feel Gilles watching her with sardonic appraisal. He was a man born out of his time, she thought, watching his face. Why had she never seen before the ruthless arrogance, the privateer, the aristocrat written in every feature?
The door opened to admit Madame Le Bon. She gave Gilles a thin smile.
‘Madame est arrivée.’
Who was the woman who was so well known to Gilles’ household that she was merely referred to as Madame? Lee wondered. Gilles did not move, and Lee could almost feel the housekeeper’s disapproval. She looked at Lee, her eyes cold and hostile, leaving Lee to wonder what she had done to merit such palpable dislike, and all on the strength of two very brief meetings—and then she forgot all about the housekeeper as another woman stepped into the room. She was one of the most beautiful women Lee had ever seen. Her hair was a rich and glorious red, her skin the colour of milk, shadowed with purple-blue veins. Every tiny porcelain inch of her shrieked breeding, right down to the cool, dismissing smile she bestowed upon Michael and Lee.
‘Gilles!’
Her voice was surprisingly deep, a husky purr as she placed one scarlet-tipped hand on Gilles’ arm and raised her face for a kiss which, her seductively pouted mouth informed the onlookers, was no mere formality.
The scarlet, pouting mouth was ignored, and to Lee’s surprise Gilles lifted her hand to his lips instead. Perhaps he was embarrassed about kissing her in front of them, she deduced, although she had thought him far too arrogant to mind about that.
‘Forgive me for not dressing more formally,’ she purred, indicating the sea-green chiffon gown which Lee was quite sure came from one of the famous couture houses. ‘But I have only this afternoon returned from Paris. And these are your guests …’
Gilles introduced them.
‘Louise—Lee Raven, and Michael Roberts. Madame Beauvaise. Her father is my closest neighbour. Another wine grower …’
Louise’s lips pouted, her eyes narrowing slightly as she scrutinised Lee, so thoroughly that Lee felt there wasn’t anything about her which had not been inspected and priced—including her stockings.
‘Come, chéri,’ she protested lightly, ‘you make it sound so formal and dull. We are more to each other than mere neighbours, you and I. And you, Miss Raven—you are wearing a betrothal ring, I see. Do we take it that you and Mr Roberts are to marry?’
First the housekeeper and now this woman; there seemed no shortage of people willing to thrust her into Michael’s arms, it seemed.
‘No, we are not,’ she said shortly, not prepared to elucidate. There had been a suggestiveness behind the Frenchwoman’s words which she had disliked intensely; it had almost been that of a voyeur, distasteful though the thought was, and for the first time Lee saw the sensuality behind the redhead’s elegant poise, the greedy hunger of her mouth as it parted suddenly when she looked at Gilles. Feeling faintly sick, Lee wished she could escape to her room. There was something about Louise which reminded her of a particularly deadly species of orchid, all dazzling beauty on the surface, but underneath … poisonous.
The meal was as delicious as Lee had envisaged—soup served with a perfect, dry rosé which cleansed the palate; deliciously tender lamb with a full-bodied red which brought out the subtle flavour of the roast meat, and finally a cheese board with a choice of Rocamadour, Picodon, and Charolles, all chosen to complement the dry, fruit white wine.
Michael was a skilled raconteur, and the talk around the dinner table was general and light, only Louise pouting occasionally as though longing to be alone with the man Lee now no longer had any doubt was her lover. It was there in every look she gave him, the constant touch of her fingers on his arm; the intimate possessive glances which said quite plainly, this man is mine.
After dinner they returned to the salon. The housekeeper brought in the coffee; like the dinner service the cups were beautiful porcelain, and had not, Lee suspected, been purchased from any store.
Louise got up gracefully to pour the coffee, but to Lee’s amazement Gilles restrained her.
‘Perhaps Lee will be mother?’ he suggested with a slight inclination of the arrogant dark head. Lee was astounded, but such was the authority of his voice that it never occurred to her to refuse.
The hauteur with which Louise surveyed her almost made her laugh out loud.
‘Mother?’ she repeated disdainfully.
‘An English expression,’ Gilles informed her. ‘I should have mentioned it earlier, but Lee and I are old friends. We have an aunt in common.’ He reached for Lee’s hand as he spoke, such a look of tender amusement in his face that she almost caught her breath in disbelief.
Louise seemed to share her bemusement. She was staring from Lee to Gilles with narrowed eyes, her face no longer beautiful, but hard and dangerous.
‘I hope that as such an old friend, Lee will not mind sharing you with … newer friends …’
There was a warning as well as a question in the silky words, and Lee realised with a sense of shock that the redhead actually thought she might be a contender for Gilles’ affections. As though she would attempt anything so foolish!
She was even further astonished when Gilles carried her fingers to his lips, an expression which in anyone else might almost have been called doting, in the slate-grey eyes, now warm and smouldering.
‘Well, darling?’ he enquired in tones of deepest affection. ‘Will you be jealous of my old friends?’
‘Darling?’
For a moment Lee thought she had been the one to say the word, and then a look at Louise’s furious white face informed her that although they had heard the endearment with equal shock, the Frenchwoman had been the first to announce her shock verbally.
Lee glanced at Michael to see what he was making of all this strange behaviour on the part of their host, but he was simply relaxing in his chair, a small smile playing round his lips as he waited for the explosion none of them were in any doubt was imminent. Unless of course it was Gilles, who was looking for all the world as though there was no reason why he should not call Lee ‘darling’ in front of his mistress, and none at all why she should resent it. That look of icy hauteur would certainly have been enough to make her think twice about creating a scene, Lee reflected uncertainly, but then perhaps she had more experience of exactly how brutal Gilles could be when he wanted to than the infuriated Frenchwoman.
‘Isn’t that how one normally addresses a fiancée?’ Gilles murmured smoothly.
‘A … You mean …’
‘Lee and I are engaged to be married,’ he agreed silkily, obviously realising that while Louise had grasped the meaning of his words, she was, as yet, incapable of vocalising her reaction to them.
‘She is not wearing the Chauvigny betrothal ring.’
‘A small omission,’ Gilles said coolly. ‘It has been an understood thing between us for many years that we should marry, but on my last visit to England I found her so grown up and … desirable that I could not wait to … seal our betrothal. Since I do not carry the Chauvigny emerald around with me—which I am sure, my dear Louise, you will have already marked, will match Lee’s eyes exactly—I had to make do with this small trifle.’
