Читать книгу Dawn Song - Сара Крейвен, Sara Craven - Страница 8

MEG TOOK A LONG, luxurious shower, then spent some considerable time deciding what to wear that evening. In the end she fixed on a simple honey-coloured cotton dress in a full-skirted wrap-around style. She fastened gold hoops into her ears, and sprayed on some of her favourite Nina Ricci scent.

She studied her appearance frowningly in the cheval mirror, from the shining tumble of hair, framing a slightly flushed face, and hazel eyes strangely wider and brighter than usual, down to her slender feet in the strappy bronze sandals, then shook her head.

I feel like the old woman in the nursery rhyme, she thought—’Lawks-a-mercy, this be none of I.’

It was daunting to realise that if Jerome Moncourt had come strolling into Mr Otway’s bookshop during the past eighteen months he probably wouldn’t have given her a second look. She still wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to have dinner with him. It wasn’t the wisest move she’d ever made. After all, she knew nothing about him but his name, and that could well be an invention.

Oh, stop being paranoid, she admonished herself impatiently. Just because you’re playing a part, it doesn’t mean everyone else is too. And she could not deny that he’d fallen over himself to be helpful, but there could well be another side to him, she thought, remembering that unnerving, frozen glimpse she’d caught of his reflection, and that other moment, earlier in the day, when she’d felt his anger in the car reach out to her like a tangible thing.

Perhaps he was one of those people whose moods changed in seconds, or, more likely, maybe she was just imagining things. I just don’t know any more, she thought, turning away from the mirror. But the invitation had been made in madame’s presence which seemed to suggest it was above-board. And at least she wouldn’t dine alone on her first evening in the Languedoc. She felt a swift glow of excitement.

She caught up her bag, and the book on the history of the Cathars that Mr Otway had given her on parting, and went downstairs to wait for him. In Reception, madame was conducting a full-blooded argument by telephone, illustrated by gestures, with some hapless representative of the electricity company, but she smiled at Meg and motioned her to go through to the courtyard.

The sun was back in full force, bathing the whole area in syrupy golden light, and Meg sat at one of the small wrought-iron tables which had been placed outside, sipping a pastis, and reading.

It was difficult to comprehend on this beautiful evening, and rather depressing too, that the Cathars had believed the world to be the devil’s creation, and man and all his works intrinsically evil. To escape damnation they had pursued a strict regime of prayer and abstinence, including vegetarianism, and the leaders of the cult, known as the Perfect Ones, also advocated celibacy in marriage.

Presumably the majority of their followers had decided to be not quite so perfect, otherwise Catharism would have died out in a generation, Meg thought.

From a modern viewpoint, their creed seemed eccentric rather than dangerous, yet armies had been sent to wipe them off the face of the earth. A bit like taking a sledgehammer to swat a fly.

Probably, as Mr Otway had said, it was greed for the riches of the South which had sent the Crusaders south, ravaging the vineyards and looting the cities, and religion was just the excuse.

She knew, before his shadow fell across the open page, that Jerome had arrived. She’d become aware of the stir at the adjoining tables, of the raised eyebrows and murmured asides as women turned their heads to watch him cross the courtyard.

‘Bonsoir.’ This evening, he was wearing well-cut cream trousers and a chestnut-brown shirt, open at the neck, while the mane of dark hair had been controlled, but not tamed.

Perhaps that was a clue to his personality, she found herself thinking as she shyly returned his smile of greeting. That under the expensive clothes and civilised manners there was a streak of wildness, waiting to explode. She wondered if he was an artist, perhaps. If so, he was a very successful one. The watch, the car, everything about him spelled out serious money.

If he’d noticed the interest his arrival had caused, he gave no sign of it, as he pulled out a chair and sat down, signalling to the hovering waiter to bring him a drink. She approved of his seeming unawareness of his own attraction. And he wasn’t just attractive, either, Meg acknowledged wrily. For the first time in her life, she’d encountered a man who possessed a powerful sexual charisma that transcended ordinary good looks, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

‘You looked very serious just now,’ he observed, adding water to his pastis. ‘You are not suffering from delayed shock, I hope?’

Meg shook her head, wrinkling her nose slightly. ‘Actually I was thinking about man’s inhumanity to man.’

‘A sad thought for such an evening.’ He glanced at her book, his brows lifting. ‘Land of the Cathars,’ he read aloud. ‘You are interested in the history of the Languedoc?’ he asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

‘Why not?’ Meg lifted her chin. Just because she’d delayed leaving her car at his command, it didn’t make her a complete idiot, she thought crossly.

He looked at her for a long moment, the expression in the dark eyes unreadable, then he shrugged. ‘As you say—why not?’ he agreed. ‘You are a creature of surprises, Marguerite.’

‘Not just me,’ she reminded him, feeling oddly defensive. ‘Neither of us knows the least thing about the other.’

‘So tonight,’ he said softly, ‘will be a journey of discovery, hein?’

She bit her lip. That had altogether too intimate a ring, she thought uneasily. And his dark gaze had begun its journey already, travelling in silent appraisal down from her face to the rounded curves of her breasts under the cling of the cross-over bodice.

Meg, about to draw a deep, indignant breath, checked the impulse. It would have totally the wrong effect in the circumstances, she told herself tersely. Perhaps Monsieur Moncourt was completely au fait with the effect he had on women, after all, she thought with angry derision, and was confident of an easy seduction. Payment, maybe, for helping her out. Well, don’t count on a thing, she assured him in grim silence.

This was the kind of game that Margot would enjoy, she realised. A sophisticated advance and retreat, spiced with unspoken promise and sexual innuendo, from which at the end she would walk away. Or not, as she chose.

And perhaps, just for one evening, it would do no harm to play the game herself—or at least learn some of its rules. Maybe this is my day for living dangerously, she thought.

Jerome Moncourt finished his drink and glanced at her empty glass. ‘Shall we go?’ he said. ‘I hope your adventure today has given you an appetite?’

‘My first experience of French cooking.’ Meg smiled brightly as she pushed her chair back. ‘I can’t wait.’

The sun was beginning to set in a blaze of crimson as they drove out of the valley.

‘Oh, how wonderful.’ Meg craned her neck. ‘It’s going to be a fine day tomorrow.’

He smiled. ‘No more storms,’ he said teasingly, and she shuddered.

‘I hope not.’

‘You were unlucky,’ he said. ‘It is more usual for the storms to come at night. Sometimes as you drive you see the lightning playing round the hills, like a gigantic silent spotlight. We call it the éclairs de chaleur. Then suddenly a fork will streak to the ground, and the world goes mad. As you saw.’

‘I did,’ she said ruefully. ‘Don’t you have any gentler form of son et lumière for the tourists?’

‘Perhaps the dawn would suit you better,’ he said. ‘That trace of pure clear light in the sky that drowns the stars, before the sun even lifts its head over the horizon.’

‘You sound like a poet,’ Meg said, stealing a sideways glance. ‘Is that what you are?’

He laughed. ‘No, I regret, nothing so romantic, although my grandfather was deeply interested in the poetry of the region—the songs of the troubadours and those that followed.’

‘Did he write himself?’

Jerome shook his head. ‘He lived on the land in a mas which belonged to his family. Grew his own vines. Adopted the simple life.’

‘It sounds—good.’

‘I think it was, for a time. Unhappily, even the simple life can become complicated, and eventually he returned to Paris.’

‘And do you—lead the simple life too?’

‘When I can.’ He slanted a smile at her. ‘But most of the time I’m an architect. I used to work in Paris, but our business expanded quite remarkably, and now I am based in Toulouse.’

‘Back to your roots.’

‘As you say. I work mainly as a consultant, advising on the preservation and restoration of old buildings—houses, usually, which have been allowed to become derelict during the drift from the land to the cities, but which are now in demand again.’

‘Actually, I think that’s quite as romantic as poetry,’ Meg said thoughtfully. ‘Repairing the fabric of history.’

His smile widened. ‘And actually I agree with you, but I don’t tell my clients, or they would expect me to work for love and not for money.’

‘Are you working on a project at the moment?’

‘In a way, although I’m officially on leave.’ He didn’t seem to want to enlarge on the subject, so Meg left it there.

‘Do you miss Paris?’ she asked, after a pause.

He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t miss any city,’ he said flatly. ‘My family chose to live there. I did not.’

‘Were they from this part of the country originally?’

‘Yes. Our roots have always been here. My grandfather was the first to move away completely, in fact.’

‘Was he never tempted to return?’

Jerome shrugged. ‘My grandmother was a Parisienne,’ he said tonelessly. ‘She had no taste for the country.’

‘But you’ve come back.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘To the country of my heart. The place where I belong.’

It must be good to have such certainty, Meg thought rather wistfully. She wasn’t sure where she stood in the scheme of things. She still lived at her late father’s house, but it had been totally transformed to Iris Langtry’s taste, and Meg felt like an outsider there most of the time. And she no longer had a job to hold her. So, she supposed, the world was her oyster now. Maybe it was time she found where she belonged. Put down some roots of her own.

In the meantime, she was beginning to wonder where they were going. She’d presumed he was taking her to some local restaurant where the electricity was still functioning, but they were still travelling purposefully, the Citroën eating up the kilometres. She wished she’d been watching the signposts, so that she could have followed their route on the map she had in her bag.

‘You would like some music?’ He seemed to have noticed her slight restiveness.

‘No,’ she denied quickly. ‘I like to watch the scenery, and talk. But you must stop me if I ask too many questions.’

‘You’re unlikely to ask anything I won’t wish to answer.’ The dark eyes flickered towards her, then returned to the road. ‘Can you say the same, Marguerite?’

‘Of course,’ she said stoutly, crossing her fingers metaphorically. ‘I’ve nothing to hide.’

‘A woman without secrets,’ he said musingly. ‘Unbelievable.’

She laughed. ‘No, I just lead an uncomplicated and rather boring life.’ Or I did, she thought.

‘Yet you travel alone through choice, and have a deeper interest in this region than the average tourist. That is hardly dull. I think you have hidden depths, Marguerite.’

There was a note in his voice which made her heart leap in sudden ridiculous excitement. She said rather breathlessly, ‘But then they say that everyone’s more interesting on holiday.’ There was a brief silence.

‘Tell me,’ he said softly, ‘why you were so reluctant to answer when I asked you to dine with me? There is a man in England, perhaps, who might cause—complications?’

Meg stared ahead of her. Tim Hansby? she thought with a kind of desperate amusement. She said shortly, ‘There’s no one.’

‘Vraiment?’ Jerome Moncourt sounded sceptical. ‘I cannot believe there is no one you care about.’

She shrugged, pride making her reluctant to admit that up to now she’d occupied a fairly undistinguished place on the shelf—that there were only two people she really cared about, she realised with a pang. A retired second-hand bookseller, and the elderly woman who’d taken the place of her mother, and given her the affection and comfort that her father, dazed with grief at the loss of his young wife, had been unable to bestow. For whose sake she was here in the first place. She swallowed. Not a lot to show for her twenty years, she thought. Although this was not the time to start feeling sorry for herself.

And what the hell? she argued inwardly. It’s nothing to do with him if I prevaricate a little. Although why she should wish to appear marginally more interesting than actual reality was something she didn’t want to examine too closely, she thought, biting her lip.

‘Does it make any difference?’ she challenged. ‘An invitation to dinner hardly constitutes a major breach of faith.’

She took a breath. ‘For all I know, you could be married.’

‘Would it matter if I was?’ he tossed back at her.

That sounded like hedging. Her heart plummeted in a dismay as acute as it was absurd.

‘I think it might matter a hell of a lot to your wife,’ she said curtly.

‘Then it is fortunate she does not yet exist.’ There was a note of mockery in his voice, mingled with something else less easy to decipher.

‘Fortunate for her, anyway,’ she muttered, self-disgust at the relief flooding over her making her churlish.

He clicked his tongue reprovingly. ‘That’s not kind. You don’t think I’d make a good husband?’

‘I can’t possibly tell on so brief an acquaintance.’ Meg kept her tone short. She knew he was laughing at her, even though his expression was serious, almost frowning.

‘But you have an ideal? What qualities should he possess? Would you require him to be faithful?’

Meg twisted the strap of her bag in her fingers. ‘I’d want him to love me, and only me, as I’d love him,’ she said at last. ‘I suppose that takes care of most things.’

‘It is certainly sweeping,’ Jerome said, after another pause. ‘And if, in spite of that love, another woman intervened—tried to take this paragon away from you—what would you do then? Make the sacrifice? Let him go?’

‘No,’ she said, fiercely. ‘I’d fight for him with everything I had.’

‘You would be ruthless?’ his voice probed softly. ‘Use any weapon?’

‘Of course.’ She hesitated uncertainly. ‘Why do you ask me all this?’

‘Because I wish to know, ma petite,’ he said softly. ‘It is part of that journey of discovery I mentioned—to find that you would fight like a tigress for love.’

Again that odd note in his voice. Meg felt herself shiver. He noticed at once. ‘You are cold?’

‘Oh, no.’ She forced a smile. ‘Hungry, perhaps.’ She thought of her picnic lunch, crushed in the car.

‘You’ve been patient long enough. Now you shall be fed.’ He turned the car suddenly off the road, and on to a track leading downhill. Meg braced herself as the Citroën swayed and jolted over stones and deep ruts.

‘There’s actually a restaurant down here?’ she gasped. ‘I hope there’s another road out, or people’s meals won’t stay down for long.’

‘Not a restaurant.’ Ahead of them, bathed rose-pink in the sunset, there was a straggle of buildings, a chimney from which smoke uncoiled lazily in the still evening air.

‘Then where are we?’ They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, she realised with alarm. And isolated too. There were no other cars around that she could see, so it couldn’t be a very popular establishment.

‘This is my house.’ The mockery was back, full force. ‘The family mas I was telling you about.’

He paused. ‘I decided, ma belle, that we would dine at home tonight. Enjoy our mutual discoveries in private.’ He let that sink in, then added silkily, ‘I hope you approve?’