With This Ring

by Jean Saunders

  They stayed at an hotel in London for one night, and Tania was glad that Claude had booked separate rooms. As if he had no need to force the issue now. In two weeks he could have his fill of her, and the thought was both spine-tingling and unnerving. She was marrying a stranger, yet he had never been a stranger to her.

  The first night of their meeting, when he had come to her flat, there had been a spark of instant recognition that went far beyond the mere fact that she had seen his face in magazines, and heard about him from James. There had been the kind of recognition that transcended human awareness; a reaching out of mind and thought as if from somewhere in a distant past; an inherited memory of sharing some other lifetime of love in another existence.

  Tania asked herself shakily if she was becoming deranged by this man. Her spheres of consciousness seemed more sharply defined, as if all her senses were capable of embracing facets of awareness hitherto unknown to her. As if, with him at her side, she was truly capable of conquering mountains.

  Two weeks later, she was asking herself if those thoughts had ever been hers. Facing herself in the long mirror of her bedroom in the Château Girard, an unreal vision stared back at her, a vision seemingly incapable of coherent thoughts, let along such introspective ones. The beautiful white lace wedding-gown softly emphasised her rounded shape without being unduly seductive. The cloud of veiling caressed her, the pearls and flowers at her cheeks softening the stark beauty of her face. Her hair was drawn back to allow the bridal attire to have the full effect, and it lay, glossy and full, on her shoulders. To Tania’s own eyes, she was pale, her skin needing a touch of colour on her cheeks. Her mouth was a soft pale pink, and only her eyes seemed to shine with an amber lustre that was brilliant to anyone else; startlingly afraid to her own gaze. Inside, she was numb. She couldn’t think what she was doing here, in this charade, the principal character.

  Downstairs, in this beautiful setting, flowers adorned the main stairway and hall of the château. Flowers were everywhere. Their perfume filled the air, heady and strong. On the bed lay Claude’s bridal bouquet. Pink budding roses, laced with stephanotis and fern, fragrant, reminding her of summer, even though summer was over. How soon would this farce of a marriage be over? Tania thought chokingly.

  “Oh, you are so beautiful, Tania,” Monique’s soft voice spoke behind her, and Tania turned quickly, the mask of happiness back on her face. Downstairs, friends and relatives waited for her. The strains of music were already evident from below. Henri was dressed in a velvet suit in his wheel-chair, solemnly awaiting her appearance. Claude was waiting also.

  “I’m ready,” she whispered, picking up the bouquet.

  Monique hugged her quickly, telling her to be happy, and the two of them went down the stairs. At the last minute, Tania had thought to ask Lance to give her away, and he stood proudly at the foot of the wide curving staircase, his arm ready for her. Without it, Tania felt as if she would have fainted.

  And then there was no more time to be afraid, because the music grew stronger, and the guests rose to their feet, and Lance was taking her to where Claude stood waiting for her, dark and handsome, waiting to say the words that would bind him to her and she to him. And once she reached him, Tania became oddly calm, all fears forgotten, repeating the vows in French, in a low, positive voice, and hearing Claude do the same. Finally, the heavy gold rings exchanged, he lifted the veil from her face, looked deeply into her eyes for a long penetrating moment, and then folded her to his chest, kissing her for the first time as man and wife.

  Claude’s wife … everything after that was a blur as far as Tania was concerned. Everything was a mere marking of time until the wedding feast was over, the champagne drunk, the two of them had changed out of their wedding finery into travelling clothes, and they were being driven off in a limousine to the airport at Bordeaux. Claude hadn’t told her where they were going, and she felt absurdly shy about asking him. This was her honeymoon, and she couldn’t ask her bridegroom the simple question of where she would spend her wedding night!

  She glanced at his face in the back of the limousine beside her. Alphonse drove swiftly and smoothly, and Claude seemed to be miles away. She had never felt less like a bride! She prayed that it wasn’t going to be a complete disaster, for both their sakes. As if he sensed her watching him, he turned to her, and she felt his fingers reach out to curl around hers in the back of the car. The contact gave her a small feeling of warmth. He leaned across, brushing her cheek with his lips, like any bridegroom. Not every bridegroom would have uttered his words though.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t eat you. At least, not all at once.”

  Tania got the extraordinary feeling that he was a bit nervous too, and the thought was so ludicrous she could have laughed out loud. But the tension was lessened a little, and at last she felt able to ask where they were going.

  “Are you always this impatient, my lovely bride?” A smile played around his mouth. Alphonse couldn’t hear what they said, since the glass screen was between the front and back of the limousine, but they must have appeared a loving couple at that moment, whispering sweet nothings to each other.

  “I’d just like to know,” she retorted, not wanting any double meanings to come into his words.

  “Paris,” he stated, and Tania’s eyes widened with delight. It could have been anywhere, one of the Greek islands in total isolation, or farther afield, but she had always loved Paris, and hadn’t been back there since her schooldays.

  “I thought you’d like it,” he went on. “The weather isn’t at its best now, but we can play at being tourists, see some shows, and make new memories to add to all your old ones of the city. It’s also bustling enough that we don’t need to be alone every minute. I gather that suits you, Madame Girard?”

  The name made her start, but of course it was hers now. His astute comment made her cheeks tinge with colour too. She longed to be alone with him, and yet she dreaded it. She had every right in the world, and yet she had no rights. She had no idea why he thought she had married him. Maybe it was because he really did think she fancied herself as mistress of the château. What he never suspected was the true reason, that she loved him. She loved him so much, and to Tania’s mind, that meant she had married him under false pretences.

  Reasons, excuses, motives, all of them faded away when they finally reached the lovely hotel overlooking the lovely River Seine, its bridges mellow in the evening lights from the city. Paris was beautiful in the daytime, but simply sparkled at night, like a beautiful woman dressed up to show off to her admirers. She glittered, she glowed, she enticed, and Claude’s pleasure in Tania’s excited delight at being here made the two of them behave almost naturally in this artificial environment.

  In the honeymoon suite of the hotel, he had ordered pink roses to adorn every room. It was a mad extravagance, but when Tania giggled slightly over it, he told her gravely that it should remind her of the first time he had proposed to her.

  “The first time?” She was brought up short from her exploration of the lovely rooms. They had drunk a bottle of champagne placed to chill in their bedroom, and Tania had discovered that there was more in a small fridge in the main salon. “What first time? I only remember you saying it once!”

  And how easily she had said yes, how quickly he had taken command when she did so, and now they were here, like this … Tania felt a shiver of nervous excitement run through her.

  “Have you forgotten so soon, that day on the patio at the château when you were surrounded by pink rose petals that were dropping at your feet?” Claude smiled at her.

  Yes, she had forgotten. She had forgotten how he had come creeping up on her conversation with his mother, and said there was another way to get her to remain in France, and that was to marry him. Of course she had forgotten. It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously … was it?

  “Are we going downstairs for dinner?” she said, suddenly nervous. He smiled slowly, lazily, the predator with no need to hurry, beca
use his kill was his for the taking. Her heart throbbed loudly.

  “No. Dinner is coming to us,” he said, and within minutes there was a tap on the door and a laden trolley was pushed into the room by a discreet waiter. Claude told him not to come back for the trolley, and that they had everything they needed. Her face burned, reading the implications of that remark.

  She hardly noticed what they ate, though it was a superbly cooked meal. She was too conscious of the mounting tension between them, vibrant and electric. Each time Claude’s fingertips touched her, she felt a little shock, at once pleasurable and unbearably emotional. When they had drained the coffee pot, he looked across the table at her. The time for pretending was over. She could read it in his dark, demanding eyes.

  “I — I think I’ll take a shower,” she stammered, suddenly nervous.

  “Yes, do. And then it will be time for bed.” At her small flicker of alarm she couldn’t quite hide, he reached out and grasped her hand, turning it over to kiss her palm. “Tania — you didn’t expect this to be a marriage in name only, did you?”

  “No,” she whispered. “Of course not.”

  He let go of her hand. She almost fled to the bathroom, feeling all kinds of an idiot. She had never been so nervous in her life. Nor so angry with herself for showing it. She stripped off her clothes with trembling hands and stepped into the shower, letting the soft warm water cool her burning skin. She closed her eyes for a brief moment. The next instant they flew open again as the shower curtain was pulled aside, and she was briefly aware of Claude’s naked body before he was stepping in beside her, closing the plastic curtain behind them, enclosing them in a private world of steam and perfumed sensuality.

  “Get out of here —” she stuttered, and he laughed softly, picking up a bar of soap and rubbing it between his palms until it lathered up into a mass of foam.

  “Don’t be silly, Tania. You’re my wife. For God’s sake, relax. You’re as tense as a spring. I won’t hurt you. I’d never hurt you. Relax, chérie.”

  As he spoke he began to soap her body, spiralling over her breasts in gentle movements, so erotic that she was holding her breath as the nipples hardened in response. She was drowning in pleasure as the movements continued over her body, learning, exploring, seeking, always gentle, always seductively slow. She was in a silky, pampered world, with Claude’s fingers holding the key to her happiness; she was intoxicated with the feelings he awoke in her.

  “Your turn.” His voice was seductive in her ear, and she felt the bar of soap pushed into her hands. Her face flamed. She couldn’t! His dark, passion-dilated eyes bored into hers, insisting that she could. Like a robot, Tania lathered up the soap, and anything but robot-like, she began soaping Claude’s body, feeling the maleness of his shape, the hair-roughened chest, the different texture of his skin. His eyes demanded everything of her, interspersed with little ghost kisses on her lips, her throat, her breasts … if she died tomorrow, Tania thought with mounting poignancy, at least she would have this — this knowledge of Claude’s desire for her. This undeniable male need of her that was turning her knees to water, and causing her to tremble.

  He turned off the shower, reaching through the curtain for a large bath towel. He patted her semi-dry, and then himself, and, their hair still dripping, he carried her out of the bathroom towards the huge bed. At some time he had turned off the main light, and the room was lit only by the glow of one table lamp. His eyes were gleaming like dark coals, and a thrill of heat ran through Tania’s body. She ached, yearned for the fulfilment he promised her, and yet the anxiety pervading her body was a secret known only to herself, that was soon to be shared with another person.

  “I wish I had the talent to paint you like this,” Claude’s hypnotic voice said in her ear. “With that soft pink glow on your beautiful body, you would put every goddess to shame. My beautiful bride — have you any idea how long I have waited for this, for you?”

  He began to speak disjointedly, as if he too was overcome by something more inexplicable than the occasion, emotional though it was. His voice was urgent, too quick, so that she couldn’t always hear it properly. Understandably so, since his mouth was making a journey of her satiny skin, as if he would learn its every contour by heart and touch, and her breathing was becoming more ragged by the minute, her heart racing.

  She clung to his powerful shoulders as his body blotted out the lamplight, as his urgently whispered words that he could wait no longer, that he needed her so badly, so much, filled her head and her mind. This was Claude, whom she loved, and needed, for whom she would give the earth … She heard her own sharp cry of pain as the piercing sweetness drove past her suddenly mumbling words, but by then it was too late …

  “Dear God, why didn’t you tell me?” Claude’s voice was an angry throb of pain adding to all the rest. “Why did you let me go on believing you were experienced? That you and that soupy David Lee had been lovers?”

  “But I didn’t,” Tania said, the weak tears trickling down her face and into her neck. “What did you expect me to do — announce to the world that I’m still a virgin? At my age?”

  Her hurt, mental and physical, showed in her brittle voice. Once he realised, Claude hadn’t prolonged his lovemaking, but she felt doubly humiliated at the way he lay alongside her, clearly angry with himself and with her.

  “Not to the world, just to me,” he stated. “And you shouldn’t feel shame, for Pete’s sake! It’s a rare and beautiful thing for a man to marry a virgin these days — but you should have warned me. I would have taken things more slowly.”

  Far from reassuring her, his remarks seemed to Tania to underline his own experience with women. He would have known what to do if she had told him, she thought bitterly. It didn’t help her self-confidence one little bit to know it.

  “I’m sorry I misled you,” she said bitterly. “This whole thing has been a mistake, hasn’t it? You couldn’t get me into bed with you any other way, so you married me, and now you’re probably wishing you hadn’t bothered. I don’t blame you. I’m wishing the same. Why did I ever let myself be talked into this! I could be home in England now, instead of living a lie with a man I hate!”

  The words were out before she could stop them, all the old anger and misery, combined with her own self-condemnation. She should have had more sense, more self-control, than to let her heart rule her head. Look where it had led her! A furious Claude was looking down at her unbelievingly, and it was almost impossible to remember that those ice-cold eyes had once been devouring her with passion.

  “You’re quite a little actress, aren’t you, my lovely wife?” Claude ground out. “So maybe I was right in my joking remark to your boss. Maybe you did marry me for the château after all!”

  It was ludicrous. She would never do that, but she recognised his need to hurt her as she had hurt him, and she clamped her lips together rather than hurl any more insults at him. Claude took her silence as an admission of guilt, and flung himself out of the bed to pour himself some whisky from the salon fridge before he returned to the bedroom. Tania lay there, quaking with fright, knowing she had angered as well as humiliated him. Finally he spoke in a cold voice as he snapped out the lamplight, plunging the room into darkness. She felt the bed dip as he got in beside her, not touching her.

  “Very well, Tania. You’ve got what you want, but equally, I shall have what I want. I want my wife, and we’ll have no half-hearted arrangements. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” she said faintly. He meant that he still desired her, still meant to make love to her whenever he chose. In return she was mistress of the château, or at least, she would be when his mother died. It was what he believed she wanted. Tania closed her eyes, knowing he couldn’t be more wrong. She would love him in a tent … A small sob broke from her lips, and she heard his sardonic voice, throbbing with leashed anger.

  “Don’t be alarmed, my sweet, I’ve no wish for a repeat performance tonight. I’ll spare you that, since my lovemaking
is clearly so abhorrent to you. But this is only a temporary respite, I promise you that.”

  He turned his back on her, and Tania lay there in the darkness, wondering bitterly if this could really be her wedding-night.

  Chapter 9

  Tania had scoffed at the cynical remark that a honeymoon could be a nightmare, but she wasn’t scoffing now. The two weeks in Paris were a bigger strain on her nerves than anything she had ever experienced. She knew better than to suggest to Claude that they went home early. It would be losing face to him for anyone to suspect that the newlyweds weren’t idyllically happy. He had made it clear on the morning after their disastrous wedding-night that the marriage was to continue, no matter what their feelings towards each other. There was no divorce in the Girard family.

  Tania listened mutely. Her feelings hadn’t changed, nor ever would. She lay there, in the beautiful white silk nightgown that was part of her trousseau, listening to the harsh words of her husband, and wondered how this had ever happened. Claude leaned up on one elbow, his bare bronze torso lit by splinters of sunlight through the window. He looked down at her, her chestnut hair fanned across the pillow, her amber eyes wide, mouth softened by sleep, and his own tightened.

  “I want children, Tania,” he spoke roughly. “I waited a long time before choosing the right wife for me, and I don’t take easily to admitting I made a mistake.”

  She felt a sudden anger. “Yes, it was a mistake, wasn’t it! And I made one too. A ghastly, hideous mistake in thinking I could trust you! That night at the château, when you were in the throes of the nightmare — was that all put on for my benefit? So that you could catch me at a vulnerable moment and make your outrageous proposal? Do you think I would ever have accepted you at any normal, rational time?”