'Well, Chantal?' He sounded grave. 'Are you ready to tell me whatever it is that is troubling you?'
Surprised by the absence of the devilment that had teased her nerves all evening, she fumbled open her bag, withdrew a bundle of papers, and thrust them into his hand. 'I want to give you these. And this ...' As an afterthought, she began tugging the huge emerald ring from her finger, but before she had eased it over her knuckle her hand was enclosed within a steely grip.
'Leave it!' he rapped.
'No, I will not!' She almost sobbed in her frustration. 'I'm sick of lies and deceit, I want to go home to England,' to her horror her voice developed a wobble, 'I've given you everything you want, so there's no further need for pretence.'
'What have you given me, Chantal?' He sounded calm, yet the grip of his fingers was intense.
'I've given you the deeds to Trésor d'Hélène,' she choked, feeling suddenly weary. 'Please don't try to deny that your proposal was a deliberate ploy to gain possession of the vineyard. I overheard Nicole and her mother talking, you see,' she sounded almost sorry for him, 'perhaps it was wrong of me to eavesdrop, but I'm glad I did, for at least I was left with no illusions about your sincerity while you were acting out the part of a man in love.'
'So ...' The hissed exclamation sounded agonised. 'At last I have discovered the reason behind the existence of your hard shell which I always suspected was donned especially for me! You thought me a liar, yet you never allowed me to guess how revolted you were by my kisses, how you inwardly shuddered from my touch, how cynically unmoved you were by my amorous declarations!' Fear grabbed her by the throat, fear of the man whose utter stillness projected deep and terrible anger. 'Did it never occur to you, Chantal,' the steel thread of his voice continued, 'that you might have been mistaken? Was there no secret part of you that refused to believe me capable of such treachery, do you possess none of the feminine intuition which supposedly is invaluable in helping to distinguish a sincere man from a rogue?'
Casting control to the winds, he shocked her by grating, 'Never before have I pandered so long to the whims of one woman, never has my patience been so stretched, my emotions kept so rigidly under control, and all on account of a freckle-faced, tormenting, tantalising witch who dangled me at arm's length for her own secret amusement!' All the built-up frustration of previous weeks was present in the force with which he jerked her hard against his body. 'If a man is punished before he has sinned,' he threatened thickly, 'how can he be blamed for claiming the enjoyment he has already paid for?'
He had kissed her before, but never with such brutal intensity; he had touched and caressed her, but never had she been made to feel as if fingers of fire were branding marks of possession upon her flesh. Desire raged rampant through the whip-lean body of the man who used her as a desert nomad would use a crystal pool to slake his thirst, as a deprived drunkard, driven to excess, would drain a bottle to its dregs.
White-hot fear gripped her, yet incredibly it was fear born not of his demented kisses, of the hoarse, strained voice of a man nearing the edge of control, but fear that had jumped into glorious life with the realisation that she might possibly have misjudged him. Too buffeted by emotion to think straight, too stifled by his kisses to ask the questions raging to be answered, she clung to him and felt her shy innocence overcome by a surge of violent feeling that impelled heated response into lips that had offered stiff, cool resistance to his onslaught. Simultaneously, her hands crept up behind his neck and fingers with a will of their own began running riot through his hair.
The effect of her surrender was startling. Pressed as close as one, his great, heaving shudder racked them both. Then he fell still, the muscles beneath her hands tensing hard as rock. The shock when he stepped backward, putting a yard of space between them, was so great that she could only stand and stare, her eyes wide with hurt puzzlement. She heard a breath rasp harshly in his throat, sensed the tremendous effort he made to sound controlled when he apologised:
'I'm sorry, Chantal. It must seem to you that you are fated always to suffer at the hands of myself and other members of my family. Already we have robbed you of the love and companionship of a wonderful old lady, your grandmother. Through us, you were denied the upbringing that was your right and the inheritance which reluctantly the broken-hearted old Comtesse willed to others. Then, as if that was not enough,' he grated, 'I, too, for a few insane moments was determined to rob you. Thank God, I managed to find strength enough to resist inflicting the ultimate atrocity.'
She wanted to run across the yawning space dividing them, to caress his ravaged face, to kiss the sternness from his mouth, to whisper assurances that would chase the bleak look of despair from his eyes. But her limbs refused to respond. Like a statue frozen to immobility, she could communicate only through stricken eyes.
That her message had been misread was evident when the proud Marquis began to plead, 'Try to forgive me, Chantal—not yet, it is too soon—but some day please try to believe that I have never lied, that everything I have done I did with your interests at heart. How could it be otherwise when I love you so, Chantal, a love that began for me on the day that you opened your door and found me standing on your doorstep.'
The admission almost broke her heart. With a sob of compassion she flew to him, then, hugging him tightly around the waist, her head buried deep in his chest, she began to sob.
'Brut! Brut, my darling, I love you ... I love you!'
For one nerve-racking moment he remained rigid, then with a sigh of incredulous relief he gathered her close and laying his cheek against her hair began to rock her tenderly.
It was not a moment for speech, their hearts were too full, their emotions too ravaged for words. Passion, joy, jubilation were all to come, but at that moment all they wanted was to cling together, bemused with wonder, appalled by the realisation of how near they had come to disaster.
'Amour de mon cœur,' finally he managed a broken whisper, 'welcome home, my own, my adorable Champagne girl !'
Champagne Spring by Margaret Rome Page 15