would please me more than to take you to bed, now, at once, and I think we would match each other to perfection. But …’ his face darkened, ‘it would be going against my faith, and every principle that I have tried to live by. Up until today.’
Bell nodded, her heart already seizing on the glimmer of hope that he held out in the last three words.
‘Yes, I see that. Charles,’ she said impulsively, not giving herself time to remember that what she was saying ran contrary to all her own considered thoughts, ‘this has happened so quickly, but I know it’s more important than anything that has ever happened to me before. Time doesn’t matter to me. Won’t you just think about what it means? Ask for … spiritual advice?’
His stare was speculative, almost calculating.
‘I can hardly ask you to wait,’ he said coolly, ‘while I tussle with my conscience.’
Bell raised her face to his and kissed him.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You can ask me. I want you to, and you can trust me to wait for as long as it takes. Whatever it costs.’ For an instant Bell listened to her own words in stunned disbelief. No, wait … she wanted to say, as the realization dawned on her that she was giving away her precious, hard-won prize of independence. Then, following the uncertainty, came a wave of absolute conviction. She was coming home, home to the man she wanted. Why should she ever again crave independence? When Bell looked back at Charles there was no trace of doubt in her smile. There was surprise, disbelief and the beginning of a kind of happiness in Charles’s face as he wrapped his arms around her.
The three deckhands in stained blue overalls who were watching from one of the cargo boats whistled and catcalled, but neither Bell nor Charles heard anything.
He drove even faster on the way back to Château Reynard, and with only one hand on the wheel. The other hand held Bell’s, their fingers tightly laced together. Juliette came bounding down the steps to meet them as soon as the car skidded to a stop on the gravel sweep.
‘Lunch? You didn’t say that you were going to vanish for practically a weekend. I’ve asked people for six-thirty and Mama is having the vapours because she thought you wouldn’t be back in time. Not that she wouldn’t be having them anyway, giving a party at a day’s notice.’
Then she looked sharply from one face to another. Her tone changed. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said softly. ‘I see.’
Her broad, freckled face was full of concern, but there was no surprise in it. She took Bell’s arm firmly and led her up the steps.
‘You must change,’ she told her. ‘We only have an hour …’ Once they were inside Bell’s room, Juliette shut the door firmly behind them.
‘Look,’ she said, some of her habitual cheerful confidence having drained away. ‘May I say something?’
‘Of course.’
‘If you and Charles are falling in love, will you try to be careful? Of yourself, of course, but of him too? It won’t be easy for either of you, I am afraid, but Charles has been so much hurt …’
Bell loved her for her concern for him.
‘If I can make him happy,’ she answered, ‘I will.’
‘Yes. I think you will, too. Now, hurry.’
Bell was ready within minutes. She picked up the flamboyant violet and gold jacket and slipped it on. Her eyes were very bright, and there was a warm blush of colour over her cheekbones.
‘You look,’ she told her reflection, ‘like someone who has just fallen in love. What madness, after all the decisions you have just struggled to make. But, ohhhh … how wonderful.’
Bell danced down the stairs towards her birthday party.
She met Marianne crossing the hallway with a loaded tray of champagne glasses.
‘Monsieur le baron?’ asked Bell.
‘In the grande chambre, madame,’ Marianne indicated with a tilt of her head.
‘Thanks. Oh, is there anything I can do to help?’
The little maid looked shocked.
‘But no, madame.’
Bell pushed open another pair of double doors, then gasped. Under a pair of glittering chandeliers was an expanse of brilliantly polished, inviting bare floor. The room ran the whole length of the main wing of the house, and the row of windows reaching from floor to ceiling looked out over the lawns at the back to the circle of trees beyond. Charles was standing alone in the middle of the room, his blond head on one side. He was listening to the music that filled the magnificent room.
His eyes widened when he saw Bell, and then he smiled.
‘Every time I see you again, you look more beautiful.’ He held out his hands.
‘Shall we dance?’
Bell stepped into his arms and he swept her away across the gleaming floor. His dancing was just like his outer self, dominating, assured and accomplished. Bell had always been forced to be the man at dancing classes, and usually she surrendered herself to being led with the greatest difficulty. Yet now she closed her eyes and let everything slip away except his arms, his mouth against her hair, and the music. The sound rippled around them and they moved faster, tracing arabesques over the shining floor. They might have been a single body, Bell thought, as they swept in a wide arc and Charles’s arms pulled her closer and closer. I’m here, now, she told herself. I’m so happy. I don’t want this moment ever to end.
‘Charles? What can you be doing?’ The voice from the doorway was Hélène’s, of course. The dancers sprang guiltily apart and turned to watch her as she glided down the room. The dowager was wearing a stiff little blue satin dress, and her neck and fingers were loaded with diamonds. Hélène’s eyes missed nothing, and she made Bell feel uncomfortably aware of the absence of a bra under her own pale violet shirt.
‘I understand that I am to wish you a happy birthday, Miss er.’
‘That’s right.’ Bell smiled, undeterred.
‘That’s right,’ said Juliette, coming in to join them. ‘And we are going to have a brilliant party to celebrate it.’
Then the doorbell, a real bell that swung at the end of a system of levers, clanged sonorously across the hall.
‘Hooray, people,’ said Juliette, and danced away to open the door.
Soon the guests were pouring in in what seemed like throngs. Bell recognized several wine-trade faces, and spotted the gossip-column good looks of a raffish playboy who owned a nearby estate. Juliette’s friends in jeans and dungarees surged in amongst them, mingling with the dark suits of the wine shippers and the haute couture of their wives.
It was an impressive achievement of Juliette’s, thought Bell, to do all this at less than a day’s notice.
The volume of noise and laughter swelled to fill the grand room, competing with the soft music and the clink of glasses.
Bell stood in the middle of it all, thanking
