pretty wine, she had to give him that. It glowed in her glass with all the fire of a ruby. Still, if getting her drunk was his aim, he was in for a disappointment. She found him intoxicating enough, without falling victim to his vin rouge. She’d wet her lips with the stuff, and that was all.
“Very pleasant,” she said, allowing a mere trickle to roll down her throat, and changed the subject before he decided she hadn’t tasted enough to know if it was wine or water. “So what else keeps you busy, apart from overseeing your vineyards and olive groves?”
“Doing the same for my lavender farm and distillery. I’m a hands-on kind of man and, given a choice, I’d prefer to be more actively involved in the actual operation of all three enterprises, but the administrative end of things is so time consuming that I frequently put in ten-hour days without once setting foot outside my office.”
“My goodness, you really are a working model of a Count! What do you do for relaxation?”
She realized at once her mistake. Without missing a beat, he lowered his long lashes in seductive slow motion, a move that aroused a disturbing response in the pit of her stomach. “Coerce beautiful Americans into having dinner with me. Speaking of which, here comes our bouillabaisse. Prepare to be impressed.”
Oh, she was already impressed, pathetically so, but not by Henri’s culinary skills! Anton de Valois, however, was a different matter altogether. She should be ashamed for falling victim to the practiced moves of the French equivalent of Don Juan!
Henri arrived at their table, wheeling a cart holding a thick pottery tureen on a matching platter, as well as bowls, plates and cutlery. With great pomp and ceremony, he removed the tureen lid and wafted his hand over the escaping steam, sending a mouthwatering aroma of slow-simmered tomatoes, garlic, saffron and herbs drifting her way.
Chunks of red mullet, monkfish, John Dory and conger eel, as well as mussels and various other shellfish, floated in the rich broth. “Bon appetit, mes amis!” he pronounced with a smile, and left them to it.
Anton ladled a generous helping of the stew into a bowl and passed it to Diana. “Try this and tell me what you think,” he coaxed.
What she privately thought was that simply feasting her eyes on him and drinking in his charm was sustenance enough. But since that route surely led to nothing but trouble, she wrenched her runaway emotions under control, obediently took a spoonful of the fish stew, savored it slowly, then closed her eyes and sighed with genuine pleasure. “Pure heaven!” she sighed.
“That’s pretty much the reaction Henri Molyneux always gets when his bouillabaisse is on the menu.”
She couldn’t have asked for a better reminder of the real reason she was supposed to be sharing a meal with him. Swallowing her food along with the lie she was about to fabricate, she said, “I don’t think I’ve come across that name before.”
Another mistake she quickly came to regret! “A woman with your fluency in French has never heard the name Henri?” Anton inquired with blatant disbelief. “Come now, Diana! You surely don’t expect me to swallow that!”
“Oh, not his first name,” she amended hastily, a telltale blush warming her face. “I was referring to Molyneux. Is it…very unusual?”
“Not in these parts,” he said, continuing to eye her suspiciously. “There are Molyneux’s everywhere.”
Her pulse gave an erratic leap. Struggling to sound as if she was merely making trivial dinner conversation when, in reality, her entire world hung on his reply, she asked lightly, “Don’t tell me they’re all related.”
“Not necessarily all, but quite a few, certainly. So many families are linked, either directly, or through marriage. As I said, it’s a very common name. Henri, for instance, is the eldest of seven children, and has three of his own, as well as two grandchildren.”
“He doesn’t look old enough to be a grandfather.”
Anton rolled his rather magnificent eyes. “Tell him that, and he’ll be your slave for life! He turns sixty next month. I know, because a big birthday bash is in the works, to which everyone within a fifty-mile radius is invited.”
Filing away that gem of information, Diana continued her inquisition with a casual, “What about his siblings? Are they married, as well?”
“Yes, and all but one with children and grandchildren of their own. At last count, there were thirty-eight Molyneux’s in his branch of the family alone. Multiply that a few times, and you’ll understand why I say the name is as thick on the ground in these parts, as plane tree leaves in autumn.”
Little pieces of her personal jigsaw puzzle were beginning to fall into place almost too neatly. Trying hard to contain her growing excitement, Diana said, “And Henri’s six siblings, are they all brothers?”
“The youngest is a sister, and just as well, according to Henri’s father. Gérard always said that if the seventh baby had been another boy, he’d have been kicked out of the house and made to spend the rest of his days with the cows in the barn. Not that anyone believed the story. He and his wife were devoted to each other, and to their sons. But from what I understand, there’s no doubt that Jeanne was special. Their whole family adored her.”
“Does she have children, too?”
“No,” he said coolly. “Tell me, Diana, why are we talking about people who can’t possibly be of interest to you, when we could be spending the time getting to know one another better?”
Back off! the voice of caution advised. You’re betraying too much interest in the Molyneux family and arousing his suspicion! But increasingly convinced she was finally onto something, Diana ignored the warning and leaned forward urgently. “I don’t agree. Even the lives of strangers are interesting, so please go on.”
“Go on?” The chill in his voice was more pronounced than ever. “Go on with what, exactly?”
She needed to stop. To dismiss the subject with a laugh, and turn the conversation to something light and inconsequential. And she would have, if it hadn’t been that so much of what he told her fit the profile of her birth mother. Henri was almost sixty and the eldest of seven. He had only one sister, the baby of the family, and the woman Diana had traveled halfway around the world to find was forty-five. Mental arithmetic might never have been her strong point, but even she could do the math on this one.
“With what you were telling me about Henri’s family,” she said, hard-pressed not to reach across the table and literally shake the words out of him. “The whole idea of seven children in one family fascinates me.”
“Really,” he said, with marked skepticism.
“Yes, really!”
He regarded her steadfastly over the rim of his glass, and took a slow sip of his wine. “Then I’m sorry to disappoint you but there’s nothing else to tell. The Molyneux’s are good people, and that’s about it.”
He was wrong. One ambiguity remained, and terrified though she was of what she might learn if she questioned it, the prospect of remaining in ignorance terrified her even more. She’d lived with enough uncertainty to last her a lifetime. She wouldn’t allow it to derail her now. So, clearing her throat, she plunged ahead. “But I notice you speak of Henri’s sister in the past tense. Is that because she died?”
Oh,
