The Seduction Trap (13 page)

‘I will,’ she muttered angrily.

He sighed. ‘Look, I can see you’re determined, but don’t decide anything yet. Don’t put anything up for sale. Come to the chateau for drinks at six the day after tomorrow. I’ll have something by then that may make you change your mind. Do this as a favour. You owe me one, after ruining my jacket,’ he added drily.

He’d taken the bait! She managed to look doubtful. ‘I can’t see any point. I won’t sell to you. My mother wouldn’t like it.’

‘She left you with serious problems. You’re in financial trouble. I’m sure she’d understand if you felt driven to do so. Wouldn’t it be easier, since you know so little about the property market,’ he said logically, ‘to let me buy the place and give you immediate cash in hand this week-to play around with?’

Concealing a leap of glee, Tessa solemnly drew the shape of a house in the dust at her feet, adding a large stick woman on one side and a small man on the other. ‘We could talk about it,’ she conceded, looking forward to playing him along, and, she had to admit, to visiting him in the chateau. It was a pity she liked being with him so much. They wouldn’t be on speaking terms when she’d finished with him. A wash of sadness crept unexpectedly through her body and she found it hard to pull herself together. ‘OK. But I’m promising nothing!’

He stepped carefully over the dust house and deliberately stood on top of the female figure. She met his twinkling eyes and had to acknowledge an overwhelming sense of regret that they couldn’t be friends.

‘I have every confidence that you’ll see sense,’ he said arrogantly. ‘Bring proof of ownership. Though I’d advise you to reconsider your hare-brained idea of renovating the other two properties. It’s just not feasible!’

Chuckling to himself, he strolled out of the garden. Annoyed by his put-down, Tessa rose to his challenge, determined to prove him wrong and to force him to respect her capabilities more. When she’d picked his brains about selling properties, she’d refuse his offer and try for a better price on the open market. He was bound to bid below the market value. Back at the bakery, she pulled the furniture away from the walls and made a preliminary survey. The surface needed wire-brushing to clean up the mould and fungus, drying out ... perhaps with dehumidifiers ... then repointing. She’d already seen where the damp had come in, and would repoint the walls outside and fill the gaps around the windows.

Upstairs, some of the massive chestnut rafters would need replacing-she’d need help for that. The wooden furniture was sound and would be vastly improved by a coat of cottagey-green paint. Maybe some flower stencils .. . Enthused, she made lists, wandering from room to room, spotting eyesores and features. The kitchen ought to be reorganised so that a larger sink and draining-board could be installed, and she’d rip out the ghastly lino, tear off the wallpaper on the beautiful panelled larder door.. . Her eyes shone. The Old Bakery was big. It had four bedrooms and could easily sleep eight. If she got a good price for Oven Cottage and lived like a pauper for a

while, she might end up with something of real value after six months or so.

It was feasible. Of course, she’d need to find out how long she could legally stay in France, but if that was a problem then she’d go home whenever her time ran out and then come back again.

‘I can do it!’ she exulted, and sat down to list the tools she’d need-and how much she dared to risk spending before the cottage was sold.

Renovating the cottages was now the most important thing on her agenda. It would prove something to herself-and to Guy, and the villagers. Perhaps they’d admire her in the end for her tenacity. And she’d make friends eventually-of that she was sure.

That night, she imagined how impressed Guy would be. She imagined him looking around each cottage, exclaiming over her taste, her skill, her resourcefulness. She wanted him to think well of her, she thought wistfully, and she fell asleep smiling.

After a day in town spent changing traveller’s cheques, ordering goods-with difficulty-and arranging for them to be delivered, Tessa decided it was about time she explored the village.

The pattern of streets began to make sense. However much they twisted or narrowed, they all led to one of four stone arches in the walls, to the north, south, east and west. And immediately beyond the arches lay countryside. The sudden contrast between houses and open fields was quite startling. It was as though all building had ceased within the medieval walls centuries ago and not a stick or stone had been allowed to

extend the village from that time on.

It felt rather spooky, and Tessa turned from the silent field at the north, where two sleek horses dreamed shoulder-high in kingcups, and made her way back to the square. A while ago she’d spotted a tiny chapel by a little bridge, where irises bloomed by the slow stream and grey willows draped into the water, filling the air with willow fluff. A wooden gate led her into the surrounding graveyard and she wandered around it for a while, charmed by the individual plaques on the graves. ‘From a friend’. ‘Regrets’. ‘To our aunt’. ‘My dearest love. ..’ Even she could translate those! Smiling gently, she went into the chapel and stood for a moment in the centre of the bare, empty building, absorbing the utter peace, feeling it flooding through her.

‘Do you mind if I come in?’

Calm and relaxed and very sure of herself now, she turned amiably at Guy’s soft request and shook her head. ‘Of course not. It’s probably your chapel anyway.’

‘God’s, I think,’ he said, and lifted his strong head, breathing in the coolness, the serenity. ‘Healing, isn’t it?’

‘Very.’ But the atmosphere had changed, the silence now stretching tautly between them. ‘How old is it?’ she asked, to break that silence.

‘It was built on the orders of Richard the Lionheart,’ he said, his expression openly revealing the pride he felt for the simple building.

She laughed in surprise. ‘I thought he dashed about on crusades! What did he have to do with the Dordogne?’

‘It was owned by the English crown at that time Richard’s mother Eleanor came from Aquitaine, and huge areas of France formed part of her dowry. Richard built this chapel as a penance.’ He touched the whitewashed wall with reverential fingers.

Tessa felt deeply moved. Turaine was in Guy’s blood, in his flesh and bones, bred into him by hundreds of years of care and nurture-perhaps battles, sieges, celebrations ... Of course he would fight to the bitter end to preserve what was his. How could she expect him to do otherwise?

Yet the cottages had been freely given to her mother, and the gift had been quite legal. She accepted that Guy and his mother had been hurt, but he had almost a whole village under his care. She, Tessa, needed the three properties he coveted to provide a living.

This village, this chapel could become familiar to her in time. She smiled, liking that idea. Then she remembered what Guy had said about a penance.

‘What had King Richard done wrong?’ she asked dreamily. ‘Not Richard,’ he answered, smiling at her. ‘His father had ordered Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to be murdered.’

‘Yes, in Canterbury Cathedral. I remember.’ Her brows angled together. ‘But why build a chapel here because of that?’

‘Becket was the governor of Cahors, not far to the south,’ Guy explained carefully. ‘Richard knew that if his men were to live in this region in peace-and if they

wanted to be supplied with food and the necessities of life-he would need to make a public apology for the wrong his father did. You understand?’

She did. His expression made it clear enough. If she wanted to stay and be accepted by the villagers, she would need to show that she abhorred her mother’s behaviour.

But that would mean accepting the rumours as fact something she shrank from admitting.

‘Perfectly. You think I should build a chapel.’ He grinned. ‘I don’t think you need go that far.’

‘What do you suggest? A corner shop?’

He ignored her facetiousness. ‘Make sure the cottages are returned to their rightful owner,’ he said quietly. Tessa moved to the low arched door without comment.

It seemed so black and white when he put it like that. Outside, she stood in front of a grave, seeing nothing.

‘Shall I translate?’ he murmured, close to her shoulder.

‘Yes! Please!’ she said hastily, pretending to be frowning at the lengthy inscription in front of her and not at her rather bleak outlook.

‘Charles de Turaine. One of my ancestors. Born two hundred years ago, as you see. Officer of the Legion d’Honneur, fought campaigns in Spain, Portugal, Leipzig, a prisoner in Mexico-’ He gave a small laugh at her surprised expression. ‘My family gets around. Where was I? Yes ... attached to the secret service, retreated to the peace of rural life and died happily in his bed.

‘A man with good fortune on his side,’ she said with a little sigh, wishing some would rub off on her. What powerful people lurked in his background! It made her understand his innate arrogance a little better. ‘I think it ran out with my father.’

She turned at the low, unhappy remark, sad to see Guy’s brooding face. ‘Was it an awful shock when he fell in love with my mother?’ she asked gently. ‘Were you and he very close?’

‘We did everything together.’

Her hand touched his bare arm lightly, a gesture of sympathy. ‘I am sorry.’

‘I lost my father and –my friend.’

Guy moved on a little stiltedly and stopped at another grave. She realised that there was a row of them-all de Turaines, she surmised because each one blazed with deep containers of fresh roses, irises, peonies and orangeblossom. ‘Who does this?’ she asked, pointing to the flowers. ‘The chapel committee. The baker’s wife, the basket-weaver, a farmer, the electrician,’ he answered with evident affection. ‘Fresh flowers every week-or sooner, if they wither. Except. ..’ Tessa followed the direction of his brooding gaze. At the end of the line was a grave without a headstone. ‘Your father.’ Guy nodded, seemingly unwilling to go near it. ‘Everyone thinks he betrayed the village?’ she ventured. ‘But should he have stayed with your mother and lived out a lie? Pretended that he hadn’t fallen in love?’

‘I told you, it was the way he crawled after your mother without a thought for the feelings of others or the welfare of Turaine that made us bitter,’ he growled.

‘You... met my mother. You saw her...’ Tessa desperately wanted to understand what fatal attraction had been woven around a man who’d had everything: a wife, a child, riches, the devotion of a whole village... ‘Tell me about her. About how you know where she came from. Because you suspected something when you heard I’d come from Saltash, didn’t you?’ Harsh-featured as he dwelt on the past, he leaned against the warm stone of the little chapel and stared unseeingly across the small compound where the white clusters of elderflowers hung low over the enclosing wall.

‘I guessed who you were, yes. The likeness is strong. Your mother is, without a doubt, beautiful. Captivating, with a gurgling laugh and dancing eyes. Sexy. I felt the pull of her sensuality the first time I saw her. Father tried to explain to me

how helpless he was, how

his brain melted when she was around, but I didn’t want to hear that. We rowed. God! How we rowed! He told me a little about her-that she’d come from a poor background and had felt trapped in her marriage, that her husband didn’t understand anything about women’s emotions and she’d run away because she felt terrified at being a mother when she hadn’t even lived.’ A great sadness swept over Tessa. ‘She married too young,’ she mused, watching a black-and yellow-striped butterfly that had settled on Guy’s shoulder. ‘If only she’d spread her wings and enjoyed life first,’ she sighed as the butterfly flew away, ‘there wouldn’t have been all this trouble.’

Guy’s eyes locked with hers, drawing her in. ‘You wouldn’t have been born.’

A little breathlessly, she said, ‘No. But it’s useless to mourn the past, isn’t it? We have to deal with the present.,

‘But the past overshadows it,’ he muttered. ‘Because of your mother, my father ignored and abandoned his wife and only son. He made us outcasts in our own village. I spent half my life in exile, Tessa, denied my heritage, scrabbling for a living. Those memories will be with me for the rest of my life and the wounds they’ve left won’t heal easily. When an injustice happens in your life, you rage against it because you feel impotent. And you have to take some kind of action to stop it destroying you.’

Her heart gave a little bump of apprehension. Guy’s sense of injustice had burned for too long to be put aside. He’d want to think he had put things right. It was up to her to persuade him that he didn’t have to steamroller her in the process. ‘What did your mother do? How did she fend for herself?’ she asked helplessly.

‘She didn’t. We went to live with her married sister in New Orleans. Mother took a typing course but wasn’t much good. Like you, I became the breadwinner as soon as I could. She died six years ago.’

‘And?’ she prompted.

‘Why are you interested?’ he asked, his eyes narrowed. Everything about him interested her. Her need to know it all-how he had felt in a strange country, deprived of his home, his father, his wealth-overcame her caution, but she dressed up her burning curiosity a little. ‘Maybe if I know more about you, it will make a difference.’

‘To what?’ he asked warily.

She alighted on an answer he might accept. ‘To my plans,’ she said, and she worried that this might be true-that he’d fill her with guilt then make her change her mind and betray her mother’s explicit request.