by Diana Palmer
“So do I,” Jolana said, “but you can’t go around changing people to suit your own tastes, I suppose.”
She glanced at the taller girl. “You love him, oui?” Maureen asked softly.
“I’m very fond of him,” came the quiet reply. “Love will come.”
“That, I believe. You are much alike. When is the date you have chosen? Phillipe did not say this morning.”
“We haven’t set an actual date, but I’m sure it will be as quickly as Phillipe can arrange it,” she said with a smile, remembering his groan of impatience when he’d finally driven her home last night.
“Marvelous! What kind of dress will you wear? We must go shopping!” Maureen began enthusiastically.
“You’ll have to be my maid of honor.” Jolana grinned. “So we’ll find something gorgeous for both of us.”
“Oui. And as soon as the race is over, we will have Phillipe outfitted, as well. A morning coat, I think,” Maureen said, thoughtfully.
“Yes. When the race is over,” Jolana said and stared at what was visible of the route with consternation. It was going to be a long race, she thought. If only Phillipe would be safe. What am I thinking of? she asked herself. He’s driving a Ferrari, for heaven’s sake!
But that thought was of little comfort in the hours that followed. One driver was killed on the course on the first leg. Another was badly injured in a subsequent accident and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Jolana felt as if she were going to bite her fingernails through.
It was a grueling race. Of course, Jolana reminded herself, that was its purpose—to test to the ultimate limits the reach of an automobile’s performance. Everything was under stress, drivers as well as machinery. In this way, car designs were tested before they were mass-manufactured for the public. It was a dangerous thing to do, and it took a special kind of man to do it. Jolana, watching beside Maureen from Casino Square, studied the race cars with wide-eyed fascination. Maureen had told her that Phillipe was competing mainly against German and British drivers who held, with him, the top three places. The German was world-renowned and was driving a Porsche. The British driver was in an Audi, and although Jolana had thought at first that Phillipe was in a Ferrari, it was actually a Lancia with a Ferrari engine. She remarked to Maureen that the cars all seemed to look alike and that she barely understood enough about this type of racing to comment at all.
Watching the crowd that had gathered for the event was almost as interesting as the race itself. A holiday mood prevailed, which sometimes was enough to keep Jolana and Maureen from dwelling too much on the dangers of the race.
When word finally came that the drivers were on their way back into Monte Carlo, the two girls stood near the finish with wide, frantic eyes. The cars came into view minutes later, and Phillipe was in second place. Despite a frantic burst of speed, he wasn’t able to place any better than second. But at least he came back in one piece, and Jolana and Maureen hugged him enthusiastically, with tears in their eyes, when he climbed wearily from the racing car.
“Well, I did my best.” Philippe grinned. He needed a shave and his face was gray from lack of rest, but he looked wonderful to Jolana.
“What’s wrong with second place?” she asked him, reaching up to kiss him warmly. “After all, think of all the crying that poor winner would have done if you’d beaten him, you kindhearted man. I know that’s why you let him get in front of you. It was only because you felt sorry for him.”
He laughed uproariously. Even quiet Pierre, who had just joined them, burst into laughter.
“Chérie,” Phillipe sighed, drawing Jolana close in his arms, shaking his head. “Now I know that I am the most fortunate man in the world. Having a wife like you is going to be so much better than winning races.”
“What a sweet thing to say,” she sighed, pressing closer. She felt oddly nauseous, but it finally passed and she followed the others into the cameras as the prizes were awarded.
It seemed to be hours before they were finally back in the villa, and even then they weren’t alone. Well-wishers, friends of the family, piled in, drinking champagne and chattering all at once. Jolana joined in as best she could, but she couldn’t help feeling out of place. Her French wasn’t good enough to allow her to join in on technical conversations about racing. There was no one with whom Jolana could discuss art, and she began to realize then just how limited her conversational abilities were. She was going to have to learn the language Phillipe and Maureen’s friends spoke, or she’d never be accepted.
She mentioned it to Phillipe later, when he was mellow with champagne and the delicious crepes the cook had prepared.
“I’m afraid I’ll embarrass you,” she said hesitantly.
“How silly,” he laughed, pulling her close as they sat on the sofa and watched a cruise ship come into port out the picture window. “You are so beautiful, petite, that no one will notice what you are saying, only how you look.” He kissed her softly. “I could have hugged you to pieces when you said that, about letting the other driver win because I was sorry for him. I was so distraught about losing, and here you come and make me feel twice the man I thought I was.” He searched her eyes with warmth and affection. “We will make a good match. You are not sorry that you have agreed to marry me?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m very honored to have been asked.”
He drew her close to his side and sipped his champagne quietly. “I am honored to have been accepted. It will be well, petite. We will be very happy.”
She let her cheek slide down his arm until she could see his face. “Care to take me to bed?” she teased with a wicked grin.
“Mais, oui. After,” he added tauntingly, “we are married.”
She hit his chest. “Phillipe!”
“Patience, petite,” he breathed, grinning as he bent to touch her mouth with his. “All in good time. Right now, I am too tired. And tomorrow will begin the parties. Besides,” he said softly, “I want everything to be just right, done properly. Perhaps because as I grow older, I begin to regret all the flouting of custom and convention that I have done. This once, I want everything to be circumspect, you understand?”
“Oddly enough, I do.” She studied his face quietly. “Phillipe, I told you I’m not a virgin.”
“Neither am I,” he answered drily. “Shall we both pretend that it will be the first time?” he teased.
She smiled back at him. “Oui,” she murmured. “Let’s do that.”
And he drew her closer while, outside the window, the ship pulled into port with all its lights blazing.
Jolana and Phillipe were married a week later in a small church overlooking the Mediterranean, with only a few of Maureen and Phillipe’s closest friends to witness the rites. Jolana felt as if she were in a dream world, where nothing was quite real. In the space of a heartbeat, she’d put an irrevocable barrier between herself and Domenico Scarpelli. She stared at the white gold band around her finger with a sense of fatalism. Goodbye, Nick, she said silently. Now her life, her love, her body belonged to Phillipe. She was going to be the best wife she could. She was going to make Phillipe very happy. And maybe someday she’d be able to give him more than affection and the gift of her body. Maybe someday she’d even be able to love him.
For their honeymoon, he took her to the Caribbean, to a small French island where the temperature was warm and the skies were blue. And there, at a private villa when the night came softly and covered the island, they became man and wife.
After a light supper, Phillipe led her down to the deserted beach and began slowly to remove his clothing, watching her all the while. She didn’t move or turn away. And her eyes found him not only pleasing, but devastating, when the last of the fabric was peeled away. He was smooth and bronzed and as muscular as she’d thought he would be. In the moonlight, with his fair hair moving softly in the breeze, he made her catch her breath.
So must the old heroes of Greece have looked in centuries past, as they were sculpted for the appreciation of future generations.
“I do not displease you?” he asked with a knowing smile.
She shook her head slowly. “I was just thinking about the Greeks,” she replied drily.
His hands rested on his lean hips. “And now you, madame, my wife.”
She removed all her clothes for him. The wine they’d consumed with their meal had made her feel warm and uninhibited, and the pure adoration in his eyes did the rest. She felt the sea breeze brush like a lover’s fingers over her nudity as she stood before him in the moonlight, and heard the sigh that left his lips.
“Ma belle amie,” he whispered. “Come and let me make love to you.”
She moved toward him without fear, without regret. He was her husband now, and he had any rights he cared to take. And in all honesty, the giving was not going to be a chore. He was good and kind and thoughtful. And she would do her very best to love him.
She went against him softly, so that their bodies were pressed tightly together, and she slid her arms around his back and let her hands explore his long, lean contours.
“Slowly, petite,” he whispered. “Very slowly, so that you do not rouse me too soon.”
Her heart trembled with its quick, sharp beat. “Are we really going to make love here?”
His hands smoothed down her back to her hips and her thighs and back up again, and around to catch her taut, warm breasts. “Here is better than the very narrow-minded approach expected of newlyweds, is it not?” he breathed unsteadily. “Beds are so...mundane, my sweet. This... This is wildly exciting, is it not?”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed, burning now with desire.
“I knew you long ago,” he whispered as he caressed her, “when Maureen was at school with you and talked of no one but her friend Jolana. She intrigued me so that I had to come and see you for myself. I adored you even then, petite. Can you see how much I adore you, little one?”
She could, and it was glorious to be wanted for herself, not as a substitute. It was glorious to be a woman, and wanted, and needed, for only herself.
Grateful to him, she moved, brushing her body up against his so that she intensified what he was feeling and made him tremble.
He caught his breath. His long-fingered hands touched her hips and his thumbs caressed her soft belly as he rocked her gently up and down against him, and his heart shuddered against her soft breasts. Her legs trembled against his as she felt the raging need in his body and wanted nothing but to satisfy it completely.
She brushed the tips of her breasts slowly across his smooth chest and her hands found him and touched him and she smiled as he groaned.
“Phillipe,” she whispered, opening her mouth as she lifted it to his.
His breath came heavily as he put his open mouth on hers. His hands lifted her hips against his, higher and higher, until she felt him against her, until he moved suddenly, sharply, and she became a part of him.
She gasped, her nails biting into his shoulders as she met his hot, dark eyes.
“Yes, like this,” he whispered with a hot, wild smile. “Like this, standing. It will be better than if I crushed your body under mine into the sand. Rock with me. Lift, rise... Dieu, Jolana, Dieu, harder than that...hard!” His hands hurt, but she was caught up in the rhythm and the furious hunger and the madness of it, and as she arched back, they overbalanced and went down into the surf.
But neither of them noticed the dampness of the beach, the water crashing against their locked ankles. He was heavy and the sand under her back was abrasive, but her mouth was in bondage to his, and his hands were all over her. She lifted her hands to his hips, matching her wild, frantic motions to his, and the night burned around them. He rolled over with her in the sand, now above, now below, as the pleasure built and built, and she cried out, moaning, biting at him in a perfect haze of mindless motion and agonized sweetness. When the moment came, she felt a symphony of texture and sound and sensation carrying her off like the tide, and she whimpered into his hot throat. It wasn’t the incredible pleasure that Nick had given her, but it was more than enough. She held him while he took his own shuddering relief, and then she kissed him and caressed him and comforted him while he regained the strength her body had taken from him.
“Ma vie, was it as sweet for you as it was for me?” he finally whispered.
“Oh, yes,” she said, and meant it. “Sweet as honey.”
“Sweet like you, ma chère,” he said on a long sigh. He brushed soft kisses on her mouth before he lifted himself away. “Allons, we swim! Come!” And, taking her hand, he ran her down the beach with him, into the surf, into the brisk, cool sea. The night had a magic of its own that she knew she’d remember long after she and Phillipe had left to go back to Monaco. Already, she had taken the first step into the future, and found it not at all bitter.
CHAPTER NINE
JOLANA HAD THOUGHT she knew Phillipe very well until they married. Then she began finding out all sorts of things about him.
He was the soul of patience in bed. He could make love to her with a sweet, searing tempo that made music in her body. But if a waiter was a minute late taking his order in a restaurant, he would lose his temper and make a scene. He was meticulous about his clothing, very strict in even his bedtime regimen. He showered first, then shaved, then brushed his teeth. He arose precisely at 6:00 a.m. and wanted breakfast exactly ten minutes later, along with the morning paper. And he was more agreeable if no one spoke to him until he was drinking his second cup of coffee.
Jolana managed to get around his bad moods, or coax him out of them. But as the days went by, she began to wonder if she’d really ever known Phillipe at all. The charming, laughing companion of the past few weeks had turned into a somber, moody boy. And worst of all was his gambling. She hadn’t said anything about it in the days before their marriage, thinking it was just a rich man’s hobby. But Phillipe thought nothing of betting thousands of francs on the turn of a card, the spin of a roulette wheel.
“Darling, I’m not nagging,” she said late one night when they came in from the casino back in Monte Carlo, where they’d returned after their brief honeymoon. “But don’t you think, now that we’re married, that you could just cut back a little on the gambling?”
He glared at her from his formidable height. “In France, it is not as in America. Here a woman does not question her husband or his habits. You understand?”
“No, I do not,” she said haughtily, glaring up at him. “When you start gambling away our future, I think that gives me a few rights! What about when we have children? How are we going to provide for them if you throw away every penny we have?”
“We have?” he asked with a cold smile. “You forget yourself. The money is mine and Maureen’s.”
It was the most humbling thing he could have said to her. She’d sworn she’d never wind up in this predicament, being financially dependent on a man.
“So that’s how it’s going to be,” she mused, returning his coolness. “Very well, monsieur le comte, I’ll go back to painting and make my own money.”
He was immediately contrite, in one of the lightning mood changes she was coming to expect from him. He drew her close with a rueful smile. “Forgive me,” he said softly. “I am a beast. It is just that, marriage, the confinement of it, is new to me. For so long, I have been a free spirit. Now I have a wife, a lovely wife,” he added, bending to kiss her softly, “and responsibilities. I will try to reform, I swear, petite. Am I forgiven?”
“I suppose,” she answered, and reached up to return his warm, slow kiss. But inside, warning bells were ringing. It wasn’t the most encouraging start for married life, to leave a conflict unresolved.
“Now, now, we argue, then we make up,” he said softly, smiling wickedly as he kissed her.
“I sti
ll want to go back to painting,” she said.
“Eventually. Kiss me.”
“Not...eventually,” she argued between kisses. “Now.”
“There is no need. Stop talking, petite. I have remembered an appetite that has not yet been fed today,” he added with a warm smile and lifted her off her feet.
“Phillipe...!” she ground out, exasperated.
But he was kissing her again, his mouth slow and tender and full of magic. In the end, she gave in without a protest, winding her arms around his neck as he carried her to bed.
Later in the week, he left for a yachting trip in the Mediterranean, leaving Jolana behind. Her stomach was uneasy these days, and the thought of a long sea voyage almost made her lose her breakfast.
She sensed that Phillipe was disappointed in her, but he made no comment. On the other hand, he offered no sympathy. That was the one quality he seemed to lack, compassion. And to Jolana, it was the most important commodity on earth. She’d grown up with a lack of it in her own life. Now she seemed to be tied to a man who had little sympathy for anyone. It didn’t make things easier for her.
“He is not used to being married, chérie,” Maureen told her with a kind smile. “You must give him time to adjust. He cares for you very much, but you must not try to cage him.”
Jolana felt shocked. “Have I?”
“In small ways,” Maureen confided. “He does gamble, you know. He has done this for as long as I can remember. He is very good at it, and he makes much more than he loses. You know that things are not well with us financially, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes,” Jolana agreed. “I even offered to paint. I’m selling quite a lot of canvases these days, internationally.”
Maureen’s eyebrows shot up. “C’est vrai?” she asked with an excited smile. “Chérie, I have so many friends... Do you do portraits? Voilà! The perfect thing. And it is not considered work in our circles, to paint. It is...how you say, genius.”