by Penny Jordan
With Luc’s lips caressing hers it had been extraordinarily easy to forget their quarrels and the harsh words they had said to one another in the final, agonising dying throes of their marriage and oh, so easy to remember instead the love they had once shared.
Had once shared?
Shakily Belle closed her eyes. It must be the weakening effect of her flu that was making her feel like this, making her remember…regret…wish… But the way she had felt just now, when Luc had kissed her, had been the reaction of the woman she was now to the man he was now, she acknowledged with painful honesty. She had wanted him as the man he was, had felt that age-old female response to his nearness and his touch as the woman she had grown into.
Not wanting to pursue such a dangerous train of thought, Belle punched her pillow and told herself that she ought to be trying to sleep and get herself better.
* * *
Belle was asleep when Luc let himself back into her small house several hours later. He had found her spare keys hanging on a hook in the kitchen, neatly labelled. He had been reluctant to leave her on her own, having seen how ill she looked. She was far too thin, far too pale, and no doubt she was working far too hard and neglecting to look after herself properly.
A wry smile curled his mouth. One of her complaints about him had been that he fussed too much.
‘When I’m hungry, I’ll eat,’ had been her standard response to him in the old days, when he had complained about their lack of ordered meal times.
These days he could sympathise more with that view. He certainly found no pleasure in going home to an empty house and cooking for himself, and as a consequence he found that he tended to snatch meals on the run between lectures and meetings. But at least he could dine in hall if he wanted to—the academic’s version of the businessman’s ‘business lunches’, he acknowledged ruefully as he climbed the stairs and went into Belle’s kitchen to unpack the groceries he had bought whilst he was out.
No doubt she would be furious with him for what she would undoubtedly consider to be his unwarranted interference. But, deny it though she would, there was still, on his part at least, a sense of there being a bond between them, a relationship, and he could no more have returned to Cambridge after his meeting with fellow academics without returning to check that she was all right than he could have walked away when she’d opened the door to him and he had seen how ill she looked.
It was true that all those years ago, after the initial shock, and his instinctive attempt to deny what was happening, he had been forced to acknowledge that, given the growing frequency and intensity of their quarrels, and the disharmony between them, he’d had no option but to accept Belle’s decision that she wanted a divorce. Certainly it had seemed impossible at the time for them to be able to reconcile their growing differences, but in the years since then his position had given him plenty of opportunity to observe and consider the changes taking place in the way the sexes related to one another and ran their relationships.
It was no extraordinary thing at all now for a female student to take on the financial responsibility of helping to support her partner, or to go on to become the main breadwinner whilst he opted to continue his studies; why, even some of his female colleagues were openly outspoken about the fact that they, as highly qualified women earning good salaries, actively preferred to have a partner who was happy to take a more passive but nevertheless extremely important and supportive role in their relationship.
‘It’s just too exhausting battling to accommodate two major egos,’ one female colleague had told him frankly, when they had been discussing the subject. ‘Quite honestly, whilst there’s a part of me that will always be drawn to the high-powered “Alpha”-type male biologically speaking, as a thinking woman, I know that I have a far better chance of happiness and a far pleasanter life with a man who is prepared to let me take the lead role.’
Not that he and Belle’s relationship had been quite like that.
He personally had always considered Belle to be his equal in every way, although sexually she had tended to look to him to initiate their lovemaking, at least in the earlier stages of their relationship. If he was honest, Luc had to admit that his own inflexible old-fashioned male attitude to money had been the maggot which had eaten away at the foundations of their marriage. Although he had always been too proud to admit it to her, it had irked him, hurt him, that she had been the one to provide the major part of their income, and because of that he had been less than generous in sharing the pleasure it had given her to buy things for their home…and for him.
Yes, there had been faults on both sides, but…
But it was too late now to go back and rewrite the past. Not the past, maybe, but there was still the present…and the future. Luc paused in the act of closing the fridge door.
Holding Belle in his arms earlier, he had been overwhelmed by an impulse…a need…to take things further. Very thoughtfully he made his way to Belle’s bedroom. She was asleep, lying curled up like a small child, looking very alone in the large bed. And she had let her guard down enough with him to imply she had not shared that bed with anyone else.
Which put them both on an equal footing.
Luc knew men who complained that the sexual frustration of being without a partner drove them to irrational excesses of behaviour and unsuitable relationships… But, desperately though he had missed Belle, and the intimacy of their lovemaking, he had never experienced any desire to fill her place with another woman, another body…any body…just to ease the sexual ache of her absence. And yet earlier today, holding her, he had been sharply and shockingly reminded of just how powerfully potent the male sex drive could be, of just how determinedly and dangerously it could overrule reason and logic.
If the intensity with which he had once wanted Belle, and loved her, had dimmed over the years, then being so close to her had certainly given him a sharp reminder of just how it had once been.
Luc sat down on the bed beside her, watching her, remembering.
The first time he had held her, really properly held her, she had literally trembled with excitement in his arms. When he had kissed her he had felt as though he had instantly become Master of the Universe, Lord of Eternity, no mere mortal any longer, at once so strong and powerful that there was nothing, no goal beyond his reach, and at the same time so achingly vulnerable that she could have reduced him to emotional dust simply by refusing him her smile.
It had been the love of poets and sages, beyond reason, beyond logic, and certainly beyond the control of a mere mathematician, and miraculously she had felt the same.
It was, they had both sworn, a love that would last for ever; they were soulmates, two perfect halves of an even more perfect whole. So why and how had they managed to destroy it? Not so much, perhaps, through human frailty, but rather through human strength, pride, arrogance, mistaken belief on the part of both of them that they were wholly in the right.
It was no doubt fitting that he should be examining the flaws which had led to the destruction of their marriage now—if not on the eve of his cousin’s marriage to Belle’s niece then certainly on the runway approach to it. Not that Andy was likely to ask him for his advice, or his admission on where he had gone wrong.
He was still deep in thought when Belle opened her eyes. At first she thought she was seeing a mirage. She had seen Luc leave with her own eyes, but here he was, sitting on the side of her bed as he looked towards the window, his expression, in repose, both stern and sad.
Instinctively she reached out to touch him.
Instantly he turned towards her.
‘Belle, you’re awake. How are you feeling?’
‘Better,’ she told him, dismissing the subject of her health in favour of something which interested her far more.
‘What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone.’
‘I had…I had a meeting to attend, otherwise… I was concerned about you. You shouldn’t neglect your health, you know. You’re…’
�
�Not getting any younger. I know,’ Belle agreed dryly.
‘I’ve bought you some groceries,’ Luc informed her. ‘If you’re hungry.’
I’m not… Belle had been about to say, but instead—as she would be the first to admit to herself later—a little deviously she fibbed.
‘Well, yes, I am a little, but I really don’t feel like getting up and cooking. My head still aches and…’
‘You stay right where you are,’ Luc commanded her, getting up. ‘I’ll do the cooking.’
‘Are you sure? Don’t you have to get back?’
‘Yes and no,’ Luc told her promptly, holding her eyes as he added quietly, ‘After all, what is there for me to go back to other than an empty house?
‘I’ll go and make us both something to eat, and then, if you feel up to it, Belle, I’d like us to talk.’
‘Talk?’ Steadily Belle returned his gaze, her own never faltering as she read the message he was giving her with his eyes. ‘I feel up to it,’ she responded huskily.
CHAPTER THREE
‘BELLE, Carol says it’s time for the wedding breakfast. Carol’s got the reception line organised to go in. It’s a shame that you won’t be on the top table, but…’
‘Mum, I really don’t mind,’ Belle reassured her mother. ‘After all, I’m only Joy’s aunt, not her mother or her bridesmaid…’
‘I can’t believe the last wedding we had in the family was yours and Luc’s. I saw him earlier. He made a point of coming over to talk to your father and me…’
Belle smiled and waited patiently, knowing what was coming next. Her mother had never made any secret of the fact of how much she had liked Luc.
‘I hate to say it, Belle,’ she had told her younger daughter unhappily after the divorce, ‘but this is what happens when a woman puts her job before her husband.’
‘Mum…I’m the one who wanted the divorce, not Luc,’ Belle had reminded her mother sharply. ‘And as for putting my job first—’
She had stopped, knowing that there was no point in arguing with her mother and upsetting her. She was a woman of her time and had what Belle considered to be antiquated, old-fashioned views about a woman’s role in life. She had worked as a secretary until Carol had been conceived, and after that she had stayed at home to look after her daughters and her husband. Not out of any sense of duty, but because that was what she had wanted to do.
‘Carol’s put you on a table with—’
‘Great-Aunt Alice. I know,’ Belle acknowledged, dutifully smiling at her father as he came over to join them.
Joy had opted for informal round tables for seating her wedding guests. Belle’s was in the middle of the room, commanding an excellent view of the other guests, but as she approached it her eyebrows lifted slightly in amused surprise as she saw Luc standing beside the chair next to her own—the chair which should have been occupied by Belle’s Great-Aunt Alice.
As she joined him, Belle cast a discreet look at the place-cards. They read ‘Mrs Isabelle Crawford’ and ‘Mr Lucius Crawford.’
‘Another demonstration of Aunt Alice’s handiwork,’ Belle murmured to Luc as the other guests sharing their table reacted to their joint presence with varying degrees of astonishment and confusion.
‘Well, let’s just say that she was certainly the inspiration for it,’ Luc responded in an amused undertone.
Her eyes brimming with laughter, Belle looked at Luc. ‘Where is Aunt Alice, by the way?’ she asked him.
‘Er…I was to have been seated with my godfather. …’
‘Admiral Rogers?’
‘Mmm…’
‘Well, I hope you aren’t going to regret your moment of Machiavellian interference with Joy’s table plan,’ Belle warned him, ‘because I’m certainly going to. People are going to think it very odd to see us seated together in apparent amity…’
‘Mmm… But after all, it isn’t as though this is the first time lately that we’ve shared a meal on… amicable terms…is it?’ Luc reminded her.
‘No,’ Belle agreed, shaking her head at him as a secret amused smile passed between them.
* * *
It had been late in the evening when Luc had eventually left. They’d talked, but by mutual agreement they’d avoided going too deep into painful areas on this occasion. He’d cooked them both a meal, and then insisted that the two glasses of red wine he had coaxed Belle to drink would be good for her and help build her up.
‘Red wine is good for you,’ he had insisted when she had raised her eyebrows.
‘And chocolates,’ she had semi-mocked him as she’d popped one of the delicious hand-made truffles that were her favourites into her mouth.
‘The Aztecs considered chocolate to be an aphrodisiac,’ he had continued blandly. ‘And I’ve certainly no reason to argue with that.’
Belle remembered how she had blushed—and why. Long, long before the current fad for chocolate body paint there had been a certain occasion when, as a result of a cosy winter evening spent in front of an open fire, Luc had insisted on licking away the remnants of the melted chocolate she had dropped first from her fingers and then from the vee of flesh exposed by her robe where it had fallen open.
The sizzling sensuality she had experienced beneath the lazy, deliberate brush of his tongue against her skin had driven her to a frenzy of need which had resulted in her punishing him for his slow, lingering tantalisation of her body and her senses with an equally intimate exploration of his body with her own fingers and lips.
After that, the gift of chocolates between them had possessed a special intimacy and meaning, although she had assumed when he produced them this evening that he must have forgotten this.
Now, as he looked from her mouth to her fingertips, and then back to her mouth again, Belle knew that whilst he might not have bought the chocolates to remind her of that occasion—why, after all, should he have done so?—she had been reminded of it, was being reminded of it, and extremely forcibly, by a body and a set of emotions which, no matter how strictly she had fought to control them, had never truly forgiven her for denying them, and certainly had never, ever forgotten just how intense and magical the sexual rapport between her and Luc had been.
Every day for a week after that Luc rang her to see how she was feeling.
By the third day she was back at work, unofficially, at least, working from home, her body tensing every time the telephone rang in case it was Luc calling and then, abruptly, seven days after his initial visit the calls ceased.
Belle couldn’t believe how bereft she felt, or how much she missed the sound of Luc’s voice, as warm and rich as dark melting chocolate, touching her senses and unleashing emotions, longings, needs, she had thought long ago safely banished.
By the end of the second day without a call from him she was reduced to virtually willing him to ring, snapping unforgivably at both her mother and her sister for telephoning her and not being him.
‘You need a holiday,’ her mother chided her. ‘You work far too hard, darling. Which reminds me. Your father and I were wondering if you could possibly manage to house-sit for us whilst we go away. Carol would do it, but with the wedding so close…’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it,’ Belle confirmed. She had been thinking for some time of relocating, moving herself and her business outside London. After all, her parents weren’t getting any younger. Her sister and the rest of her family were all based in Cambridgeshire, her roots were there, and certainly with the aid of modern technology she could easily work from there. Besides which…
Belle wasn’t sure when she had realised she was tired of opening her eyes in the morning and only being able to see a small patch of clear sky, or when she had first had that sharp yearning for the familiar flatness of the fens, the wideness of its skies. She just knew that her city life had somehow or other lost its appeal.
It was ironic to remember now how she had berated Luc, before they had found their pretty cottage, for refusing to transfer to the LSE so that
they could both be based in London.
‘I’m not a city person, Belle,’ he had told her quietly, looking at her. ‘I want our children to grow up in the same country environment that we both enjoyed.’
Their children… It had been on the tip of Belle’s tongue to remind him just how impossible it was for her to even think of taking time out to have one child, never mind children… But instead she had demanded tartly, ‘You’re running ahead a little, aren’t you, Luc? I can’t afford to finance a nanny as well as your studies.’
It was a comment that she had bitterly regretted once she had made it. It had shamed both of them, and she had hated herself for the look she had seen in his eyes, but the thought that Luc was already planning ahead for their family, when she felt under so much pressure at work, when she had so little time and so many responsibilities, had panicked her into lashing out verbally at him.
Now things were different. Now career women of her age, all too conscious of the fast ticking of their biological clocks, were choosing the option of children without even a permanent partner, never mind the burdens on their careers, rather than miss out on the maternal boat. She envied them the single-mindedness that enabled them to make such a decision. Perhaps her own deep-rooted belief that a child thrived best surrounded by the love of both its parents sprang from the nurturing she had received in her own very happy childhood.
But that hadn’t stopped her thinking sometimes that if she and Luc had had a child—children—it might have compelled them both to work a little harder at protecting their marriage. Or, conversely, it might have led to her being a single parent, struggling to bring up a child and manage her career as well.
She had surprised herself two years before when she’d discovered how easy it was to make the decision to downsize her business life, to leave behind the hectic life she had lived for so long and set up in business on her own, on a much smaller scale, with only a handful of carefully picked clients—clients who shared her own view that with wealth came a certain moral responsibility not to abuse those who did not possess such assets.