, not quite like that. Worryingly, it went much deeper.
Bell’s smile faded.
Charles fascinated her. It was his combination of natural power and the right to command, bred back over the centuries, coupled with the glimpses of human hurt that drew Bell. She was hungry to know him better. She wanted to go on admiring and being in awe of him, and at the same time she wanted to comfort him with her own hard-won understanding.
Impossible. Romantic dream.
Worse, there was something else about him too. The arrogant sensuality around his mouth, and the way that his eyes held hers, commandingly, for just a second too long.
With a little lurch of her stomach, Bell recognized that she was physically drawn to him too.
Impossible.
She musn’t think about it any more. Not give herself time to. That’s all.
Bell’s fragile resolution slipped away as soon as she found the brother and sister, sitting side by side on one of the pale blue sofas in the salon. Charles was laughing, they were both laughing, and when she came in they jumped up at once to draw her into the warmth of their company.
Bell’s heart started thumping in her chest when Charles took her hands and kissed her on both cheeks in greeting.
She did want him, there was no use pretending. It was impossible, but it was possible. Oh no.
Yes.
The evening was as different from the one before as it could possibly have been. Juliette and Charles complemented one another perfectly.
They had been close all their lives, as irresponsible children scampering about in the draughty passages of the Château, and then as adolescents becoming aware of their position in the world and the world’s expectations of them. Juliette had defied those expectations as well as those of her parents. She had chosen to become a sculptor and had gone to Paris to a famous atelier. Her allowance had gone, and she lived on what she could earn as a waitress in her spare hours. For Charles, escape would have been still less easy, even if he had wanted it. Wine-making and Château Reynard were in his blood, and he gave himself up to his heritage without complaint.
Juliette and her bohemian way of life remained a treasured alter ego for him. Bell could only guess at the closeness of the tie that held the two together but she saw at once how much they meant to one another. With his sister Charles was gentle, and almost frivolous.
The three of them sat until late at one end of the long table. The last of the wine glowed ruby-red in the decanter. It was Château Reynard 1961, and Bell understood that in giving her his best wine Charles was giving her something of himself.
After the pudding, rich little heart-shaped coeurs à la crème, Charles poured pungent cognac into more glasses. Bell began to see the room through a hazy golden glow of happiness and good wine.
Deliberately, she pushed back the doubts and questions that hovered at the brink of her consciousness.
Opposite her Juliette was sitting with her chin in her hands. They had been talking about family likenesses and Juliette had insisted that she and Charles were different because of their different star signs.
‘Me, I’m Libra,’ she said, ‘Queen of the Zodiac, of course. Now Chariot – I’m sure you can guess what he is.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Bell diplomatically.
‘Scorpio. Moody and difficult, but …’
‘For God’s sake, Juliette, don’t bore us with all that nonsense.’
‘Very well, but I was just getting to the flattering bits. What about Bell? I’d guess that you are …’
‘Leo,’ she put in, hastily.
‘Ha! The extrovert with the vulnerable heart.’
‘All wrong,’ Bell smiled. ‘I’m outwardly vulnerable, but my heart is really reinforced with pure steel.’
Across the table Charles studied her for a moment, his eyebrows raised a fraction. Bell went slowly, dully crimson.
There was a tiny silence before Juliette spoke again.
‘Leo,
