was its convenience. It was handy being so close. That was why Liz had chosen to open the tearoom there, of course, and its proximity had been a godsend while the children were young.
It didn’t feel like home, though. It never really had. She was like a caretaker, and with Roger gone and the girls flying the nest she wondered what on earth she was going to do with it. Keep it for ever, so the girls felt they could always come home? Or just until Stephen was eighteen?
Another nine years. Heavens. The thought of another nine years of this was enough to send her over the brink.
She closed the door behind her, leant back on it and listened to the silence. She was right, it was too quiet, and Stephen with his bubbly chatter wouldn’t be home until eight. God, the house was so empty.
She made herself a cup of tea, then settled down on the sofa in the little sitting room to watch the news for company. She kicked off her shoes, tucked her feet under her bottom and flicked on the TV with the remote control.
And then she froze, riveted by the commentary and the picture she saw unfolding before her eyes.
‘—a vineyard in the Rhône valley, high up on the steeply terraced hillside where only the most exclusive wines can justify the exorbitant labour costs for handpicking the grapes—unless, like Claude Gaultier, you use a migrant workforce.’
The reporter waved an arm behind him at the serried ranks of vines, bursting with fruit just starting to ripen. ‘For the past eleven years, the vines here have been worked by what amounts to slave labour, the workers kept in very basic accommodation and forced to work hugely long hours in appalling conditions on these steep mountainsides to bolster Gaultier’s extortionate profit.’
The picture scanned over the familiar scenery, the bunkhouse, the farmhouse where she’d cooked, the winery, the terraces where they’d walked hand in hand—
‘All the workers were young men, most of whose parents had paid extraordinary sums to give them an opportunity to escape from countries such as Albania to the riches of Western Europe. They were lied to, cheated for the sake of money, but at least these young men were only forced to work hard. The young women, on the other hand, were shipped all over Europe and sold into prostitution, many of them in London and Manchester, and the fate of these innocent girls has been far worse. The dawn raid today, the culmination of a decade of work by the security services of several countries, has seen many of Gaultier’s accomplices arrested. Gaultier himself, the mastermind behind this hideous empire trafficking in innocent lives, died resisting arrest when his house in Antibes was stormed this morning, and it must be said there will be few tears shed for this most evil and wanted of men.’
The picture returned to the newsroom, and Annie stared blankly at the screen.
Dear God. She’d always known the conditions there were dreadful, but she’d had no idea they were that bad. People-trafficking? Slave labour? She’d not really been involved with the labour force, more with the managers. Like Etienne. And Etienne had taken her mind off anything but him, from the moment she’d set eyes on him…
‘Bonjour.’
She looked up, her heart hitching into her throat at the slow, lazy lilt of his voice. Blue eyes, a smile that started gradually and kicked up both corners of his mouth to reveal perfect, even teeth—no. Not perfect. Not quite. One of them was chipped, and his nose was nothing to write home about, but the smouldering eyes and the lazy smile were enough to counteract that in spades.
‘Bonjour,’ she replied, her hand hovering over a steaming dish of lamb casserole. ‘Desirez-vous un peu de ragout?’
The smile widened. ‘Tu,’ he murmured. ‘Vous is too—how you say—formal?—for me.’
She felt herself colouring. ‘Oh. Sorry. I thought it was correct.’
He grinned. ‘It is—but we do not need to be correct, hein, you and me?’
She found herself smiling back, her heart fluttering against her ribs like a thing demented. Her hand still hovered over the casserole, her eyes trapped by his. ‘How did you know I was English?’ she said breathlessly.
‘Your delightful accent,’ he replied, in a delightful accent of his own, and her heart melted into a puddle at his feet. He held out his hand. ‘Etienne Duprés—at your service, mademoiselle.’
‘Annie Shaw,’ she said breathlessly, and he took her hand, wrapping it in warm, hard fingers. His thumb slid over the back of it, grazing it gently, sending shivers up her spine while his eyes locked with hers.
‘Enchanté, mademoiselle,’ he murmured, then after an age he bent to press his lips to her hand—but not the back. Oh, no. He turned it over and pressed his lips firmly and devastatingly to the palm, then folded her fingers over to enclose the kiss and straightened up to meet her eyes again, a slow, sexy grin teasing at his mouth.
He wasn’t the only one who was enchanted. Annie could hardly think straight for the rest of the meal, dishing up for the family and the skilled staff. The grape-pickers had their own catering arrangements in the bunkhouse, and her job was to help Madame Chevallier to cook for the permanent staff who ran the vineyard. And if she didn’t want to lose her job, she’d better concentrate on what she was doing.
Finally they were all served and seated, and she took her own meal and went and sat in the only space left. Which just happened, by a curious coincidence, to be next to Etienne Duprés.
‘You must be new here; I haven’t seen you,’ she said, but he shook his head.
‘I have been away—en vacances. On holiday?’
She nodded. ‘I wondered.’
‘So you have been thinking about me. Bon,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘And you must be new here.’
She nodded again. ‘I’m here for the harvest. I’m sorry, my French is dreadful—’
He waved a hand dismissively. ‘I’m sure we understand what is necessary,’ he said, and his eyes locked with hers again, their message unmistakeable.
‘You’re outrageous,’ she told him, blushing, and he laughed, not a discreet chuckle but the real thing, throwing back his head and letting out a deep rumble of a belly-laugh that had all the others smiling and nodding and ribbing him.
‘No, mademoiselle, I only tell the truth.’
And he was right, of course. She could understand enough of the muddle of his French and English to know precisely what he was trying to say to her, and he seemed to be able to understand English better than he could speak it, so between them they managed.
After all, it didn’t take much facility with the language to walk side by side along the rows of vines in the setting sun, and to pause under the spreading branches of an old oak tree and exchange slow, lingering kisses.
That was all they ever did, and then he’d sigh and turn back to the path and wrap his arm around her, tucking her into his side and shortening his stride to hers as they strolled back to the farmhouse. On her nights off he took her to the village and they sat in the bar and talked in their halting French and English until late, then he walked her home, pausing to kiss her under the tree.
She learned that he was an estate manager, that he’d trained in Australia and California, that he
