The Count's Challenge

by Christina Hollis

  The chateau was enormous, but the silence of its sunlit halls meant the smallest sound travelled for many metres. She soon found her way to a spectacular vaulted room on the ground floor, overlooking a courtyard garden.

  Etienne was already seated at the head of a long dining table. When he saw her enter the room, he folded his newspaper and stood up with a smile.

  ‘Bonjour, Gwen. I hope you enjoyed a restful night?’ His voice was resonant with concern.

  ‘Thank you. It was wonderful.’ But lonely, she added to herself. She headed towards the breakfast display, set out on an enormous antique sideboard like the one she remembered from that first fateful night.

  ‘Take a seat. The waitress will fetch anything you need.’ Etienne indicated the far end of the table, remote from him. Sure enough, a woman in a severe black dress and white apron moved soundlessly into position.

  ‘But the food is only a few yards away!’ Gwen protested.

  ‘You need to have a break, Gwen.’ Etienne dismissed her protest with a shrug. ‘You’ve been working too hard, and you are run-down and tired. That is not good for a pregnant woman. So you will be pampered for a while—enjoy it. Both of you.’

  Far away in a distant part of Etienne’s cavernous house, a mason’s drill hummed into life. As she gave her order for fresh fruit salad and tea Gwen frowned, and not only at the idea of someone fetching and carrying for her over such a short distance.

  ‘This house seems perfect to me, Etienne. Why does it have to be put under attack by builders?’

  ‘I bought it for its position, beauty and history. It was always going to be too large for a single man, especially while I was dividing my time between so many other properties. It only makes more work for the staff, so I concentrated the restoration work on my suite and the few rooms I needed downstairs. Now you will be a permanent resident here, we shall need every inch of space. You will want to entertain,’ he explained.

  Gwen was not convinced. ‘You said this place was your bolt hole. It’s supposed to be somewhere you can escape, and get away from people.’

  ‘Yes, but that was before you became pregnant.’

  He made it sound like an accusation. She reddened angrily. ‘Don’t try and make out it’s all my fault!’

  ‘I’m not. There’s no point in trying to apportion blame. The damage has been done, so I’m adapting to it. I can’t expect you and my baby to live like hermits.’

  At his direct mention of the baby, Gwen panicked. Scrabbling for a sheet anchor, she looked at her watch.

  ‘Look at the time! I’ll have to hurry if I’m going to get to Le Rossignol before the florist delivers—’

  ‘There’s no need. Relax!’ Etienne said solicitously. ‘You employ plenty of staff there now. Let them deal with it. If you want something to do, why don’t you try a makeover of the chateau menus? I’m sure Chef would be willing to negotiate.’

  Gwen pulled back as though she had been burned. She couldn’t imagine a life without her work. It defined her, and gave her a purpose in life.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Etienne, but I’d rather we stuck to our usual arrangement when it comes to the restaurant.’ It was all she could do to hide the panic in her voice. ‘Laissez-faire—isn’t that what it’s called?’

  ‘Why worry about the place when you don’t have to?’ He laughed off her concern. ‘You have a new role now. I’m not going to let you out of my sight for an instant.’ He was starting to look quite pleased with himself. ‘We will elect a temporary manager. He can be in charge of the day-to-day running of the restaurant while you’re distracted. You told me you were happy enough just to cook. Use my investment to make it easy for yourself. You need rest and supervision to make sure my heir gets the very best possible start in life.’

  ‘Are you suggesting this because you think I can’t manage?’ she said slowly.

  ‘No partner of mine should be content to merely “manage”. I want you to be completely relaxed and happy, Gwen. That is an entirely different state of mind. Look at the difference our business partnership has made to you in only a few weeks. You’ve been freed from the treadmill, you’ve had time to rest, and concentrate on the part of the job you love best.’ His voice dropped to an appreciative whisper. ‘You are a completely different woman from the one I met all those weeks ago.’

  ‘For better, or worse?’ Gwen put her head in her hands.

  Etienne shot a meaningful look at the maid. She took the hint and evaporated from the room. After a suitable silence, Gwen heard Etienne stand up and walk slowly towards her. She did not move a muscle. When he reached her end of the table, he pulled out the nearest chair. He dropped into the seat. His arms in their smart, dark business suit intruded into her line of sight. He was ready for work. She didn’t feel ready for anything—especially when he reached out and gently pulled her hands away from her face. Clasping them in his, he looked deep into her eyes. Once again, she was trapped in the smouldering intensity of his gaze. He was studying her in a way that laid her feelings bare. It redirected the heat of her anger in a way that scared her. Surely, mothers weren’t supposed to feel desire. They were supposed to be down-to-earth, and sensible.

  ‘Gwen, I have made some terrible mistakes in the past.’ His words were heavy with something she assumed was reassurance. ‘I realise that now, and don’t intend to repeat any of them. I won’t allow you to face this alone. That’s why things must be like this. My son is going to have the best possible start in life. Believe me.’

  She watched him, watching her. His eyes were dark with determination, and the set of his jaw was totally resolute.

  With the delicacy she remembered so well, his thumb began to draw slow shapes over the back of her hand.

  ‘It’s all in hand. Flowers, food, stationery, ceremony—the whole show is already on the road, as you say. My people have organised everything. You don’t have to do a thing—except edit your part of the guest list.’ He went on, oblivious to her growing horror. ‘When I came into your room late last night to see if you wanted anything, I saw your address book on the bedside table. My PA put it straight onto a database.’

  Gwen found herself totally unable to speak. That didn’t matter. Etienne was more than happy to do that for her—along with everything else, apparently.

  ‘You looked so peaceful—’ he began with a smile, but ‘peaceful’ was the last thing Gwen felt. Rigid with rage and furious at the effect he continued to have on her, she wrenched her hands from his grasp.

  ‘So you took my address book in the same way you’ve taken over the rest of my life?’ She stood up, shaking. ‘It hardly sounds like you need me at all. In fact, I might as well say goodbye to you right now, Etienne, rather than clutter up your itinerary any further!’ She heard him call her name, but did not look back.

  Twenty minutes later, Gwen was pacing back and forwards in her room, going over arguments to use against him and trying to calm herself before going back down, when she heard a familiar sound. It was Etienne’s car prowling along beneath her window. He was leaving for the office, without saying goodbye. The realisation sliced into her heart. For the first time, the full horror of the situation swept over her. Independence was so important to her that she had travelled halfway across Europe to find it, and ended up pregnant by a man who knew nothing about her—who, she now realised, saw her as nothing but a ticket to his heir.

  She buried her face in her pillow, but there was no time for tears. She had made her choice. For the sake of her baby, she was determined to make the best of this. However much she might ache inside.

  Efficient as ever, Etienne had already put his staff to work. Within moments, Gwen got a text from his PA. An appointment had been made for her at Malotte’s most fashionable beautician. All she had to do was turn up. Everything else was in hand. Sure enough, as she was reading the text she heard one of the estate’s limousines being drawn up outside the main villa doors.

  She went down to tell the chauffeur she would
drive herself, in her own car. It was hopeless. Etienne’s system didn’t allow for alterations. From now on, she would ring for a chauffeur whenever she wanted to go anywhere at all. Gwen bit her tongue, and counted to ten. She couldn’t rail at the staff. It was hardly their fault if the Count of Malotte wanted to dictate her every move. Bottling up her anger, she tried to console herself. She wouldn’t have the hassle of driving through Malotte’s narrow, twisting streets, or finding a parking space. There might be advantages to Etienne’s guilty conscience after all.

  A shame they didn’t make up for the loss of her freedom.

  Summer was flying away. The nightingales had already vanished from the overgrown margins of the chateau grounds. They had escaped before the chill of winter. How Gwen wished she could follow them. She gazed out of the window as the assistant put the finishing touches to her makeover. The village square was drenched in sunshine. Outside, in flickering shadows cast by the lime trees, life was going on in all its noisy variety. In spite of her resolution, she craved the chance to escape the shadow of Etienne’s claustrophobic care. She needed to strike out on her own, if only for an hour or two.

  The contrast between the air-conditioned comfort indoors and the oven of Malotte in late summer gave her quite a shock. Straight away, she realised that walking anywhere in this heat would make quite a statement. For the first few hundred metres, everything was fine. Then she left the town behind. Without the shadows cast by the buildings of Malotte, the feeling of heat increased. The road out of town was barren and dusty, making her journey more and more of a trial. The red-hot road reflected heat up into her face in a way the maquis would not, so she quickly abandoned the highway for a short cut across country. A sheep track ran diagonally up the slope towards the chateau. She suddenly knew where she was heading. She needed to be somewhere outside Etienne’s influence—to escape, just for a short while. Trying to ignore the crippling heat, she headed towards the gite.

  It looked dusty and deserted. It was nowhere near the luxury and comfort of Etienne’s chateau, and yet the small bedroom, with all its lack of glamour, was one of the most wonderful things she’d seen for days. Exhausted, emotionally and physically drained, Gwen walked over to the bed and lay down in the wonderful, solitary silence.

  She opened her eyes to find them filled with Etienne. ‘What have you done to my baby?’ he roared.

  Gwen put a hand to her temple. ‘Stop shouting…what on earth are you talking about?’

  Dragging herself into a sitting position, her head full of cotton wool, she had the feeling his words wouldn’t have made much more sense if she had been wide awake.

  ‘I’ve been searching everywhere! Where have you been?’

  He was furious. When she realised how the shadows had crept out of the corners of her bedroom, she knew why. She’d been sleeping for hours.

  ‘Here, of course.’

  That obviously wasn’t the right answer. Etienne threw himself away from her bed and started pacing. Finally shaking herself free from sleep, Gwen shuffled her thoughts into order. ‘And at the beautician’s. That’s all.’

  Etienne was beside himself. He strode backwards and forwards, waving his arms in wordless fury.

  ‘You never called a car!’ he managed eventually. So I visited the salon to give you a lift myself. They said you’d left hours before. I tried Le Rossignol. They hadn’t seen you. For all I knew, that meant you were trying to get back to Wales. You might have had an accident, or been picked up, or murdered, or worse…What were you thinking of? Why didn’t you ring and tell me what you were doing? I drove up and down that road! Gwen, I’ve been—!’ He lifted his arms into the air again, but the words wouldn’t come. He let them drop with a bang.

  Gwen looked at him in shock. She had never seen him like this. She hadn’t been gone for long enough to deserve this level of anger, surely? Pushed beyond endurance, she opened her mouth to tell him what an arrogant, controlling, unbearable man he was when something in his eyes—some emotion quickly masked—stopped her. Suddenly, she remembered his first question.

  ‘Hang on—what did you say about the baby, Etienne?’ she asked abruptly.

  Etienne’s face froze. He seemed to be battling with himself. When he finally spoke, his voice was a whisper.

  ‘Are you still pregnant?’

  ‘Of course I am. You’re not making sense. What are you talking about?’

  ‘I was told you’d gone home. I assumed that meant Wales. You wanted to work, you didn’t want to be a mother.’ His voice was a crackle of fury. ‘I thought you’d gone off to have an abortion.’

  The word hit her like a slap in the face. Slowly, the real reason for his anger and the state of his appearance filtered through to her.

  He was scared.

  The only difference between them was that Etienne hadn’t spent the last two days putting his fear into words. He had been trying to support her.

  ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘No, I’d never do that—especially not without telling you. How could you think such a thing?’

  His hands were working, clenching and unclenching at his sides. She could tell he was building up to something terrible, long before he was able to put it into words.

  ‘Because,’ he said at last, and then had to draw in a ragged breath before continuing. ‘Because of Angela.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  WITH those few words, Etienne pushed the final piece of jigsaw into place. Gwen remembered what she had read. She knelt up on the bed, facing him.

  ‘Etienne,’ she said carefully, ‘please tell me the truth. What happened with her?’

  He stared at her for a long, long time. Gwen stared back. She watched him work through more emotions than he could possibly name. Then suddenly, she saw him come to a decision. Whirling around, he strode towards the door.

  Gwen got there just before he did. She could hardly hope to contain him. As she put a hand on either side of the doorframe she fully expected him to lift her straight out of his way. Instead he stopped. This time he refused to look at her.

  ‘I can’t talk about it.’

  The coldness in his voice would have been enough of a warning for any other woman. Gwen stood her ground.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it either—but we must.’

  His silence spoke to her as loudly as the taut immobility of his body. It was obvious he did not know where to start. It was left to her to walk forward, her steps slow and hesitant. Every moment she expected him to turn away. He didn’t. When she was as close as she could get, she put her hand up to his face. Still he did not move. With the pad of her thumb she stroked away the crease between his dark brows. As she did so, she felt the brush of his thick dark lashes against her palm. He had closed his eyes. Then he nodded.

  Gwen took the initiative. ‘I was telling the truth, Etienne. I really didn’t know anything about your association with Angela before you mentioned her name. That led me to the Internet, but it was hard to recognise you from the reports I read. Your reaction to—’ she looked down at her waist awkwardly, unwilling to put it into words ‘—well, all this was so different from what I expected, given what was supposed to have happened back then. I don’t know what to think,’ she said softly.

  ‘I would never want to get rid of a baby,’ he announced. ‘Then, or now.’

  That explained a lot. Gwen’s sympathy for Angela Webbington began to waver. There was indeed more to this story than she had been able to uncover before she lost her nerve.

  ‘All my life I had everything, except a real family. My father merely did his duty in providing a Malotte heir. That was the extent of it,’ Etienne began with difficulty. He was tracking back over an unbearably painful time and considering each word. ‘I knew there had to be more to life than that. I searched far and wide for something to fill that emptiness. Angela was beautiful, successful, and totally unlike anything the House of Malotte had seen in its entire history. When I got engaged to her, I assumed we would have the perfect partners
hip. I was wrong. That one error of judgement still haunts me. Angela wanted the Moreau lifestyle, but none of its responsibilities. She could spend and party as hard as I could, but it was beyond her to be faithful. She was neither loyal, nor even honest. Our relationship soon hit the rocks. Finally, she went behind my back and terminated that pregnancy before bothering to inform me she was carrying a child. She called the baby “a body-wrecking disruption to my career”.’ He stopped as his voice twisted with emotion.

  Gwen couldn’t begin to imagine what living through that showdown must have felt like. Nothing she could say would ease his pain, so she kept quiet.

  ‘I had always given her a totally free rein,’ he continued. ‘She did what she liked, and never stopped to think about me or the baby. At the end, she taunted me that she couldn’t be sure the baby was even mine. When I found out you were—’ He stopped and opened his eyes, clearly wondering what her reaction would be if he said the word.

  ‘Pregnant.’ She supplied it for him. ‘It’s OK. I can take it now.’

  ‘I was so determined the same thing was not going to happen again,’ he continued grimly. ‘I wanted things done properly this time, right from the beginning. Yet that has turned out to be wrong, too.’

  ‘Yes, it has!’ Gwen burst out. She couldn’t keep quiet any longer. ‘You’ve been heavy-handed, but I should have thought about you as well as myself—should have realised something was wrong. But now we know more about what has pulled us apart, we can work at getting back together. Can’t we?’ She looked searchingly into his face.