The Right Bride?: Bride of Desire / The English Aristocrat's Bride / Vacancy: Wife of Convenience

She bent her head. ‘Remy—I can explain…’

‘But how? By telling me that you have an identical twin who happens to share your given name? Or some other lie to add to the rest?’

The savagery in his voice made her shrink. If she hadn’t been gripping the rail, she would probably have fallen.

Instead, she forced herself to stand her ground, struggling to control her voice—to hide the hideous debilitating weakness that was making her tremble all over. Because somehow she had to make him listen to her. Salvage something out of the wreckage of her hopes and dreams.

‘No, it’s true,’ she said with quiet weariness. ‘I—I am married.’ She lifted her chin. ‘But I was going to tell you. I—I swear it.’

‘Ah, but when, madame?’ Remy asked with cruel mockery. ‘Did you plan to wait for our wedding night, perhaps? Inform me then that I had become a bigamist?’

Her throat tightened to an agony. Tears glittered on her lashes. ‘Remy—don’t—please.’

‘Why should I spare you? he flung at her. ‘When from the first you have lied to me—deceived me in this vile way?’

‘I—I wanted to tell you. I—did try…’

He said slowly, ‘If you had worn your ring and used your married name, then I would have known from the first. I would never have approached you.’ He shook his head. ‘But you did not. And Madame Colville encouraged you in this. C’est incroyable.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t blame Tante Madelon. She did her best to persuade me—to do the right thing. If I didn’t, then it’s my fault alone.’

‘Yes.’ His tone was starkly accusing. ‘You—alone, as I now see.’ He threw his head back, staring up at her with eyes as cold and remote as a polar ocean. ‘Mon Dieu, Alys, you knew that I loved you, and you—you let me think that you loved me in turn.’

‘I did,’ she said. ‘I do. Darling, you must believe that—’

‘You have a strange idea of love, madame. Presumably you loved your husband when you married him. Yet within only a few months of your marriage you broke your vows and gave yourself to me. The date of your wedding is given—here.’ He walked across to the foot of the stairs and kicked the magazine. ‘Isn’t it a little early for such flagrant infidelity? What kind of a woman does such a thing?’

A desperate one…

She winced inwardly. ‘I never meant you to find out—like this.’

His mouth curled. ‘Now, that I do believe.’

‘And I didn’t marry for love,’ she went on desperately. ‘If you read the text with the photograph, you’ll know that my—that Hugo was very badly injured in a polo accident. He’s never been my husband in any real sense.’

‘Then why did you marry him?’ he asked scathingly. ‘For money? For his title? And did you find then that it was not enough? I think maybe it was so.’

His laugh jeered at her. ‘And so you came to France—to find yourself a lover and enjoy a little sexual adventure, n’est-ce pas? Was that my purpose in your life, madame? To ease for you the frustration of a disappointing marriage? I hope I gave satisfaction.’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No—please—it wasn’t like that. I never expected to meet you—to fall in love,’ she added on a little sob.

The dark, bitter face did not soften. ‘I never hid my attraction to you, Alys. You knew from the first how it was with me. Yet you never stepped back,’ he said harshly. ‘Never warned me that legally and morally you were beyond my reach.’

He took a deep breath. ‘God knows, I am no saint, but I would never knowingly allow myself to become entangled with another man’s wife, any more than I would knock him down in the street and rob him.

‘But that is not everything,’ he added grimly. ‘That day at the standing stones I told you plainly that I needed you to trust me, but in spite of that you still kept your secret hidden—because you could not bring yourself to confide in me. And that, perhaps, is the greatest hurt—the worst betrayal of all.’

‘I so wanted to.’ Her voice shook. ‘But I was—afraid I’d lose you.’

‘No trust,’ he said, flatly. ‘And no faith either. Ah, Dieu.’

‘I was going to tell you this evening,’ she said huskily. ‘Darling, I swear it. I had it all planned.’

‘But of course,’ he returned with cold mockery. ‘Was it to have been before or after I committed the ultimate folly of asking you to marry me?’

‘Remy, don’t say that.’ She spoke jerkily. ‘I know I’ve done everything the wrong way, and I blame myself completely. But, please, can’t we sit down and talk properly? I need to make you understand—’

‘But I understand quite well, madame.’ He interrupted her stumbling words with swift impatience. ‘You have made fools of us both—your husband and your lover. But he at least will never know that you have cheated him so monstrously. So he is the fortunate one.’ He gave her one last scornful look. ‘Although I do not envy him,’ he added, and turned to go.

‘Remy.’ His name burst pleadingly from her throat. ‘Don’t do this to me—to both of us. Don’t leave like this.’

He halted. Swung back, and walked up the stairs to her, his hand closing on her wrist, not gently.

‘Then how, Alys?’ There was a note in his voice that jarred her senses. ‘Or do you hope, perhaps, for a more intimate adieu? For me to pay a final visit to your charmingly eager body?’

He shrugged, his mouth set in a sneer. ‘Eh bien, pourquoi pas? All else may be gone, but sex still remains. What a practical girl you are, ma belle.’ He swung her off her feet almost negligently, carrying her up the stairs.

For a moment Allie was stunned, then she began to struggle against his bruising grip, pushing against his chest with clenched fists.

‘No—Remy—no.’ It was a cry of fear as well as anger. ‘I didn’t mean that. Put me down—now.’

But he ignored her protests, shouldering his way into her bedroom, and when he set her on her feet it was only so that he could access her zip more easily. Halfway down, it stuck, and he took the edges of her dress in strong relentless hands and dragged them apart. She heard the stitching rip irrevocably, then the silky fabric slithered down her body and pooled around her feet, leaving her, she knew, as good as naked under the inimical intensity of his gaze. Then he picked her up again, with almost insulting ease, and tossed her down on to the bed.

Dear God, she thought frantically as she twisted away, trying to cover herself with her hands. She had dressed—scented herself—for this moment. But not like this. Never like this…

She felt a sudden onrush of tears scald her face, and her voice cracked on a sob of sheer desolation as she echoed her own words aloud. ‘Not like this—oh, please—not like this.’

And waited in agony to feel herself touched—taken.

But there was nothing. And when, at last, she dared look at him, he was standing over her, his arms folded across his chest, his mouth a hard, angry line in the bleak mask of his face.

‘Stop crying,’ he directed brusquely. ‘You need not be concerned. I already despise myself for having wanted you at all.’ He added with contempt, ‘I shall not add to my own shame by taking you.’

She watched him walk in silence to the door. Saw it close behind him. Heard the heaviness of his footsteps descending the stairs and, a moment or two later, the Jeep’s engine coming to life. Listened as the sound of it faded. Leaving—nothing.

Then Allie turned on to her stomach and began to weep in real earnest, her whole body shaking with her sobs.

As she began to mourn the love that had begun to fill her life, but which was now lost to her for ever.

It was several hours later that she heard the sound of another approaching vehicle. She’d come downstairs, principally to throw away her torn dress, and had remained. She was now occupying the corner of a sofa, in her dressing gown, hugging one of the cushions for comfort as she stared sightlessly into space. But at the noise she tensed, looking apprehensively towards the door.

It wasn’t the Jeep coming back, she told herself, torn between relief and disappointment. But, even worse, it might be Solange, coming to gloat.

Then the door opened and Madelon Colville came in, walking slowly, leaning on a cane.

She saw Allie and checked instantly, her brows lifting in alarm as she registered the girl’s pale, stricken face. ‘Qu’as tu, mon enfant?’ she demanded urgently. ‘What in heaven is the matter?’

‘Remy.’ Allie could only manage a choked whisper. She picked up the magazine and held it out, open at the appropriate page. ‘Solange found—this. And showed him.’