A Place of Storms (23 page)

'I'm not sure.' Pretending to frown, he surveyed her, his head slightly on one side, from the allure of the tight-fitting bodice clinging to the uptilted breasts to the bell of a skirt which swung from her slender waist. 'I suppose it has its—compensations.

In a sudden panic she felt the long zip at the back of the dress give way under the pressure of his fingers.

'Don't tremble so,
ma mie
.' There was a lazy sensuousness in his voice which sent hectic colour flying to her face. 'As you dressed this evening, you must have known that ultimately I would want to—undress you.'

'But—not now—not like this.' Feverishly she twisted herself free. 'Blaise—please. Dinner will be served. Everyone will be waiting for us.'

'Let them wait.' Effortlessly he captured her again, his mouth parting hers with a sensual mastery that sent flickers of fire racing through her veins. Desperately she snatched at the dress he was easing from her shoulders, holding it against her. .

'Blaise, no. We—we must go down. Let me go—please!'

For a long moment he was very still, then he raised his head slowly and looked at her, his eyes holding a chill glitter that almost unnerved her.

Then, 'If that is your wish,
madame
,' he said bitingly, and released her so suddenly that she swayed and almost fell. With insolent casualness he pulled her dress into place and closed the zip with one long savage tug. He made her a slight, formal bow. 'On your way,
ma femme
. Make my apologies and tell everyone that I shall join them presently.'

Andrea's legs were shaking violently as she left the bedroom and she stumbled and nearly fell on the stairs. She stopped dead and made herself take several long deep breaths, seeking to regain her composure.

Simone was the sole occupant of the dining room when she entered, standing by the window slim and wraith-like in a white dress with softly floating sleeves and skirt, and the merest hint of a bodice. She smiled as Andrea came in, a smile at once so knowing and malicious that it was as if she had been a silent witness to the scene which had just transpired.

Andrea's fists clenched in the folds of her skirt She looked round the room.

'Where is Philippe?'

'He is having a tray in his room.' Simone walked to the sideboard and poured herself an aperitif. She raised her glass towards Andrea in a mock toast. '
Salut
. I think he may have caught a chill from all his exploits in the snow.'

'Oh.' Andrea paused, then half-turned to the door. 'I think I'll just go and see how he is.'

'As you wish.' Simone lifted an indifferent shoulder. 'But he is probably asleep by now, and you might wake him.'

'I can promise I won't,' Andrea flung back over her shoulder.

There was a nightlight burning on the table beside Philippe's bed, and he was lying on his back one arm flung free of the covers. His forehead seemed slightly warm, but his breathing was normal. Andrea drew the cover gently up over his shoulder and stole away again down the narrow stair.

As she approached the dining room again, she heard the murmur of voices within and guessed that Blaise had come downstairs. She took another deep breath before opening the door, and paused abruptly on the threshold.

Simone was standing in front of Blaise at the fireplace, so close that their bodies were almost touching. He was holding a glass and as Andrea watched Simone's hand went up and closed round his. Involuntarily Andrea stepped forward and Blaise's head came round sharply. He stepped away from Simone and the look he sent her contained an unmistakable warning.

'Would you like a drink?' His voice was cool and courteous, containing neither hidden passion nor veiled anger. She accepted stiffly, tempted for a moment to apologise for her intrusion but realising just in time that it would be more dignified to pretend she had noticed nothing.

'You are very pale,
ma chère
.' Simone's voice was all silky concern. 'I hope you have not taken the same chill as Philippe.

'I hardly think so. I—I have a slight headache, that's all.' It was not a total lie. There was a hard knot of tension lodged just above her eyes.

It was a difficult meal. Simone chattered gaily throughout, indulging in a flood of nostalgia and reminiscence to which Blaise made little response or contribution. She made a point, every now and then, of turning to Andrea and deliberately drawing her into the conversation, asking if she knew places and people, requesting her opinions, which only served to emphasise Andrea's own feeling of isolation. She knew what Simone was up to, of course. She was reviving old intimacies along with the memories, and showing Andrea to be the outsider, none too subtly at that.

She picked at her food, finding Blaise's eyes on her, hard and ironic as she laid down her fork.

'Has your appetite for dinner suddenly deserted you,
ma mie
?'

She shrank inwardly from the edge in his voice, knowing only too well what it implied. When Madame Bresson brought in coffee, she felt she could stand no more and rising to her feet excused herself in a few incoherent words and got out of the room.

If there had been a key in the elaborate lock of Blaise's bedroom door, then she would have used it, and braved his undoubted anger. With set lips, she found the blankets and made up the bed on the couch. If he would not sleep there, then she would. She hesitated for a long time over undressing, deciding eventually there was little to be gained by remaining in the clothes she had worn at dinner. That decision made, it seemed important to get into her nightgown and long cream silk dressing gown as swiftly as possible, and her fingers were trembling as she tightened the sash round her slim waist. Normally, she lowered all the bedroom lamps before retiring, but tonight she decided she would leave them all full on. She needed to avoid the intimacy of the darkened room.

She walked restlessly over to the window, and pulled the curtain aside. A chill draught played on her face and the air was full of the scent of rain. Shivering, she let the curtain fall back and folded her arms tightly across her breasts. She wandered round the room, making tiny adjustments to the furniture and drapes, fiddling with the jars and bottles on the dressing table. She was tired, but she knew that even if she lay down for a while, she would not be able to sleep. All those nights when she had pretended to sleep, and now it was denied her. It was like a joke turned sour.

She bent to smooth a non-existent crease in the bedcover and stopped. There had been no hint of his silent approach. He stood just inside the door, leaning back against the panels, his eyes appraising her. The silence dragged. Eventually he said:

'This morning I held a woman in my arms—a woman who I knew wanted me as completely as I wanted her. I've carried the memory and the promise of that woman with me all day. Where did she go, Andrée, and who is this frigid hostile child who has taken her place?'

Whatever she had expected from him, it wasn't this.

'That isn't fair,' she protested weakly.

'I am not concerned with your English notion of fair play.' His voice cut at her, then gentled. 'I require a simple answer to a very simple question. I am here, after all, to claim my woman. I want to make sure she exists.'

His eyes went past her to the couch with its waiting blankets and pillow and they narrowed.

'What does that mean?' The softness of his voice was deceptive, she knew.

'Don't make things difficult, Blaise,' she appealed. 'After all, nothing has really changed…'

'Everything has changed, and you know it,' he interrupted without a change in inflection. 'The comedy is over,
ma mie
. You are my wife and I intend that you shall share my bed.'

She took a hasty step backwards, stumbling over the hem of her robe, and he grinned mockingly He took off his coat and pitched it on to a chair. His tie followed it, and he began to unfasten his shirt. He sent her a sardonic look.

'Don't look so appalled,
chérie
. Why not get into bed and pretend to be asleep as you usually do? Just don't rely on the fact that I'll be too much of a gentleman to wake you.' He waited for a moment, then stripped off his shirt and tossed it on to the floor. 'No? Then come here.' He held out his arms to her. She did not move and he uttered an impatient sigh. 'Don't make me fetch you, Andrée.'

'I hate you,' she whispered out of the welter of confusion and misery that possessed her.

He gave a slight shrug. 'As you wish,' he said calmly. 'It will make no difference.' He walked over to her, and stood looking down into her face. His own was impassive, but there was an expression in his eyes that terrified her.

'How can a woman change so much in just a few short hours?' he said, half to himself. 'I should have obeyed my instincts,
ma belle
, and taken you this morning. But no matter.'

His hands reached out and gripped her shoulders, then slid the length of her body to the slight swell of her hips, drawing her inexorably forward into his arms. She tried to struggle, to pull away, but his arms were steel bands imprisoning her.

'This morning was different,' she said wildly.

'Yet we are the same people. So, this morning would have been for pleasure, and tonight, for some reason best known to yourself, it has to be for duty.' His kiss was lingering, a calculated insult. 'So be it,
chérie
. The decision is yours.

He lifted her off her feet and strode with her to the bed. A sob of entreaty welled up in her throat but was stifled by his mouth on hers. She lay in his arms, shamed and helpless, every sense she possessed screaming a response to the cynical expertise with which his hands and lips were exploring her body.

'Name of God, Andrée,' he whispered at last, 'be a little merciful. Don't force me to take you like this.'

'You ask too much.' Her voice trembled. 'I'm only your wife, remember? I'm here out of duty, you said so yourself. If you want more, why don't you seek out Simone again? She seems only too willing to relent towards you.'

His face was diabolic for an instant, and she shrank instinctively, but he shook his head.

'No,
ma belle
, I shan't hit you. By morning you will have been punished enough, I think.'

Somewhere a long way off someone was screaming. For a dreadful moment she thought it was herself, and she was ashamed. Surely she could endure this—this loveless possession without uttering a sound. Did she want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her grovel?

Then she realised there was silence in the room, and that she was free. That the weight of his body no longer pinned hers to the bed. He was lying on his side, his head turned from her, listening intently. The screams came again, quavering and recognisable.

'Philippe!' she gasped, panic gripping her. Blaise was already on his feet, shrugging himself into a towelling dressing gown. He picked her robe up from the floor and tossed it to her. He had left the room before she had even huddled it round her.

The screams were ear-piercing as she flung herself into the tower. Madame Bresson was before them, bending over the bed, trying unavailingly to hush the child who was cowering at the end of his bed, his mouth an 'o' of pure terror. She turned as they entered.

'Oh, Monseigneur—Madame!'

'
Tais-toi
, Philippe.
Qu-as tu
?' Blaise strode to the bed and made to pick the child up. Philippe uttered another shriek and dived headlong on to the floor, landing at Andrea's feet. His arms went convulsively around her legs, and she almost overbalanced at the impact. His white tear-stained face stared imploringly up at her.

'La Cicatrice,' he wept. 'La Cicatrice has come for me. Oh, make him go away!'

'Hush, darling!' Andrea gently unclasped the clinging arms and knelt down beside him. 'I'm here. Nothing can hurt you. Have you been dreaming?' She smoothed the tousled hair back from his damp forehead.

'He was here,' Philippe insisted between hiccupping sobs. 'He came for me. There was nowhere for me to hide. He was going to kill me.'

'What nonsense is this?' Blaise walked forward restlessly, and Philippe let out another high-pitched wail.

'La Cicatrice!'

'My sweet, that is your Uncle Blaise who loves you and wants to take care of you.' Andrea spoke as soothingly as she knew how. 'Someone has been telling you a lot of silly stories, and you have got them jumbled in your poor head, that's all. And then you went to sleep and had a horrid dream. But it's gone now.'

Philippe buried his head in the silk of her robe. 'Make him go!' came his muffled entreaty.

Andrea looked up appealingly at Blaise. His face was icy with fury, a betraying muscle jerking in his cheek.

'Leave him with Clothilde,' he directed uncompromisingly, and reached down for her wrist. 'Come.'

'Leave Tante Andrée alone. You're a wicked man and she doesn't want to go with you.' Philippe's head jerked round and for a painful instant he buried small white teeth in his uncle's wrist.

'
Diable
!' Blaise snatched his hand away, grimly inspecting the row of bright red crescents in his flesh. Madame Bresson pressed her hand to her mouth in fascinated horror and Andrea waited dry-mouthed for the explosion of wrath to come.

But it did not come. Blaise's lips suddenly relaxed their grimness and a faint rueful smile appeared.

'You seem to have acquired a protector,
madame. Eh bien
, stay with him for a while, if you must, until he goes back to sleep, but don't keep me waiting too long. As for you,
monsieur mon neveu
, you and I will have a little talk in the morning, and you can tell me these—stories of yours. They interest me profoundly.'

As he disappeared down the stairs, Andrea felt Philippe draw a long ragged breath of relief.

'Let me take him,
madame
.' Madame Bresson, securely wrapped in a blue woollen garment, her hair in braids, bustled forward, her face full of concern. '
Pauvre petit
.'

Andrea shook her head. 'No, I'll stay with him for a while. You—you heard Monseigneur. As soon as he is asleep, I'll call you and perhaps you'll sit with him for a while in case he wakes again.'