‘I was going to tell you that I loved you,’ she said hoarsely. ‘And ask you whether you felt anything at all for me.’
A tear trembled on her lashes and slid quietly down her cheek. She gulped and wiped it away. Suddenly she found herself crushed in Marc’s arms.
‘Oh, my love, my love,’ he said thickly. ‘What a pair of fools we’ve been! Is it too late to tell you that I love you with all my heart?’
Joy, hope and disbelief swept over Jane like a tidal wave.
‘Marc, don’t make fun of me!’ she begged. ‘I can’t bear any more deceit.’
‘I do love you, Jane,’ he insisted, tilting her chin so that he could look into her brimming green eyes. ‘I love you as I’ve never loved any woman in my life before and as I’ll never love any woman again.’
She gazed at him in torment, longing to believe him but unable to lay her past suspicion and mistrust so easily aside.
‘Then why didn’t you tell me so before?’ she demanded.
Marc sighed and put up one hand to scratch his head.
‘I was fighting it,’ he admitted. ‘I hadn’t been in love since I was nineteen, and this was so much more intense, so much more profound, so much more real that it frightened me. I didn’t want to be made so vulnerable.’
‘Who were you in love with when you were nineteen?’ asked Jane.
He looked down at her with a wry smile.
‘I think you already know that, don’t you?’ he said softly.
‘Simone?’ she asked, feeling a barb of pain go through her.
He nodded ruefully.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Everything,’ said Marc with a shrug. ‘Or nothing, depending on how you look at it. Do you really want to know?’
Jane hesitated. Did she? It caused her unbelievable pain to think of Marc being in love with another woman, especially Simone, but it was important for her to know what had happened if she was ever really to understand him.
‘Yes,’ she insisted.
Marc released his hold on her and paced around the room.
‘I was nineteen and a university student when it happened,’ he said in a flat, unemotional voice. ‘I came home for the grape harvest and on the night of the harvest festival Simone and I ended up having too much to drink. It was a warm evening and…At first we were just lying in the thick grass on a hillside, kissing under the stars and then…It was my first experience of sex and that’s such a primal force that I found myself shaken to the core. I told Simone that I loved her, that I wanted to marry her and she assured me that she felt the same way.’
Marc trailed off as if lost in thought.
‘And after that?’ prompted Jane.
‘I had to go back to university in Paris, but when I went home again that Christmas I was determined to make some kind of formal declaration of my commitment to Simone. I had an engagement ring I intended to give her but, when I arrived at her house, at first I couldn’t get her alone. In particular a racing car driver called Gilles Boutin seemed to be hanging about her. He was years older than her, in fact he must have been about thirty-seven or thirty-eight, so I didn’t take much notice because I thought he was a friend of her parents. Then I saw that Simone was already wearing a ring on her left hand, a far finer ring than mine. She told me that she and Gilles had just become engaged.’
Jane’s eyes widened, although thanks to Laurette’s revelation the news did not really surprise her. All the same she felt a rush of sympathy for Marc in his youth.
‘How did you feel?’ she asked softly.
‘At the time I was devastated, but that only lasted for a few days. Gradually I realised that it was not the loss of Simone that wounded me so much as the loss of my pride. Looking back now, I don’t think it was ever really love that I felt for her, but only a boy’s infatuation. Eventually I even came to feel grateful to her for rejecting me.’
‘Why?’ asked Jane with a puzzled frown.
‘Because I was still a romantic at heart. If I was ever going to marry, I wanted my wife to be in love with me body and soul. And Simone wasn’t. Even after Gilles’s death, when she made it perfectly clear that she would be willing to marry me, I was sure it was only because I had become a wealthy man in the meantime. I preferred to stay a bachelor rather than settle for a relationship as empty as that!’
‘Didn’t you ever think of marrying anyone else?’
‘No. Because I never met anyone who lit up a room when she came into it, anyone who made me ecstatic and miserable at the same time, who drove me crazy and made me feel I couldn’t live without her. Until I encountered you.’
Jane gave a long, shaky sigh. She had almost succeeded in convincing herself that Marc had only had an affair with her out of careless sensual exuberance. To learn that he wasn’t in love with Simone had come as a major shock. To hear him admit that Jane herself had stirred him so deeply was almost more than she could believe.
‘Do you mean that?’ she asked shakily.
Marc sighed and nodded.
‘Yes, I mean it. Not that I was really very grateful when it happened. By that time I had become used to being a bachelor and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be so much in anybody else’s power, so I fought my attraction to you all the way. When you told me that first time we slept together that you loved me, it made me feel like the king of the universe. I wanted to protect you and cherish you and claim possession of you forever. At the same time your words filled me with terror. What if I lost you or you changed your mind as Simone did? What if it was only the newness of the experience which had deceived you about your own feelings? Because of what had happened in my own life, I knew what a powerful, overwhelming experience that first time could be. I was afraid you might be saying things that you would regret later and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from rushing you and proposing then and there. At the same time, I couldn’t bear to let you go. That’s why I asked you to come to France with me, so that I could find out whether you really were as desperately in love with me as I was with you.’
‘I wish I’d known!’ cried Jane. ‘I was so miserable, thinking that you were just having an idle affair with me. Simone told me that you were in the habit of sleeping with young women for a few weeks at a time, just for fun.’
Marc caught his breath sharply.
‘That lying——! Well, never mind her. I wanted you
to see me in my own environment in France, to see if you felt you could fit in there. I was half dismayed, half relieved when you didn’t seem to like the place at all.’
‘I did like it!’ protested Jane. ‘What I didn’t like was the feeling that I would never belong there. I wanted to belong so badly, to be your wife, to be part of your family. I wanted you to love me and make a public commitment to me.’
Marc scowled at her with mock ferocity.
‘That’s not what you told me in the railway station at Brive,’ he reminded her. ‘You said that you’d only been sleeping with me to try and get your vineyard back. So what have you got to say to that, mademoiselle?’
‘I lied,’ admitted Jane remorsefully. ‘I wanted to hurt you just as badly as you’d hurt me. I couldn’t bear to think of you sleeping with Simone.’
Marc caught her by the hair and hauled her against him.
‘I ought to tan the hide off you, Jane,’ he threatened, gazing down at her through narrowed brown eyes. ‘How could you think such a thing of me? I certainly didn’t bring Simone to the château in order to go to bed with her.’
‘Why did you bring her there?’ asked Jane with a puzzled expression.
‘There really were a lot of financial details that needed to be sorted out,’ explained Marc. ‘For a long time my parents had felt that the upkeep of the château was too much of a burden for them. The French inheritance laws are so complicated that if they died then all of us children would inherit it jointly. None of the others really want it, so I thought it was best to make arrangements to buy the place outright
from my parents. My own life seemed to be on the brink of a major change and I wanted to make sure that all the financial details were tidied up.’
Jane’s lips began to twitch.
‘Trust you to want things tidy,’ she said accusingly. ‘But I think you’re going to have to get a new accountant in future, Marc.’
‘I agree,’ said Marc. ‘In fact I’ve already made it very clear to Simone that I want nothing to do with her in future.’
‘Hmm,’ said Jane, returning to his previous statement. ‘What sort of change are you contemplating in your life, Marc?’
His eyes crinkled with amusement.
‘I’m thinking of getting married,’ he said in measured tones. ‘And I hope to have a lot of children, so I’ll need plenty of space to accommodate them. That’s why I thought the château would be a suitable home.’
‘Marc, there are sixty-seven rooms in that chateau,’ said Jane faintly.
His arms tightened around her.
‘Mmm,’ he murmured. ‘We’re going to have to start work soon if we want to fill them all.’
The gleam in his eyes vanished and he was suddenly earnest. Jane’s heart began to beat violently as she realised that he was about to ask the question that she had longed to hear. And then he did.
‘Will you marry me, Jane? Will you be my wife and the mother of my children?’
Jane rose on tiptoe and gave him a long, inviting kiss.
‘Of course I will,’ she said.
Marc drew back to look at her and his breath was coming in harsh, uneven gulps. His hands gripped her shoulders so tightly that it hurt, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was the look of dawning elation on his face, the fierce, incredulous joy that made him utter a sudden shout of triumph.
‘Yes! Yes! Mon Dieu…you have made me the happiest man in Australia. What am I saying? In Australia? In the world! I am king of the world at this moment, Jane. And you—you are my queen.’
With a movement so sudden that it look her by surprise, he swept her off her feet and stood gazing intently down at her. Then his mouth came down on hers in a kiss that told her all she needed to know. There had been passion between them in the past, and anger and a wordless need, but never this deep, aching tenderness. Marc’s kiss was urgent, hungry, demanding, but it was also giving in a way that was new to her. No longer did he hold aloof from her, no longer did she sense a hidden reserve or tension in his feelings towards her. Instead he kissed her with all the intensity of a stormy, emotional nature held too long in check. At last he drew free and caught his breath.
‘I love you!’ he insisted. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, Jane. It makes me burn and ache and shudder with need for you. And I want you to feel the same way about me.’
‘I do,’ she whispered.
‘Then say it! Tell me.’
‘I love you, Marc.’
Her voice was low and rather shy, but it had the ring of truth. Marc gave a low growl of triumph, and his arms tightened around her like steel cables.
‘Then nothing will save you now, mademoiselle,’ he warned. ‘Or should I say “madame”? Because very soon I intend to make you Madame Le Rossignol, my wife and the mother of my children. And it is as my future wife that I want to take you to my bed this very moment and make you mine. With no lies, no misunderstanding, no doubts to spoil it. But with trust. With honour. With eternal love between us. Do you agree?’
Jane was so moved that she could scarcely speak. She gazed up at him with her emotions brimming in her eyes and a small, tremulous smile playing about the corners of her lips.
‘Yes,’ she said huskily.
He planted another feverish kiss on her lips, then strode swiftly out of the door and along the hall to his old bedroom. Impatiently he kicked the door shut behind him and flung Jane down in the middle of the vast bed. Lying beside her, he caught her hair in handfuls and bunched it on either side of her face.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he breathed. ‘So very, very beautiful. I love you more than I can ever tell you.’
He gazed down at her with an intent, brooding expression, almost as if he wanted to devour her. Reaching up, she trailed her forefinger down his left cheek.
With a slow, deliberate sensuality he began unbuttoning her shirt and then coolly undid the front fastening of her bra. Her breasts sprang free from their confinement and Marc bent his head and nuzzled the warm soft flesh, inhaling the scent of her skin. Then, with the same deliberate, provocative intentness, he took one of her nipples between his fingers and slipped it into his mouth. She closed her eyes and moaned softly with pleasure at the tingling, throbbing sensation of delight that shot through her as he began to suck. He was in no hurry, but let her arch her back and thresh from side to side, gasping and offering herself to him, before he paused briefly. Then he renewed the wanton thrill of the act by repeating it on her other breast. Only when she was shuddering and whimpering, alternately pushing him away and clutching him against her, did he take pity on her.
‘Are you ready?’ he murmured.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, yes, Marc. My love, my darling.’
He made a harsh sound deep in the back of his throat and sprang to his feet. With impatient wrenching movements he tore off his clothes and flung them aside. Then he crouched above her on the bed, looming over her with an urgency that made her heart thud in a frantic, uneven rhythm. His eyes met hers, dark and compelling and full of unspoken need.
She reached out to him and gave a deep sigh of contentment as she found herself crushed beneath that hot, hard, virile body. There would be time enough for lingering love games on other occasions. This time she wanted him violently, wanted him now—deep and urgent and thrusting inside her. With trembling fingers she reached for him, caressing him intimately, guiding him into her warm, moist, feminine core. She heard his gasp of satisfaction as he entered her and her body moved, slick and quivering, to meet him.
‘I love you, Marc,’ she murmured.
His hands caught in her hair, his eyes narrowed and his lips came down on hers—demanding, giving, sharing.
‘I love you too, Jane,’ he said thickly.
As their bodies began to move together as one she clasped her arms around his neck and surrendered to a happiness too deep for words. All her worries and problems were over. Marc was really here. He loved her—he was going to marry her. And he was no longer an unwelcome invader, but her man. Her own beloved man. Sometimes life was so perfect, it was enough to make a girl cry.
eISBN 978-14592-6270-6
UNWELCOME INVADER
First North American Publication 1998.
Copyright © 1995 by Angela Devine.
All rights reserved Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retneval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
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Unwelcome Invader (Harlequin Treasury 1990's) Page 16