by Anna Cleary
When she wasn’t moving her food around the plate or being addressed by someone, Shari rested her gaze on a burnished antique sideboard with lovely pieces of delicately painted china. An exquisite vase holding jonquils, a Chinese bowl, a fragile urn painted with birds and flowers.
Once she disciplined herself to look at Luc firmly, like a normal, non-pregnant person. His eyes locked with hers, alert, guarded, and her heart turned over.
It was during the cheese she lost her cool. Tante Marise said, ‘Poor Shari, you must feel you have lost your whole world. Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk.’
Shari shook her head, ready to deny the charge and explain about Rémy, when Laraine exchanged a meaningful glance with all the others and leaned tenderly towards her.
‘Forgive us, Shari. This is a delicate subject, ma chérie, but it must be dealt with. We have spoken with Emilie and do not believe Rémy has left any instructions. Are you aware of his thoughts? We must decide how to dispose of his ashes. It is good you are here in France and you are able to participate.’
Appalled, Shari said, ‘Oh, look. No, no, please.’ She glanced about at their enquiring, sympathetic faces and cast an agonised look at Luc. Then she rose to her feet, the better to breathe.
‘Please, you know, you’re all being so kind, but I—I really must explain.’ She saw Luc’s dark brows draw into an alarmed frown, but she carried on regardless. ‘The truth is, that while I was engaged to Rémy for a while, it was not a—a very happy thing. Our engagement ended several months before he—before the accident.’
A heavy stillness descended on the room. She could hear pigeons cooing on a distant steeple.
‘I haven’t wanted to mislead you. And truly, I don’t want to hurt anyone. I know you all loved him, he was part of your family, but in fact to me Rémy wasn’t always the most gentle person. He could lose his temper and be really quite—’ Just at that moment, her eye fell on the painted urn resting innocently on the bureau.
A horrifying realisation shocked through her. She grasped at her throat. Unable somehow to manage breathing, she felt herself grow unbearably hot, then without warning whirled forward into a bottomless black hole.
Through a misty haze she heard Luc’s shocked voice, distant chairs scraping, a babble of consternation. She opened her eyes again immediately, or so it seemed to her. Well, perhaps some time had passed, because she was now horizontal and in another room, her head on a feather soft pillow, a feather-soft blanket tucked around her.
Luc’s mother was sitting at her side patting her knee while Luc was standing over her, looking anxious. They didn’t notice she was awake because they were deeply involved in an intense, murmured conversation.
Shari couldn’t follow it because they were speaking in rapid French. Not all of it, anyway. There was one word she picked up. She knew it rather well from years of experience with Emilie.
Enceinte.
She knew the meaning of that, all right. It meant pregnant; with child; having conceived; in the family way; up the duff; in the pudding club; fat. It was Laraine who uttered the fateful word, and when she did Shari saw Luc’s face change.
CHAPTER NINE
A STRAINED silence persisted all the way from Tante Laraine’s to the Luxembourg Gardens. Luc had hustled Shari so fast out of the family lunch she was breathless. But not nervous. She had no reason to be scared. He was a civilised, non-violent guy, she was an adult woman capable of making her own decisions and defending herself, so this silence wasn’t playing on her nerves.
Much.
It was just that, in a small car, when they were physically in such close proximity, she could hear his very breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Or maybe that was the jackhammer in her heart.
Anyway, he parked and took her for a charming stroll through the afternoon shadows, under trees, past grassy banks to a beautiful old rhimey fountain. Most of the people had left or were on their way home. The clowns, a juggler in his harlequin costume. Lovers holding hands. A kid playing with a hoop. Mothers pushing their babies.
Shari wouldn’t have minded a few of them hanging around, just in case, but she guessed it was time for them all to repair to their kitchens and prepare the family cassoulet.
She concentrated on small things along the way. Water lilies floating on the pond. Jonquils nodding along the garden path, closing their faces now as the shadows lengthened.
They paused by the fountain. Luc faced her. She made her mind go empty, the way she always had when she suspected Rémy was about to strike.
‘Do you have something to tell me?’ He took her arms in a gentle grasp that might as well have been of steel. There was no escaping this moment of truth.
‘Yes.’ Not breathing, she met his compelling gaze. ‘It’s true. I only found out for sure myself this morning. I’m—we’re—pregnant.’
She braced.
He scrutinised her face for what felt like for ever. Worlds of calculation glinted in his eyes while he evaluated the available data. In a romance novel he would have said Then we must get married. No question about it.
‘And you are certain?’
That expression on his face. The tinge of doubt. She remembered it well from the night in Sydney. That occasion when he’d asked her how recently she’d seen Rémy. How recently she’d been hot from his cousin’s bed.
‘Pretty certain,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I took a pregnancy test this morning. It came up positive. It was what I—expected.’
He didn’t lash out, just sat down with her on a nearby bench. But she could see he was in shock. He was blinking fast and there was a pallor under his olive tan, a grave set to his mouth.
‘I know what you are wondering,’ she said suddenly. ‘You’re wondering if the child is yours. You’re thinking I might be—exploiting this opportunity to foist Rémy’s child onto you, and …’ Her voice choked up. Tears came into her eyes and she turned her face away.
He took her hand and held it tight. ‘Please. I have to ask the question. Is it mine?’
‘Yes. Yours. Rémy and I hadn’t been—together in that way for a long time.’
He searched her face, frowning. Then, dragging his fingers through his hair, he got up and started to pace. ‘This—needs serious thought.’ He walked, halted, walked again, like a man riven by terrible conflicts. After a few minutes he paused before her. ‘What do you want to do? Whatever you choose, I will help you.’
Her heart trembled. ‘I don’t know. I’m still coming to terms with it.’
She crossed her fingers. This was the point where the hero would take her in his arms and tell her it was the most beautiful news he’d ever received.
He was silent for a moment. ‘Bien sûr, this is not the ideal way for a—a child to be conceived.’
‘No.’
‘You live in Sydney. I live here. We are separated by a great distance.’
She closed her eyes. He was a man, she was a woman. Different planets of origin. He hardly needed words to describe the status quo. The separation factors. His hands did the talking for him. Crushed her wayward little hope and put it back in its box.
‘You have a career. You are an independent person. Naturally, you value your autonomy.’
‘Well, yes.’
He added carefully, ‘In France, of course, there are options. I’m not sure how the law exists in Australia …’
She lowered her eyes. ‘There are options.’
‘Here … I believe it can be as simple as taking a pill.’
She nodded.
He stared at her a while, his eyes glittering, his face tense. ‘This is not something—either of us would have planned.’
‘No.’
‘This—this changes lives. I would not have afflicted you with this problem.’
‘Of course not.’
He lowered his lashes, frowning and breathing rather hard. ‘So …’ A grim tension tautened his lean face. ‘Perhaps the obvious thing to do then would be to—take action. N’est-ce pas?’ His gaze scou
red her face, questioning, searching.
The sun went out, or maybe a cloud doused the world. Her limbs suddenly felt chilled. Shivering, she pulled her trench closer. ‘Do you mind if I go back to my hotel now? I’m feeling very tired all at once.’
‘Of course, of course.’ He helped her up, so courteously, so concerned for her comfort, she had the feeling he’d have carried her to the car if she’d requested it.
The drive to the Hôtel du Louvre was even more tense, if possible, than the drive to the Luxembourg Gardens. But it was a different sort of silence. More like Hiroshima, in those minutes after the bomb.
Before all the agony set in.
When they drew up at the hotel, he paused before turning off the ignition, frowning at the hotel entrance. ‘Will you be okay here?’
‘Of course. It’s a lovely hotel. It’s very comfortable.’
His frown deepened. ‘I—I’ve never heard anything against it. I’m sure it’s of a reasonable standard. Clean.’
She nodded.
‘And safe? You feel safe here?’
‘Yep. Safe.’
‘The staff. They are respectful?’
‘Very.’
‘And the facilities are—très bon?’
He was so concerned that despite her internal suffocation she nearly laughed. ‘Mais oui. Très, très bon.’
He got out and strode around to open the door for her, then ushered her in through the revolving door.
He glanced around the small lobby, then faced her, the lines of his face even more taut. When he spoke his words sounded suddenly jerky. ‘So—so what will you do now? Will you sleep?’
‘Hope so.’
His eyes strayed in the direction of the restaurant, which to her eyes looked warm and charming, with its banquettes bright with red regency stripes. ‘What about your dinner? Do you feel you can eat in this place? You hardly ate a bite at lunch.’
‘Oh, yes, yes, I did.’ She hoped her appetite problems hadn’t wounded his feelings. ‘The lunch was delicious. Your mother’s a wonderful cook. Anyway, I’ll—I might have something sent up later.’
He took both of her hands. ‘Are you sure this is what you want? To be here now?’
‘Where else? I’m not really in the mood for the Ritz.’
He turned sharply away, but not before she saw the flush darken his cheekbones.
She said earnestly, ‘Look, you don’t need to worry. I just need to think on my own for a bit. I’m sure we both do.’
He kissed her cheeks, then walked to the door, hesitated, then strode back and kissed her on the lips. ‘I’ll call you later. D’accord?’
‘Fine.’ She nodded. Smiled brightly. ‘Thanks.’
Luc drove towards his apartment but not there directly, because he unbelievably took a wrong turn in the streets he’d known since childhood and was forced to backtrack.
Upstairs, he poured whiskey and stood at his window, gazing out over the rooftops, thinking. No, attempting to grasp onto a thought and hold it still.
Of all the women on earth for him to have accidentally impregnated … To think he’d been condemning his cousin’s abuse of her, when now he himself had caused her—this.
He hunched as hot shame rocked through him. Shame on Luc Valentin. Shame, shame, shame.
The ironies weren’t lost on him.
His ex-lover choosing to have a baby with another man. His new lover—would she even agree to being called that?—reluctantly pregnant with his child.
If it was his.
He tried to think through all the things she’d ever told him about Rémy and the break-up. The time in the boathouse, that moment of exultation when she’d produced the battered package from her purse.
He knew what some guys would think. Had she really just taken the test today? Was it possible she’d come to Paris to snare him, knowing all along she was pregnant? With his cousin’s child?
For money?
The image of her face, her gentle womanly dignity when he’d questioned her in the Gardens resurfaced. Shamed him afresh. Scathed him. Mon Dieu, what was he doing? Attempting to escape responsibility?
Needing to escape himself, he locked the apartment behind him, took the creaking old lift down and plunged into the streets.
The lights were glittering all over the city as the evening deepened. Luc strode along in the brisk air, hunched into his jacket, hands in pockets, attempting to clear his mind.
He was a rational guy. In charge of his life. It wasn’t such a big thing, after all. People dealt with these little surprises all the time. All the time.
He’d been with Manon when he’d dreamed of them having the child. That time was gone now, destroyed, but he’d learned from it. The male of the species didn’t have the right to impose his children on an unwilling female. He could see the justice of that. How some guys still managed to get away with it was a mystery.
An unbidden image of him and Shari with a child flashed through his head, and he banished it. Even if she wanted that, it would never work. Somehow, over the years, disillusionment had accumulated on his heart like so much snow.
Anyway, she’d made it clear she’d never again chance the domestic partnership model. He could well imagine her expression if he suggested anything as archaic as marriage. For all her gentleness and fragility, she could be as sharp as a knife.
She’d laugh in his face. And after her experience with Rémy, who could blame her?
No. In this case the rational decision was the only one. He’d support her through it, every step of the way.
Hopefully what she had to go through wouldn’t be too painful. His gut clenched.
The restaurants were filling, people strolling to their entertainments. Tourists, students. He recognised a few of the locals from his neighbourhood. All at once he saw the guy from the boulangerie. He was with his wife, laughing with her as they crossed the street.
Luc could see the bulge of something the guy was transporting carefully inside his down jacket, wine bottles perhaps. When they drew nearer and the guy sharpened in focus, Luc saw with a searing pang that the zipper had been pulled down a little to allow a small curly head to peep out.
He turned his face away.
Shari had a good cry in the bath, then got out. Carefully. Her disappointment was cruel, but not a sensible option. Oh, how she hated that word. For a while there she’d imagined she’d glimpsed something more than desire in Luc’s dark gaze, more than the amused affection that naturally existed between lovers who’d enjoyed some pleasant intimacy between the sheets.
Maybe if they lived in the same country she’d have a chance with him. But there was no use wanting someone who viewed her as a temporary diversion.
Realising that despite everything she really felt quite genuinely hungry, as if she could actually eat, she dressed in her other jeans and soft blue sweater, adding a pale cream scarf in case, and went down to the restaurant.
The potage du jour turned out to be a nourishing vegetable soup. Combined with crusty bread, it was food fit for angels, always supposing angels could eat. Afterwards, feeling fortified enough for anything, she asked the desk manager for an Internet key.
Luc followed the clerk’s directions up to the mezzanine. Through the open office door he saw Shari seated at a desk, her blonde head bent in study of a screen. She was so deeply immersed he knocked twice before she heard him. ‘Ça va?’
She started, glancing up. ‘Oh. I thought you were meaning to phone.’
‘I needed to see you. Face to face.’
He saw her eyes light up as she searched his face for … what?
Seeing her in the flesh, he ached to touch her, hold her, but he could hardly muscle her out of her chair. Not in her condition.
He stood a little way from her, held back by an invisible line. ‘Did you sleep?’
‘I tried, but my brain kept going round.’
‘Thinking about—it?’ He grimaced.
She looked wary. ‘What else?’
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A flicker at the edge of his vision caused him to glance at the computer screen. There was an image of this large glowing ball. A sunburst, or something.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ll see a doctor. Have it confirmed. Take any steps that need to be taken.’
She moistened her lips. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to see a doctor.’
He felt a bolt of surprise. ‘But … we must ensure you’re safe. I’ve heard it said that these things are better attended to sooner rather than later.’ He noticed a tension in her posture, though she spoke quite casually, her eyes lowered.
‘The steps, you mean?’
‘Alors, the—the medical support, the—everything.’
He had the sudden sensation his words weren’t getting through.
She swivelled her chair a little so she was angled away from him. Her back was straight, her hands clenched on the desk. ‘Luc—I’m going home tomorrow.’
The news shocked through him like a blow. Resistance burned inside his chest. Mon Dieu, this … This was surely a reproach, a lack of confidence in his response as a concerned, honourable guy.
‘Mais, Shari, chérie …’ He made to grasp her arm, then restrained himself when he saw her start back. It wasn’t quite a flinch, but close, and it shocked him. He remembered a couple of other times he’d noticed her brace herself as if expecting physical force, and the dismayed thought occurred to him that she didn’t trust him, either. Even after they’d been together. After the things they’d said. Things she’d shared with him about Rémy.
It wasn’t easy with all this churning inside ramping up his blood pressure, but he made a stern effort to moderate his tone, slow himself down. Not to sound so—forceful.
He said with difficulty, ‘I thought we agreed you would stay longer.’
‘Things were different then. Anyway, I didn’t really agree. I was just—considering it. I don’t think we’d enjoy a week at the Ritz now, somehow.’
Even as she made the comment he could see the resolution firming in her face. That pretty chin could be quite determined. But he had to accept the justice of her words, bien sûr. In this context the Ritz suggestion sounded ludicrous. But the prospect of her leaving immediately with everything unresolved was—wrong.