Loves Choices

‘Hope.’ The sound of her name penetrated the thick mists. She opened her eyes—she was in Alexei’s arms, her face resting against the curve of his throat.

‘You hurt me.’ She said it sorrowfully, as though she were still a child, wondering at the way he tensed, and then the sleeping pill he had given her did its work and she was sucked back down into the blackness, unaware that when he returned her to the bed, it was to Alexei that she turned, curling into his body in an instinctive search for comfort, or that he watched her long after she had fallen asleep, something very like pain darkening his eyes. It wasn’t his way to deviate from any path he had decided upon. Tanya’s suicide had to be avenged and this was undoubtedly the best way.

Muttering something under his breath he looked down at the silver head pillowed against him, tear tracks faintly discernible on the pale skin.

Hope opened her eyes, awareness immediately flooding over her, her movements jerky as she turned her head, relief invading her tense body as she saw that she was alone. Shakily she threw back the bedclothes, moving gingerly towards the edge of the bed. She had a dim memory of getting out of bed last night after … She frowned, checking as she fought to remember exactly what had happened, her eyes widening as tiny scraps of memory floated to the surface of her consciousness.

‘Ah, you’re awake.’

She froze as the door opened and Alexei walked in, tall and lithe in a cotton shirt and jeans. ‘Breakfast,’ he told her, indicating the tray he was carrying. When she averted her face he put the tray down on a small table and she felt the bed depress as he came and sat beside her.

‘There’s no point in sulking, Hope,’ he told her, not unkindly. ‘It won’t always be as it was last night. What you suffered was no worse than you would have endured at the hands of Montrachet, probably less, although you probably can’t believe that now.’

‘Except that he would have married me,’ Hope pointed out, ignoring the last part of his sentence. How could he talk so calmly about what had happened between them? The invasion of her privacy as much as the violation of her body had shocked her. She couldn’t accept the unwanted intimacy of their situation; she couldn’t endure knowing that this man had not only possessed her body, but also seemed to know, to the last degree, her every feeling and emotion. She felt as though there was nothing left she could call her own, no corner of her soul in which she could hide from him, and the knowledge frightened her.

‘Hope.’ His hands grasped her shoulders, and he frowned when she tensed, obviously guessing one of the causes of her concern when he saw the sunlight dance on the exposed curve of her shoulder. He got up and walked over to the dressing room, returning with a flimsy, silky robe. ‘Sit up and turn round,’ he told her, sitting on the bed behind her, and sliding the robe over her arms when she reluctantly did as he instructed.

‘Now,’ he said, when he had firmly tied a bow in the ribbons that secured the front. ‘Try to understand,’ he said slowly. ‘In the eyes of people whose opinion your intelligence tells you matter, the fact that we have been lovers will mean nothing. They will judge you as the person you are, Hope. Your virginity or lack of it matters only to your father because he regards you as a commodity, as something he can sell,’ he told her brutally. ‘Women don’t barter innocence for marriage these days, little one. Strange though you may find it now … one day you will perhaps thank me for this.’

‘Don’t lie to me.’ Angrily, Hope pushed him away. ‘You told me yourself last night that my father made your sister his mistress, that he wouldn’t marry her …’

‘He wouldn’t marry her because of her lack of wealth, not her lack of virtue,’ she was told grimly. ‘And it was not because my sister chose to give herself to your father that I have brought you here, but because of his treatment of her once she had. Now, I suggest you have your breakfast and then get dressed.’

‘What in?’ Hope demanded childishly. ‘I don’t have anything in scarlet …’ He laughed, further infuriating her, seeming more amused than annoyed by her comment, saying wickedly:

‘Even dressed in the garments of a putain, you would still look exactly what you are, mon petit—an innocent bearing the outward and inward bruises of her ravishment.’

‘When do we leave for the Caribbean?’ Hope asked him, trying to subdue the high colour his words brought storming to her face.

‘When you have ceased to look like a ravished child and have become a woman.’

‘That will never be,’ Hope promised him rashly, hating him when he laughed again, curling a strand of her hair round his finger until she jerked away.

‘Au contraire, ma jolie,’ he mocked her. ‘I would hazard a guess it will be sooner than you think–much sooner.’ He leaned forward, his fingers sliding along her throat to her jaw, holding her prisoner while he stroked his tongue against her lips and then kissed her, withdrawing to study her flushed cheeks and tumbled hair with a thoughtful expression. Just for a moment, Hope thought that he would touch her again, but to her relief he made no move to do so, simply saying, ‘Now, I have to go and inspect the vineyards. You are at liberty to explore the house and inner courtyard, but I’m afraid you cannot wander any further. The drawbridge will remain up, and remember Pierre cannot help you. Take my advice and accept the inevitable, Hope,’ he finished quietly. ‘There is no shame in finding pleasure in the sexuality of your body, you know, despite what the Sisters may have taught you.’

‘How can I find pleasure, as you call it, when I hate you,’ Hope flung at him, watching the smile crease his skin, tiny lines fanning outwards from his eyes.

‘You will see,’ he promised softly, heading for the door. ‘Eat your breakfast. I shall see you tonight.’

He was gone before she could think of a suitably cutting retort, leaving her alone with her thoughts. What a complex man he was, one side of his nature passionately Russian, thirsting for the revenge his pride demanded and determined to have it no matter what the cost to anyone else, and yet there was another side to him almost completely opposite, and that had been the side she had experienced this morning. But she wasn’t going to make the mistake of underestimating either, Hope decided with a shiver. She couldn’t escape, he had told her, but even if she could it was too late, if what he had said about her father’s plans was true, and somehow she sensed it was. He would do with her what he had said and nothing would swerve him from his purpose, but one day he would no longer have any use for her, there was nothing to hold them together, no emotion on either side bar his thirst for revenge, and once that was satisfied …

Hope’s skin chilled and goose-fleshed, and she shivered, struggling to come to terms with what had happened and what her life would now be. Life in the convent had been ordered and peaceful, not requiring any effort upon her part other than obedience, but she wasn’t a child any longer and somehow she was going to have to find a way to make her own life. Alexei’s plans for her were something she would have to endure until she could escape from him, but once she did … gnawing her bottom lip, she wondered what was going to become of her, jolted out of the passive acceptance that had become second nature to her. She would have to find a job; thousands of other girls her age survived on their own. Thousands of other girls had affairs with men outside marriage; thousands of girls learned to cope as she was going to have to learn, and feeling sorry for herself would achieve nothing.

Her coffee was cold by the time she had washed and dressed. She found the kitchen eventually, and saw Pierre standing over the sink peeling some potatoes. He raised his head warily and Hope guessed that Alexei had warned him about her. A coffee percolator stood on a table next to the sink and she picked it up miming a pouring action. Nodding his head, he took it from her and Hope watched him fill it with fresh coffee and water. While it was perking, he opened the fridge door and indicated the contents. Guessing that he thought she might want some breakfast, Hope shook her head, unable to face the thought of food, although the hot strong coffee was blissfully reviving.

When she had finished it she went outside into the courtyard, and walked aimlessly around it. Stables bordered it on one side, but the stalls were empty. When she peered over the wall Hope saw the water of the moat glistening below, some ducks diving for food. It was warm enough for her to be tempted to sit in the sun, but she felt too restless, too keyed up to relax.

Unwillingly, she returned to the château, wandering from room to room, studying the portrait of Tanya for several minutes before going into the library and searching the shelves for something to read.

Eventually, she picked out a volume of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, something she had not read, hoping she could lose herself and her fears inside its pages.

At one o’clock, Pierre brought her some lunch—a light, fluffy omelette and a pot of fresh coffee with some fruit to eat afterwards. The smell of the omelette made her realise that she was hungry, and when she took a forkful, she found that it tasted as delicious as it looked. When she returned the tray to the kitchen, Pierre eyed the clean plate with a glimmer of approval.

Hope read well into the afternoon, tension curling through her body as the afternoon wore on until she was no longer able to deceive herself that the novel was holding her attention. Closing it, she wandered to the window, looking out on to the lake. The ducks were diving industriously in the pale green water, and suddenly restless she went to the kitchen looking for some bread to feed them, thinking the activity might distract her mind, if only momentarily.

There was no sign of Pierre, but she found a loaf and cut off a small chunk, going outside and walking through the courtyard until she came to the small gap in the wall she had noticed that morning, leaning out from it so that she was directly over the water, breaking the bread into crumbs and calling to the ducks. For several minutes their antics amused her, the inept attempts of the small ducklings to get their share making her smile.

The heavy sound of wood and moving machinery drew her attention, and frowning, she turned, just in time to see Alexei’s car drive into the courtyard. He climbed out, hesitating when he saw her, calling her name sharply, his forehead creased in what looked like anger.

Automatically, Hope panicked, retreating into the embrasure as he strode towards her, shrinking away instinctively, not realising how tenuous her foothold was until her shoe slipped and she overbalanced, the water of the moat rushing up to meet her, engulfing her, silencing her choking cry as her mouth and nose filled with the cold water. She could swim, but the shock of falling made her panic and struggle instinctively as she felt something clasp her arm, Alexei’s angry features swimming in front of her eyes.

Later, she remembered thinking in a confused way that Alexei was trying to drown her, before she realised that that couldn’t be true. He couldn’t flaunt her in front of her father if he drowned her, but at the time the thought made her fight against his constraining arms, consciousness ebbing and flowing until she was suddenly aware of sun-warmed stone beneath her body, and the cold darkness of wet clothes. Alexei was standing over her, water dripping from his lean body, his mouth a grim line that made her shudder.

He muttered something in Russian as he bent to pick her up, and Hope realised that Pierre was standing beside him. Alexei must have indicated something to him, she realised, because the other man hurried into the house.

‘Mon Dieu!’ Alexei swore as he carried Hope inside. ‘Is that how your mind works, you little fool—death before dishonour?’

Hope struggled to tell him that her fall had been an accident, that his sudden grim-faced appearance had frightened her, but the words wouldn’t come.

‘This is the second occasion on which I have had to bathe you, mon petit,’ she heard him say seconds later as he set her on her feet in the bathroom. ‘I confess the role of nursemaid is not entirely an unappealing one, although on this occasion …’ Hope shivered as full consciousness returned and she realised how easily she could have been drowned.

‘I didn’t jump.’ Alexei had his back to her, his wet jeans clinging to his body as he bent over the bath running the water. She bit her lip—now what had made her say that? A desire to show him that she wasn’t quite the weak, childish fool he had thought her? ‘It was an accident,’ she added huskily. ‘I was feeding the ducks, you startled me and …’

‘And you fell into the moat rather than endure my company?’ he offered grimly. ‘God, you are such a child … determined to cast me in the role of villain. Has it not occurred to you yet that once you are free of me you may choose what to do with your life, Hope, instead of having someone else’s will imposed upon you—and do not make any mistake, as the bride of Montrachet you would have no choice. Have you no ambitions? No desires of your own? Nothing you want from life?’ His voice was edged with impatience, and he gave a muffled curse before straightening up and looking at her. ‘You are a person, Hope, a reasoning, intelligent human being. Can you honestly tell me that you would be happy with the life Montrachet would offer you?’

He sighed, suddenly looking tired, and Hope reflected wryly that it must have been a shock to him when she fell–her death would have deprived him of any chance of obtaining his revenge. No wonder he had fought so strongly to save her.

‘Get out of those wet things,’ he instructed curtly. ‘Pierre is making you a tisane. I thought we’d dine out tonight, but perhaps in the circumstances …’ He looked at her doubtfully, but Hope seized on his words as though they were a life-line. Dining out would be infinitely preferable to remaining here alone with him, dreading the time when she must eventually go to bed.

‘No … please, I should like to go out.’

Alexei studied her for a moment, shrugged and then glanced distastefully at the jeans plastered to his legs. Against her will Hope’s glance followed his, the taut pull of the fabric against the hard muscles mesmerising her.

‘Get in the bath, Hope,’ she heard him say in a suddenly hard voice, ‘and don’t stay there too long—I might be tempted to join you, and something tells me you’re far from ready for water sports—yet.’

Her face flaming, Hope glanced mutely at the door, shivering under the impact of raw sensuality she caught behind the words. For a moment she thought he meant to stay, but after a glance at the water, he moved towards the door saying wryly, ‘I doubt that it’s deep enough for you to drown in, but I’ll be back in ten minutes to check—so I wouldn’t linger if I were you, unless you want me to join you?’

When he came back, dressed in a brief towelling robe, rubbing his damp hair, Hope was seated in one of the chairs, wrapped in a towel, drinking the tisane Pierre had brought. There was coffee on the tray as well, and Alexei poured himself a cup as he watched her. Watching him, Hope felt a strange tendril of sensation curl upwards from her stomach; a curling, hesitant feeling that made her pulses race and heat flood her body, the sensation so unexpected she replaced her cup and stared sightlessly in front of her.

‘Hope? Hope, are you all right?’ Alexei’s voice, sharp with impatience, cut through her thoughts. She looked up, her eyes skimming the length of his legs, darkly tanned and sprinkled with dark hairs. She had an inexplicable desire to reach out and touch him, to discover if the dark hair felt as rough to her fingertips as it had against her thighs last night. Hard on the heels of the desire came realisation of what she was thinking, her breath expelled on a stifled gasp, her fingers whitening as they tensed on the cup. She forced herself to look into Alexei’s face to see if he was aware of her reaction. He was looking down at her through half-closed eyes, smiling faintly, and Hope’s skin burned painfully.

‘Poor little one,’ he said softly. ‘It is all very confusing and painful, hmm? But it will not always be so. Drink your tisane and then try and rest for an hour.’ He saw her glance at the bed and sighed, removing the cup from her tense fingers. ‘What an ogre you make me feel, child, but there is no need to look at the bed as though it is a place of torture. Can you not try to believe me when I assure you that one day not too far distant you will find it a place of considerable pleasure.’ He was laughing at her, Hope was sure of it, and all at once the emotions she had held at bay rioted angrily through her, all the years of convent training overwhelmed in a flash-flood of rage that would have reminded her father of his mother, a red-headed McDonald from the Islands whose temper matched her hair.

Hope’s grey eyes as stormy as gale-blown skies, she turned her face to her tormentor, a high flush of colour burning along her cheekbones. ‘I will never find any pleasure with you,’ she hurled at him, held fast in the grip of a fury that made her long to rake her fingernails along the smooth brown skin to draw blood, anything to make that cool, knowing smile disappear. ‘You think you know everything,’ she panted. ‘But you don’t. Whatever you do to me, whatever response you get from my body, my mind will always hate you. You talk about my father using me as a commodity, but that’s just what you’re doing.’

‘You’re becoming hysterical,’ he told her coldly. ‘If you don’t stop this tantrum right now I’ll …’

‘Slap my face?’ she taunted bitterly, eyes glittering with rage and pain.

Alexei shook his head, the anger suddenly leaving him, a smile curving his mouth. ‘No, it would be a different part of your anatomy to which I would apply the weight of my hand, mon petit, but of course I would always be willing to kiss it better—if you asked me.’ Her shocked eyes told him that he had won the battle, and Hope was left to acknowledge painfully that in any war against him he would always have the advantage. She put her hands to her burning face, her skin still betraying her shocked reaction to his teasing comment, and the glinting amusement in his eyes when he made it. He was a devil, a cold, hateful devil, and she loathed him!

‘Are you sure you want to go out for dinner?’ Alexei was standing in the dressing room door, fastening gold links in the cuffs of his white shirt. Hope nodded her head. She was already dressed, and had just finished applying her make-up. Alexei’s shirt was unbuttoned to the waist, and Hope was sure he knew how much the sight of his naked chest alarmed her. Again she felt that same wrenching sensation in her stomach. Alexei was buttoning up his shirt, tucking the tails into his trousers with a carelessness that said more loudly than any words that he did not find it strange that someone else should witness such intimacies.

Some of her feelings must have shown in her face because he paused in the act of fastening his shirt to eye her thoughtfully, before abandoning his task to stroll across the room. He stood behind her, and Hope shivered when he picked up her hairbrush, startled grey eyes meeting unreadable green ones in the mirror as he drew the brush smoothly through her hair, repeating the movement until Hope felt herself relax beneath the soothing strokes.

‘I appreciate that what has happened to you has come as a shock, ma jolie.’ In the mirror the green eyes still held her own and even though she wanted to look away, Hope found it impossible to break the contact. ‘But you are an intelligent child, who must realise by now that I mean what I say. That being the case, there is nothing to be gained from pointless defiance—you will hurt yourself far more than you will hurt me. Try to look upon this as another period of learning, after which you will be free to make your own life.’

‘Free to be some other man’s plaything,’ Hope stormed back at him. ‘The things I shall learn from you are things I should only have learned from my husband.’ Tears quivered on her eyelashes, a feeling of complete desolation surging over her as she remembered the Sisters’ stern warnings about the fate of girls who were foolish enough to ‘misbehave’. And now this man who had calmly taken her away from the sanctuary of the convent was equally calmly telling her that what he had done would benefit her.

‘You’re exaggerating like a child,’ he told her coolly. ‘Life is not all black and white, there are many, many shades of grey, and the days are long gone when a young woman assessed her value in terms of her virginity. In fact, you demean yourself by doing so. In the modern world a woman is assessed as she assesses herself, physical beauty without intelligence, compassion and humour is nothing. No one will judge you unfavourably because you’ve been my mistress, Hope. It’s only in your own juvenile imagination that “fallen women” exist.’

‘If that was true you wouldn’t be planning to get back at my father the way you are doing,’ Hope told him scornfully. Did he think she was completely without intelligence?

The brushing stopped. He bent down until his head was level with her own, grasping her chin and turning her to face him. ‘My dear child.’ His voice was dangerously cool. ‘Your father is far too much a man of the world to give a damn about your virginity, other than as a saleable commodity.’

‘I hate you,’ Hope told him pathetically, wishing she had the conviction to deny his allegation. ‘I can’t understand how the Reverend Mother allowed me to leave with you.’

‘Quite simple. I forged your father’s signature, and anyway, the Sisters were growing concerned about you. They were too relieved to discover that, after all, your father was not the uncaring parent they had believed to question my authority too deeply. And by the way,’ he added, reading her mind with an ease that shocked her, ‘don’t even think about trying to run away. I have your passport and I intend to keep it. You have no money, no friends here, and this part of France is still feudal in many ways. My family have been here for centuries, the same tenants living always on the land. Unless you give me your word that you will not try to escape, I shall let it be known that you are suffering with a mental disorder which makes you think you are the victim of a kidnap plot …’

He was still watching her, and Hope knew with a sickening sense of certainty that he meant every word he said. Dear God, how she longed to be able to do something …anything to break through that implacable mask, to hurt and destroy him as he had done her.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said bitterly, ‘I don’t want to go out to dinner after all.’ She turned away, refusing to look at him although she was aware that he was standing up and then walking towards the dressing room.

‘Very well,’ he said from the door. ‘I shall instruct Pierre to prepare something for you.’ He went on fastening his shirt, and it was several seconds before the implications of his words sank in. He would still be dining out, she would be eating alone. Hard on the heels of the knowledge came a sense of … disappointment? No, simply one of anticlimax, Hope assured herself, anticlimax because her opponent had removed himself from the ring. The action of someone who knows he cannot win, she told herself, but somehow the thought was not convincing. If ever a man knew exactly how to win, it was Alexei.

Pierre brought her meal into the library, placing the tray on a small table in front of the fire. It was some kind of casserole, and Hope saw that he had also opened a bottle of wine and set the tray with a glass. The wine bore the crest of an eagle and Alexei’s name and she sipped it cautiously. Although they had been taught to recognise all the great vintages, and how to select the correct wine to serve with a meal, Hope had seldom tasted any.

The liquid she had poured into her glass was pale gold, sharp and clean to the palate, bringing out the flavour of the chicken in its delicate sauce. The world, which had seemed a grey hopeless place when she first came down to the library, suddenly seemed less oppressive. In fact, she could well understand why people drank, Hope decided owlishly as she poured herself a second glass.