LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘ALL right?’

      ‘Yes, I’m fine, truly.’

      ‘Sure you don’t want to come?’

      ‘Sure,’ Melly confirmed with a smile. ‘Go on, you go; have a good time.’

      ‘We-ell, all right, if you’re sure.’

      ‘I am. Go.’

      With an answering smile, he kissed her quickly on the mouth, grabbed his car keys, and left.

      So punctilious, so polite, so eager to be away. With no one now to see, the shadows returned to her lovely amber eyes. Getting to her feet, she walked across to the window in order to watch his slim, elegant figure stride from the house; to note the casual way he pushed back his dark hair before climbing behind the wheel of his beloved XJS, and continue to watch as he roared off down the drive. Charles. Her husband. The man she adored to the point of insanity. The man who did not love her. Did he have any idea at all, she wondered, what his kisses did to her? How she stored them up like a miser? No, she doubted he ever gave them a thought. With a rather wry, sad little smile, she smoothed her palm gently over the burgeoning swell of her stomach.

      Charles, whom she had comforted on the death of his closest friend in a yachting accident. Charles, who had made love to her in his anguish and pain, and then married her when he’d discovered she was pregnant. Charles, whom she had loved since the age of ten, but who would never have considered marrying her had it not been for the baby.

      With a long sigh, she drew the heavy brocade curtains across the window before returning to the large leather armchair drawn up before the fire. Sitting awkwardly, she tucked her legs beneath her. Charles’s chair, which she had, to his amusement, adopted as her own. Her eyes on the dried flowers in the empty fireplace, she saw only Charles. Visualised him parking outside the casino, striding in, grinning at his friends and acquaintances. Relaxed, casual, elegant. Adored. A man liked by women; envied by men. A man who had probably forgotten all about her, she thought with another little smile. A care-for-nobody... No, that wasn’t true, that was just the impression he liked to give, a mask he showed the world. Why, she did not know, only that it was true. Because he thought nobody cared for him? Perhaps, but what she did know was that there was a great deal more to Charles than met the eye. Or was she interpreting facts to suit herself? Because she wanted to believe he was something he wasn’t? Because he was attractive, with a wicked charm, and because she had always liked him, had she made him the misunderstood hero? Assumed his parents were tyrants because they had disowned him? Yet wasn’t it likely that his parents had known him better than anyone? And, working on that assumption, wasn’t it possible that it was not Charles who had been misunderstood, but his parents? Recalling to mind their prim mouths, their moralistic outlook, she shook her head. No, she would trust in Charles. And don’t we all believe what we want to believe? she mocked herself. You no less than anyone else? Yet, even with the doubts, would she have changed anything that had happened these last few months? No. He would probably never love her as she longed to be loved, but he liked her, and, working on the principle that a few slices were better than no bread, she was probably as content as she would ever be.

      He would care for her, and the child when it was born, but would he ever again share her bed? Ever again hold her close in his arms, when, even in his pain over the loss of his friend, he had proved himself a lover to surpass all others? She did not know, but she had made her bed, and now must lie on it.

      Reaching out her hand, she tugged the little bell pull. It never failed to amuse her, the pretentiousness of it. Châtelaine. Of what? A small house that had no need of a butler, but had one all the same? Not, perhaps, in the image usually called to mind, but certainly quiet, mostly unobtrusive, and always elegantly attired. It was not a role, she often thought, that came naturally to him.

      Entering quietly, he gave a small bow. ‘Bonsoir, madame,’ he said with marvellous dignity, which was slightly spoilt by the hint of humour in his dark eyes.

      ‘Bonsoir, Jean-Marc.’ They had seen each other not fifteen minutes previously, and yet they always went through the same ritual. The same polite exchange. He was in his late fifties, she knew, but behaved as though he were seventy at least and a family retainer of long standing. He was slightly stocky, a little shorter than Charles, very French-looking, with dark hair and pale skin. He tried to give the very misleading impression of being aloof, and of never being hurried. Melly doubted either was true.

      Charles had won him, along with the house, in a poker game, or so he said. Melly wasn’t sure she believed him.

      ‘Je suis fatigué, Jean-Marc...’

      ‘Madame wishes to retire?’

      ‘Jean-Marc! How am I ever going to learn to speak French properly if everyone persists in practising their English on me?’

      With that wonderful Gallic shrug that was so difficult to imitate, and a downturning of his mobile mouth, he spread his hands in helpless enquiry.

      With an infectious little chuckle, she nodded. ‘Yes, I wish to retire.’ Uncoiling herself, she stood and stretched. Of medium height, her once slim, almost boyish figure now nicely rounded, she lowered her arms and gave her gentle smile. Pushing the long brown curly hair away from her face, she asked hopefully, ‘Hot milk?’

      ‘Hot milk,’ he confirmed with a look of disgust for her choice of beverage. ‘I will bring it up to madame in—fifteen minutes?’

      ‘Fifteen minutes will be fine. Goodnight, Jean-Marc.’

      ‘Bonsoir, madame.’

      Shaking her head at him, she went up to her room.

      The milk was duly brought, and duly drunk. With a last smile for Jean-Marc as he left with the tray holding her empty glass, she settled herself in the large bed. But not to sleep. Or not until she heard Charles come in.

      When she heard his quiet footstep on the stairs at just gone two she turned over and slept, which was why, when she woke in the morning, she still felt tired. She could, of course, have gone back to sleep. She didn’t choose to. She always made a point of breakfasting with her husband. Even though he rarely returned from the casino, where he was one of the partners, before three, he was always up by eight

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