The Frenchman's Captive Wife

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘You don’t really want to leave me, any more that I could stand to see you go,’ he said flatly, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘Look into your heart, chérie. It recognised the truth between us.’

  She knew exactly what was in her heart, Emily thought bleakly. It was Luc’s that was the mystery. She sighed and swung away from him to pull on her jeans.

  ‘Sacré bleu! What have you done to your back? You’re bleeding.’ His face was white with anguish.

  She glanced over her shoulder, alerted by the horror in his voice, and saw that her shirt was streaked with blood. ‘I’m fine. It’s nothing, just some scratches from when I fell into some bushes,’ she reassured him, but he pulled her against his chest and ran his hands over her as if desperate to assure himself that she was unhurt.

  ‘You’re so pale, and I’m no better than my barbaric ancestor,’ he growled, his voice laced with self-disgust. She was so tiny, so fragile, and he had let her down so badly, it was no wonder she was staring up at him with huge, fearful eyes. ‘Here, drink this,’ he ordered, dragging a hip flask from his pocket. Her face turned a sickly shade of green as he unscrewed the lid and she caught the unmistakable smell of brandy.

  ‘That’s not a good idea,’ she murmured faintly, and he clamped down on his impatience as he held the flask against her lips. She looked like death and fear gripped him.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he shouted as her legs buckled. Had she lied? Had Kasim thrown her and she had kept quiet for fear of his anger? ‘Mon Dieu! Emily, you must drink this.’

  ‘No.’ She clamped her blue lips resolutely together as her head lolled forward. ‘No alcohol, Luc…I’m pregnant!’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘WHY THE HELL didn’t you tell me?’

  Emily opened her eyes to discover she was in her bedroom at the château. Luc was leaning over her, his face contorted with fury, and she lowered her lashes again, wishing she could return to oblivion.

  ‘Monsieur Vaillon, the doctor is here.’ Liz’s calm tones cut through the simmering tension and she heard him mutter something in his own language before he stepped back from the bed.

  ‘Call me the minute he’s finished,’ Luc instructed Liz, and it was only when she heard the door creak on its hinges that Emily dared to open her eyes again.

  ‘He’s just upset,’ Liz reassured her quickly, noting the stark misery on her face. ‘You gave him a terrible fright when you collapsed in the stables. He literally ran all the way back to the château with you in his arms.’

  ‘He’s angry with me,’ Emily whispered, her eyes filling with tears that spilled down her cheeks. Liz patted her arm.

  ‘Shock does funny things to people and you have to admit it was quite a dramatic way of announcing your pregnancy. He was scared, that’s all. He’s very protective of you.’

  Luc hadn’t looked protective, Emily thought bleakly when the doctor had finished his examination and assured her she was a perfectly healthy woman in the first stages of pregnancy. Luc had looked as though he wanted to commit murder.

  ‘How did Luc seem?’ she asked hesitantly when Liz returned to the bedroom. ‘I’m not sure how he’ll feel about being a father again.’

  ‘If you ask me, he’ll be over the moon,’ Liz replied softly. ‘He adores Jean-Claude.’

  ‘Yes, he does.’ There was no dispute over Luc’s feelings for his son, she acknowledged bleakly as she stared up at the canopy above the bed. But his feelings for his wife were a different matter. He would never let her go now, but he wanted her for all the wrong reasons.

  The doctor had advised her to rest but inactivity gave her time to think, so she padded into the en suite, filled the bath and added a generous handful of scented crystals that promised to soothe and de-stress. She needed all the help she could get in that department, she conceded, and closed her eyes as the foam worked its magic.

  ‘So, not content with terrifying me this afternoon, you’re now trying to drown yourself.’ The furious rumble from the doorway caused her eyes to fly open and she jerked upright, horrified to realise that the water had been lapping around her chin. Most of the bubbles had disappeared and she flung her arms across her chest, her cheeks flaming with the acknowledgement that it was way too late for modesty.

  ‘What do you want?’ she snapped, and Luc felt the familiar tug in his chest as her hands slid to her stomach in an instinctively protective gesture. You was the simple answer, but she was bristling like an angry porcupine and now didn’t seem a good time to reveal what was in his heart, even supposing she would listen, he thought bleakly.

  ‘To talk,’ he murmured instead as he leaned away from the door and strolled towards her.

  His damp hair indicated that had recently showered. His crisp white shirt was open at the throat and his black trousers moulded his thighs leaving little to her imagination that was determined to recall every second of the moments in the stable.

  ‘It wasn’t terribly productive last time we tried it,’ Emily said pointedly, turning hot and cold at the memory of their talk in the hay barn.

  ‘On the contrary, chérie, I found it most revealing, although you withheld one vital secret from me.’

  She could say nothing in her defence and sat silently in the rapidly cooling water, defying him to come any closer, which of course he did, holding out a fluffy bath sheet.

  ‘I can manage,’ she began, her voice trailing off beneath the ferocity of his glare.

  ‘Humour me, ma petite.’ He patently wasn’t going to move and with an exasperated sigh she stood and stepped over the side of the bath, allowing him to envelop her in the folds of the towel. Having him rub her dry with brisk efficiency was taking it a step too far, she decided when her body was tingling all over, but the blandness of his expression warned her he was determined to play nursemaid and she rewarded him with a dignified silence.

  Once satisfied that she was dry, he slipped her nightdress over her head and she raised her brows in silent query at the exquisite creation of ivory silk.

  ‘For the sake of my sanity I need you to be covered while we talk, but I couldn’t find the unflattering T-shirt you insist on wearing—although I admit I didn’t look very hard,’ he added beneath his breath.

  Before she could formulate a reply he swept her into his arms and carried her through to the bedroom where he deposited her between the sheets and adjusted her pillows. He treated her with something akin to reverence, as if she was infinitely precious to him, but it had to be an illusion, Emily thought as tears welled in her eyes. He didn’t care about her, he only cared for Jean-Claude and she couldn’t begin to hazard a guess at his thoughts about the new baby.

  ‘Are you angry?’ she queried tremulously when his silent scrutiny had stretched her nerves to breaking point.

  ‘Move from that bed and you’ll discover the true heat of my temper.’ He stared at her downcast face and sighed. ‘I’m not angry with you. I blame myself.’

  ‘Good. I blame you too.’ It was obvious from the way he was skirting around the issue that he wasn’t happy about the baby and she was surprised at how much it hurt. She should have expected it when his reaction to Jean-Claude’s conception was so clear in her mind. There was no hope for them now, she thought, and wished he would go so that she could cry alone.

  ‘Don’t you want this baby?’ he asked, his voice laced with a curious huskiness that she could almost believe was pain.

  She glanced at him, noting the deep grooves around his mouth. ‘Of course I want him…or her. My views on parenthood have never been in doubt. But what about you, Luc?’ she whispered. ‘For a man who vowed he didn’t want children, it must be a blow to learn you’re going to be a father for the second time.’

  ‘It’s not that I didn’t want children,’ he said hoarsely as he jumped to his feet and paced restlessly next to the bed. His air of urbane calm had always been impressive but he seemed to have undergone a dramatic transformation. His body was as tense as whipcord, his jaw rigid, b
ut it was the agony in his eyes that trapped her gaze. She stared at him, desperate to understand. ‘I always wanted Jean-Claude, you have to believe me,’ he muttered, his accent so pronounced that she had to concentrate on his words. ‘But I was so afraid, mon coeur, so afraid for you.

  ‘Last time, when the contraception failed there was some excuse, but this time it was sheer carelessness on my part,’ he admitted, his voice thick with self-disgust. ‘I made love to you because I couldn’t help myself. You are in my blood, Emily, in my heart. One look at you and I knew I had to have you again. It’s like an obsession, this need to hold you in my arms and experience the ecstasy only you can give. The last thing on my mind when I made love to you was the possible outcome yet I, more than anyone, should be aware of the consequences of such negligence. It is because of me that Sabine died,’ he groaned, his face twisting. ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘No.’ Emily couldn’t bear the torment in his eyes any longer and she reached out to him, pulling him onto the bed. ‘Luc, Sabine’s death was a terrible tragedy but it was nobody’s fault. An ectopic pregnancy is a comparatively rare condition. You couldn’t have known it would happen and there was nothing you could have done to prevent it.’

  ‘But that’s not true, don’t you see?’ He broke off and ran a hand over his face, his fingers shaking with the force of his emotions. ‘I didn’t love her. I doubt I ever did. When we met I was young and arrogant and for me it was lust at first sight, but the cracks started to appear early in our marriage. Sabine was obsessed with having a child while I was more focused on my career. There were endless rows, she had other lovers and our marriage was all but dead. The holiday was a last-ditch attempt by Sabine to save it.’ He fell silent, his expression unfathomable, and Emily shivered as she recalled the rest of the story Robyn had told her.

  ‘But Sabine was pregnant,’ she murmured tentatively, and he nodded.

  ‘Yes, but I doubt the child was mine, which was possibly why she said nothing. When she collapsed I had no idea what was wrong. We were miles from medical assistance and there was nothing I could do. It was over so quickly,’ he said rawly, ‘and I felt so helpless. Later a post-mortem revealed that Sabine had already suffered one ectopic pregnancy, hence her difficulty in conceiving. I didn’t even know she was pregnant and she never told me of the increased risk of another ectopic. It seemed unbelievable that a woman could die as a result of pregnancy in the twenty-first century and I felt so guilty. I vowed I would never put another woman at such risk.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Understanding dawned and Emily closed her eyes as his words hit her. ‘That was why you were so adamant that you didn’t want children, wasn’t it? But by the time it became an issue between us, I was already pregnant with Jean-Claude.’

  ‘It seemed cruelly ironic that Sabine had been unable to conceive despite all her efforts and yet you fell so easily.’

  ‘You seemed so angry and I was so hurt. I needed you,’ she whispered, ‘but I was sure you didn’t want me or the baby and I had no idea what I had done wrong.’

  ‘Forgive me, ma petite,’ he groaned, and her heart turned over at the pain in his eyes. ‘I knew you were unhappy living in London. There were issues with my company that meant I was busier than usual—and issues with Robyn that have only become clear since,’ he added bitterly. ‘A holiday, a belated honeymoon on a paradise island where we could be alone, seemed like a good idea.’ He broke off with a harsh laugh. ‘You’d think I would have learned from my experience of remote islands, but I hadn’t anticipated history repeating itself quite so dramatically. When you collapsed with the heat, after whispering that you suspected you were pregnant, I…’ He shook his head at the agonising memory. ‘I thought I would lose you in the same terrible circumstances as Sabine. I was terrified, chérie, and in my fear I went a little mad, but I wasn’t angry with you. I blamed myself for risking the life of the woman who meant more to me than anyone ever had.’

  Did he mean her? Emily felt her heart lurch painfully in her chest and quickly quashed the little flicker of hope. The ghosts in his past she could deal with, especially now she understood that his coolness towards her during her pregnancy had been the result of fear for her safety, not revulsion for the changes in her body. But there were still things she did not understand. ‘I wish you had confided in me,’ she said sadly. ‘It would have explained so much, saved so much misery. Instead, you turned to Robyn and shut me out. I couldn’t understand your closeness to her and as we grew further and further apart it seemed likely that she was your mistress.’

  ‘You must know now that we were never lovers,’ he began urgently, and she nodded.

  ‘I believe you, but adultery isn’t necessarily a physical act,’ she whispered. ‘I used to watch the two of you together, Luc. I recognised the bond that existed between you and I felt rejected.’

  He was quiet for so long that she thought he must have forgotten her, but as she tried to pull her hand free he tightened his grip and she was shocked by the bleakness of his expression.

  ‘I swore I would never talk about my childhood. It was not the happiest of times,’ he admitted grimly, ‘but I don’t want you to think I’m shutting you out ever again. My father was a cold, distant man. I don’t ever remember an occasion when I saw him smile, or felt that I had earned his approval. My mother was quiet, sensitive and for the most part deeply unhappy. I’ve always thought that I must have failed her in some way,’ he admitted quietly, and her heart turned over at the emotion in his voice. ‘Perhaps she just didn’t care for me enough to want to carry on with her life.’

  ‘Luc, severe depression is an illness,’ Emily said huskily, holding his hand between both of hers as she sought to comfort him. ‘Maybe in her confused state she thought you would be better off without her, but I’m sure she loved you.’ Beneath the urbane, successful businessman she recognised the lonely boy within and she ached for him.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he murmured with a shrug, ‘but at least I had Yves. We were extraordinarily close, especially after my mother’s death. As we grew older our friendship continued. We shared everything and I was delighted when he fell in love with Robyn. It seemed that at least one Vaillon marriage would prove successful. Yves’s death was a shattering blow,’ he confided, his eyes shadowed with remembered pain. ‘Robyn clung to me for support and I suppose I confided in her in place of my brother, but I regarded her as a close friend, nothing more.’ He stared at Emily intently, as if he was desperate for her to believe him.

  ‘My seeming reluctance to become a father was not because I did not want our child but because I was afraid I would not be a good parent. I didn’t have the best role models,’ he said heavily, and she squeezed his fingers reassuringly.

  ‘You’re a wonderful father. Jean-Claude adores you, as will the new baby.’

  ‘I feared that my upbringing had left me unable to love and my marriage to Sabine only seemed to prove it. I had lost Yves, the only person I truly cared for, and I decided that life was less complicated if my emotions were uninvolved. But now I realise how much I was fooling myself,’ he told her, his voice softening as he took in her delicate features and wide, expressive eyes.

  ‘You discovered that you love your son,’ she murmured, and her heart leapt painfully in her chest at the expression in his eyes. He was trying to tell her something and she wished she could decipher the code.

  ‘I met you,’ he said gruffly, and the tension between them became unbearable. Abruptly he jumped to his feet, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated, and the tight band around her heart suddenly snapped. This was Luc, the man she loved more than life itself, and he was in agony. ‘I felt sorry for Robyn and I trusted her as a friend but I never felt anything more for her,’ he muttered. ‘I hoped that as time passed she would come to terms with Yves’s death and her dependency on me would lessen, but I missed the signs that she wanted more from our relationship. I don’t know what I can do to repair the damage I’ve caused, the hurt I’ve inflicted on you,�
� he said huskily, ‘but even though you must hate me, I can’t let you go. Together with Jean-Claude, you are my life. I can’t lose you.’

  He was already walking away and as Emily called his name he turned, gripping the bedpost so hard that his knuckles showed white.

  ‘Why did you keep so many secrets?’ she asked, desperate to understand. ‘What I perceived as your lack of trust in me gave Robyn all the ammunition she needed.’

  ‘Chérie, you were so pure, so…innocent. I wanted to protect you especially when I realised I couldn’t fight my desperation to make you my wife. Vaillon marriages are not renowned for being happy. It’s as if they are cursed and I despised myself for my weakness over you. I should never have married you, mon ange,’ he finished huskily and the tears slid unchecked down her face.

  ‘Then why did you?’ She stared at him, her vulnerability exposed, and he groaned and moved forward as if to take her in his arms. Then he changed his mind and shoved his hands into his pockets.

  ‘Because I love you.’ The words seemed to be torn from his throat, as if each syllable was alien and unfamiliar to him, and she had the strangest feeling that he was afraid to look at her. ‘I didn’t want to,’ he admitted, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘Mon Dieu, I know better than most that love hurts. When I first met you I thought I would be content with a brief affair. The chemistry between us was white-hot and I knew you felt it, too,’ he told her, and she felt her cheeks flame. ‘I hadn’t counted on you being quite so innocent and it quickly became clear that the kindest thing I could do, for both our sakes, was walk away.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ Emily murmured, her mind still reeling from his startling admission that he loved her. She didn’t dare believe him but neither could she ignore the raw emotion in his eyes.