A Place of Storms (10 page)

Andrea's poise deserted her under his piercing scrutiny and she found herself huddling the duvet up around her shoulders.

'You're free to leave whenever you wish,
monsieur
,' she replied as steadily as she was able. 'Perhaps Madame Bresson didn't give you my message…'

The curl of his lip showed her precisely what he thought of her message.

'You had better hurry,' he said. 'We have a long drive ahead of us before this shopping expedition can even begin.'

'I don't need to do any shopping. I thought I'd made that clear.' Andrea gave him a frustrated look. 'I have everything I need, thank you. Now if you would just get out of my room, I'd like to go back to sleep.'

He did turn on his heel, but not to leave as she had hoped. Instead he walked over to the massive wardrobe and threw open the door. The limited selection of clothes she had brought with her looked slightly pathetic hanging in its cavernous depths. He swung back to her, his face black.

'I see no wedding dress,
mademoiselle
.'

She stared at him. 'Wedding dress?' she repeated inanely.

His mouth twisted impatiently. 'Surely you don't need another reminder? We are to be married tomorrow. You need a dress to wear for the ceremony.'

'Surely that isn't necessary,' she protested. 'It isn't as if it's going to be a conventional marriage…'

'You deceive yourself,
ma mie
.' Hands resting on his hips, he walked back to the bed and stood looking down at her. 'The performance of the ceremony will be as conventional as anyone could wish, no matter what may happen afterwards. My marriage will be an occasion in the village, and you will look the part of a happy bride if nothing else. You will be on show both at the civil ceremony in Craudon and at the religious service in the village church, and you will use your undoubted ability as an actress to play the role of the loving wife. And you will wear a white dress and a veil, because that is what people will expect of you.'

'I will not!' She glared at him, her breast heaving stormily. 'It would be total hypocrisy.'

'Why is that?' he asked contempuously. 'Is white no longer an appropriate colour for you to wear?'

'Why, you…' Fury made her incoherent. 'Get out of my room!'

'As your fiancé, I have every right to be in your room,' he reminded her, his voice steely. 'Almost as many rights as a husband,
ma chère
. I advise you not to forget it. Now, get dressed. We have wasted enough-time.'

He bent and before she could resist, pulled the concealing cover. Andrea gave a little outraged cry, hastily restoring order to the crumpled folds of her blue gingham nightdress, but he seemed totally uninterested in her state of
d
é
shabille
. He was back at the wardrobe, pulling her cream linen suit from its hanger, and rooting through the drawers of her dressing table for a handful of filmy underwear which he tossed unceremoniously on to the bed beside her.

He glanced at his watch. 'You have five minutes,
made
moiselle
. If you have not joined me downstairs by that time, I shall dress you myself, so do not pretend I have not warned you.'

For a moment after the door closed behind him, Andrea lay quite still, seething with temper. Then almost frantically she realised that she was just wasting precious seconds. She had no doubt at all that he would return as he had threatened, and she scrambled off the bed, rushing to the washstand and splashing herself hastily with the lukewarm water the jug contained.

She had just fastened the last button on her jacket, and was knotting a long silk scarf around her throat, when the door opened and Blaise came back into the room without the courtesy this time of a preliminary knock.

He was still frowning, she saw as their eyes met in the mirror, but he gave a faint nod as if her appearance satisfied him.

'You are ready?'

'I have my hair to do.' She hated the tremor in her voice and hoped he had not noticed.

He came and stood behind her, so close to her that she could feel the warmth from his body.

'Leave it loose,' he advised quietly. He reached past her and picked up her hairbrush from the dressing table. She tensed, clinging to the edge of the dressing table as he began to draw the brush gently at first and then with increasing vigour through her tangled hair. He lifted the soft chestnut strands away from the nape of her neck, and let them fall slowly back into place. A quiver of almost unbearable sensation ran through her, and her mouth went dry. For a brief instant she imagined leaning back against him and feeling his arms close round her, his hands sliding up under the loose jacket to find her breasts. She closed her eyes involuntarily, overwhelmed by the force of her emotions, bewildered by the potency of her own desire.

When she opened them again she found she was staring straight into his in the mirror. The dark depths of his gaze held her mesmerically. He seemed to be asking her a question to which her body had an only too compelling answer.

She swallowed and reached for her handbag with hands that shook.

'Shall—shall we go?'

'As you wish.' His face and voice were enigmatic alike. He tossed the hairbrush almost carelessly back on to the dressing table and stood aside to allow her to precede him out of the room. For a moment she was afraid that her shaking legs would not obey her, then she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin and made herself walk past him with an assumption of calm.

It did not last her long, however. When they emerged into the courtyard and she saw that the vehicle awaiting them was the hired car she had driven there from Paris, the breath left her body in one strangled gasp.

'If you had only known it was still here, eh?' Blaise's voice held an element of lazy amusement, and she cast him one fulminating look before climbing into the passenger seat.

He drove well. She grudgingly had to admit that, as he negotiated with ease the twisting road which had brought her heart into her mouth, and under different circumstances she could have enjoyed this chance to really look at the spectacular scenery around them.

As it was, she sat, her hands stiffly clenched in her lap with temper, staring woodenly ahead of her through the windscreen as if she had been blinkered. She had made, up her mind to receive any attempts he made at conversation in stony silence, and it was as if he could read her mind, because he said nothing.

Gradually and in spite of herself, the sheer exuberant beauty of the autumn day began to get through to her and she began almost insensibly to relax, leaning back in her seat and enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face and neck. After a while, she stole a sideways look at her companion. Surely he could not intend to drive all the way to Clermont-Ferrand without uttering a word? she thought with a twist of the lips at her own lack of resolution.

From where she sat, the scarred side of his face was hid-den from her, and she could not suppress a pang of regret as her eyes travelled over the proud clean lines of cheekbone, nose and mouth. She had imagined his attention was wholly concentrated on the road ahead, and it was a shock when she saw his mouth draw into the bitter lines she had come to dread.

'What are you staring at,
mademoiselle
? Are you asking yourself why I don't make use of plastic surgery to render myself less unsightly?'

'Nothing was further from my mind,' she denied hastily. 'But as you've brought the subject up, haven't you ever considered doing so?'

'No. My lack of attraction is of no concern to me. Besides, my scars are—useful. They serve as a constant reminder.'

'Of what?' she asked rather faintly.

'Of the fact that nothing lasts,
ma mie
. And that emotions, particularly that strange involvement we call love, are the most ephemeral of all.'

'That's a very cynical point of view.'

'It's a lesson I have been taught by life,' he retorted. He did not volunteer any more information and Andrea sat staring ahead of her through the windscreen, trying to resolve her confused thoughts. She knew that his bitter words must be referring to his broken engagement. Yet because one woman had shown the selfishness and triviality of her nature, were they all to be condemned? He must have loved her very much, she thought, for her to have affected him so deeply, and she was shocked at the pain her musings cost her. What was she thinking of? she wondered frantically. Whatever happened, she could not get involved emotionally with this man. There was no future in it, she told herself vehemently, apart from the fact that her pride should safeguard her from any warmth in her feelings towards this man who was trapping her into this empty marriage. She needed to hate him. Indifference would not be enough, she knew instinctively.

But he was so wrong to imagine his damaged face had in any way, detracted from his physical attraction, she thought achingly. The sensual power he could exert terrified her and enthralled her at the same time, and she was bewildered at the potential force of her own response to him.

Besides, his visible scars were negligible compared with the emotional damage he had suffered. It was daunting to imagine how much love and generosity would be needed before that was healed. One thing was certain—before it happened, she would be long gone. It was a thought which depressed her in spite of her attempts to lash herself into resentment against him by reminding herself that until then she would be little better than a prisoner in his house. And it occurred to her starkly that no matter how far she might go, she would never truly be free again.

She shook herself mentally, fighting the realisation down. This was dangerous ground, where she could not venture. Must not, if she was to retain even a vestige of her peace of mind in the days ahead of her.

Blaise parked the car in a quiet side-street, and they walked to the Rue du Port, where the main shops were situated. Andrea would like to have lingered outside some of the antique shops they passed on the way, but Blaise seemed to have retired to some remote interior fastness and showed no disposition to indulge her. As it was, she was almost obliged to trot to keep up with his long stride, and she was breathless by the time they reached the shop of his choice. She raised her eyebrows a little, imagining that he would have picked a large store rather than this cramped-looking boutique displaying a scarf and an artificial rose in its small window, but when they got inside she realised he knew what he was about. The proprietress herself came forward to serve them, a sophisticated woman in her forties with deceptively sleepy eyes.

Blaise and she indulged in a murmured conversation from which Andrea found herself excluded, to her annoyance. They were obviously talking about her, she fumed inwardly, so they might have had the decency to let her know what was being said. At last the woman turned to her, favouring her with a speculative look which Andrea knew had assessed her figure down to the last centimetre. 'If Mademoiselle would come with me?'

She had no choice but to comply. She was shown into a spacious fitting room, with mirrors on all sides, and an assistant came in carrying several tissue-swathed white dresses over her arm.

Andrea decided the time had come to make a stand. 'Not white,' she said firmly, indicating the dresses. She was not going to allow herself to be adorned like the traditional virgin sacrifice, she thought angrily, for a crowd of strangers to snigger over. She was not a doll without feelings. A white wedding encompassed a whole range of emotions and meanings that had no place at all in her relationship with Blaise.

If she had only had the assistant to deal with, she might have got away with it. But she had not reckoned with Madame. Her smile might be charming, but it was quite implacable, and Andrea found her suit had been removed and hung tenderly on a hanger and herself zipped into the first of the white dresses without quite knowing how it had happened.

'
Non
,' she said forcibly to a variety of Andreas, formal in white satin.

To her surprise Madame was in total and amiable agreement with her, but it was only a temporary respite. The dress was not suitable, but there were plenty more, and now the assistant had been despatched to fetch some veils, 'so that Mademoiselle could behold the full effect.'

Eventually, '
Regardez
', Madame urged fondly, and Andrea found herself staring incredulously at a stranger, slim and ethereal in a cloud of silk organza, the floating skirt misted with embroidered flowers.

Madame clucked round her, arranging the veil with satisfied twitches, and then before Andrea could do anything, she had swept back the curtain and ushered her out into the main showroom where Blaise was waiting.

She thought wildly, 'It's unlucky for him to see me like this—unlucky,' before common sense reminded her that none of the sweet traditions of marriage could have any meaning for them. His eyes as he looked at her were cold, his dark brows drawn together in an impatient frown. He didn't like the dress, she told herself. Now he must see how ridiculous this whole charade was. Perhaps he was remembering that other girl whose wedding gown might also have been chosen, and who might have paraded for him, wearing it and demanding that he admire her beauty.

He looked over her head at Madame standing behind and gave a barely perceptible nod. '
Ravissante
,' he said dryly. 'You can supply Mademoiselle with everything else she needs—shoes, for example?'

Andrea went to him across the carpet, the dress rustling softly. She laid her hand appealingly on his arm.

'Blaise, please listen to me. I can't wear this dress.'

'Why not?' He looked her over with the impersonality he would have devoted to a dummy in a shop window. 'It seems to fit you admirably.'

'It isn't a question of the fit.' She knew Madame was watching them curiously, and lowered her voice even further. 'It—it just wouldn't be right. Surely you can see that.'

It was a romantic gown—a gown for a happy girl to wear for her lover. It had nothing to do with the cold, transient relationship she was entering into.