Читать книгу A Marriage Betrayed - Emma Darcy, Emma Darcy - Страница 7

CHAPTER ONE

IN EVERY life there are turning points, some brought about by conscious choices, others caused by sheer accident. When Kristy Holloway broke her trip from London to Geneva for a one-night stopover in Paris, she had no idea that Fate was about to deliver a major turning point from which there would be no going back. Ever.

The stopover was not a considered decision, nor part of a deliberate plan. Kristy acted on impulse, a sentimental impulse. A nostalgic tribute to Betty and John, she told herself, easing the guilt of going to Geneva to do what she would never have done while her adoptive parents were alive.

They were both gone now, beyond any sense of hurt or betrayal, and their love remained in her heart, swelling into a prickling of tears as she stepped out of the taxi and stared up at the stately façade of the Hotel Soleil Levant.

The Renaissance architecture was very impressive, as befitted one of the most prestigious hotels in Paris with its privileged position between the Avenue des Champs-Elysées and the Tuileries. Even the lowliest room available in such a place as this would undoubtedly make a significant hole in her carefully calculated finances, but Kristy brushed aside any concern over cost. A remembrance of two people she had dearly loved was more important than money.

Over forty years ago, Betty and John Holloway had spent their three-day honeymoon in the Soleil Levant. The once-in-a-lifetime extravagance had formed a romantic memory which Betty had related to Kristy many times. The stories had been poignantly recalled when she had come across the old postcard in John’s effects, a snippet of memorabilia he’d cherished.

Laying the past to rest... that was what this stopover in Paris and her trip to Geneva was all about. A last treasured memory of the people who had brought her up as their daughter, then her quest to find out, once and for all, if there were any records of her real family at the Red Cross Headquarters in Geneva.

She had been letting herself drift since John’s death, feeling without purpose or purposefulness. It was time to take control, do something positive, settle the restlessness inside her, the yearning she couldn’t quite identify. The future stretched ahead but she couldn’t put any shape to it. Not yet.

It would always be possible to pick up her nursing career again, somewhere down the track. She didn’t want to go back to it right now. The long time spent helping John fight his losing battle with cancer had been a deep, emotional drain on her. She felt she had nothing left to give in that area, not for a while, anyway.

As for a man in her life...no prospects there since Trevor had given up on her, frustrated by her commitment to John’s well-being. Too many broken dates to sustain a relationship. Not that Trevor had been the love of her life. She didn’t know precisely what that felt like, only that her experience with men hadn’t produced it.

She had regretted losing Trevor’s pleasant companionship but in the face of John’s illness, on top of the grief over Betty’s death...choice hadn’t really entered into it. She’d owed her adoptive parents too much to even think of not giving John all the support and solace she could.

So here she was, twenty-eight years old, no family, no partner, career on hold, nothing important or solid enough to hang her life on.

The hotel in front of her was certainly solid, she thought with ironic humour. Sighing away her reflections, she crossed the sidewalk towards the entrance doors and encountered the first unnerving little incident that made her wonder if the stopover impulse had been foolish.

The doorman finished chatting to a stylish couple emerging from the hotel and caught sight of her approach. The benevolent expression on his face changed so abruptly, Kristy’s feet faltered. A sharp scrutiny slid into puzzlement, then startlement with an edge of disbelief, which swiftly built into utter incredulity and outright shock.

Was it her clothes? Kristy wondered. Admittedly her blue denim jeans and battle jacket were hardly sophisticated garb, and her comfortable Reeboks were somewhat the worse for wear, but surely they constituted a kind of universal uniform amongst travellers these days, acceptable practically anywhere. On the other hand, the canvas carryall she was toting did not convey an aura of class and this was a very classy hotel.

Kristy swiftly reasoned that as long as she could pay for her accommodation, there was no reason for anyone to turn her away. The glazed look of disbelief in the doorman’s eyes had to be a reflection of his snobbery. She decided to disarm him with a friendly smile.

Her smile was definitely her best feature, though Betty had always raved on about her hair. Its particular shade of apricot gold was rather rare, and there was a lot of it, bouncing around her shoulders in a cascade of unruly waves and curls. Her face was not nearly as spectacular, although she had always thought it nice enough. Her nose and mouth were neat and regular—nothing to take exception to—and her eyes were a very clear blue, which a lot of people remarked upon, probably because the colour was such a sharp contrast to her hair.

The doorman, however, was not disarmed by her smile. If anything, he looked thoroughly alarmed by it. Kristy decided her next best option was to impress him with his own native tongue.

“Bonjour, Monsieur,” she greeted him sweetly, demonstrating her perfectly accented French. It was her one real talent—a natural gift for languages, enabling her to fit in easily wherever John’s army postings had taken them.

“Bonjour, Madame.”

No enthusiasm in his response. A very stiff formality. Kristy didn’t bother correcting the Madame to Mademoiselle. The man was clearly uneasy with her presence, turning aside quickly to summon a bellboy who hurried forward to relieve her of her bag. At least she wasn’t being rejected.

The door was punctiliously held open for her passage into the lobby. She would have liked to tip him, proving her worthiness as a guest, but the doorman clearly disdained accepting anything from her, his attention fixed with some intensity on the reception desk. Shrugging off the uncomfortable sensation of being considered riffraff, Kristy moved on into the lobby.

The bellboy carrying her bag whisked past her, heading straight for the check-in. One of the clerks stationed at the desk seemed to be alerted by something behind Kristy. Then his gaze shot to her and the jolt on his face gave her further pause. It wasn’t so much disbelief this time. It looked like absolute horror. What was going on? Why was she causing this odd reaction? Was she really unacceptable in this hotel?

It made no sense to Kristy. However, if she was going to be turned away, she was not going to be entirely done out of her trip down nostalgia lane. She’d come here to feel, as best she could, what Betty had felt forty years before. A belligerent determination halted her feet and sent her gaze sweeping slowly around the grand lobby.

Bathed in a soft golden haze...magical. Those had been Betty’s words, and they were still true, even after all this time. The yellow glow in the light seemed to beam off the walls, covered in their richly veined Siena marble. The floor was a gleaming chessboard of marble tiles, just as Betty had described, and the sumptuous chandeliers overhead added their lustrous effect.

The atmosphere of opulence had not been overstated. Intent on observing everything, Kristy gradually realised the sense of richness—even of greatness—was reflected by the beautifully dressed and elegantly shod guests scattered through the lobby. No-one in common jeans. Not even designer jeans. As for scuffed Reeboks, Kristy suspected the people around her wouldn’t be seen dead in them.

She didn’t fit in here. That was the plain unvarnished truth. Betty and John had undoubtedly worn their best honeymoon clothes at the time of their stay. Coming to this hotel was not supposed to be an act of impulse.

However, it was done now and she didn’t really have to fit, Kristy assured herself. All she wanted was a room for the night. That would complete her mission here and she saw no reason why it shouldn’t be achieved. Once out of sight she wouldn’t present a problem to anyone. Besides, there was nothing wrong in pursuing a sentimental whim.

The bellboy was standing guard over her bag at the reception desk. Both he and the clerk who’d been alerted to her entrance were keeping a wary eye on her. Kristy hated feeling unwelcome, but these people meant nothing to her. The fantasy of a forty-year-old honeymoon had a much stronger call on her than their approval.

Refusing to be intimidated, Kristy fronted up to the desk, noting how the clerk, a tall thin man with a receding hairline, positioned himself to be in direct line to serve her. He was obviously the senior man on duty. No doubt he always took charge of difficult guests.

“How can I help, Madame?”

Studied politeness, Kristy thought. He didn’t want to help her at all. The crease of concern on his brow and the trace of anxiety in his voice telegraphed a wish to get rid of her as fast as possible.

“I want a room for tonight. Only the one night,” she answered with pointed emphasis, hoping such a brief stay would win his toleration. At least he couldn’t fault her French, she thought, having mimicked the exact modulation of his voice.

He hesitated, uncertainty flicking over his face. “We have a suite....”

Kristy looked him in the eye. He had probably surmised she couldn’t afford an expensive suite. “I want a room. A regular room. For one night. Are you saying you can’t accommodate me?”

He seemed to take fright at her assertive challenge, perhaps sniffing the possibility of an unpleasant scene. “Non, Madame,” he answered hastily. “A room can be arranged.”

“Your cheapest room,” Kristy spelled out so there was no mistake.

His eyebrows shot up. His face dropped. “Oui, Madame,” he choked out.

He pushed across the registration form and Kristy filled it in, feeling she had won a minor victory over petty snobbery. Why the staff here was automatically addressing her as madame was a puzzle, but she shrugged it off as irrelevant. She was in. That was all she cared about

Having written down the information required and signed her name, she handed the form back. The clerk started to glance over it. Kristy could have sworn his eyes actually bulged as he took in her particulars. Probably stunned to discover she was an American, not French at all.

Nevertheless, that didn’t explain why he then became quite agitated, shoving the form under the desk as though it was contaminated and passing a room key to the bellboy with fussy officiousness, gesturing pointedly to the elevators.

The bellboy set off smartly with her key and bag, but the clerk’s manner had irked Kristy. A streak of stubborn pride emerged, prompting her to loiter in the lobby. She didn’t like being pushed around, or viewed as disposable garbage. Her independent spirit insisted she ignore such pressures.

Her gaze was drawn to a couple seated behind a low table, conversing quietly but with the kind of animation that was distinctly French. The woman was a striking brunette, superbly groomed, and wearing a black and white outfit that had to be the creation of one of the top Parisian designers. She gave chic a new meaning.

Her companion was even more striking, the perfect image of aristocratic elegance. He was handsome in a distinctly Gallic way: a high intellectual forehead, a slightly long but very refined nose, a firm imperious chin, and an extremely sensual mouth. He was clothed in tailored perfection, his dark grey suit encasing a body that conveyed grace, virility and vitality.

Something about him tugged at her, as though she should know him, yet she was sure she’d remember if she’d ever met him before. The feeling caused her to study him with keener interest.

His black hair was sleekly styled, as though he knew he needed no flamboyance to distract from the fine sensitivity of his face. She imagined him having a deep appreciation of art and music and good food and wine. The quizzical arch of his brows suggested he would take pleasure in questioning everything, and the dark dancing brilliance of his eyes seemed to promise he missed nothing.

There was passion in the slight flare of his nostrils, a worldly but not unkind cynicism in the faint curl of his beautifully moulded mouth. He was in his mid-thirties, Kristy guessed, with the mature authority that came with many years of being successful at whatever he did.

She found herself envying the woman who was with him. They had to be celebrating something. A bottle of champagne rested in a silver ice bucket on the table and two flute glasses of gleaming crystal were at hand. Their honeymoon? she wondered, and felt a sharp inner recoil from the thought.

The man suddenly bestowed a brilliant smile on his companion and Kristy caught her breath as his attraction took a mega-leap. She was riven by a fierce wish for that smile to be directed at her...only her...which shook her so much she wrenched her gaze away.

The bellboy was shuffling impatiently by the elevators. She hadn’t asked for his services, Kristy thought irritably. As a guest in this hotel, she had every right to move at her own convenience, not his. No doubt the couple she’d been watching did as they pleased, assuming it was the natural way of things. She looked back at them with a burst of burning resentment that was quite alien to her normal nature.

What happened next was inexplicable. Had she somehow shot a blast of negative force across the lobby? The man must have felt something hit him. His head jerked, attention whipping away from his companion and fastening on Kristy with such sharp intensity, her heart contracted. He started to rise from his seat, his face stricken with...what? Surprise . . . astonishment, shock...guilt...anger?

His hand flashed out in aggressive dismissal. It struck the glass nearest to him. Over it went, rolling towards the edge, splashing fluid across the table. He moved instinctively but jerkily to grab it and the whole table tipped. Ice and shards of crystal splattered over the chessboard floor in a spreading foam of spilled champagne.

Momentarily and automatically his gaze left Kristy to follow the path of destruction radiating out in front of him. A totally appalled look flitted over his face. Yet his gaze stabbed back at her, dismissing the mess, projecting some savagely personal accusation at her, as though this was all her fault and she knew it as intimately and certainly as he did.

It made Kristy feel odd, as though time and place had shifted into a different dimension. Her pulse went haywire, pumping her heart so hard her temples throbbed. Vaguely she saw the woman leap up and clutch the man’s arm, commanding his attention. Then a hand touched her own arm, jolting her out of the strange thrall that had held her. It was the clerk from the reception desk.

“Your room, Madame,” he pressed anxiously. “The bellboy has the elevator waiting for you.”

“Oh! Yes. Okay,” she babbled, momentarily forgetting to speak French.

She forced her legs to move away from the embarrassing scene. It wasn’t her fault. How could it be? She was nobody here. She didn’t know the man and the man didn’t know her. She must have imagined that weird sense of connection.

The bellboy was holding the elevator doors open for her, the canvas bag already deposited in the compartment. His head shook dolefully over the mess in the lobby behind her as she stepped past him.

“An unfortunate accident,” she offered by way of glossing over the incident.

“Un scandale,” he muttered, smartly stepping into the elevator after her and releasing the doors, shutting them both off from whatever was now happening in the lobby. As he pressed the button for her floor he added on a low note of doom, “Un scandale terrible!”