Desperate Measures (34 page)

Authors: Sara Craven

BOOK: Desperate Measures

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Breakfast forgotten, she pushed back the bedclothes and swung her feet to the floor. Zak, she thought. I'll phone him at once. He'll be so thrilled. She grabbed up her robe and sped into the hall. The morning paper was lying beside the telephone, and as she grabbed the receiver it fell to the floor. Impatiently she bent to retrieve it. It had been folded to one of the inside pages, and Henri de Somerville-Resnais' face looked starchily out from the news column.

She knew what that meant immediately. She knelt to the floor and read the brief obituary. It spoke of his service to the government, and his military honours in Indo-China. It mentioned his widow, and the fact that he had died childless. It stated that his estates and personal fortune would now pass to a cousin.

Philippa replaced the paper gently on the table and stared sightlessly at the blank wall. There had been, she thought detachedly, so much it hadn't said. Like the grieving widow's plans to remarry. Was that where Alain had gone—to be with Marie-Laure? Was that why he would not be back until late? If so, it was frankly indecent.

Marie-Laure is free, and Gavin is cured, she thought. That cancels all obligations on both sides. That's what he's going to tell me tomorrow.

She got slowly to her feet. Suddenly she felt bitterly, frighteningly cold, and she tightened the sash of her robe with a shiver.

Well, perhaps she wasn't prepared to stand meekly by and wait to be given her marching orders. Maybe she didn't want to watch Marie-Laure step triumphantly into her shoes. To know that everyone was talking about her, pitying her, laughing at her. Oh, no, that was too much to expect.

She thought, I've got to get out. I can't stand it otherwise.

She wandered into the salon. Across the room, her father's painting of the bridge at Montascaux blazed in its sunlit glory. Every time she entered the room her eyes were drawn to it, and she found herself smiling at the memories it evoked.

She thought, I shall miss it, when I go...and paused, with a little gasp, as sudden excitement replaced the chill within her.

She needed somewhere to go. And Zak had told her she needed time on her own to paint. Well, that was what she would do. She would take the bare necessities from her wardrobe, and enough cash from Alain's overly generous allowance to subsist on, and she'd go back to Montascaux. She'd rent somewhere in the locality—the house in the clouds if it was available—and just paint, go for broke, see if she could make it, exactly as her father had done before her.

She swallowed. And perhaps, by the time Gavin was well enough to leave the clinic and come home, she

would have a roof to offer him, and a place where they could both work—get back on their feet again.

We'll share a studio, she thought. Just as we always planned.

Perhaps Gavin need never even know about Alain, she thought hopefully. That was a wound she would prefer to remain private.

Not for the first time, she wished she could drive. It would be so much easier to put a travelling bag and her painting things in a car, rather than tote them on a long and probably complicated train journey.

And she would have the painful satisfaction of knowing that it was she who had walked away from the marriage. Alain would not get the chance to dismiss her from his life, because she would be leaving first. And although he would undoubtedly be relieved that she'd taken matters into her own hands, she had little doubt that his pride would be dented just the same.

I'm glad, she thought savagely. I hope everyone laughs at him.

She took one last look at the picture, then turned away. She had to get dressed. She had plans to make.

Zak raised his eyebrows when she told him her decision.

'It's the right idea, honey, but I'm not sure about your motives,' he told her. 'Going away is one thing, running away is another.'

Philippa shrugged insouciantly in reply. 'Desperate situations call for desperate measures,' she countered. 'That's turning into my life's philosophy.'

'Oh, really?' He sent her a sceptical look. 'Well, don't forget your life drawing is also pretty desperate

and could use some work. Try and find yourself a model locally.' He swept her into a bear-like hug. 'And come back strong.'

Fabrice was waiting for her at the cafe. He rose as she approached the table, his face serious.

'Philippa, you have seen the morning paper?'

'Yes, I've seen it.' She sat down and he signalled the waiter to bring their coffee. 'Fabrice, I've something to tell you. I'm going away, very soon, down to the south-west. I'm planning to rent a house there and do some painting.'

He looked totally taken aback. 'You mean—you are leaving your husband?'

She shrugged. 'I'm going away to work. I need to be on my own.'

'No.' Fabrice leaned towards her, his face intense. 'You should not be alone. You are too young, too lovely for that. Philippa—cherie—not all men are as uncaring as Alain de Courcy. Let me prove it to you. I want to be with you—to love you.'

Philippa bit her lip, concealing her dismay. She supposed she should have seen this coming.

'No, Fabrice,' she said gently. 'It's quite impossible. I don't need—a relationship.'

'Not yet, perhaps, but there will come a time, and I can be patient.' He reached out and took her hand, stroking the palm gently with his thumb. 'Let me come with you, Philippa. Let me care for you and protect you. I won't make any demands of you, I swear. It will all be exactly as you want. I have some vacation I can take whenever I please. I could drive you to wherever you want to go, as soon as you wish. Tomorrow, if it pleases you.'

She stared at him. The offer was a tempting one, although fraught with difficulties. Fabrice undoubtedly thought that he wouldn't have to be patient for too long, and that it would only be a matter of time before isolation and proximity delivered her into his hand like a ripe plum. Well, he would soon discover his mistake.

And if she seriously wanted to hit back at Alain— damage his pride—what better way than this? There was a kind of poetic justice in letting him think she was leaving him for another man.

'You'd be very bored,' she said slowly. 'I intend to work, very seriously. I'm going to hire a model and...'

'But I could help,' he said eagerly. 'I can cook for us. I could even be your model. Why not?'

Philippa could think of any number of reasons, but she kept them to herself.

There would also be several advantages attached to leaving Paris with Fabrice. If she took a train, Alain would be able to trace her, and she didn't want that. She wanted to vanish from his life at least temporarily, leaving just a note to say that her lawyers would eventually be contacting him about the divorce. She didn't want any recriminations, or any pressure on her to stay and act as camouflage until Marie-Laure could be considered officially out of mourning. Not that he could pressure her any more—not now that Gavin was almost cured. But he could try and persuade her...

A small shiver tingled down her spine. She could not bear that. She needed to get away, and soon. And she could handle Fabrice, couldn't she?

She looked at him across the table, and smiled. 'Tomorrow,' she said, 'would suit me very well. As early as you can make it.'

The die, she thought, was cast.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The rain began just south of Perigueux. Watching it lash relentlessly against the windscreen, Philippa thought it matched her mood almost ideally.

She stole a sidelong look at her companion. He was on edge too, she'd noticed, using the rear-view mirror with almost paranoid intensity. Perhaps he was beginning to think eloping with the wife of Alain de Courcy wasn't the most sensible thing he'd ever done in his life, she thought with wry sympathy. If so, he might not mind too much when she told him, as she would have to, that there was no place for him in her life, even on a temporary basis.

All the way from Paris, she had tried hard to justify her use of Fabrice on the grounds that she might, one day in the far distant future, fall in love with him. But she knew that it would never happen. She belonged to Alain and she always would do, even though he didn't want her.

What a mess it all is! she thought, watching the rain with weary distaste.

But she had to admit that her escape had gone without a hitch. Fabrice had been a tower of strength. While she'd dashed around buying the painting equipment she needed, he had telephoned Madame Bethune in Montascaux to ascertain on Philippa's behalf if the house in the clouds was available for letting. Madame Bethune had remembered Mademoiselle Roscoe with the greatest pleasure, and

had assured him the house could be hers for at least two months.

With her painting gear safely stowed in Fabrice's car, all Philippa had to concern herself with was a small travelling bag. She'd packed jeans, shirts, a couple of warm sweaters, some light canvas shoes, and her toilet things. Not one item had come from her trousseau—she'd made sure of that. She'd left her wedding pearls, her engagement ring and every other piece of jewellery Alain had given her, along with a brief note stating baldly that she was going away with another man—well, it was almost the truth, she thought defensively—and asking him not to look for her.

She had, however, retained her wedding ring, slipping it into the purse section of her wallet. It was foolish, she knew, but she needed something to keep— to remember always.

More practically, she had drawn enough money from her account to keep her, with a certain amount of austerity, for the next two months.

After that she would have to become self-sufficient. There was always a market among the tourists who flocked to the south-west of France for original paintings of local views, and she would try to exploit that, she told herself optimistically.

Her departure from the apartment, not long after dawn that morning, had been magically simple, aided by the fact that Alain, once again, had not spent the night at home.

Trying to subdue the pain of that by telling herself she should be grateful, Philippa had dealt noiselessly with locks, bolts and the security system, and sped to where Fabrice was waiting with the car.

She had wondered what she would do if he'd started being amorous on the journey, but she needn't have worried. He had been surprisingly subdued, even distrait. He was obviously far more concerned about being followed than playing the lover, and she had to be thankful for that. All the same, she wished his behaviour was rather less agitated.

'Do calm down,' she said, half amused, half irritated as he cast yet another glance rearwards. 'There's no one after us. My guess is that, if Alain's going to bother to look for me, he'll think I'm on my way back to England, and check the Channel ports.'

'How can we tell what he will do?' Fabrice muttered. He sounded sulky and a bit scared, and totally lacking in the boyish charm he had exhibited in Paris. Will the real Fabrice de Thiery please stand up, Philippa thought ruefully.

She had wanted to stop for a meal, but he'd insisted that instead they buy some bread, pate, and cheese from an alimentation and hold a hasty picnic on a roadside verge.

But she couldn't complain about his driving. Maybe it was fear that had kept his foot down on the accelerator, but they had made very good time, and would arrive at Montascaux before it was dark. Madame Bethune had promised to leave a supply of provisions at the house, and if Fabrice could calm his nerves sufficiently, he could demonstrate his prowess as a chef, Philippa thought drily.

She was accustomed to Montascaux bathed in sunshine as her father had painted it. It was odd to find the familiar streets almost deserted under grey skies, and the rain falling harder than ever.

They crossed the bridge and turned the car off the narrow road up the steep and winding track which led to the house.

Philippa's heart lifted excitedly as she leaned forward, waiting for the familiar outline of the building to come into view. It was like coming home, she thought.

It was a simple house, built with the typically steeply sloping tiled roof of the region, and with a pigeonnier attached. It was the unconverted upper storey of the pigeonnier that Gavin had used as a studio, and she herself would work in.

'Stay here,' Fabrice instructed tersely as he brought the car to a halt in front of the house. 'I will take in the baggage.'

It took two trips, and Philippa sat watching guiltily as Fabrice struggled through the downpour. When he returned he brought an umbrella.

'Use this.' He handed it to her. 'I will put the car in the barn at the back.'

She heard the engine start as she ran headlong for the house. She almost threw herself through the open door into the only living-room. The range had been lit, giving off a cheerful glow, and there was an appetising aroma coming from the stove, where one of Madame Bethune's cassoulets must be cooking slowly.

Philippa gave a little sigh of relief as she glanced round, closing her dripping umbrella. Nothing had really changed, she thought, recognising with pleasure the old-fashioned dresser with its blue and white china, and the big central table covered in oilcloth.

She put the umbrella in the sink, dropped her shoulder-bag on to the table, and started towards the

narrow wooden stairs with her travel bag. Two bedrooms and a tiny bathroom had been built into the high-raftered roof space. She opened the door of the larger bedroom and shouldered her way in. The massive bed had been made up in readiness by Madame Bethune, topped by a snowy drift of duvet.

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