The Seduction Trap (18 page)

‘Coming in here as children and being given hot chunks of bread, straight from the oven.’ He slanted a glance at her rapt face. ‘Have you seen inside the oven?’

She shook her head and he forced up the latch on the solid iron door. It was like a room inside. She would need a pneumatic drill if she demolished it, she thought apprehensively. ‘We think this ought to be preserved,’ he announced firmly, startling her. ‘Don’t do anything other than superficial decoration until you hear from us.’

The mayor disappeared upstairs. Tessa felt the temperature in the room rise as if the oven was in operation. But it was only the heat from her body. Anxious not to reveal her agitation, she flung a quick excuse in Guy’s direction and hurried after the mayor.

He ignored her and continued to make copious notes. He’d filled several pages by the time he’d finished his tour and she waited on pins for the verdict.

‘That’s all,’ Guy said coolly, after a hurried consultation. ‘Do I pass muster?’

‘We’ll let you know. He’s not too impressed with this one.’ Crossly she slapped at an insect dining on her thigh. Guy stretched forward and lazily flicked off the squashed remains with his thumb, which seemed to remain an interminably long time in contact with her soft skin.

Somehow she directed her brain away from the resulting sensations and back to the problem in hand. She wasn’t going to let them leave without contributing to her own defence.

‘The new intake of holidaymakers are impressed,’ she said truculently. ‘Tell him that they’re perfectly happy. I did them a barbecue on their first night and they think Turaine is wonderful.’ Guy shrugged, as if that didn’t make any difference. She drew in an anxious breath and cried, ‘He can’t close me down! You can’t be so mean as to let him!’ Guy translated. The mayor gave a careless shrug-of his own, shook Guy’s hand, ignored her completely and walked out of the house. She stood on the worn doorstep and scowled at the mayor’s retreating back.

‘I can’t stand injustice!’ she muttered. ‘If he closes me down because he’s miffed with my mother, then that will be totally unfair.’

‘Standards must be maintained. You’d be foolish to pour any more money and effort into these cottages,’ warned Guy, close

behind her.

She whirled to confront him, her eyes blazing, and, seeing her clenched fists, he took a step back in surprise. ‘Let him take action-but only if he gets any complaints!’ she cried hotly. ‘All the time I can keep the visitors happy, it’s business for Turaine, and it wouldn’t make commercial sense to ignore that. Don’t you care about the small shopkeepers here?’

‘Oh, I care,’ he said insolently. ‘Did your mother?’ She winced. ‘Below the belt, Guy! I’m doing everything I can to show that I care about the community. Leave my mother out of it. The fact is that I have five people in this house alone, and they’re all eating like horses-to the delight of the baker, the butcher and the grocer! Please, Guy, use your influence-’

‘I can’t recall,’ he said with a frown, staring over her head at her cottage, ‘that you had any broken windows when we left.’

‘I-didn’t!’ Her head jerked around and she sucked in a sharp breath, hurrying over to stand in front of the cracked panes of glass, the anger rising to boiling point inside her at the wanton destruction. ‘How convenient,’ she snapped, rounding on Guy, ‘that I was occupied elsewhere!’

She thought of how he’d thrown her those warm glances, made her mind dizzy with the sensual messages in his eyes. Now she knew why. A neat revenge, using physical attraction to divert her while someone vandalised her windows ... Perhaps the blonde woman. She felt a twinge of pain, deep in her chest. How low!

‘Who did you arrange this with?’ she stormed, furious with herself for ogling him while her house was being vandalised. ‘Miss Palazzo Pants herself? How smallminded can you get?’ Her fists clenched tightly as she fought her anger. ‘Why, if I-’

‘Hold it! Tessa, this-’

‘I don’t want to hear your lies! You must be involved. You have the motive! You threatened me. Well, I can repair windows, Guy. And let me make this perfectly clear: I won’t be driven out by you or anyone else, and the more you try, the more I’m determined to stay and be successful!’

Upset and seething with rage, she stomped into the house and slammed the door, hearing the tinkle of glass as the rest of the pane fell out. War, she thought grimly. He’d declared his colours.

Hell. She sat on a pile of cord wood, the coppiced Spanish

chestnut cut for the log fire, and surveyed the mess, suddenly overwhelmed by the tasks she’d taken on. The sale of a cottage. The restoration of two more. Defying Guy and an entire village. Changing hostility into friendship. Impossible. Madness.

What the devil was she doing?

TESSA groaned, wishing that she had someone to confide in, to be her friend when things got tough. If only her mother or her father could have been reached she’d have felt better. She could have talked to someone on her side, someone who cared. Moodily she lit the gas to finish cooking her meal, tied on her scarf and proceeded to hack away at the plaster without much enthusiasm. Her mother might write or phone any day. She’d hang on a little longer.

The trouble was that Guy could jeopardise her income if he prevailed upon the mayor to put some kind of embargo on Oven Cottage. And she didn’t know how to stop him. All she needed was to hear a friendly voice, a consoling word and some advice.

In the morning she flung open the front door and unlocked the postbox attached to it in the hope that there would be a letter from her mother. But the metal door swung open to reveal an empty interior.

‘Oh, Mum!’ she sighed, disappointed. ‘If only you knew how much I need you right now!’

And her feelings of desolation intensified later, when she discovered that her ladder and some tools were missing from the woodshed. Guy again! Or one of his accomplices! Her frustration made her want to scream. Perhaps she would, she thought darkly. At Guy.

Instead, armed with a dictionary and some carefully rehearsed phrases, she went to the mairie, the town hall, since there was no gendarmerie nearby. She hoped the officials might help or offer advice, and she did her best to explain what had happened. As she’d suspected they might, they stubbornly refused to understand anything she said. Eventually she gave up, wearied by their indifferent shrugs and blatant hostility. There didn’t seem to be any point in driving to Lalinde to make a complaint. The police wouldn’t get far in their enquiries, she felt sure.

The villagers were entrenched in their hatred of her, she

thought miserably, making her way back to the cottage. And Guy encouraged them. Her spirits sank and she lost much of her will, working because she had to, not because it was fun any more.

Over the next few days it became overpoweringly hot and sticky. Every morning she expected the threatened thunderstorm. Every day she expected a letter from her mother. No storm, no letter-and no word from the French agent in Lalinde about the sale of her cottage. Every day she tucked into a bar of chocolate for comfort, not caring that her body was rounding out, because she felt more at ease with herself when she couldn’t see her ribs. At the end of one uncomfortably sultry day, she decided to down tools early and go for a cooling walk by the river before she bathed and changed. With sweat plastering tendrils of her hair to her neck and moulding her ancient shorts and carelessly tied shirt to her now curvaceous body, she hurried down the stepped street to the square.

Where she pulled up short, her heart thudding violently. More trouble. Both wheels of her bike were missing. And beside the bike crouched Guy de Turaine. Only one man in Turaine could have such a magnificent back and narrow waist. Caught in the act again! He really was a petty, spiteful kind of guy. And disappointment

overwhelmed her, gluing her to the spot, because that wasn’t how she’d seen him in her dreams.

He straightened then, and turned, searching the square angrily as if hunting for someone. His gaze alighted on her and he stiffened, watching her with narrowed eyes as she forced her reluctant legs into motion towards his elegant figure. ‘I’m sure you have an explanation,’ she said coldly, halting a few feet away from him. ‘I’m dying to hear it. Don’t tell me-you found it like this?’

‘Yes, I did. I was on my way to the post office when I noticed the wheels had gone.’ Seeing her scathing expression, he frowned. ‘It’s true. I don’t know how it happened. I’m as puzzled as you.’

‘Puzzle no more!’ she said with bitter sarcasm. ‘Oh, Guy, how could you? This is my only transport! I can put up with having my windows broken and my ladder pinched, but this is plain vicious!’ She thrust grubby fingers through her damp hair in exasperation. ‘I rely on my bike. I need it, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. You know I have to shop in Lalinde because nobody will serve me here. If I can’t use my bike, I’ll starve. Is that what you want?’ she cried wildly.

There was a pause while he considered the likelihood of that, his gaze roaming over her smooth, bare shoulders, her lush breasts fighting the tight top and resting for a moment on her now comfortable hips. Tessa felt mortified. OK. She was plump again. Did he have to rub it in? Miserably she met his eyes, and saw to her astonishment that they smouldered with an earthy hunger.

‘Please don’t starve,’ he said huskily. ‘You’re perfect as you are.’

Mockery, she thought contemptuously. Brute! She tossed her head and planted dirty hands on her bare waist, leaving oily marks. ‘Don’t try to flatter me!’ she snapped. ‘I’m not falling for that! All I want is for this harassment to stop. Hell, I’d rather you dumped a dead pig in my lap any day!’

‘I don’t go in for teenage tricks-’

‘What kind do you favour, then?’ she demanded.

He frowned. ‘Did you say your ladder had been stolen?’

‘Please! Give me some credit and don’t act the innocent,’ she snapped impatiently. ‘You must know what’s going on. I’m being victimised. And this-’

She stopped in annoyance. Her voice was cracking. Not only was she stamping mad and upset about the bike, but she really hadn’t imagined in a million years that he’d stoop so low. What a rotten judge of character she was! Her teeth chewed her lower lip.

‘Put it right,’ she croaked. And she lifted distressed eyes to his. ‘Return my wheels. Go search for dead pigs instead and hurl them at me. At least I could barbecue and eat the damn things!’

‘I can’t put it right,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t have your wheels because I didn’t remove them.’

He sounded very stilted. Tessa stood helplessly, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth or not. In the end she decided it didn’t matter. ‘No. But you know who did.’ He shifted. ‘I might,’ he conceded.

‘Whoever’s responsible,’ she said jerkily, ‘has turned one or two minor incidents into a nasty vendetta. Do you encourage this sort of thing? Turn a blind eye? Is only one person involved or

does everyone take turns at harassing me? Is it amusing to see an uneven struggle between a single woman and a whole village plus its obsessed despot owner?’ she flung at him furiously.

Quite poker-faced, he studied her for a moment: her belligerently thrust-out chin, her hurt and angry eyes, the defiant stance of her tanned legs. There was the faintest hint of admiration in his eyes when she continued to stare him out despite a treacherously quivering lower lip.

‘Tessa, I regret what has happened. I agree that things have gone too far. I’ll show my good faith by replacing your wheels,’ he offered quietly.

‘I accept your offer,’ she retorted, not at all mollified. It was ghastly knowing how much she was loathed, and her face must have shown that because he said quite gently, ‘I am very sorry you’ve been upset. It’ll be the last time, I promise.’

‘You’re going to stop tormenting an innocent woman?’ she muttered truculently.

He winced. ‘I’ll make it known that I won’t tolerate this kind of behaviour,’ he corrected her.

‘While you’re about it, make it known that I’m not a monster,’ she shot back. ‘That I have a right to be here, a right to work on my houses-mine, Guy! You can change the way I’m treated in this village.’

‘That’s true,’ he said evenly.

Her face became earnest. This could be her chance, her only chance to improve the situation. Stepping a little closer, she fixed him with her liquid green eyes and said huskily, ‘It’s in your power to make life bearable for me. As the seigneur, the man everyone respects, you can change the whole way I’m treated merely by showing that you don’t bear me a grudge, that you’re not blaming me for hanging onto what is legally mine.’

Impulsively she touched his arm. ‘Guy,’ she said softly, pleading with her entire body, ‘all you have to do is to drop a word here and there, make sure people see you smile at me when we meet, pass the time of day with me-’

‘You’re asking something I’m not prepared to do,’ h interrupted curtly.

‘Why? You owe me! It wouldn’t cost you anything!’ He glowered at his shoes. ‘It would. Too much-’

‘Oh, your pride!

Your honour!’ she scathed.

‘No. Not that.’ And his tone was odd, as if something else prevented him. ‘Let’s take one thing at a time,’ he said heavily. ‘I must go to the post office. I’m overdue. After that, I’ll organise your set of wheels. My mechanic can fit them.’