Читать книгу A Husband For Christmas - Emma Richmond, Emma Richmond - Страница 7

CHAPTER ONE

THICK dark hair hung to her waist in a loosely woven plait, big brown eyes surveyed the world without interest. Beautiful, introspective, sad. Oblivious of the Christmas jingle that played endlessly over the loudspeaker, the noisy chatter, Gellis stared inward, wrapped up in her own thoughts. The opening of the café door brought momentary awareness—and then shock.

Déjà vu—except it wasn’t. Unable to tear her eyes away, rigid with disbelief, uncomprehending, she stared at the tall, dark-haired man as he took the table next to her own. Hard and tough, fit. Ruthless. He had a badger stripe at his left temple, but it was Sébastien. Hazel eyes with those startling flecks of green stared dismissively round—until they found Gellis. And then they stopped. With a leisurely, almost insulting examination of her exquisite face, he gave a cynical smile of appreciation.

She didn’t smile back. Couldn’t smile back. There was no warmth in that glance, no humour. It was Sébastien, but not the Sébastien she had known. Loved. That Sébastien’s eyes had been filled with laughter, and he had looked what he was—what she had thought he was, she corrected with bitter anguish—a humorous and honest man. And his dark hair had had no streak of white.

Eighteen months ago, in another café, another place, they had exchanged glances—and love had been born. Not immediately, not instantly, but it had been born. And consummated.

Frozen in place, she continued to stare—and he raised one eyebrow in mocking question.

She was unable to respond, unable to do anything but sit there like a fool. He frowned, asked harshly, ‘You know me?’ And when she didn’t answer, merely continued to stare at him in shock, he reached out, grabbed her forearm, hard. ‘I asked if you knew me!’ he gritted.

A catch in her throat, a little sound of distress; she lurched to her feet, prepared to flee.

‘Sit down,’ he grated. ‘Sit down!’ With a ruthless disregard for any pain he might be causing her, he dragged her down to her seat. Face thrust forward, eyes hard, mouth a grim line, he asked with menacing softness, ‘Who am I?’

‘Don’t do this,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, please don’t do this.’ And his frown deepened, making carved, ugly grooves between his brows.

‘Do what? Do what?’ he repeated savagely. ‘Where do you know me from? When?’

‘You know when!’ she cried.

‘No, lady, I don’t! So when?’ he demanded urgently. ‘More than four months ago?’

Throat tight, the most awful ache in her chest, eyes fixed on his in disbelief and pain, she gave a jerky nod, and he let out a shuddering sigh, briefly closed his eyes.

‘And my name is?’

‘What?’ she asked in a frightened little whisper.

‘What’s my name? What’s my name, dammit?’

‘Sébastien.’

‘Sébastien,’ he echoed, and his free hand curled into a tight fist. ‘Sébastien what? Sébastien what?’ he repeated menacingly when she didn’t answer.’

‘Fourcard.’

‘French?’

‘Yes. Yes!’ she shouted in distress.

‘From?’

‘Collioure.’ And he closed his eyes again, let out a breath that seemed to Gellis as though it had been held for a very long time.

‘Sébastien Fourcard,’ he repeated quietly. ‘From Collioure. Mon Dieu. At last.’ Opening his eyes, he stared at her. ‘And you are?’

‘Gellis.’

‘Gellis,’ he echoed flatly.

‘You’re hurting me,’ she asserted.

Staring at her arm as though quite unaware that he had been holding it in an iron fist, he hastily released it. ‘Pardon. And we were, what? Friends? Lovers?’

Snatching her eyes away, she too stared at her arm, watched the white imprint of his fingers slowly turn red. Oh, dear God. Oh, dear, dear God. How could he not remember? Of all the scenarios she had envisaged over the past four months, that had not been one of them. She had conjured up excuse after excuse for his behaviour, even blamed herself—but had not dreamed that he wouldn’t remember her. Or himself. Or himself? Snapping her eyes back to his, she opened her mouth, closed it. And he gave a cruel smile.

‘Yes,’ he agreed harshly. Leaning back in his chair, eyes still fixed unwaveringly on her face, he explained flatly, ‘I have no memory of events, people, places prior to August this year.’ Touching the white stripe of hair, as though it was something he did rather a lot, he added mockingly, ‘And until I sat at this table a few minutes ago I did not even know my own name. So, acquaintances, Mends—or lovers?’

Numb, barely able to comprehend, she just stared. He’d lost his memory?

‘Lovers,’ he guessed. ‘Only a lover could look that reproachful. What did I do? Run out on you?’

And she didn’t think she could bear it. Not his mockery, not his harshness, nor the consequences if she told him what else he was responsible for. Shoving back her chair, she tried to escape. He grabbed her arm, forced her back down. Oblivious of the stares, the whispers, he repeated, ‘What did I do?’

‘Nothing,’ she denied hollowly. ‘Nothing at all.’ And because she didn’t want to talk about what he had done—what it had done to her—because she didn’t even think she believed this was happening, she asked numbly, ‘How did it happen? An accident?’

‘Definitely lovers,’ he murmured with a twisted smile. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have changed the subject, would you? Well, at least I had good taste. Yes,’ he finally agreed, ‘it was an accident.’

‘Where?’

‘South America.’

‘South America?’ Snatched out of her lethargy, she demanded blankly. ‘What were you doing in South America?’

He gave a mocking smile.

‘Oh,’ she murmured foolishly. ‘You don’t remember.’

‘No. So, when did we last meet? And where?’

Thinking back over the last dreadful months, she closed her eyes in pained defeat. ‘August,’ she stated softly. ‘In France.’

‘And how long were we—lovers?’

Lovers? Yes, they had been lovers. Looking down, the ache in her heart enormous, she whispered, ‘Over a year.’

‘And then I left you? Or did you leave me?’ he asked mockingly.

Eyes bleak, she stared blindly at the scarred wooden table. What to say? That he had broken her heart? Destroyed her faith in human nature? And she needed to know why? And until she knew that... ‘It was mutual,’ she finally murmured.

With a sceptical little smile, he shrugged. ‘But you know what I did? Where I lived? All about me?’

‘Yes.’ Or thought she had.

He didn’t say anything more for a while, but she could feel him watching her, and she wanted to get up, run away, go and think about this in private. Shaken to the roots of her being by this unexpected encounter, she didn’t know what to say, feel, think.

Because it hadn’t been mutual. He’d said he was going away for a few days, some business venture he wanted to investigate—and he hadn’t come back. He had sent a terse little note. And for the past four months every moment that hadn’t been taken up with other things had been spent trying to find him. Trying to find out why. And now he was here, and she didn’t know what to do.

Looking up at him at long last, her dark brown eyes full of distress, she stared at him in utter helplessness.

‘Mutual for the sake of pride?’ he asked quietly.

‘Yes, I can see that it was. I hurt you, didn’t I?’

An understatement, she thought bitterly, and perspicacity she could have done without. But, yes, he had hurt her. Hurt her so badly she had just wanted to die.

Those first few weeks had been a waking nightmare. Trying to find him, feeling sick and anxious, frightened—but it had been as though he had vanished into thin air. His bank wouldn’t tell her if he had drawn any money from his account. Airlines and boats did not have his name on their lists, or, if they did, wouldn’t admit it. She’d checked hospitals, the police, even funeral directors.

And as the weeks, and then months, had passed with no news hurt and despair had turned to hatred. Or so she had tried to tell herself. But there had always been that hope that one day she would find out the truth. Find out why he had done what he had. That it was all some sort of ghastly mistake. And now here he was, a harsh-faced stranger with no memory of her at all.

‘Yes,’ she finally admitted, ‘you hurt me very badly.’ And it was he who looked away. Stared through the window into the busy high street.

‘What was I like?’

‘Kind.’ she murmured sadly. And loving and exciting, with an accent to curl her toes. But even the accent was harsher now. Grating. And she’d expected to hate him if ever she saw him again. And she some-how—couldn’t.

‘Kind,’ he scoffed bitterly. ‘Dear God, I don’t feel as though I’ve ever been kind in my life. You don’t only lose your memory, you lose the feelings that went with it.’

‘You don’t remember anything?’

‘No.’ Flicking his eyes back to hers, he gave a mocking smile. ‘What did I do when you knew me? Was I gainfully employed, as they say?’

‘No. You were taking time off, looking round for something to do,’ she added quietly. ‘You’d had a string of restaurants you’d sold just before we met.’

‘Which was?’

She gave a sad little smile. ‘Eighteen months ago.’

‘Which means we parted just before I went to South America.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you didn’t know I was going? Or why?’

‘No.’

‘So if I didn’t spend the money from the sale of the restaurants in South America I presumably still have some.’

‘Yes.’

‘Relatives?’

Relatives? She felt a little bubble of hysteria rise up in her throat. Relatives? Oh, yes, you have relatives, Sébastien. You have a wife and a son. A son that you delivered and then abandoned. But she couldn’t tell him that, could she? Because he didn’t remember. And if she did tell him he might want to come—home. So until she knew why he had left...

Staring at him, her gentle face harder, firmer, she shook her head. ‘No. Not to my knowledge.’ Just close friends, intimate friends—like Nathalie, she thought bitterly. Nathalie, who had completed the horror that Sébastien had started. But he had presumably also forgotten Nathalie, and she wasn’t about to reintroduce her.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she denied quickly. Making an effort, trying to think what she should do, she asked instead, ‘What are you doing in Portsmouth?’

‘Disembarking. I was a deck hand on the Pilbeam. Cargo ship.’

‘Oh. You remembered you liked the sea?’

‘No—did I?’

‘Yes, you used to go out sailing quite a lot.’

A rather bleak expression in his eyes, he gave a brief laugh. ‘It was—expedient. The easiest way out of South America. No papers, no money; someone took me on as a deck hand. And, in between trying to find out who I was, deck hand I’ve been ever since.’

‘Why did you have no papers or money?’

‘Because someone presumably “lifted” them whilst I was unconscious after the accident.’

‘Car?’

‘Truck.’

‘Then how have you managed since?’ She frowned. ‘With no papers...’

He reached into his pocket, tossed a passport down in front of her.

Taking it in a hand that still shook, she opened it. It was his picture, but the name was William Blake.

‘You didn’t know you were French?’

‘Yes—or assumed, anyway. I think in French,’ he explained. ‘But it wouldn’t have mattered if I was Chinese. Beggars can’t be choosers, can they?’

‘No,’ she agreed, and didn’t know how she could sit here and talk about incidentals with a man who had betrayed her, disappeared from her life, and had now come back. Still feeling numb, disbelieving, she asked foolishly, ‘Is it...?’

‘Forged? What do you think?’

‘But surely the authorities could have helped you?’

‘Could they?’

‘Yes! In South America...’

He shrugged. ‘They did their best. But with no paper, no memory, no knowledge of what I was doing there, no missing persons reported...’ he added bitterly as he remembered those frustrating, fruitless days.

‘But when you got out,’ she persisted weakly. ‘Surely the French authorities would have helped?’

‘Why? I couldn’t prove I was French. According to them, I was just another illegal immigrant. And suppose I wasn’t French but French Canadian? From somewhere else that speaks French? You think I didn’t try?’

Feeling sad and lost, unprepared for this, Gellis asked emptily, ‘So it was just coincidence that you came to Portsmouth?’

‘Not entirely. Do you live here?’

Hesitating for a moment, she tried to think rationally, sensibly. But her mind was a whirl of conjecture, speculation, worry, and so she nodded, because it seemed best not to tell him the truth.

‘So I would have known the town? Would have been here?’

‘Yes.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Then I was right I’ve been here several times, looking, waiting, hoping. When I was found after the accident I was wearing a brown leather belt. Stamped on the inside was the name and address of a shop in Portsmouth. Presumably where it was made and bought. Unfortunately, the shop has since closed down.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

‘You know it?’

She nodded.

‘You bought it for me?’

‘No,’ she denied quietly. ‘My mother. She bought it for you for Christmas.’ And this Christmas, in a few weeks’ time, there would be no presents for Sébastien. Not from her parents. Not from herself. No presents from Sébastien to his—family. With a hard, painful ache inside, she asked listlessly, ‘Will it come back? Your memory?’

‘Who knows?’ he shrugged.

‘You’ve seen doctors?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed mockingly.

‘What will you do now?’

‘Go to France. With you.’

Shocked, utterly panicked, she just stared at him. ‘I can’t go to France!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I can’t!’ Couldn’t go anywhere with this man! And you couldn’t go back, could you? Yet she had loved him. No—she had loved the man he had been. And getting to know him again would be—dangerous. Hardening her heart and her mind, she shook her head. ‘No. I have a new life now. I’m sorry you’ve lost your memory, I’m sorry you’ve been hurt. I’ll give you the addresses I know in France that might help, but—’

‘No,’ he put in softly.

‘What?’

‘No,’ he repeated. ‘You are the only person I’ve found in four months who knew me. The only person who can tell me what I was like. Are there others in Collioure who would know me?’

‘Yes, you have a rented apartment there.’

‘Have?’ he frowned.

‘Yes. The bank automatically pays the rent each month. At least, I assume they’re still doing so.’

‘And we lived there together?’

‘Yes.’

‘As lovers?’

‘Yes!’ she agreed tightly.

‘And then I, what? Got bored with you? Met someone else?’

Yes! her mind screamed. You met Nathalie. Nathalie who was beautiful and blonde and French. ‘You went out one day,’ she stated flatly, ‘and didn’t come back.’

‘And you didn’t look for me?’ he asked with that hatefully mocking smile.

Slamming to her feet, she glared down at him. ‘Yes, I looked for you! Looked and looked and looked! And even though—’ Biting off what she had been going to say, she grabbed up her bag and ran away.

Wrenching open the café door, she hurried out onto the crowded pavement. She was shaking. Badly. Why? she wondered in despair. Why? And it hurt. Dear God, how it hurt. But she had survived four months without him, and so she could survive more. And, lost memory or no, there was no getting away from what he had done.

Shutting off her mind, her emotions, she strode quickly down the street, turned off towards where her car was parked—and he grabbed her arm.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she gritted. ‘Don’t ever touch me!’

Swinging round, she glared at him. She wasn’t a vengeful girl, or malicious, but she’d been through too much. Had suppressed the pain and anger, the despair, but now there was a focus for it. Someone to blame. ‘Just don’t touch me,’ she repeated heavily.

Shaking, she turned away, and he stopped her, held her firm.

‘I said...’

‘I know.’ Gently turning her, he leaned her against the wall. Examined her exquisite face. The defiance in her eyes. ‘But do you have any idea what it’s like not to know? To have no memories of self?’

Looking away, she shook her head. ‘I can imagine...’

‘No, Gellis, you can’t. No one can. Your life is shaped by what you are, how you live, loved. All I have is—nothing. A blank canvas. Your name echoes in an empty space. All names echo in an empty space.’ Dropping his bag and jacket, he lifted his hands, held them out. ‘Were my hands like this when you knew me?’

Still angry, still stiff, she stared at the calluses, the scars, then shook her head again.

‘No. Four months,’ he murmured, ‘of hell. Rough work, rough places, even rougher people. But I survived. And now I have the chance to find out who I really am, and you’re the only one who can help me. Two weeks, that’s all I ask. Two weeks to help me find out who I am.’

Still staring at his hands, she gave a bitter smile. ‘I can’t.’

‘Can’t you? And if the positions were reversed, if you were the one with no memory, wouldn’t you fight tooth and nail to make the one person who could help you help?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed helplessly. ‘But I can’t do it.’ Looking up at him, she repeated flatly, ‘I can’t. Don’t ask it of me.’

Touching his fingers gently to her cheek, he frowned when she flinched away. ‘I hurt you so much?’ he asked sombrely.

‘Yes.’

‘Then tell me. Make me understand.’

Tears filling her lovely eyes, she shook her head.

‘Then look on it as a job,’ he murmured with twisted mockery. ‘I’ll pay you.’

‘I don’t want paying,’ she denied in distress. ‘And don’t mock me. Don’t ever mock me! You don’t have the right.’

‘Obviously not. Ten days.’

‘No!’

‘Yes. How long will it take you to pack? An hour?’

‘No! I can’t go with you! Do you have any idea...? No,’ she conceded wearily, ‘of course you don’t But take my word for it, Sébastien, I can’t go with you.’

‘Won’t go with me,’ he corrected her grimly.

‘Yes. Won’t go with you.’ And if he had remembered what he had done to her he would never have asked. Or would he?

Leaning towards her, hands flat on the wall behind her, his voice low, he stated urgently, ‘This is my life, Gellis! It’s not some Women’s Institute meeting where we’re discussing the price of jam! I’ve had four lost months. Not days, not weeks, but months! And, without you, I might lose years. Whatever I did, I don’t remember, I wish to God I did! I’m sorry if I hurt you! Sorry if I caused you pain, but you’re my only hope, Gellis.’

‘I can’t,’ she denied desperately.

‘You can! For God’s sake, I’m not asking you to go to the ends of the earth! Just across the damned Channel. I need to know, Gellis! Can’t you understand that? I need to know.’

So do I, she thought bleakly. So do I.

‘Please!’

And this was not a man who begged.

‘Please,’ he repeated.

Holding his eyes for endless moments, she finally slumped, looked down, shuddered. Oh, God. It was still there—the feeling, the want, the need—and if she went with him...

And if she didn’t? If she ran away now, spent the rest of her life hiding, she would never find out the truth. And she did need to know the truth. Needed to know why he had done what he had. But she didn’t know if she could bear to be in his company—not because of what he had done, but because of the way he could make her feel.

Because she so desperately wanted him back. After all that had happened, she still wanted him. At first, in the café, when he had seemed so unfamiliar, so harsh and grating, there had been only shock, disbelief, panic. But now...

‘Just take me there,’ he urged. ‘Show me where we lived.’

‘The people there will show you,’ she argued desperately.

‘I don’t know the people there.’

Closing her eyes in defeat, she wondered if it was a nightmare that would ever end. And he was too close, made her feel stifled, and she had to keep shutting her mind off in an effort not to think, feel—because she wanted to be held, comforted... Clenching her hands tight, she shook her head.

‘Just to Collioure, and then you can come back home,’ he encouraged.

Home, she thought bleakly. Without him, it wasn’t a home at all. And the only way to get rid of him was to agree, wasn’t it? Otherwise he would stand here for ever, and for ever, persuading, undermining her resolution... ‘I can’t go for long,’ she muttered. And she couldn’t look at him. Not look into those beautiful eyes. Treacherous eyes. Eyes that had lied. As hers would be lying if she looked at him.

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll meet you back here tomorrow.’

And he laughed. A harsh, grating sound that sent a shiver through her.

‘Do I look like a fool, Gellis?’ he asked disparagingly. ‘We go today.’

‘Today? No! I can’t go today!’ She panicked. Glancing at her watch, glancing at anything in order not to have to look at him, she murmured stupidly, ‘It’s already gone eleven.’

‘So? The sooner we go, the sooner you can return.’ Well, it didn’t matter what she said, did it? Because she wasn’t intending to actually go! ‘All right. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.’

‘No.’

‘What?’

‘I said, no. You really think I believe you will come back? No, Gellis, I will come with you.’

‘No!’

And he smiled. Like a wolf. ‘Yes.’

Glancing frantically round, she found to her despair and astonishment that the pavement was empty.

‘Intending to scream?’ he asked softly and really rather menacingly.

Could she? Dared she?

His smile widened, showed even white teeth—teeth she had touched with her tongue—and she began to feel slightly sick. ‘You’re English,’ he whispered in hateful amusement. ‘And the English don’t scream, do they? Don’t like to attract attention to themselves. Give in gracefully, Gellis.’

And that angered her—his mockery, his assumption. ‘No.’ Straightening her back, she forced one of his arms away. ‘No,’ she repeated.

His smile dying, he searched her defiant eyes. ‘What did I do?’ he asked sombrely. ‘In God’s name, what did I do?’