The Seduction Trap

‘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.’