With This Ring

by Jean Saunders

  She suspected Claude waited for the exact moment she left her room. She suspected too that he gave Alphonse instructions to let Mademoiselle have ten minutes alone in the pool before the child’s exercises began. Only to Claude, that meant being alone with him. No matter how often Tania varied the time, the little tête-à-tête continued.

  By now she tried to ignore the implications that Claude was determined to be alone with her when he could, in as intimate a way as possible. In the mornings they worked together, and the outline of the book was slowly taking shape, though there was a vast amount to be done. Some of the time, Claude’s own affairs took up his time, when Tania was free to wander around the lovely grounds of the château, and to take coffee with Madame Girard.

  “The French air suits you, my dear,” the older woman told her with a smile one afternoon. “You look even more like your brother with that healthy outdoor glow in your cheeks. I think you should stay here always.” She spoke with the complacent air of one who could always do whatever she wished. Tania laughed out loud.

  “I can’t possibly do that, Madame.”

  “Why not? Who is to stop you? You have no family, no ties — unless there is a young man in England. Forgive me if I become too enthusiastic, Tania, but I have grown very fond of you, and we Girards are a mite selfish at times. We forget that people have other lives to lead.”

  Tania shook her head. “There’s no young man in England, Madame. At least, not in the way you mean. I’m not in love with him.” Maybe she had needed this distance between herself and David to see that the luke-warm affection she felt for him could never in her wildest dreams be compared with love. There was no tumultuous spinning of her senses whenever she thought of him; no charge of electricity whenever they touched, spoke, glanced across a room towards each other; no wanton pleasuring of her mind and body whenever his dark eyes told her that he wanted her, desired her … She caught herself up short. David’s eyes were blue, not dark velvet brown.

  “Then what is to prevent you staying?” Madame went on practically. “If your pride will not let you stay as my permanent guest, then take on more fully the English teaching with Henri. Already, we have to be discreet when we lapse into your language, which is to your credit, my dear. He loves you, as we all do. I was quite sure we would. We all loved James, you see.”

  Such simple words from this well-bred woman made them all the more sincere. Tania still fumbled for something to say. It just wasn’t possible. She had her job in London. Claude hadn’t bought her completely. Remembering the outrageous way he had gone to Lance Hillman and bought her time here, roused the sanity in her once more.

  “It’s just not possible, Madame.”

  “There is always another way to persuade her, Mother.” Claude’s lazy voice made them both jump. Neither had heard him moving towards them where they sat outside on the patio, drinking iced coffee in the late afternoon. He poured himself a cup, his eyes challenging Tania as he continued.

  “She could always marry me!”

  Tania’s heart jolted. She was unable to tear her eyes away from his indolent stare for a few seconds. She felt the heat in her face, and the erratic beat of her heart. It was said with no more feeling than the way he would order some new item for his amusement, and Madame admonished him at once.

  “Claude, really! That is no way to propose to a lovely young lady! It’s insulting to toss such an offer into the conversation like that. Take no notice of him, Tania. He can be really crass when he chooses.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of taking it seriously, Madame,” she declared, her voice oddly brittle.

  Claude isn’t the marrying kind … she seemed to hear James’s voice telling her. More than one girl thought she was destined to be the mother of the Girard future generation, and inherit the family fortune, but it will have to be someone very special to make Claude give up his bachelor status. He’s having too good a time. Why should he settle for one, when he can have them all …?

  James’s words were very clear in Tania’s head at that moment. At the time, Tania hadn’t really heeded them. She had certainly not been aware of the extent of the Girard family fortune. They had just been words spoken cheekily by her brother, tossed into the conversation like pebbles in a lake, the way Madame Girard had just referred to Claude’s marriage offer to her. It wasn’t meant to be heeded either. It was an insult, just as she had said.

  All the same, it was the first proposal Tania had received in her life, despite the fact that David Lee was slowly working around to it. No man who loved a woman as she wanted, needed to be loved, should take so long to get around to it, the thought skidded into her mind.

  The sudden turbulence in her veins as she caught the quizzical, mocking look on Claude’s face alarmed her. She was conscious of several emotions at once. Anger at the insult, puzzlement, disappointment … though why she should be disappointed, she couldn’t explain. A feeling of wild, explosive joy, tempered with a fatalistic refusal to admit he could ever have meant her to take his proposal seriously. A brief, momentary question in her mind as to his reaction if she did …

  “I apologise, chérie,” Claude was saying gravely, his voice neutral. “Next time it will be done in the appropriate manner, all moonlight and roses.”

  “Do stop it, Claude,” Madame began to laugh, clearly thinking he was teasing Tania to the point of embarrassment. “It’s the middle of the day now, and Tania’s too sensible to bother with your nonsense. And the roses are already fading.”

  It seemed like an ominous remark. The patio was surrounded by rose bushes in full bloom, their scent heady and overpowering in the afternoon heat.

  “Then if Tania won’t have me, perhaps we should throw a party, Mother, and I can surround myself with pretty girls to console myself,” he said lightly. “It’s not such a bad idea. Monique may even get around to deciding it’s time she married Denis after all. And I shall recover from my broken heart.”

  Madame still laughed, not hearing the little edge in his voice, that to Tania spelt far more than the casual words he said. Claude Girard wasn’t used to being rejected in any way. The proposal was no more than a silly remark, but she had turned down his sexual advances with cold English scorn, and that was an affront to his pride.

  A cool little breeze blew across the patio, scattering the petals of the fullblown roses in a soft carpet of pink about their feet, before they were carried over the smooth green lawns. Their movements filled Tania with a strange, throat-catching sadness.

  Chapter 6

  Tania had expected the work with Claude to be a strain on her emotions. The continual references to James, which was her reason for being here, was not easy on her nerves, and she couldn’t avoid them. Reliving the formative past when she and James were children, and having the later years filled in by Claude, by photos, letters, newspaper cuttings, the frequent reminiscences of Madame Girard and Monique, were all guaranteed to make the experience supercharged for Tania. More so than she had expected, because Claude’s demanding personality was more disturbing than she had anticipated.

  She had been prepared to meet as much antagonism from him as she gave, and sometimes she got it. At other times, she found it impossible to read the expression in his eyes, or to know when he was mocking her or being serious. Physically, she could never be unaware of him as a man, in every sense of the word, and subtly, her opinions of him were changing.

  She didn’t want them to change, she thought in a panic. She wanted to hold on to her image of him as the danger-seeking, reckless playboy, but she knew she was losing her grip on her long-held impressions. Firstly, she was forced to admit that Claude was a very caring man. That much was evident in his dealings with Henri. His heart grieved for the child, and Tania never doubted that.

  Then, too, she discovered that he poured his own money into the mountain rescue work, which would come into full prominence later in the year when the winter season began. In a month or two, the first snows on the favoured slopes of the mou
ntains would attract experts and novices, and all the skills of Claude’s hand-picked teams would be called upon.

  She learned that the climbs that had made Claude and James famous as fearless mountaineers, were often sponsored for charity, or made to provide new, detailed routes for the less experienced to follow. He was really a good guy, Tania told herself cynically.

  But the cynicism usually faded, because as her opinions of Claude changed, so did her feelings towards him, and that was something else she wouldn’t allow to happen. She wouldn’t let herself fall under his spell as so many other women had done. She didn’t want to be one of his ’good times’. She could be as fiercely demanding as he when it came to wanting love. And she would demand exclusive rights, to be loved passionately and wantonly, as long as it was a one-man, one-woman love, and Claude’s casual offer of marriage was as shaming to her as it was meaningless.

  Naturally, he had never expected her to accept. It would just serve him right, Tania thought, her amber eyes suddenly gleaming, if she were to pretend to take him seriously, and take him up on it … if she dared. But taking chances had never been her forte. She left that to men like Claude and James. The idea left her mind the second it occurred to her.

  As if to reassure herself that this episode in her life was only temporary, she wrote long letters to friends in England, and looked forward eagerly to the replies. David Lee wrote long, ponderous letters a little like himself, though always ending with the hope that she’d be coming home soon. Lance sent her brief, businesslike notes, included with the longer, more garrulous epics from his wife. Tania wrote to one of the girls in her department a couple of times, but got only the briefest letter back, and didn’t bother again.

  Outside the company, she realised suddenly how few friends she had. She was practically a recluse! Where were all the vivacious young women with whom she had shared the school years in Paris? She answered her own question. Spread about the world, successful in careers as she was successful, or married with children, secure in their own particular heavens.

  Claude, on the contrary, was obviously all set to prove just how many friends and acquaintances he had. This was clear to Tania as she came across Madame Girard sealing a great pile of invitations one afternoon when she had had her swim, and left Claude and Henri at the pool.

  “You’ll love our parties, Tania,” Madame greeted her. “Many of Claude’s friends were friends of James too, and will be longing to meet you.”

  “I’ll do my best not to let you down, then. I’m not very good at parties, I’m afraid.”

  “A pretty girl like you? I cannot believe it. We are all very informal here, Tania. Just relax and enjoy yourself. If you want a new dress, I’m sure Monique would be happy to bring you a selection from her boutique, or you may like to go there one afternoon. I’m sure Claude would drive you.”

  “I’ll see,” she murmured. She hadn’t brought anything too spectacular for partywear, and she didn’t want to appear the little English mouse. She knew she was talking herself into buying something new, and Madame had evidently mentioned it to Claude, because he told her he wanted to go into Toulouse himself the following week, two days before the party, and he’d be happy to take her to Monique’s establishment.

  She could hardly refuse, even though she would have been more comfortable out of Claude’s company for a little while. She watched his strong tanned hands on the wheel of the car, and wondered just why he disturbed her so much. Why did she sometimes lie sleepless in the warm sultry night, her windows open, and wonder if he was doing the same in the room next to hers? She imagined him there sometimes, not willingly, but as if it was a compulsion within her.

  Did he sometimes gaze out of the bedroom window as she did, to where the dark hazy mass of the mountains rose dizzily towards the sky? Did he have trouble sleeping, as she suspected, from the occasional sounds of his feet padding around the room late at night, the rustle of pages being turned in a book, the click of his bedside light? Did he lie, sleepless, eyes staring unseeingly at the ceiling, lonely in the night?

  “Are you all right?” Claude glanced at her as he steered the car around the bends in the road, hearing her small indrawn breath. “You’re very quiet today.”

  She sought the first refuge she could think of, as if afraid that he would guess that her palms were damp, imagining for one heart-stopping moment that she had been the one to go to him, to erase his loneliness, to slide beneath the soft warm cocoon of his bedcovers and enter the embrace of those waiting arms …

  “I’m not good at parties. I told your mother as much.” Her voice was jerky, stilted. The thoughts churned in her mind. Was it solely a male preserve to feel this sudden surge of desire that was erupting inside her with all the force of an electrical storm? It was a feeling Tania had never met before. Not this strong, this mind-stunning, this wonderful. Was this the surprise of love, that it hit you between the eyes so blindingly that it knocked you off-balance and rendered you almost speechless?

  She didn’t love him. Couldn’t love him. He was the enemy. Words swam in and out of her senses in little staccato bursts, machine-gun fast. It was useless to love him. Wasted. He loved too many women. Too many. She had to be the only one …

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Tania. It’s only children who are scared of parties. Just because you’re scared of life, don’t hide away from everything it has to offer!” He was indulgent. He spoke to her the way he spoke to Henri, gently chiding.

  Angry at him, suddenly vulnerable and defenceless in her new awareness, she said, “I’m not afraid of life. Just because I don’t match up to your idea of James’s sister, don’t belittle me because I think differently from him — or you. Not everyone enjoys the senseless prattle of party small-talk.”

  If she was being rude, she didn’t care. He would be angry in return. She mentally braced herself for a verbal attack.

  Instead, he spoke abruptly. “What makes you think you don’t match up to anyone? You need have no worries at all at the party, if that’s what you’re afraid of. Nobody else will hold a candle to you.”

  If it was meant to be a compliment, it didn’t sound like it. It was too clinical, with none of Claude’s usual sexual undertones. From any other man, Tania might have taken the words at face value and accepted with a little glow that they meant exactly what they said. She had extreme difficulty in applying those rules to Claude. She was too suspicious of his motives. She kept stubbornly silent, rather than be drawn into further comment, and was vastly relieved when the town of Toulouse came into view, and Claude stopped the car outside a small and exclusive little boutique.

  “I’ll be back for you in an hour or so,” he said, proving that he really did have business in the town. “Monique will no doubt offer you coffee or cognac, as she does to all her valued clients. Until then, have fun.”

  He reached for her hand, putting it to his lips before she could stop him. His kiss tingled on the back of her hand, vibrantly warm. Tania got out of the car quickly, feeling the hot sun on her back immediately. Not quite so strong now though. The seasons were changing, and it suited her English temperament better. Claude waved goodbye, and she pushed open the door of the boutique.

  It was instantly obvious that this was no cheap-jack store! She wondered how on earth she could afford any of the lovely gowns displayed on the plastic models. Madame should have warned her. She was an English working girl, not one of the Paris jet-set! Monique came to greet her with the formal handshake of the French, her face smiling readily. Tania liked Claude’s sister very much, and decided it was best to be frank with her. Monique waved aside all her protests.

  “My mother insists that you have anything you wish, Tania. It is her gift to you for agreeing to Claude’s rough-shod methods in getting you to the château. He is very forceful, my brother, and this work you do with him must be painful at times. Please don’t be offended, Tania. My mother loves to be generous, and she is very fond of you.”

  How could she refuse w
hen it was said so graciously? It was a heady experience to be shown so many lovely creations, and know she could choose whatever she liked. She settled for a beautiful cocktail dress in glowing bronze. The neckline was low and sensuously exciting. The material clung softly to her curves, flaring out to a swirling skirt from a tiny waist. The bronze fabric was threaded with gleaming slivers of gold, and the entire effect was a perfect foil to her honeyed complexion and amber eyes, which were arrestingly complemented by the stunning dress.

  “It’s absolutely right for you,” Monique said enviously. “It’s perfect. Claude will love you in it.”

  Tania’s eyes blurred a little as she went back to the fitting-room to change into her blouse and skirt once more. Would he love her in the dress? It wasn’t said with any deep meaning intended. It was just an expression people used. It was only now, as she held the lovely fabric in her hands, that Tania knew how much she wished the words could be true. And only now that she realised she had chosen the dress because she was seeing its effect through Claude’s eyes. Wanting to be beautiful for him. No-one else mattered.

  She combed through her long hair with trembling hands. It was all happening too soon, too fast, too much a reversal of all her earlier aversion towards him. The thin line between hating and loving had been crossed over so effortlessly, she still felt totally bewildered by it. And just as totally determined not to let him know it. She couldn’t bear it if he ever guessed that she was not as immune to him as she pretended. It hadn’t been pretence until now. But now that the feelings seemed to be exploding inside her, Tania admitted that they had been slowly growing for some time. Like the roses, they had suddenly blossomed into glorious life, though why she should think of roses at that moment, she couldn’t think. And then she knew.

  The roses had been caught by the breeze on the patio when Claude had made his remark about her marrying him in order to stay at the château. Had he meant it to sound that mercenary, she thought now? New meanings to everything he said or did burned into her consciousness. She blotted them all out, as Monique called to her that coffee was waiting for her in the salon of the boutique. But she couldn’t quite blot out the sweet fragrant scent of the roses.