‘What did you tell them about me?’ she asked in a tormented voice.
‘Just that you were a friend who was coming to stay.’
‘Oh,’ muttered Jane with a touch of disappointment.
‘And that we’re sleeping together and want to share a room.’
Jane practically swallowed her tongue.
‘Oh, Marc!’ she wailed. ‘You didn’t! I’ll be too embarrassed to look them in the face. What on earth will they think of me?’
He raised his eyes as if she was making a great fuss about nothing.
‘That you’re a grown woman who enjoys the pleasures of life,’ he retorted. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
Everything, thought Jane bitterly, clamping her lower lip between her teeth and staring out of the window. I don’t just go to bed with you because it’s one of the great pleasures of life, even though it is, but because I love you! Yet she had already made a fool of herself once by revealing her feelings to Marc and was determined never to do it again. She shrugged.
‘Nothing,’ she said coolly.
‘Do that again,’ he ordered.
‘What?’ she demanded in a mystified voice.
‘The shrug. You were amazing—you looked so typically French. You must be a natural mimic.’
‘Tell me,’ said Jane sweetly. ‘Is there a typically French way of punching someone in the nose? If so, I’d like to put my natural mimicry to work and learn it.’
‘You’re annoyed with me about something, aren’t you?’ asked Marc.
‘How very perceptive of you,’ said Jane. ‘I am.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Why don’t you put all that French intuition to work and figure it out, chéri?’
After that they drove in silence until they had almost reached Cadillac, although Marc kept casting Jane occasional long, scrutinising glances.
Jane herself was busy trying to control the ferment of her feelings. All this cynicism didn’t come naturally to her and she had the ominous suspicion that the bottling up of her emotions was soon going to lead to a violent outburst. She realised now that she resented the way that she had been lured into this relationship purely on Marc’s terms. It was all very well to pretend that she wanted to be as sophisticated and shallow as he was, but she didn’t! She wanted a deep, passionate, tempestuous commitment for life. Love and marriage, nothing less. But she was not likely to get it unless Marc changed dramatically. She glanced sharply across at him and he scowled and looked away. Perhaps he will change dramatically, she thought, without much hope. Perhaps I’ll get on so well with his parents and friends that he’ll realise we belong together for life. Her thoughts skimmed away into a soft-focused daydream where Marc’s mother was singing her praises for learning to cook such magnificent crème brûlée—this was difficult to believe, really, since Jane’s cooking was of the burnt scrambled egg variety, and scrambled egg brûlée just didn’t have the same ring. Suddenly Marc turned into a side road.
‘We’re here,’ he announced.
Jane looked up with a start and saw an ornate iron gateway set into a mellow gold stucco wall festooned with ‘Virginia creeper which formed the entrance to a huge château. Even then she didn’t guess the truth.
‘What’s this, another winery?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to buy a bottle to take home to your parents?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Marc, his lips twitching. ‘This is my home and my parents should be inside the house somewhere.’
Jane gasped. The building in front of them looked large enough to house an army. Through the open gateway she could see a vast gravel courtyard. Around it, forming three sides of a square, sprawled an elegant eighteenth-century château. Beyond the main building at the far side of the courtyard rose turrets belonging to an even older era. The sort of turrets that Jane remembered from her childhood copy of Cinderella.
‘I thought you said your home was old and shabby,’ she murmured, aghast.
‘It is,’ agreed Marc carelessly. ‘The oldest section belongs to the fourteenth century and some of the furniture even in the newer part is really knocked about. Especially the Louis XIV cabinets.’
‘Louis XIV?’ echoed Jane faintly. ‘Wasn’t he alive in the seventeenth century?’
‘That’s right,’ said Marc. ‘But don’t let it worry you. It’s a big chateau, with a lot of old and beautiful things in it, but we live quite a casual life in many ways.’
Jane couldn’t imagine anything less casual than the entrance hall of the chateau or the people who came to meet them. There was a tall woman with aristocratic features and iron-grey hair whose dark, penetrating eyes and sphinx-like smile reminded Jane of Marc in a particularly difficult mood. And beside her stood a twinkling blue-eyed man, an inch or two shorter than his wife, who was full of charm and warmth. Both of them were exquisitely dressed in anything but a casual manner. Marc’s mother wore a white silk blouse, red tailored suit, gold earrings and gold necklace, and high-heeled shoes, while her grey hair was stylishly permed. His father was equally smart in a charcoal-grey suit, striped shirt, and blue and charcoal tie. As they advanced towards her Jane suppressed an impulse to curtsy or run back to the car to comb her hair.
‘Jane, I’d like you to meet my parents. Monsieur and Madame Le Rossignol.’
‘Enchantée,’ murmured Jane.
She found herself enveloped in a cloud of Arpège as Marc’s mother kissed her on both cheeks. In spite of the friendly gesture, she sensed a certain reserve in the older woman’s manner and felt that the shrewd brown eyes were darting over her, missing nothing. Marc’s father was far more welcoming. He hugged Jane with unmistakable warmth and held her at arm’s length to appraise her.
‘You are a very beautiful young lady, Mademoiselle West,’ he said with an approving nod. ‘And one who will improve with age. It is clear that my son has a connoisseur’s taste.’
Jane’s clear, rippling laugh rang out.
‘You make me sound like a vintage wine,’ she protested, her eyes dancing. ‘But thank you, monsieur. And please, call me Jane. Mademoiselle West sounds so formal.’
Both Marc’s parents looked taken aback at this invitation, so that Jane wondered uneasily whether she had made a faux pas.
‘Australians are very informal,’ Marc explained hastily. ‘In Australia it’s common for adults to be on first-name terms immediately they meet. It’s a sign of friendly intentions.’
‘Ah, bon,’ agreed Monsieur Le Rossignol. ‘In that case, Jane, you must call us Armand and Yvonne.’
Marc’s mother looked less than enthralled at this invitation, but she gave Jane a small, tight smile which did not reach her eyes.
‘My husband is right…Jane,’ she said heroically. ‘Please call us by our Christian names if that is your custom. Now, let me show you to your rooms and then we can all meet for a glass of wine in the garden.’
‘There’s no need for that, Maman,’ protested Marc. ‘I can show Jane the way.’
‘She’s my guest, Marc. I must see that she has everything she needs.’
Miserably Jane followed as Yvonne led the way out of the eighteenth-century building into the older part of the chateau. She felt gauche and uneasy, as if she had done the wrong thing from the very beginning, and she grew even more uncomfortable when Yvonne showed them into a suite of rooms at the top of one of the old towers. The view from the small window was breathtaking, looking as it did over miles and miles of vineyards and woods and rustic farmhouses, but Jane had eyes for only one thing. The vast, sixteenth-century bed which dominated the room and which seemed to her overheated imagination like a defiant symbol of her illicit relationship with Marc.
What did Yvonne Le Rossignol think of Jane for conducting an affair with her son so brazenly beneath her own roof? Did she resent her and wish she would leave? Was she secretly shocked? Would she protest heatedly over the matter to Marc when Jane was out of the way? Whatever the true answers were to these questions, Yvonne gave no hint of her
feelings as she turned down the coverlet on the massive bed and gestured to a bedside cupboard laden with flowers, tissues and books, and a carafe of water.
‘I hope you find everything you need, Jane,’ she said briskly. ‘I’m afraid the bathroom is on the next floor down, which one must admit is inconvenient, but Marc thought you would like the romantic atmosphere of the old chateau. Gaston will be up soon with your luggage and there’s a bellpull on the wall which rings in the kitchen. If you need anything else you can pull that, but do be patient. Our housekeeper is elderly and she’s slow on the stairs.’
Jane immediately felt as if she were a heartless intruder who had only come to France for the purpose of torturing old women with bunions. She gave Marc’s mother a troubled smile.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘You’re very kind.’
Then she decided to try out her French as a goodwill gesture.
‘Vous êtes trés gentille, madame.’
‘Je vous en prie, mademoiselle,’ replied Yvonne smoothly and then withdrew.
‘She doesn’t like me!’ burst out Jane, the moment the echo of footsteps on the stone stairs had died away.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ retorted Marc. ‘Give her time.’
‘She called me “vous”. That’s the unfriendly form of you, isn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily! She was being polite, that’s all. She belongs to the old school and her manners are more formal than yours. Anyway, my father likes you.’
‘Maybe,’ muttered Jane sceptically. ‘But he might be only pretending.’
‘What’s this all about?’ asked Marc, taking her in his arms and kissing her thoroughly. ‘You don’t normally suffer from shyness.’
In spite of his disarming words, he didn’t seem very interested in her answer. He began nibbling her ear in a manner which normally sent quivers of excitement thrilling through her body, but this time she jerked her head away and glared at him.
‘I don’t normally feel like an outsider!’ she said. ‘But I do here. I’m a foreigner and I don’t know the right thing to do. It makes me feel confused and out of place, as if I don’t belong.’
‘You’ll soon fit in,’ Marc assured her carelessly. ‘Besides, you’ve got me to cling to. I’ll guide you.’
Jane sat down on the bed with an exasperated sigh.
‘I’m not the clinging type,’ she retorted stormily.
Even as she said it she was no longer sure it was true. Once she had prided herself on her independence, but now she was so deeply in love with Marc that it felt as if she were sinking in quicksand. What annoyed her most was that she did have a powerful, instinctive urge to cling to him and count on him to guide her. If matters had been different, she might have done so. Yet as she gazed tempestuously up at him she realised that Marc himself was the cause of most of her insecurity. If only he hadn’t insisted that they share a room, she wouldn’t have felt so uncomfortable about being scrutinised by his mother. Or if they had come here as an engaged couple, she could have faced the ordeal with more poise. What upset her and made her feel vulnerable was the indignity and uncertainty of her position.
‘Don’t you like it here?’ asked Marc abruptly.
‘I don’t know,’ muttered Jane with an ungracious shrug.
He made one more attempt to overcome her ill-humour. Crouching on the floor in front of her, he put his arms around her and buried his face in her hair, but she thrust him away impatiently.
‘Shouldn’t we go down?’ she demanded in a brittle voice. ‘Your parents will be expecting us, won’t they?’
With a sigh Marc rose to his feet and led the way in silence. They found a table laid in the shadow of a tree in the walled garden at the foot of the tower. Jane produced the presents she had brought from Australia—a tie for Marc’s father and an opal brooch for his mother—-and there were exclamations of surprise and delight. Armand insisted on changing his tie immediately in order to wear the new one, and even Marc’s mother seemed to thaw considerably as she asked Jane to pin the brooch on the lapel of her jacket.
‘Thank you, my dear. It’s magnificent.’
Armand began busily opening bottles of wine and mineral water, while urging them both to sit down.
‘What will you have, Jane?’ he asked. ‘A white or a red?’
‘A red, please.’
‘Tell him what you think of it, Jane,’ urged Marc with a note of pride in his voice as she accepted a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Gaining confidence from the reaction to her gifts, Jane sniffed, swirled and sipped thoughtfully.
‘It’s excellent. It has a rich colour, a light tobacco aroma and a hint of red berry scent with a very dense, vigorous flavour.’
‘Ah, she has the palate, this little one!’ exclaimed Armand in delight. ‘You have been training her, Marc.’
‘No. She was already very knowledgeable when I met her. She’s a professional winemaker herself.’
‘Formidable! Then we should leave this table and do some serious tasting in the cellar, isn’t that so? What do you say, Mademoiselle Jane?’
Jane glanced enquiringly at Marc’s mother, who flung up her hands in despair.
‘Go, go!’ she urged. ‘Jane, you will soon realise that the men in this family have red wine in their veins in the place of red blood. If you can talk knowl-edgeably about wines you will win their hearts, but don’t let them bore you. I’ll see you again at dinnertime.’
Marc and Jane spent an enjoyable two hours in the cellar and the vineyard while Armand initiated his guest into the mysteries of the ‘terroir’—that indescribable combination of soil and climate and other factors that gave each wine its own individual quality. He grew positively lyrical as he talked about gravelly hilltops and northern exposures, about burriques and pruning and the use of egg-whites to clarify new wine. Marc watched with a look of amusement and approval as Jane and his father sipped and compared and argued. Shortly after five o’clock Armand glanced at his watch and gave a guilty start.
‘Mon Dieu! I offer you a thousand apologies, Jane! I enjoy myself so much that I forget the time. I did not mean to keep you so long.’
‘I’ve enjoyed it too,’ said Jane sincerely.
‘Bon,’ beamed Armand. ‘Then tomorrow we continue. I’ll show you where I tore out the old vines that weren’t producing and fumigated the ground with mustard gas before replacing them. Ah, what an outcry there was from the traditionalists! But you should see what an improved yield we have now!’
Jane’s eyes twinkled as her gaze met Marc’s over his father’s shoulder, although she did not reveal that she knew who had really been responsible for the innovation.
‘You must be very pleased with your decision,’ she said diplomatically.
‘Yes, yes,’ he agreed. ‘And do you know what I always say to my critics now? I say, tradition is a fine thing, but we must have innovation too! And that’s where you Australians can show us the way. From what my son tells me, you are great innovators in the field of winemaking. Well, that’s what we need—a marriage of the old world and the new.’
He beamed fondly at both of them, and a sudden gleam came into his eyes as if he had just become conscious of a double meaning in his own words.
‘A marriage of the old world with the new,’ he repeated, chuckling softly to himself. ‘Yes, indeed, that may be exactly what we need.’
His gaze met Jane’s with a look of humorous complicity, as if expecting that she might spring a sudden exciting announcement on him. If she had really come here as a prospective daughter-in-law, Jane would have been touched by Armand’s evident support for her cause. As it was, his broad hint threw her into confusion and she looked helplessly at Marc, half longing for him to confirm his father’s suspicions. Instead Marc’s features twisted into an expression of weary, sardonic exasperation. Armand gave a faint sigh and shook his head.
‘Well,mes enfants, it’s getting late and I mustn’t delay you any longer,’ he said in a disappointed voi
ce. ‘Take Jane upstairs to repose herself, Marc, and we will see you later at dinner.’
Once the door of their bedroom in the tower had closed securely behind them, Marc took Jane in his arms and smiled wryly down at her.
‘I’m sorry about my father’s rather heavy-handed matchmaking attempts,’ he said. ‘He’s always wanted me to marry and he doesn’t seem to accept that not everybody regards marriage as a passport to eternal bliss.’
‘Don’t apologise,’ retorted Jane coldly, hating Marc for his cynicism. ‘I think your father’s a sweetie.’
‘Well, you’ve certainly made a conquest of him.’
‘Perhaps, but I don’t think your mother will ever accept me,’ she said, breaking away from him.
‘Does it really matter?’ he asked. ‘The chances are that you won’t be staying here long, and you may never come back again.’
‘Thanks. It’s interesting to know that I’ve worn my welcome out so quickly.’
‘Did I say that?’ demanded Marc fiercely.
He caught her arm as she paced restlessly past him and hauled her into his arms with a turbulence that alarmed and enthralled her. Before she knew what was happening she was kissing him back with all the impetuous force of her mingled anger and love and hatred. It was a potent brew and Marc caught his breath and began to unbutton her dress with urgent, wrenching movements. Soon they were rolling together on the vast bed, panting and gasping and kissing with a frenzy born of violent mutual need.
Jane surrendered herself to him with total abandon, but her physical wildness could not be matched by an equal emotional surrender. Although she was aching with love, bewilderment and despair, she dared not reveal any of this to Marc. Instead it had to remain a poignant secret that left a haunted look in her eyes and a wistful smile hovering around the corners of her lips even after he had brought her to the heights of ecstasy. Long after their breathing had slowed, when they were still lying exhausted together, Marc raised himself on one elbow and lay gazing down at her in the half-light from the tiny window.
Unwelcome Invader (Harlequin Treasury 1990's) Page 11