Read Desperate Measures Online
Authors: Sara Craven
Desperate Measures (27 page)
- She had, after all, been violated.
- She sank her teeth into her bottom lip until she tasted blood. All Alain's charm—all the consideration he'd shown her had been nothing but a facade. I am not a savage, he'd said that first evening in Lowden Square, but he'd lied. He was worse than that. He was a brute—an animal.
- And you said a small hard voice in her head. What about you? You threw wine at him, you hit him, you tried to scratch his eyes out. Is it really any wonder he reacted with anger? And you were angry too, not with him but yourself, because you'd actually started to enjoy what he was doing to you—you'd begun to want him—and your pride wouldn't allow that. So you fought him instead, and you lost.
- Philippa moved restively in the bed, her head turning on the pillow in violent negation, as she tried to shut out the unwanted memories crowding back to torment her of Alain's mouth against her body—his hands...
- No, she thought, it wasn't like that—it wasn't. He was vile—he forced me. I hate him for that, and I always will.
- And as if in mockery of her unspoken words, she felt the fierce hardening of her nipples, and the swift
- tumultuous clench of her body in a need she'd never known existed until then.
- With a groan, she rolled on to her stomach, burying her face in the pillow.
- Damn him, she wailed silently. God damn him!
- It was hours before she fell into a troubled sleep. When she woke, the small clock beside her bed told her it was past ten o'clock.
- As she made to sit up, her bedroom door opened, and, as if programmed, Madame Giscard appeared with a tray.
- 'Oh, thank you,' Philippa said awkwardly in French, trying to use the sheet to conceal the fact that she was naked. 'I'm sorry if I've caused any inconvenience.'
- The housekeeper gave her a look of polite astonishment. 'At your service, madame.'
- She went to the wardrobe, selected a robe and brought it back to the bed, her face expressionless.
- 'Monsieur de Courcy left for the day some hours ago, madame. He asked me to tell you he will join you for lunch.'
- Philippa thanked her again quietly, colour rising in her face, and watched her leave.
- The woman's whole manner indicated that she was quite accustomed to serving breakfast in bed at all hours of the day to naked girls in Alain de Courcy's establishment. And the fact that he was legally married to the current occupant made no difference at all.
- Philippa drank her chilled peach juice, and sampled the hot chocolate in its tall pot, and the crisp croissants wrapped in a napkin, without particular appetite.
- During the wakeful hours before dawn, she had come to terms with the fact that she was caught in a trap of her own devising. However disastrous her marriage, she couldn't walk away from it as every fibre of her being was urging her to do, because otherwise the money for Gavin would cease. Alain had made that clear the previous night. So, somehow, she would have to get through the days—and endure the nights. Somehow.
- She showered quickly and dressed in a well-cut russet skirt and a matching blouse. She was still very pale, and there were deep shadows under her eyes, but she made no attempt to disguise them with cosmetics. She looked, she supposed, shrugging, like any other girl on the morning after her wedding night—except that most brides probably looked radiant as well as exhausted.
- It was a very long morning. Philippa soon discovered that her new environment ran like clockwork, needing no interference from her. In fact she was sure that any attempt to involve herself in Madame Giscard's superbly efficient regime would be strongly resented.
- She wandered restlessly about the apartment, unable to settle. In spite of the stunning views over Paris from every window which she hadn't been conscious of the previous night, she still found it characterless, and wondered if she would ever feel at ease there.
- But she couldn't spend the rest of her life looking at views. She would have to find some way of occupying herself—even if only to stop herself from thinking.
- As lunchtime approached, she found herself becoming more and more on edge. The eventual sound
- of Alain's voice in the hall sent her scuttling to one of the sofas in the salon. She tucked her legs beneath her, pretending to leaf through a current affairs magazine, and hoping she looked composed and relaxed.
- She heard him come into the room, and sat staring down at the picture spread on her lap until the photographs danced crazily in front of her.
- 'Bonjour.' As Alain broke the silence, she was forced to look up. She returned his greeting, annoyed to hear her own voice falter slightly.
- 'How was your morning?' He came to sit beside her on the satin-covered sofa, close, but not touching.
- 'Fine—and yours?' Was this how they were going to play it, she wondered hysterically, with meaningless social chit-chat?
- 'Busy.' He paused. 'May I offer you an aperitif?'
- 'Just some Perrier water—if there is some.'
- 'There can be whatever you wish,' he said politely.
- Philippa sat clutching the glass he'd handed her. He had poured himself a large whisky, she noted before resuming his seat beside her, still at the same careful distance.
- After a silence, he said, 'About last night...'
- 'I'd rather not talk about it.'
- 'I think we must.' His contradiction was courteous but implacable. 'My behaviour was quite unforgivable, after all. I can only offer you my profound regrets.'
- His expression was as cool as his voice. Stealing a glance at him under her lashes, Philippa saw a faint mark on his cheek where one of her nails must have caught him.
- She said stonily. 'It really doesn't matter. I—I married you, so I suppose I should have expected—
- something of the sort.' She took a deep breath. 'You said you wanted a child. Well, perhaps it's happened—and you'll be able to—to leave me alone in future.'
- Alain said curtly, 'I doubt, ma femme, whether matters generally arrange themselves quite so conveniently. However, let us hope you are right.' He swallowed the remainder of his whisky and sat for a moment, staring at the empty tumbler.
- His face was expressionless, but Philippa was suddenly and frighteningly aware of an anger in him which transcended anything she had experienced the previous night—a violence that was almost tangible. She had the crazy feeling that at any moment, the delicate piece of crystal in his hand was going to shatter against the fireplace in a million glittering shards.
- She made a little sound, and her hand lifted involuntarily to grab his arm. He glanced at her, and as swiftly and completely as if a wire had snapped, she felt the tension between them subside.
- Alain set the tumbler down on a side table and rose to his feet. He gave her a smile which did not reach his eyes. 'Shall we go in to lunch now?'
- Wordlessly she nodded, and together they left the salon and crossed the hall to the imposing dining-room, just as Madame Giscard was bringing in the soup.
- The meal proceeded largely in silence. Philippa kept stealing covert glances at Alain across the flowers reflected in the sheen of the polished table. She had found to her cost last night how ruthless he could be. Now she had learned he had a temper too. She wondered what other discoveries the ensuing weeks,
- months—even years would unfold, and shivered inwardly.
- 'You haven't been eating,' Alain said brusquely, startling her. 'Is there something wrong with the food?'
- 'Oh, no,' she stammered. 'It's wonderful. I think I'm still rather tired...' She stopped abruptly, feeling the colour sweep into her face, and expecting some sardonic rejoinder.
- But all he said was, 'Then have a rest this afternoon. You have to look radiant for this evening, remember.'
- She kept her voice level. 'I'm hardly likely to forget in the circumstances.'
- 'That is unfortunately true. Last night was hardly a glorious hour—for either of us.' His smile was brief and tight-lipped. 'I shall try and behave with more consideration in the future. Tonight, for instance, will be enough of an ordeal for you, I think, without dreading my presence in your bed when we return. You have my word you will be left in peace and privacy.'
- 'Thank you,' Philippa returned uncertainly.
- 'And if you've finished your meal, you need not wait for me. Why not go and enjoy your siesta?'
- She pushed back her chair, murmuring something incoherent in reply, and almost fled from the room.
- She closed her bedroom door and leaned against it, staring at the bed, aware that she was breathing as rapidly as if she'd taken part in some marathon.
- She was safe tonight, she thought, but that was the only guarantee she had. Some time, sooner or later, the door from the adjoining room would open, and she would be expected to submit to him—to allow
- herself to be used, for no better reason than that she'd been bought and paid for, and he wanted his money's worth.
- There were tears suddenly, thick in her throat, and stinging her eyes.
- She said aloud to the emptiness in the room, 'I don't think I can bear it.'
- And knew before even the sound of her words had died away that she no longer had a choice.
- CHAPTER FOUR
- Philippa was breathless with nerves as she sat beside Alain that evening in the chauffeur-driven limousine which sped them through the Paris streets to the suburbs where Louis de Courcy lived with his family.
- The house was hidden behind a high wall. Craning her neck, Philippa could see only the tops of some elaborately ugly chimneys, as they waited for the electronically operated gates to admit them.
- 'My uncle has a phobia about thieves,' Alain muttered into her ear. 'He feels if he relaxes his vigilance even for a moment they may break in and steal his collection of tasteless porcelain, or ravish my cousin Sidonie. I think he over-estimates the desperation of such men.'
- Philippa refused to laugh. With a hand that shook slightly, she smoothed a fold of the ankle-length jade green skirt she was wearing. The matching silk jersey top had a wide rounded neck and long sleeves, and she hoped it was all sufficiently formal for the evening ahead. Dressing for this unwanted dinner party had been rather like putting on a costume for a play where she was only the understudy, but expected nevertheless to go on and give a performance, knowing someone else's lines.
- The clothes fit, she thought, as the car swept up the drive between depressingly formal flower beds. The girl doesn't.
- The house itself looked square, solid and uncompromisingly dull. There were a number of other cars parked in the drive, and Alain cursed under his breath.
- 'So much for the quiet family dinner!' he said angrily. He turned to Philippa with a shrug. 'I'm sorry. I did not intend you to be subjected to this kind of occasion quite so soon.'
- Philippa lifted her chin. 'I'll try not to speak out of turn or use the wrong cutlery,' she assured him shortly, and his mouth tightened.
- 'That is not what I meant, and you know it.'
- The door was opened by a manservant in a white jacket, who gave them a stately greeting and told them that Monsieur and Madame were waiting in the salon with their other guests.
- 'Are we the last to arrive, Gaston?' Alain made a last-minute adjustment to his tie.
- 'By no means, monsieur,' he was assured, as Gaston conducted them along an elaborately decorated hallway.
- Alain clasped Philippa's icy fingers in his. 'Courage, ma belle,' he whispered as Gaston threw open the double doors of the salon and announced them.
- All conversation in the room ceased abruptly. Philippa seemed suddenly to be the cynosure for a hundred pairs of eyes. She straightened her shoulders, feeling a faint blush warm her face. At second glance, she could see that the room actually held at most twenty people, one of whom was advancing to meet her.
- Louis de Courcy was not tall, and was inclined to rotundity. He was slightly bald, and wore a neatly trimmed beard. His fleshy lips beamed welcome, but
- his smile did not reach his eyes, which were as dark as polished agate, and as hard.
- He bowed over Philippa's hand. 'My new niece,' he said. 'But what a delight! And how cruel of Alain to have kept you from us. As his only living relatives, we might have expected to attend his wedding.' He spread pudgy hands dramatically. 'To be informed only after the event was a blow—I will not conceal it.'
- Philippa was embarrassed, but she had been primed by Alain.
- 'I'm afraid my father's poor health dictated that the ceremony be as quiet and private as possible, monsieur.'
- 'So quiet, indeed, that none of my friends in London had any idea it had taken place, or was even intended,' Louis de Courcy said, still smiling. He turned, beckoning. 'Josephine, allow me to present Alain's bride to you. Sidonie, come and greet your cousin.'
- Madame de Courcy, who was built on the same lines as her husband, showed no great enthusiasm for the encounter. Her plump fingers just touched Philippa's, and then she made way for her daughter.
- Philippa's first thought was that Sidonie de Courcy was almost exactly as Alain had so unkindly described her. She had a pale, unhealthy skin, pitted with acne scars, and her hair looked coarse and without lustre. She too was overweight, and her cream dress accentuated this, fitting too snugly over her bust and hips. Her smile at Philippa barely curved the corners of her mouth, but when she turned to Alain there was a transformation.
- 'You look well, mon cousin.' Her flush was not unbecoming. 'Clearly marriage agrees with you.'
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