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‘Beggars and women who can’t speak French can’t be choosers,’ she told herself firmly out loud, dismissing the little flurry of nerves which skimmed around her stomach. ‘Hey! Hang on there!’ she shouted, striding quickly towards him before she lost her courage.
The broad shoulders seemed to square before he turned. ‘You again. What a surprise!’ he declared calmly, as if her appearance wasn’t at all unexpected.
‘Isn’t it?’ she replied with a little jut of her chin, trying to steer an even course between being downright discouraging and yet nice enough to enlist his help. Aware of his eyes on her silky bare midriff, she hastily tried to reclaim his attention. ‘Do you live here?’ she asked politely.
Slowly his gaze travelled upwards to her hopeful face. ‘Kind of.’
Touché! she thought tiredly, seeing the small smile playing around his mouth. She found a smile from somewhere too. A cool one. Nothing too friendly. ‘I’m looking for The Old Bakery…’
‘Yes.’
She blinked. Judging by the expression on his face, he was playing with her, making her work for information. Hadn’t he anything better to do? she thought crossly. She drew in a deep breath. ‘It’s in—’
‘Rue Boulangerie,’ he provided, much to her relief. Yet he made no move to say where it was.
‘I know. Where is that, exactly? I’ve been everywhere looking for it,’ she explained, with a patience she didn’t feel. ‘I’ve tramped up and down every street. It doesn’t exist, as far as I can see.’
Her long fingers pushed damp strands of flopping pale blonde hair back behind her ears as she stood dispiritedly before him.
The enigmatic smile spread into a grin of clear delight. ‘Do you mean that no one would tell you where it is?’ he asked cheerfully.
‘I haven’t asked yet,’ she admitted, puzzled. What was going on here? Her heart began to thump. This was creepy. ‘The place is deserted. There was no one to ask. Anyway, I don’t speak French and I wouldn’t have understood what was said. I thought I could find it on my own.’
‘The Old Bakery is where the owner of the holiday lets lives,’ he murmured. ‘You’re staying in one of her cottages?’
‘No, I’m staying with her,’ Tessa corrected him. ‘She’s my mother.’
‘Ah.’ He nodded, as though that explained everything.
Tessa paused, wondering if he’d seen some resemblance earlier and had been trying to place her. ‘She’s expecting me,’ she went on. ‘And she’ll be getting rather worried by now—’
He interrupted her with an involuntary snort of disbelief. ‘Estelle Davis? Worried about another person?’
Tessa bridled at his tone. ‘Yes! Of course! Why not?’
‘She’s not the sort.’
A cold fear ran down Tessa’s back. What did he know of her mother? ‘You’re being extremely rude—’
‘It would be difficult to be otherwise,’ he agreed, quite unfazed.
Tessa felt crushed by his contempt. And increasingly worried. All her life she’d done her best to ignore her doubts, her private belief that her mother had behaved selfishly. This stranger was bringing them back. ‘If you know her—’
‘I know of her. It’s not quite the same thing.’ His gaze held hers with a suddenly chilling intensity that she found rather frightening. ‘And you are?’
She gulped, pierced by the icy black eyes and his expression of frank hostility. It upset her that someone should loathe her mother so much, and through her head went the same question, over and over again. Why?
‘Tessa Davis.’
‘Guy.’
‘Guy,’ she repeated. ‘It sounds French, the way you say it.’
‘It is.’
Not a man who gave much away unless he wanted to. New Orleans French? She gave up trying to work that one out and returned to the worrying connection between her mother and this Guy.
‘You don’t have a very high opinion of my mother,’ she observed flatly.
‘Got it in one.’
Now the dislike was right out in the open, with every line of Guy’s face showing a frank contempt that scared her. Unexpectedly, a film of unshed tears washed over her limpid green eyes. This wasn’t the situation she’d expected at the end of her journey. She’d worked so hard to sweep away all her uncertainties about this reunion, building it up in her mind into a moment of joy and laughter. Suddenly everything was going wrong.
‘I’m sorry if there’s bad feeling between you—’ she began, clasping her shaking hands.
‘That’s too mild a description. I’d call it hostility,’ he said coldly.
Tessa flushed, and concentrated on stopping her mouth from describing a downward droop, angry with her quickly aroused emotions which made her laugh and cry too easily.
She felt so tired. Near to breaking-point, she stood in a pose of utter dejection, furious that a huge teardrop was trickling from the corner of one eye and burning a hot, wet path down her peachy cheek. What a drip she was!
‘Emotional, aren’t you?’ he observed thoughtfully, as if that was an interesting and useful piece of information.
With a quick gesture, she brushed the treacherous tear away and sprang to her own defence. ‘I’m dead beat and I’m hungry, and I’m worried about finding my mother before it’s too pitch-black to see further than my nose!’
‘You have a night-light and a teddy bear for comfort,’ he reminded her, his mouth curved in mocking lines.
Callous brute! She planted her hands on her slender hips in challenge.
‘And you know where her house is. Whatever your feelings for my mother, you might show some courtesy to me, since I’ve done nothing to earn your disapproval, have I? So I’d appreciate it if you’d give me directions,’ she finished assertively.
He appeared to be giving that some thought. ‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you there,’ he said at last. And the gleam in his eye as he studied her flat stomach and sensually sheathed thighs suggested that he welcomed the opportunity to prolong their acquaintance.
Tessa took a wary step back. It didn’t seem a good idea to go off with this arrogant male to heaven knew where. ‘Directions will do. Left, right, straight on—that’s fine by me.’
‘The route is too complicated,’ he said blandly. ‘You’d get lost. I’d worry that your teddy bear might lose out on his seven hours of shut-eye.’
‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’ she muttered crossly. ‘I’m too ready for a comfortable armchair and a bath to start trudging around and doing mimes on foreign doorsteps. I’ll get my bags.’
He came with her to her bike, insisting on helping her to remove the panniers. There was a silly, polite tug-of-war, then she gave up and allowed him to sling them on his shoulder. She debated whether to put her jacket on, but she felt so hot and flustered, and she decided that she wasn’t going to be intimidated into doing something against her will.
Then, feeling rather like a submissive chattel, she followed in his tracks, blanking out everything but putting one foot in front of the other, each step mercifully one closer to her mother’s house.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_81ad06f7-1373-5e13-a931-7c273cab303e)
A SILENCE fell between them as they wound their way up a narrow, stepped street she didn’t remember seeing before. They passed a couple of large townhouses with mullioned windows and then a half-timbered cottage, whose walls were bright with highly scented climbing roses and honeysuckle. Tessa’s nostrils were swamped with the heady perfume and she couldn’t resist pausing to stick her nose in the velvety petals of a dark red rose.
When she straightened and looked around, she had the unnerving impression that they were the only two people for miles. Not even a dog barked. The rays of the late evening sun burned with a final, merciless intensity on the deserted street and she could feel the heat rising from the stone steps and walls, enveloping her in a suffocating blanket. Scary.
‘Where is everyone?’ she asked in a hushed voice, scanning the shuttered houses.
‘Finishing their evening meal. Then they’ll go to bed.’ Guy frowned slightly. ‘Most of the young people have moved away because of the lack of opportunities. There isn’t much activity here of an evening.’
‘You can say that again! Is it far?’ She sighed, sure that her legs would give up at any moment. ‘These steps are murdering my calves. I’m just about done in. And starving. I think I should have eaten about four hours ago,’ she added mournfully, quite forgetting the chocolate snack.
‘It’s only around the corner. Allow me,’ he said, with a show of great courtesy.
One large male hand moved firmly around her waist, supporting her. Or that was presumably its intention. In fact it made her feel even more unsteady, because his fingers lay on her bare skin beneath the cropped top—oh, what a mistake that had been!—and seemed to have made connections somehow with her entire nervous system.
The pressure on her spine increased. She could feel the warmth of his palm heating through to her very bones. A strange squiggle raced unheeded through a previously unknown route which ran from her breasts to her toes and made an embarrassing stop on the way, warming her loins with an alarming insistency. Tessa blushed, because she knew perfectly well what that squiggle meant.
She’d spent five years yearning for the unreachable David. Years of dreams and longings and imagined kisses which had built up in her mind till she’d felt delirious if he so much as looked at her—which he rarely had, because then she had held no attractions for a handsome man.
But this—this was a revelation. A total stranger was walking her to her mother’s door, and fire was coursing through her entire body as if she were hell-bent on imminent surrender!
Despite her tiredness, her eyes burned with that fire. Her skin tingled. Parts of her which ought to have known better were alert and ready for action. It was too awful! Had she lost her inhibitions along with her weight? More to the point, did the unnervingly sexy Guy know that her body was responding to some wayward call of nature?
She stole a nervous glance in his direction, found his warm, contemplative eyes on her, felt unable to look away because of a sudden dizziness—and stumbled on a broken step. In a purely reflex action he caught her up in his strong arms. And it was harder than it should have been to drag herself free.
Unhappily, she lifted the thick fringe of lashes which shaded her anxious forest-dark eyes. They asked him the unspoken question. What’s happening?
‘Sorry,’ she whispered distractedly, and even more stupidly said, ‘I’m so tired. I tripped.’
‘Did you?’
That wasn’t really a question at all. It sounded horribly like the cool carelessness of a man who was so used to women throwing themselves at him that he treated them all with scant respect. She flushed again, indignant with herself—and with him for making assumptions.
Desperate to prove her sublime indifference to his insidious charms, she said stiffly, ‘Look, you don’t need to come any further. Just point in the general direction. I’ll find it on my own.’
‘No. I’ll take you to the door.’ There was no room for argument in that tone. ‘You’re almost asleep on your feet.’
‘That’s why I tripped,’ she persisted stubbornly, squirming with mortification when he neglected to agree with her.
Looking ahead, she saw nothing but the steep rise of steps as they twisted and turned up the hill. It occurred to her that surely, no bakery would ever have set up shop this far from the centre. Suddenly suspicious of his motives, she bit her lip, wondering where he was taking her.
‘Rue Boulangerie,’ he announced, and pointed to a lane half-hidden on her left.
‘Oh!’ She’d misjudged him. They’d arrived! Tessa’s whole body slumped against the wall in sheer relief. ‘That’s wonderful! You’ve no idea how grateful I am! Thank you. Thank you!’
Her beatific smile apparently startled him. For a breathless moment he stared down at her, his expression puzzled. Then, ‘Let’s make sure your mother is in,’ he suggested with silky smoothness.
‘Of course she’ll be in!’ she said in surprise. ‘It’s been arranged. Which house is it?’
‘The one at the end.’
It was quite small, part of a short terrace of crumbling buildings. The evidence that it once had been a shop was apparent in the large window and faded sign above the door. The house looked uncared-for, and Tessa swallowed back the lump in her throat.
‘It needs a lot of work done to it,’ she said in a small voice, her heart sinking as she ran an expert eye over the building.
‘Aren’t you going to knock?’ asked Guy, when she hesitated.
‘I’m…’ Her hands fluttered in the air helplessly. She flung a panic-stricken glance up at him, confused by the turmoil of her emotions. ‘I’m nervous. It’s a long time since I’ve seen my mother,’ she confided huskily. ‘Twenty years ago. I was five.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘All I remember is a mass of blonde hair and the smell of jasmine. I—I wonder what she’ll make of me? I’ve heard so much about her.’
‘Have you?’ For several seconds he studied her face, his expression unreadable. ‘Then,’ he said eventually, ‘the sooner you get the next few minutes over with the better.’ And he reached up to rap on the door with a fist so hard that it would have summoned the dead.
Tessa swallowed to calm her nerves and hastily tidied her silky hair with her fingers. No one came. He knocked again, with the same result. Bewildered, she exchanged glances with Guy, her stomach lurching sickeningly.
‘This is the right house?’ she asked. He nodded. Pityingly. And her hands went clammy. ‘She must be in!’ she cried, her voice wavering.
‘Must she?’ He was frowning at the peeling paint on the door, his fingers lifting off one or two of the flakes. His thumb investigated the inadequate pointing of the stone faade. ‘Perhaps—as I suspected—there’s another reason she’s not answering.’
There was a sudden silence. Tessa’s eyes rounded in alarm. ‘You’re deliberately trying to frighten me!’ she accused him.
He looked as if he felt genuinely sorry for her. Caught by an urge to grab him and shake him for upsetting her, she flicked her tongue around her dry mouth and tried to stay rational. There would be an ordinary explanation. Her mother had run out of milk. Lost a cat. Run out of petrol somewhere. Everything would be fine.
‘I have a key,’ she said shakily. ‘Mother sent it in case I arrived early. We didn’t know how long it would take me to get here. Perhaps I should let myself in and wait.’
He gave a shrug. ‘Let yourself in by all means. But don’t raise your hopes.’
‘What do you mean?’ she demanded, tension holding her body rigid. ‘And who the devil are you to know so much?’
The sardonic eyes chilled her bones. ‘My name is de Turaine,’ he answered quietly. ‘And this is my village. Or, rather, most of it is mine.’
Tessa’s mouth fell open. ‘You’re the new landlord! The son of the man who didn’t care about his own village!’
‘Correct. I flew over from New Orleans two weeks ago. My father died two weeks before that,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone. And, because he showed no sign of regret or sorrow, the flustered Tessa didn’t offer her sympathies. What kind of man was he, she thought, to dismiss his father’s death so casually? ‘In case you’re wondering, the neglect here came as a total shock to me,’ he went on tightly. ‘I hadn’t been near Turaine for half my lifetime.’
While she digested that information he took the key from her trembling fingers, thrust the door open and waved her in.
Astonished, she obeyed his imperious gesture, finding herself in a chilly room which was so dark that she couldn’t see anything clearly. It smelt of damp, decaying timber and saturated stone. It was the same smell she’d encountered when working with the team of restorers on Kernow House, a run-down stately home in the Lynher Valley.
The cottage must be in as bad a state as she’d feared. It was a depressing arrival, and awful to think of her mother living in dark, dank conditions like these. A concrete monstrosity would have been better!
‘Mum?’ she called desperately. ‘Mum! Where are you?’ The house lay as silent and as cold as a grave. She found a light switch and flicked it on, only to stand stock-still in dismay. ‘This place is awful!’ she exclaimed, her horrified eyes taking in the chaos. ‘And it’s been vandalised—!’
‘No. I think not. Mon Dieu! What a mess!’ muttered Guy, dumping the bike panniers on the floor and looking around at the tumbled furniture and scattered belongings, his mouth grim with disapproval.
‘How could your father let it get into this mess?’ she raged. ‘When I think of my mother struggling to manage—’
‘Your mother’s responsible for the state of this house. She owns it,’ he broke in tightly. ‘Though I expect to regain possession of it soon—and the two cottages next door, which are also hers.’
‘I don’t believe you. No one would willingly live like this!’ cried Tessa loyally. ‘She’d slap on a coat of paint and wash the curtains—’
‘How the hell do you know?’
That made her stop in her tracks. She didn’t. ‘There’s something odd about this,’ she insisted, though less confidently. ‘No one would leave furniture overturned.’ Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Something awful’s happened.’
He fixed her with a piercing stare. ‘Damn right it has!’ he answered grimly. ‘Which makes me as keen as you to find her.’
