Original Sin

Was this why Christian Malraux had an air of embittered cynicism? Foreign news reporting was an unremitting diet of wars, famine and atrocities, wasn’t it?

‘Did you throw it all in because your uncle was taken ill?’

‘Not entirely. I’d been contemplating making a change, finding a way to get back down to earth, literally as well as metaphorically. TV news reporting can become dangerously addictive. All the flying bullets and front-line bulletins...’

She found herself staring at the scar on his cheek, imagining some hair-raising incident with guerrillas and machine guns. She winced involuntarily, and he saw her reaction, touching the scar with a grim smile.

‘This disfigurement has no connection with my TV journalism. But does it disgust you, Emily?’ He sounded bleakly amused.

‘No!’ She shook her head with some force. ‘No, it most certainly does not disgust me! What a ridiculous suggestion!’

Christian’s gaze had narrowed at her vehement denial. There was a brief silence, then he shrugged, with a slight smile.

‘You do not need to burst with righteous indignation, Emily. I believe you.’

A longer pause stretched out between them, and then with thoughtful deliberation Christian reached across the table, and took her left hand in his, lightly, turning it over to inspect the narrow palm, the long, slim, ringless fingers.

The clasp was impersonal, exploratory. His skin felt warm and dry, his fingers lean and powerful, as if his strength was a latent threat, held in careful reserve.

Emily could hardly breathe. She felt as if something was constricting her windpipe. She stared down at their joined hands, at the strong, dark, hair-roughened back of Christian’s right hand encompassing hers. How could something as simple and innocent as a touching of hands feel so intensely intimate...so annihilating to her senses?

Her heart was thudding painfully hard against her breastbone. She tried to shrug off this overwhelming emotion, this warm, shimmering sensation mysteriously forcing up her blood-pressure, speeding up her pulse-rate, but failed spectacularly.

‘No rings?’ Christian sounded dismissive, releasing her hand with a composure she yearned to emulate.

‘No...’ Resisting the urge to snatch her hand defensively into her lap, she transferred it slowly to her wine glass, proud of her precision control. She took a careful sip of wine.

‘No ties, no commitments?’ He persisted coolly.

‘None. That’s the way I intend things to stay.’

‘Hence the high-powered Foreign Office job in September?’

She nodded, warming to her impressive display of indifference. Her stomach was in knots. Her heart was racing at twice its normal speed.

‘Too many of my friends finished higher education only to throw it all away to get married! I have a very clear-cut vision of where I’m heading for, and its not the altar!’

Even as she heard herself say it, she was mentally floundering in a warm dark whirlpool of reaction to his touch, his voice, everything about him...

‘Wise girl,’ he approved softly. ‘Stick to your career. Don’t be side-tracked. Love is a destructive emotion.’

With a smiling nod, she stared at him in silence. Her throat felt curiously tight. He’d caught her on the raw again. As if he’d aimed a sharp punch to her solar plexus.

Their food arrived, a welcome diversion. She tackled the delicious skate in caper sauce, absently sliding the white fish off the smooth webbed bone with her fork.

‘Love is a destructive emotion? That’s going a bit far, surely?’ she teased lightly, glancing up when she felt sure she had her emotions under tight control. ‘You sound deeply embittered!’

Christian had opted for a rare filet mignon, oozing pink juices and exuding a rich, savoury aroma. He was eating it with the kind of uninhibited relish Emily decided might be a national characteristic.

‘Life has taught me the value of independence. Take my advice: keep your heart to yourself, Emily.’

The flat words were unemotional. She felt herself go very still, staring warily into the deep-set gaze.

Abruptly, totally without warning, she felt as if she’d stumbled into an entirely new landscape of emotions. In a moment maybe she’d wake up and find she was sleepwalking...

This was awful. This was unthinkable. First the unfortunate introduction, now some sort of humiliating mind-reading. Had he taken a subtle glance inside her head, read her splintering composure, identified it for what it seemed to be? Her very first, long-retarded, breathless, hopeless ‘crush’, overwhelming her as irrepressibly as a bout of flu? What would her brother Ben make of her behaviour tonight? she wondered distractedly. Would he believe his eyes if he saw his brainy little sister, cool and pragmatic, independent and resourceful, tumbling into a crazy, mindless infatuation with a man she’d met barely an hour and a half before?

CHAPTER TWO

ABRUPTLY Emily pushed her knife and fork together.

‘Lost your appetite?’ The deep voice was expressionless.

‘Sort of.’

‘Would you like dessert? Coffee?’

‘Nothing else. I’m feeling sleepy. Travelling affects me like that.’

‘Then I had better take you back to bed, Emily.’

His words hung between them, like a teasing challenge. Had he intended any double meaning?

‘Yes...’ If her cheeks had been hot before, now she felt flames consuming her.

The night air was warm and scented, but it cooled her burning cheeks during the drive back in the open car.

‘You will move into a room nearer to mine tonight.’

Christian’s cool, flat announcement made her jerk her head round in alarm. They’d crunched to a halt in the pebbled courtyard, stepped out of the Mercedes, and were standing in the lamplit darkness.

‘Whatever for?’

‘For your safety, Emily.’

‘Oh...!’ Thrown into confusion, she searched her shattered thoughts. ‘You think Greg Vernon might come creeping back to finish what he tried to start?’ She was half joking, but somehow the words came out with a more serious ring than she’d intended.

‘It is possible.’ Christian’s voice was hard as steel.

‘Oh, I really don’t think he was serious...’ She stopped, suddenly feeling cold inside.

She stared up at the dark bulk of the building. A faint frisson of apprehension slithered down her spine. The Chteau de Mordin was an old, two-storeyed mansion built around three sides of a wide shingled courtyard. Its walls—what could be seen of them beneath dense green creeper, and between endless rows of tall, arched windows with wooden shutters—were smooth-rendered and white-washed. The shrill of the cicadas was the only sound.

For her own peace of mind she’d played down the whole Greg Vernon episode. Now, standing here in the eerie silence of the night, she felt her imagination fire into overdrive. An owl hooted from the vicinity of one of the massive cedars nearby and she jumped involuntarily.

Had Greg Vernon been seriously about to molest her? If she hadn’t turned her hand to her bit of surprise judo, if Christian hadn’t appeared when he did, would things have got unpleasantly or even dangerously out of control...?

At the time she’d put the Englishman down as a relatively harmless flirt, with delusions about his own sex appeal. Now, delayed reaction was setting in.