Love’s Choices
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IF only something would happen, Hope wished rebelliously, dragging the toes of already grubby tennis shoes along the dusty earth. If Sister Maria knew of her thoughts she would give her a penance for their wickedness, but as she had undoubtedly already earned herself a scolding by skipping tennis, she might as well compound her sin.

Although hidden from her by the high hedge surrounding them, Hope could hear the sounds from the tennis courts; the almost soporific springy thud of the ball against the racket, which came with such regularity that she knew without going to see that Charlotte Howell was playing. Charlotte was by far and away the convent’s best player—way, way out of her class, Hope thought dreamily, bending her head to study the ambling flight of a bee, tennis and her other sins forgotten as she watched the small creature entranced, the silky silver-blonde weight of her hair sliding from its clasp.

Her hair was just another grievance. She hated its long straightness, but whenever she pleaded to have it cut, Sister Maria told her that her father had refused his permission. The nuns knew a good deal more about her father’s wishes than she did herself, Hope reflected a little bitterly. She hadn’t even seen him in years. Sometimes the panicky feeling that he intended to leave her in the convent for the rest of her life, swept over her, almost drowning her. Already several of the girls in her class had left, swept away by parents and family, some going on to exclusive finishing schools, others disappearing into carefully arranged marriages.

Hope shivered a little, glancing apprehensively over her shoulder, but no one had come to disturb the calm peace of the cloister gardens—her secret retreat for those times when living constantly surrounded by other people swamped her spirit.

What must it be like to have a home and family of one’s own, Hope wondered enviously. As a younger girl she had fantasised frequently on this subject, imagining that her father would arrive, a laughing, warm-hearted woman at his side, who would tell her that a daughter was the very thing she had always wanted. Only her father had never married again, and her own mother, who had died when Hope was two, was only a vague memory.

The intensity of the Spanish sun beating down out of the cobalt sky warned Hope that her peace would soon be at an end. The lesson would shortly come to a close and then she would have to join the others for lunch—a frugal but meticulously served meal in the large refectory, as the school dining room was called.

The convent wasn’t simply a school in the ordinary sense—even Hope with her limited knowledge of the world knew that. The majority of the girls came from wealthy and titled families who had sent their daughters to St Cecilia’s knowing that the nuns’ strictly enforced regime and very stern moral attitudes would produce young women of a type the French described approvingly as bien élevée.

Even in her innocence Hope was aware that a far different world existed outside the convent walls from that she knew. Although she had no one special friend at school, she was a popular if somewhat aloof girl and knew from the chatter of the others—girls whose parents were not quite as elusive as her own father, and who spent holidays at home and abroad—that the ways of the world were not entirely as portrayed to them by the nuns.

Only at Easter—six short weeks ago—Leonor de Silva, one of her closest acquaintances, a South American girl of lush, dark beauty, had returned to the convent, her eyes sparkling, her mouth soft and warm with an emotion which caused a curious pang to quiver through Hope’s own inexperienced flesh, as the girl described her feelings for the young man she had met while at home.

‘Of course, Rodrigo is not “suitable”,’ she had added in an unhappy voice. ‘My parents have told me this, and I know that it is so—there has been a marriage arranged for many years with my cousin …’

That was Leonor’s fate, but what was her own? Hope brooded. She had been eighteen two weeks ago—the event totally ignored by her father—and she could not remain at the convent for ever. At least the majority of the other girls knew what their families had in mind for them. She was unusual in that she was the only English girl at the school. Most of the others were Spanish, or Latin American, with the odd French and Italian pupil, but she was the sole representative of her own country, and sometimes that made her feel very alien, despite the fact that the convent had been her home since she was eight years old.

As the bell rang for lunch, Hope sighed and slowly uncurled herself, stretching as she stood up, examining her uniform for grass stains and dust. Cleanliness was next to Godliness as far as the nuns were concerned, and Hope, with her long swathe of pale blonde hair and her coltish, almost gawky limbs, often earned the Sisters’ disapproval for her ungainliness.

Recently, though, her body had started to change—her legs still seemed as awkwardly long as ever, but she was no longer as terribly thin as she had been; in fact it made her blush a little to realise how provocatively full her breasts had become, her waist so narrow that her uniform, now straining across her breasts, hung like a sack on the rest of her body.

Bianca Vincella, an Italian girl who had befriended Hope when she was a shy young junior, had remarked only days before her scandalous expulsion that Hope was starting to look incredibly sexy, but then Bianca had always enjoyed teasing her. Besides, Hope was not so naïve that she didn’t know that ‘incredibly sexy’ was the last thing the convent wanted its pupils to be.

As she made her way to the refectory, Hope shivered a little, her eyes, a soft dove-grey, pensive. Sex was something only to be discussed in hushed, excited whispers in the dormitories at night, and Hope, who had not spent so much as a few days outside the convent walls since she had entered them, had no knowledge of this activity bar that passed on by the Sisters during biology lessons, and what she had gathered from the other girls’ whispered confidences.

From her reading she knew of the ecstasy two people could experience together, but how this ecstasy was to be equated with the dismal facts of procreation described by the nuns, and the fumbling intimacies of her friends, she did not know.

Today was a ‘French’ day, which meant that only French conversation was allowed, but Hope was fluent enough in this language not to mind. Indeed, she was fluent in most languages, and not simply the regulation French, Spanish and Italian taught at the school. German was another of her languages, and she had started to learn Russian. At the back of her mind was the idea that once she left the convent she would like to have a job—to train as a secretary perhaps, and use her languages in that capacity. Hope always did well at her lessons, but the convent set no conventional examinations for its pupils, so she had no real way of judging her ability.

Lunch was frugal as always, but the food was well prepared and attractively served. Any girl returning from her holidays spotty and plump soon found both spots and extra weight disappearing under the convent’s strict regime.

‘Summer holidays soon, what bliss,’ the girl on Hope’s right said dreamily. ‘My parents have a villa on Capri and we’re going there.’ She was a kind girl, who had known Hope since they were both fourteen, and she bit her lip self-consciously, not wanting to hurt Hope’s feelings. Many of the girls had invited Hope to share their holidays, but Hope’s father had always refused permission.

‘It is almost as though he wants to keep you locked up behind these walls for ever,’ one friend had remarked rebelliously when yet another refusal had been received, and although she had smiled the comment aside, a tiny sliver of fear had lodged deep in Hope’s heart.

But now she was eighteen and surely her own mistress? In law perhaps, she admitted inwardly, but although she was equipped to choose menus for fifty guests and upwards without blinking an eye; although she knew exactly what vintage wine to serve with what dish, and how to cope with staff, she had very little idea of how to take care of herself in a world which she sensed she might find alarming and even hostile after the cushioned protection of the convent.

Hope might be naïve, but she was no fool. The convent had an excellent library and Hope had made good use of it, but all her knowledge of the past could not compensate for her lack of knowledge about the present. Newspapers, other than those permitted by the Church, were not allowed. The convent possessed no television and the girls were not permitted to have radios. In the past this had not bothered Hope unduly, but lately … She frowned as she tried to analyse the cause for her recent discontent, the strange restlessness that pursued and possessed her.

‘Hope? Hope, you are daydreaming again!’ The exasperated tones of Sister Catherine’s voice penetrated her thoughts and Hope flushed guiltily.

‘The Reverend Mother wishes to see you,’ Sister Catherine told her, watching not unkindly as the colour came and went in Hope’s face. ‘Run along child—you must not keep her waiting.’

Keep the Reverend Mother waiting? It was unthinkable! Hope didn’t believe she had been summoned to the lady’s room on more than half a dozen occasions during her school life and her heart started to thud as she wondered why she had been sent for now. It couldn’t have been because her father had refused her permission to spend her holidays with yet another schoolfriend—this year she had known better than to ask.

The Reverend Mother had a suite of rooms separated from the main school building by a long cloistered walk, and normally Hope would have enjoyed admiring the enclosed garden the Reverend Mother’s rooms looked out on, but today she felt inexplicably nervous, searching her conscience for any sin which might have merited this summons. Skipping tennis hardly seemed worthy of the Reverend Mother’s intervention—and surely, omnipotent though she was, she had not read her charge’s rebellious and resentful thoughts, Hope wondered nervously.

Outside the study door she knocked and waited to be told to enter. The Reverend Mother was only small, barely five foot two to Hope’s five foot seven, but possessed of such a presence, such an aura of calm peacefulness, that it was Hope who felt dwarfed.

‘Sit down, child,’ the Reverend Mother commanded with a smile. She had been the head of the Convent School for nearly thirty years, and she knew her charges better than they knew themselves.

Hope was her only English pupil and the Reverend Mother had been startled at first when the child’s father had told her his wishes. Hope was to be kept cloistered in a way she herself would not even have recommended for a proposed novice. The Reverend Mother was no romantic—those who wished to forsake the world must first experience it. But while she might deplore what she secretly thought of as Sir Henry’s lack of feeling for his only child, with one or two exceptions Hope had been brought up largely as he had wished.

In these enlightened times it was neither wise nor practical to keep young girls ignorant of sexual matters. The Reverend Mother had been of a generation where in Spain this ignorance had been the norm, but it was like trying to hold back the tide to keep mentally innocent, young girls whose families were as wealthy and powerful as those to whom her pupils belonged. Indeed, she herself had had to fight against considerable opposition to have sex education included in the curriculum, and what she knew of Sir Henry made her wonder rather cynically at the double-standards operated by the world. Which made her all the more relieved about today’s turn of events.

Sir Henry had not been in touch with her before Hope’s eighteenth birthday, as she had expected. Most of her pupils left at seventeen, and it grieved her that Hope, who was one of her brightest pupils, would never go on to university. Indeed, it was her own personal view that Hope would fare better in the life she suspected Sir Henry planned for her, if her intelligence was less, and she eyed her sympathetically. In a school comprised of mainly Latin races, Hope’s silvery blondeness was unique. Her bone-structure differed from the other girls, too; like her body it was far more fragile and delicate, betraying her Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

‘Don’t look so worried, Hope. I’ve got some good news for you. You are to leave us and join your father, who apparently is in France at the moment. A friend of your father’s, the Comte de Serivace is calling to collect you tomorrow and he will escort you to your father.’

She busied herself kindly with some papers on her desk, well aware of the changing emotions and turmoil churning Hope’s stomach and mind. If anything, she wished that Hope was less vulnerable, more equipped to deal with the vagaries of life outside the convent, but it was not up to her to question the dictates of her pupils’ families. Sir Henry had been most adamant that Hope was not to be ‘contaminated’ by any contact with the outside world. A strange desire for a man who … Sternly the Reverend Mother suppressed the uncharitable thought, turning her attention to the girl standing before her.

‘I know this has come as something of a shock, Hope. Indeed, we could have wished for your father to give us more notice, but you are eighteen and it is time that you took your place in the world. Remember, child, we will always be here if you should need us.’ It was something she said to all the girls when they left, but some deep instinct told her that Hope was more likely to stand in need of the shelter offered by the convent than any other pupil.

Like someone in a dream Hope made her way back to her room. At sixteen, girls were promoted from sleeping in a dormitory to sharing a room with three other girls. The girls who shared with Hope had all left at Christmas and she had been alone ever since. Not that she minded. Solitude was something one came to appreciate, living in such a busy community. But it had happened at last—her father had sent for her!

In her room, Hope sank down on the narrow bed, staring unseeingly through the window down into the convent grounds. Strange how, after she had longed for something like this to happen so much, she should feel so curiously empty; frightened almost. Although never of a particularly religious turn of mind, Hope found herself praying silently, suddenly terrified of the world she would find outside the convent.

After dinner Sister Teresa sent her to pack her things. Her father had sent her an expensive case, no doubt realising that the one she had taken with her to the convent ten years previously was rather the worse for wear. It was a pity he had not realised the same thing about her clothes, Hope thought unhappily. Apart from her uniform, she had nothing!

After dinner the girls were allowed a free period when they could chat, but Hope found herself strangely reluctant to announce her departure. She was intelligent enough to know how much some of the other girls pitied her, and she had no wish to let them know that after ten years her father was not coming to collect her himself, but had sent someone else.

Daddy was probably too busy, she told herself loyally.

Her father had many business interests, but the most important was his small share in Montrachet’s, the worldwide merchant bankers, whose headquarters were in Paris. Her father had often written to her about the Montrachet family; their wealth and their pride, and once again she shivered, dreading facing the outside world. How contrary she was. Only this morning she had been longing to escape the convent and now … now she was hanging back nervously, confused and alarmed by her own reactions.

It wasn’t until after breakfast that the Reverend Mother sent for Hope. Breakfast was eaten early at the convent, although this morning Hope hadn’t been able to touch hers, and she had had nothing to do for several hours afterwards, other than walk in the gardens, trying to suppress her nervousness. No doubt the Comte, who would probably be staying in Seville, the nearest town to the convent, would have breakfasted at leisure, perhaps in his room, unaware and uncaring of her growing tension. For some reason she didn’t like the Comte, which was surely ridiculous as she hadn’t met him. Deep down inside her Hope acknowledged that her resentment probably sprang from the fact that she would have preferred her father to come for her, and that she was transferring her resentment, because he had not, from her father to the Comte—but knowing this still did not change her feelings.

She was walking slowly through the gardens for the third time when Sister Teresa came hurrying towards her, breathless and hot, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement.

‘Hope, mon petit … the Reverend Mother wishes to see you.’ Sister Teresa was the youngest and friendliest of the Sisters. She taught French and often lapsed into this language, forgetting the rules. Today, by rights, was Italian day, but Hope answered her in French automatically, aware that her cheeks were suddenly burning with a colour that had nothing to do with the heat of the sun, as she followed Sister Teresa back to the cloisters.

As before, she paused and knocked outside the Reverend Mother’s door, catching the soft murmur of the Reverend Mother’s voice, and the deeper, masculine tones of her companion. When she entered the room the Reverend Mother smiled reassuringly at her. ‘Ah, Hope, my child, let me introduce you to Monsieur le Comte, who has come on behalf of your papa.’

Stubbornly, Hope refused to look in the direction of the Comte until the last moment, her eyes widening in stunned astonishment when she finally did so. This man was not at all as she had imagined a friend of her father’s to be. For one thing, he was so much younger. Thirty, or thirty-five at the most; considerably older than her, but far, far younger than her father, and for another …

Feeling like someone who has suddenly been deprived of breath, Hope forced herself to glance a second time into the face of the man watching her. Was it because she was used to seeing only softer female features that the harsh masculinity of high, sharply defined cheekbones and a dark, taut jaw had such an impact on her?

Hope’s eyes returned almost dazedly to the angles and planes of a face so totally male that she felt the shock waves of seeing it reverberating strongly through her. Green eyes, dangerous, predatory eyes, half concealed by thick black lashes, studied her coolly for several achingly long seconds, before subjecting her to an assessingly keen stare, holding her gaze deliberately until Hope felt she was drowning in emerald seas.

Tearing her gaze from the Comte’s eyes, Hope made an effort to study him as objectively as he had done her, her cheeks still hot with colour from the knowledge that he had deliberately and quite cynically stripped her of every article of clothing when he studied her—and in the Reverend Mother’s presence! She could not match his savoir-faire, but she did make a valiant attempt to study the sharply defined bone-structure of his face, wondering why it should be vaguely familiar and yet so different from what she had imagined. His mouth curled sardonically as though he was aware of her mental rejection of him, his thick, black hair brushing the collar of his shirt as he lazily flicked back his cuff to study a pale gold watch.

Taking the hint, the Reverend Mother came forward, kissing Hope gently on each cheek. ‘Remember, my dear, we are always here if you want us.’ She spoke in Italian and Hope responded in the same language, startled when the tall, dark man at her side drawled cynically in perfect Italian:

‘We must hope that life treats her too kindly for her to need a refuge, Reverend Mother,’ and then he was opening the door, one dark, long-fingered hand on Hope’s shoulder, her fragile bones feeling as though they were burning beneath his touch as he pushed her gently through the open door.

Outside in the front courtyard of the convent, a long, squat car glinted darkly in the sunlight, a fitting means of transport for this dark, almost menacing man, Hope thought, shivering a little as she recognised instinctively the power and threat of two such masculine objects.

Her case was placed in the boot, and the passenger door opened for her, dark eyebrows rising in a sardonic appraisal which hinted that he was not entirely surprised as he drawled, ‘Surely you have something else to wear? Or does the good Reverend Mother seek to remind me of what you are?’

Not entirely understanding the reason for his comment, Hope told him coolly that she had no other clothes.

‘None? Your father is not a poor man.’

‘My father … My father is not a wasteful man,’ she managed primly at last, trying not to notice the way in which the fine fabric of his dark pants stretched over his thighs as he slid into the driving seat, and her hands folded tensely in her lap.

‘You think it wasteful, to spend money on clothes? But you cannot spend the rest of your life in garments which, rather than reinforcing your schoolgirl status, draw attention to the fact that it is past time for you to change them for something a little more … womanly.’ His eyes rested meaningfully on the taut fabric stretching across her breasts and Hope blushed fiery red, hating the way he was looking at her, and yet curiously excited in some strange way.

‘You must fasten your seat-belt,’ the Comte told her coolly. ‘Like this.’ He reached across her, the dark fabric of his suited arm brushing the fullness on which his eyes had so recently rested. Something like an electric current shot through Hope making her stiffen automatically, shrinking into her seat as he secured the belt around her, apparently unaware of the effect of their momentary physical contact.

Having fastened his own belt, he started the car, the powerful roar of the engine drowning out the hurried thud of Hope’s heartbeat as she tried not to give in to the desolation gripping her as the car swept along the drive and out of the convent gates.

‘I cannot drive you all the way to France wearing those garments,’ the Comte told her when they had gone several miles. ‘I have no wish to be arrested for attempting to kidnap a child.’

‘I expect my father has forgotten that I have grown,’ Hope offered unhappily, feeling that some explanation was needed. ‘I haven’t required any other clothes as …’

‘As your father has never permitted you to leave the convent,’ her companion finished for her. ‘Yes, I am aware of that.’ His attention momentarily diverted from the road to her, and Hope felt herself flushing again under his thoughtful scrutiny. ‘However, you have left it now, and your father’s past deficiencies will soon be remedied.’

Hope looked into the man’s face as he spoke, surprised to see the grim coldness in his eyes, tiny feathers of alarm curling along her spine, and a tension she couldn’t understand infiltrating the atmosphere in the car until every muscle in her body was taut in response to it.

After that her companion didn’t speak, and although there was a good deal she wanted to ask him, his silence prevented her from speaking, instinct telling her that he had no wish to engage in conversation, and she made use of the silence to study him covertly; the arrogant aquiline profile, the power of the lean fingers holding the steering wheel, sinewy and brown.

Would his skin be that dark mahogany all over? The intimacy of her thoughts shocked Hope into further flushes, hastily averting her eyes from the muscles of his thighs as the Comte changed gear and the fabric pulled tautly, reminding her of drawings she had seen, books she had studied in the convent library, knowing suddenly and overwhelmingly that the old masters had not, as she had childishly imagined, overemphasised the masculine frame, and that this man seated at her side could easily have modelled for them. And yet there was an elusive, alien look about him that suggested another culture, not entirely Latin—something about his face that tormented her memory.

Within half an hour they were in Seville. The city was not entirely unfamiliar to Hope as she had visited it with the school on several occasions, but the narrow street of fashionable shops where the Comte parked the car was somewhere she had not seen before. Her fingers fumbled with the seat-belt as she tried to release it, and this time when the Comte leaned impatiently across she withdrew so that he would not touch her, flinching beneath the sardonic mockery in his eyes as he released the belt and then turned to look at her, green eyes on a level with grey as he drawled softly, ‘So, even innocence has some awareness. Was it from the good nuns that you learned to shrink from anyone male, mon petit, or is it an instinct that goes far beyond any teaching?’

‘I …’ Torn between embarrassment and the angry feeling that he should not be talking to her in this fashion, mocking her naïvety with one breath and yet somehow, she sensed, deliberately making her aware of his maleness all the same, Hope reached for the door, shaky with relief when it opened and the Comte moved back to his own seat.

Several curious glances came their way as the Comte guided Hope along the pavement, and when she caught sight of herself in a shop window, she shrank from the image she presented in her too-tight uniform, her hair dragged back off her face.

The shop he took her to was small and yet somehow overpowering, so imbued with an atmosphere of money and elegance that Hope felt ill at ease.

The woman who emerged to serve them surveyed Hope with raised eyebrows, her demeanour only altering when she saw the Comte, changing from haughty disdain to almost fawning complaisance within the space of a few seconds.

The Comte spoke to her in Spanish, as flawless as his Italian, but when Hope heard the word for trousseau she frowned and opened her mouth, only to be silenced by the Comte who turned to her and said in French, ‘I am only fulfilling your father’s wishes, so please oblige me by keeping silent.’

Having given the saleswoman his instructions, the Comte turned to Hope and told her that he had business of his own to transact and that he would return for her in two hours. ‘Your hair needs attention,’ he added, studying it. ‘I shall ask Madame if she can recommend a good stylist.’

‘I have wanted to have it cut for ages,’ Hope offered, ‘but …’

‘Cut! Mon Dieu! Are you mad! To do so would be sacrilege,’ he told her unequivocally, adding softly, ‘Has no one told you, you little innocent, that on your wedding night your husband will want to see you covered in nothing other than this silver veil?’ He flicked her hair as he spoke, apparently unconcerned by the hot colour beating up under her pale skin.

Her wedding night! Hope was still turning the words over in her mind when he left the shop. Strangely enough she had not thought much about marriage. She would like to have children and them she could visualise quite easily, plump and dark—but a husband? She shivered suddenly. Why had her father sent this disturbing stranger to collect her? Why hadn’t he come himself?

Two hours later she was staring round-eyed at the pile of garments Madame had put on one side; separates in cool, soft silk in misty pastel lilacs and greys to tone with her eyes; dresses; underwear in the finest crěpe de Chine, embroidered in silver and grey with butterflies, so fine and sheer that Hope blushed to see herself in it, imagining the disapproval of the nuns.

Madame’s grimace over her plain, serviceable underwear and shabby uniform had forstalled Hope’s intentions of dressing again in her own clothes. Something inside her shrank from wearing clothes provided by anyone other than her father—especially another man—but common sense told her that eventually Sir Henry would undoubtedly meet the bill, and so Hope allowed herself to be persuaded into the whispers of silk, so smooth against her skin, so shockingly and sensuously clinging to her body, her breasts curving softly above the brevity of a bra so delicate it seemed more seductive than nothing at all.

Hope was tempted to protest against the brief suspender belt and silk stockings proffered calmly by Madame, but the thought of having her recalcitrance reported and no doubt mocked by the man who her father seemed to have appointed as her temporary guardian, caused the protests to die unspoken.

Without consulting her, once the girl had donned the underwear, Madame handed Hope a three-piece in pale grey silk with undertones of lilac, the skirt hem and jacket reveres in contrasting off white. A brief camisole top buttoned up the back with a multitude of small buttons, and the straight skirt emphasised Hope’s narrow hips and long, slender legs. Carefully putting on the jacket, she surveyed herself in the mirror, stunned by the reflection staring wide-eyed back at her.

Of the Hope she knew, all she recognised was the small triangular face. Gone were the awkward coltish limbs, the girl’s body; the reflection staring back at her showed her a tall slim creature, far too elegant to bear any relation to the person she knew herself to be, her eyes a smoky lilac, reflecting the undertones of the grey silk.

Madame, however, was not as awed by the transformation as Hope herself. ‘And now,’ she said ominously, ‘the hair and the face. There is a salon several doors down. My assistant will take you there. I shall tell her to wait for you and return with you when Rafael has finished!’

Rafael and his staff were every bit as alarming as Hope had dreaded, although a little to her surprise he echoed the Comte’s decree that to cut her hair would be a crime.

‘It is untidy at the ends, si,’ he agreed, examining it closely, ‘but wait until they are trimmed and your hair has been conditioned. Tying it back as you do is not good for the texture,’ he disapproved, frowning over the thick barrette Hope used to secure her hair out of the way, ‘and your skin! Do you never use moisturiser?’ he demanded with further disapproval.

Hope felt disinclined to tell him that the nuns favoured soap and water and that the girls were not allowed to use make-up at the convent, although many of the girls did experiment in secret with cosmetics purchased when they were at home on holiday.

Her hair was shampooed and conditioned and then trimmed before Rafael pronounced himself satisfied and handed Hope over to the ministrations of a pretty dark-haired girl, her still-wet hair wrapped in a towel.

The girl introduced herself as Ana, and although Hope sensed her curiosity when her client admitted to having no knowledge at all about applying cosmetics, she did not ask any questions, simply showing Hope patiently and carefully how she could make the best of her features, telling her that she was lucky in her bone-structure which would outlive mere youthful prettiness, and adding that Hope’s eyes were especially beautiful.

Having feared from the length of time Ana took over cleansing and then painting her skin, that she would end up looking like a china doll, Hope was astonished when Ana finally swung her round in her chair to face the mirror. A subtle rose glow shone against her cheekbones, highlighting their shape, her eyes mysteriously darker and larger than she remembered, her mouth tremulous and curving warmly pink against the paleness of her skin.

While Hope came to terms with her new image, Ana wrote out a chart showing what colours and cosmetics she had used, which she passed to Hope along with an ornate box filled with cosmetics, all of which Ana assured her she would need to use.

Then it was back to Rafael for her hair to be blown dry, Hope openly astonished by the shining waves he coaxed from what she had always been convinced was perfectly straight hair, now subtly shaped to frame her face and cascade over her shoulders.

Ten minutes later, standing in Madame’s shop, her new clothes stored in the shiny black boxes with gold lettering on them, Hope felt her nervousness increase, her fingers itching to touch the silken fineness of her hair. But the habits instilled at the convent went too deep to permit her to fidget or in any way betray her inner anxiety. Outwardly she looked so calm and composed that Madame, who had been apt to dismiss her as a naïve, rather stupid child, revised her opinion. Telling herself that she recognised a well-brought-up young girl when she saw one, she unbent enough to assure Hope that the Comte would not keep her waiting very long.

Almost before she had finished speaking the door opened and the Comte paused, framed there, nowhere near as out of place in the essentially female surroundings as Hope would have imagined. No doubt he was perfectly accustomed to buying his women-friends clothes, Hope thought distastefully. Although in many ways naïve, she was by no means unaware of the relationships entered into by men like the Comte; rich worldly men who could afford to pay for their pleasure and then discard their playthings when they grew bored, with scant regard for any pain they might cause.

The Reverend Mother would have been shocked had she known of the dislike for the Comte which had already taken deep root in her heart, Hope acknowledged, unaware of the picture she made as she waited, unmoving and hesitant, a pale silver girl whose fragility made the man watching her feel that she might break between his hands if he attempted to touch her.

She would serve his purpose even better than he supposed. Sir Henry was a very clever man. With such tempting bait, no wonder he was so sure of persuading Alain Montrachet to take it. An innocent bride for the white hope of the house of Montrachet; a bride to bear the sons who would one day inherit the Montrachet name; a child untouched by man or the corruption of what he had made of his world—a beautiful innocent.

He looked at her, knowing all that he planned for her, untouched by compassion or second thoughts, and Hope, watching him, suddenly realised where she had seen such a face before; an illustration of the young men of Tsar Alexander’s Imperial Guard at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Among them had been men with just such bone-structures, proudly arrogant, haughtily disdainful, dangerously wild for all their veneer of sophistication.

‘Well, Hope, if you’re ready?’ His tone was so calm and mundane that Hope thought for a moment that someone else spoke, but no, the Comte was holding the door open politely for her, and outside the snarling Ferrari awaited them, while Madame smiled obsequiously as they made their goodbyes.

On the pavement, Hope hesitated. The Comte opened the car door for her, letting her get settled as he put her boxes in the boot, and then went round to his own door. When he was inside, and she had safely managed to secure her seat-belt, she blurted out impulsively, ‘Do you … do you have Russian blood in you, Comte?’

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to reply. Her comment was impolite. The nuns had taught her never to ask personal questions, but somehow the question asked itself.

‘Some,’ he agreed, watching her, making her wonder what thoughts went on behind those green eyes. ‘Why do you ask?’

Haltingly, she told him about the illustrations. ‘So … you are learning Russian? You obviously have a talent for languages. My mother was Russian,’ he explained. ‘Her parents left Russia during the Revolution. Fortunately they were among the lucky ones. My grandfather had investments in Paris and they were able to live comfortably, if not in the same style they had known in St Petersburg; and certainly well enough for my mother to be considered a more than adequate match for my father, and the Serivace title.

‘The Serivace name is an old one,’ he further explained when he saw that she was frowning. ‘It goes back to before the French Revolution, but then I suppose the good sisters have taught you that pride is a sin, as indeed is vanity,’ he added half mockingly, making Hope wonder if he had guessed how bemused she was by her altered appearance and was simply changing the subject.

‘You would be well advised to try and get some sleep, mon petit,’ he added. ‘We have a long drive ahead of us. I do not want to stop until we reach Serivace.’

‘Serivace?’

‘My estate.’ He glanced at her, and then smiled. ‘It is very beautiful. You will like it.’ But he made no mention of her father and when she could expect to be reunited with him, and all at once Hope sensed that to ask this man any questions he did not want to answer would be a foolish and pointless exercise.

‘All in good time, mon petit,’ she heard him murmur as she obediently tried to relax and closed her eyes, giving the disconcerting impression that he had seen into her mind and read the thoughts imprinted there as clearly as though her forehead were a sheet of glass.

CHAPTER TWO

HOPE woke several hours later, stiff and uncomfortable, despite the fact that the Comte had reclined her seat for her. He seemed to know by some sixth sense that she was awake and she felt the decrease in speed of the powerful car as he turned to her. ‘Do you feel better for your sleep?’

Hope managed a smile. In point of fact she felt terrible—her head ached and she felt vaguely nauseous, her body stiff from lying too long in the same position.

‘You are not well?’ The Comte frowned as he looked into her pale face. ‘What is it?’

‘A headache,’ Hope told him, ‘but it is nothing. It will soon go.’

‘It’s probably the result of too much excitement,’ the Comte said wryly. ‘I forget that your convent life has not prepared you for the hurly-burly of real life.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I think we had better find somewhere to stay tonight and then continue our journey tomorrow. When I said we would drive straight to Serivace I had forgotten that you are not as used to travelling as I am myself.’

Hope wanted to protest. She didn’t want to spend any more time with the Comte then she needed to.

‘I shall not eat you, mon petit,’ she heard the Comte drawl mockingly above her. ‘The good Sisters should have taught you that it is not always wise to look at a man the way you are looking at me. Your eyes have all the dread and fear of the persecuted for the persecutor, and who would blame me, if, when I look into them, I am tempted to make your fears reality.’ He saw her flinch and smiled. ‘You shrink from shadows, Hope. Do you really fear me so much?’

His mockery brought a flash of rebellion to Hope’s eyes. She was not so foolish that she didn’t know when she was being deliberately baited. The nuns had taught their pupils from an early age to give respect and obedience to their elders, and the fact that the Comte was her father’s friend, coupled with his manner towards her, had made Hope defer to him. Now she faced him with stormy eyes, her slender body braced against retaliation as she said defiantly, ‘I am not afraid of you, Monsieur le Comte.’

‘Just as cautious as a gazelle penned up with a leopard,’ the Comte added wryly. ‘Tell me, how long is it since you last saw your father?’

Not sure what had prompted the change of conversation, but nonetheless grateful for it, Hope told him.

‘Two years?’ His eyebrows drew together, darkly.

‘My father has many business interests, it is not always possible for him to visit me, and … and during the holidays there is not always someone to accompany me …’

‘But now you are no longer a schoolgirl, but a young woman. Have you any plans for your future?’ He was talking to her now more in the manner she would expect a man of his years and sophistication to address her, and Hope did her best to respond, explaining that the training at the convent did not really equip its pupils for careers.

‘Other than the time-honoured one of marriage,’ the Comte agreed dryly. ‘Is that what you want, mon petit? To go from the schoolroom to the bedroom?’ He saw that he had shocked her, watching the colour come and go in her face.

‘Come,’ he murmured, glancing sardonically at her. ‘You are not going to tell me that the nuns kept you in complete ignorance of the “facts of life"? There must have been holidays, encounters with attractive young men who were only too willing to add practical knowledge to theory.

‘No!’ Hope’s shocked denial silenced him for several seconds, while she sat bolt upright in her seat, her body trembling with rejection of his suggestion, her mind unable to analyse why it should have provoked such a strong response. After all, many of her fellow pupils had indulged in just the sort of experimentation the Comte had so mockingly described, and although she had never been included in the excited midnight discussions about them, she was not so naïve that she didn’t know that there was far more to human relationships than the cold, dry facts presented to them during their lectures.

‘No?’ The Comte pulled off the main road, bringing the car to a halt beside a field. They were in the middle of the country and Hope noticed absently that the crop was growing, green-gold fields stretching into the distance, an ancient stone castle perched precariously among the foothills which marked the beginning of the sierras.

Her profile averted from her companion, she tensed when his fingers cupped her jaw, forcing her to face his enigmatic green gaze.

‘No?’ he repeated queryingly. ‘Not even so much as a stolen kiss, ma jolie?’

Sensing the mockery behind the question, Hope blushed hotly, hating the way he was exposing her life, her inadequacies, because hadn’t she secretly wondered what it would be like to share the giggled confidences of the others? Hadn’t she secretly lain awake in her bed wondering why she felt none of their desire?

‘There is no one to steal kisses from behind the walls of the convent,’ she retorted bravely at last, ‘except for Father Ignacio who comes to hear our confessions. My father wouldn’t let me spend my holidays with my friends and …’ She broke off, hating herself for confiding so much to him. Now, doubtless, he would tell her father what she had said and she burned with embarrassment and humiliation. How gauche and disloyal her father would think her.

‘So!’ His gaze rested disturbingly on her lips, and Hope could almost feel the soft flesh burn from the contact. She longed for him to look away, but his fingers still cupped her jaw, curling against her skin, his thumb gently stroking along the bone, quivers of sensation spreading from the point where his flesh touched hers. Her mouth had gone dry, her lips parting on a small sound of protest, turning to a shocked gasp when the Comte rubbed his thumb over the fullness of her bottom lip, his free hand grasping her wrists as though he sensed her intention to thrust him away. His dark head descended, and the brush of his mouth against hers caused Hope to tense and stiffen, confused by her conflicting emotions. On the one hand was shock, outrage that he should trespass on his friendship with her father, on the other was this curious, languorous sensation that the brush of his lips against hers evoked, making her want to slide her hands over his dark-suited shoulders, explore the shape and feel of him, while his mouth continued to …

With a horrified cry, Hope tore herself out of his grasp, her eyes huge and deeply violet in her small face, her fingers fluttering betrayingly to touch the quivering softness of her lips. Was that compassion she read in the darkness of his eyes? Or was it scorn for her lack of expertise, her inexperience?

‘Well, mon petit? Is your curiosity now satisfied? Do you no longer envy your schoolfriends their little experiments?’

Hope sat immobile with despair and hatred in her heart. Not even her most secret thoughts were safe from this man. Had he known also that she had looked at his mouth and wondered what it would be like to have it touch her own? She had quenched the thought almost at birth, shocked and disturbed by it, but somehow he had known.

‘What’s the matter? Did the good Sisters tell you that such intimacies should only be shared with your husband, that no one should touch those soft lips but him?’

‘I am not quite a fool, monsieur,’ Hope managed stiffly. ‘I am well aware that it amuses you to … to torment me.’

She heard him laugh soundlessly as he re-started the car, and turned back to the main road. Was he married, she wondered curiously. Did he have a family of his own?

‘There is a small town a few miles away, where we can spend the night,’ she was informed as the Ferrari ate up the miles. ‘The hotel was once the home of a local family, but it has now been taken over by the government and opened as an exclusive hostería.

Several miles on they came to the town. The road had started to climb into the foothills, and to Hope’s surprise, their destination turned out to be the castle she had noticed before.

‘A fitting setting for you, Hope,’ the Comte murmured lazily as he stopped the car. ‘We shall have to ask them if they can find a turret room for you. You have all the inviolate innocence of a fairy princess.’

She wasn’t given a turret room, but the room she was given was far more luxurious than anything she was used to, Hope admitted, smoothing the heavy bedspread over the carved four-poster which dominated the room. Her room had an adjoining bathroom, and she secured her hair on top of her head, almost filling the bath with hot water, indulging in the pleasure of soaking her aching limbs in the scented water. Outside, dusk had fallen. The Comte had suggested that she should eat in her room, and she wasn’t disposed to argue with him. She didn’t feel hungry, and all she wanted to do was to sleep. Tomorrow, she hoped, she would see her father. Why didn’t she feel more excited at the thought? Perhaps her senses had been blunted by too much excitement, after being starved of it, Hope thought wryly, stepping out of the bath and drying herself, studying her reflection wonderingly in the full-length mirror, her eyes drawn to the pointed thrust of her breasts, taut and firm, the skin silky-smooth. A strange sensation curled through the pit of her stomach, her eyes darkening as she remembered how the Comte had kissed her. She must not think about it! Shivering with reaction, Hope looked for her robe, remembering that she had left it in her room.

When she opened her bedroom door she realised someone had been in her room. The lamps had been switched on, her nightdress lay across the bed, and a small enclosed electric trolley was pulled up against a small table. Her supper, no doubt. She walked towards the bed, stiffening with shock as something moved in the shadows beyond the lamps, and the Comte’s lean figure detached itself from the darkness.

Every instinct screamed for her to cover her nakedness from him, but strangely she could not move, her muscles locked in paralysing terror as she stared up at him as he studied her body with a clinical detachment that broke through her fear, freeing her to reach shakily for her robe, wishing it was her old school one and not this flimsy fine silk which merely clothed her body rather than concealed it.

‘I’m sorry, Hope, I didn’t realise you hadn’t heard me.’ It was the first time he had apologised to her, and Hope sensed that it was genuinely meant. ‘I did knock,’ he continued, ‘but you obviously didn’t hear me. They have brought our dinner—come and sit down.’

For the first time Hope noticed that he, too, had changed. His darkly formal suit had given way to a thin silk shirt that made her disturbingly aware of the male body beneath it, with dark, thigh-hugging pants moulding his legs.

When they were both seated, the Comte indicated the trolley and smiled, asking Hope if she would like to serve them or if she would prefer him to do it.

This, at least, was an area in which she was proficient, Hope thought, approaching the trolley. All the girls at the convent were taught how to be perfect hostesses, and even with the Comte’s eyes on her, she managed to serve their soup dexterously and properly.

‘It seems to me that your convent teaches the more old-fashioned virtues; the womanly arts rather than commercial ones,’ the Comte murmured when Hope removed the soup bowls and served the main course, a rich chicken paella.

‘Many of the pupils come from the Latin American countries,’ Hope told him. ‘Their parents normally arrange their marriages for them, and as they are invariably wealthy and socially prominent, it is important that they are able to conduct themselves properly.’

‘But you are the exception to the rule?’ the Comte prodded. ‘No marriage has been arranged for you?’

Hope’s revolted expression gave her away. ‘So what are your plans for your life? Do you expect to act as your father’s hostess?’

Hope did have some hazy idea that this was what might happen to her. Her own feeling was that, having placed her in the convent, her father had turned his mind to other matters. As an English girl, the thought of an arranged marriage was totally abhorrent to her, and she had often wished rebelliously that her father had allowed her to have a more normal upbringing. Perhaps now she would be able to persuade him to let her go to college, to gain some commercial skills.

‘What do you do, Comte?’ Hope questioned politely, remembering the Sisters’ lectures on conversation. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth and Hope hated him for laughing at her.

‘That is very good, mon petit,’ he mocked, watching her fingers tighten on her knife and fork. ‘But it is customary to show a little more enthusiasm. Your stilted enquiry reminds me of a child reciting its lessons. However, I shall answer you, since conversation, like any other skill, only comes with practice.’

For some reason his words made Hope remember how he had kissed her. Was that another field in which he found her lamentably lacking? What did it matter if he did? she asked herself crossly.

‘As I have already told you, my mother was Russian. My father’s family owned vineyards near Beaune. Some of the wines we produce are what is known as Premier Cru.’ He saw Hope’s expression and smiled. ‘Ah, so the Sisters have taught you something about the world, mon petit?’

‘I know of the great vintages, the classifications for wine.’

‘So! You will understand then when I tell you that Serivace wines are Premier Cru wines. This was so in my grandfather’s time, as it is during mine. I have other estates, near Nice, which I visit during the summer; during the winter I stay in Paris where I have an apartment. I am considered a moderately wealthy man, not perhaps wealthy enough to merit one of the docile doves of your convent as a bride, mon petit, but certainly no pauper.’

‘You aren’t married, then?’

When he shook his head, Hope asked hesitantly, ‘Do you have any family?’

Was it her imagination or did he pause fractionally before answering? Whatever the case, there was certainly no trace of hesitation in his voice when he responded firmly, ‘None. One day I shall marry—I owe it to my name to ensure that there will be someone to follow me, but that day has not arrived yet.

‘It is a tradition in our family that the men do not marry early. My father was forty when he married my mother.’ Just for a moment, with the lamplight casting shadows along the high cheekbones, he looked sinister and withdrawn, more Russian than French, and Hope’s heart beat fiercely as she acknowledged that no matter how sophisticated he appeared, somewhere inside that sleekly suave covering was hidden all the ruthless passion of his Russian ancestry. ‘What is the matter, ma jolie?’

Hope hadn’t realised that he was watching her, studying the pensive thoughtfulness of her eyes and the vulnerability of her mouth.

‘Nothing—I was just wondering about my father,’ she told him huskily. ‘It is so long since I have seen him.’

‘And you fear that you will meet as strangers?’ he asked perceptively. ‘Do not. I am sure you are all that your papa hopes you will be—and more,’ he added almost beneath his breath, ‘much, much more,’ leaving Hope to puzzle over what he had said as she picked at her vanilla dessert and watched him eat cheese and biscuits, fascinated against her will by the lean masculine fingers; the taut planes of his shadowed face.

‘It is time you were in bed,’ he announced eventually. ‘You are falling asleep in your seat. Such a baby still—would you like me to carry you to bed and kiss you goodnight?’ He caught the tiny fluttering movement of rejection she made and laughed softly. ‘How very confusing it is, isn’t it, little one? The good Sisters tell you one thing and your body tells you another.’ He stood up and came round to stand beside her, bending to take her in his arms as though she weighed no more than a child, carrying her to her bed, her face pressed into the curve of his shoulder, her senses absorbing the scent and feel of him as he pulled back the covers and placed her carefully on the bed. He folded the covers back over her, the lean fingers of one hand resting briefly on the pale flesh of her shoulder before they were withdrawn and he was gone.

After the door had closed behind him, Hope didn’t know whether it was relief or disappointment that touched her body so achingly. But surely it must be relief? She couldn’t have wanted him to kiss her again!

‘If you are now ready, I suggest we continue our journey.’ They had breakfasted on soft, warm rolls and fresh apricot jam, and Hope felt as though she could never eat another thing. Today she was wearing a pleated skirt with a toning blouson top in soft green silk. Her hair had retained its new style and she had found it easier to apply her new make-up than she had anticipated, any nervous trembling of her fingers surely more due to the thought of coming face to face with the Comte again rather than anything else.

In the event she need not have worried, the half-frightening, taunting man she remembered from the evening had been banished and in his place was a smiling, almost avuncular man she couldn’t recognise at all.

They drove all through the morning, the tapes the Comte inserted into the machine on the dashboard obviating the need for any conversation, allowing Hope to concentrate on the scenery, lulled by the music.

At lunchtime the Comte pulled off the main road and drove into a small, French market town, parking the car on the forecourt of what he told her had once been a famous coaching inn.

The building was old, wreathed in wisteria, heavy racemes of violet-purple flowers hanging from its branches. The owner led them to their table himself, hovering solicitously to proffer advice on the menu. At first Hope supposed this was because the Comte was known to him, but when he had disappeared to greet some other diners, the Comte explained to her that lunch was often the main meal of the day in French households and that this particular auberge had a particularly good reputation.

‘Since we are travelling again this afternoon and cannot drowse off the effects of a heavy meal, I suggest we confine ourselves to three courses,’ he added with a humorous smile. ‘Would you like me to choose for you?’

Shaking her head, Hope reached for the menu. The Sisters had taught their pupils well, and when she had made her choice and conveyed it to the waiter in correct and fluent French she had the gratification of knowing she had not let them down.

The food was everything Hope had expected it would be and she had not made the mistake of ordering anything too rich or heavy. Meals at the convent were always light, but carefully balanced, and Hope found that she had automatically chosen with the same careful precision. When she shook her head over a sweet the Comte raised his eyebrows a little. Hope had been surprised to see that he too was equally selective and that his plate, while it held more food than hers, showed a healthy regard for the nutritional value of food rather than simply its taste.

‘You surprise me, mon petit,’ he commented when the waiter had withdrawn. ‘I thought a sweet tooth was the prerogative of the very young.’

‘Ice-cream and sticky cakes, monsieur?’ Hope queried with a smile, shaking her head as she explained the lectures all the students were given by the convent’s dietician.

‘So, what you are saying is that we are what we eat?’ he asked when she had finished. ‘That is true to a large extent, but one must make allowances for other … desires. One is not simply a machine functioning on fuel, one must allow for the needs of the senses.’

‘You didn’t drink any wine with your meal,’ Hope pointed out. ‘Nor did you have any rich sauces.’

‘The fact that I am driving precludes me from enjoying a good wine as it should be enjoyed, and as to my food—’ He looked at her, and Hope found herself trembling a little beneath the look in his eyes. ‘Make no mistake, mon petit, no matter how nutritious or excellent the food, were it not attractively served, and presented, as tempting to the palate as to the eyes, I should not touch it. We are given our senses so that we may enjoy our environment through them whether it be the sense of taste, or the sense of touch.’ As he spoke his eyes rested on her body and Hope felt almost as though he had touched her. What would it be like to be made love to by a man like him, Hope wondered, so startled by the way the thought had crept unbidden into her mind that she wasn’t aware of the way her eyes mirrored her thoughts, or of how she was observed by the man seated opposite her.

It was late afternoon before they entered what the Comte told her was the Burgundy region of France. His own estate lay to the north-east, he added. The scenery of the Côte-d’Or as they drove through made Hope catch her breath, her eyes rounding in awe, forgetting her tiredness as she saw the vineyards, interspersed with tantalising glimpses of châteaux and weathered farmhouses, with the word clos constantly appearing on signboards. It referred to enclosed vineyards, the Comte explained to her; vineyards which had once belonged to large convents or monasteries, and which still retained their enclosing walls.

‘Are your vineyards like that?’ Hope asked him, suddenly curious to know more about his home.

‘No. The Serivace lands are too extensive to be enclosed, although there is one small clos not far from the … house.’

He didn’t seem disposed to talk any more, and Hope lapsed into silence, tension knotting her stomach, although she was at a loss to understand why.

At last they turned off the main road, taking a narrow, badly tarmacked track, barely wide enough for the Ferrari, and open to acres of vines on either side.

‘The Serivace vines,’ the Comte told her laconically, adding, ‘Serivace is one of the largest vineyards in the area. The ancestor of mine who first settled here said he would own land in every direction from his home as far as the eye could see. Despite the many vicissitudes the family has passed through, that still holds true today.’ He paused and pointed out a long, low collection of buildings in the distance. ‘That is our bottling plant, Jules Duval, my manager, lives there with his family. There are many small growers in the locality who also make use of the plant.’

A large copse suddenly loomed up ahead of them, so alien in the vine-covered countryside that it took Hope completely by surprise. The sun, which had been sulking behind dull cloud, suddenly broke through, glinting on something behind the trees, and then they were among them, and the Comte was telling her that many of the trees were rare and valuable specimens, planted by one of his ancestors to provide parkland, ‘in the English fashion’. Beyond the belt of trees were formal gardens, and at the end of the drive … Hope’s eyes rounded as she saw the lake with the château rising from it, a fairy-tale in spun white resting on the silver water like a mirage. An ancient, wooden ‘drawbridge’ spanned the lake at its narrowest part, the Ferrari wheels reverberating noisily as they crossed it, driving under the stone archway and through into the courtyard beyond, the Ferrari coming to rest beside an arched and studded wooden door.

‘It’s … it’s like something out of a fairy-tale,’ she stammered, bemused by the total unexpectedness of her surroundings. A ‘house’ the Comte had said and she, foolishly, had expected a large and rambling farmhouse, not this airy turreted château with its peaceful lake and formal parterred gardens.

‘Sleeping Beauty, perhaps?’ the Comte suggested, unfastening his seat-belt and opening his door. ‘Rest assured there is no captive princess here, mon petit,’ he told her dryly, adding, ‘Come, I shall collect our cases later.’ He saw her confusion and smiled. ‘You were perhaps expecting an army of retainers.’ He shook his head. ‘Those days are gone. The château consists mainly of unused rooms. I have a small suite in the main building, which is maintained by Pierre my … general factotum, I suppose is the best description. A word of warning, by the way, before you meet him. He worked for my father and was badly injured in the same car explosion which killed my parents. My father had a minor post in the government at the time of the Algerian troubles. A bomb was thrown into the car. He and my mother were killed outright, but Pierre who was driving was thrown free. However, he was badly burned, and since the accident he has never spoken. He has also lost the ability to hear.’

‘Oh, poor man!’ The shocked exclamation left Hope’s lips before she could silence it. The Comte glanced at her sardonically as he helped her from the car. ‘You would do well not to let Pierre become aware of such sentiments. He is not a man who cares for … pity … I was fourteen when it happened,’ he added, as though anticipating her next question. ‘At an age to feel very bitter, but, as all things must, it passed, and of course I had …’

‘Pierre?’ Hope offered, torn by compassion for the pain she had glimpsed in his eyes.

‘Pierre?’ The glance he shot her was sharply piercing. ‘Oh, yes, I had Pierre.’ He crossed the courtyard, leaving Hope to follow, and pushed open the heavy door. Standing inside it, surveying the vastness of the hall, Hope shivered, wondering if the chill was the effect of so much marble. It covered the floor in a black and white lozenge design echoed by the stairs, supported gracefully by marble columns, with polished mahogany doors set at pairing intervals along the walls.

‘This way.’ The Comte touched her arm, indicating one of the doors. ‘This central part of the château is all that we use now. This is the library. Later I shall show you the remainder of the rooms.

The library was heavily panelled with an enormous marble fireplace and a carpet which Hope suspected was Aubusson, the colours faded to muted creams, pinks and greens. Pale green velvet curtains hung at the windows, a large partners’ desk placed where it would obtain maximum benefit from the daylight.

‘This room doubles as my office,’ the Comte explained. ‘It’s where I keep all the vineyard records and data, but I shall now show you the rest and then Pierre can prepare dinner for us.’

Hope’s thoughts as the Comte showed her from room to room were that the as yet unseen Pierre must have his work cut out looking after such huge apartments, but the Comte told her that they received help from the village when it was needed. ‘After the vintage comes the time when we entertain the buyers, and then the château comes into its own. You look tired,’ he added. ‘I’ll take you to your room.’

The marble stairs struck a chill through the thin soles of her sandals, the last rays of sunlight turning the chandelier hanging from the ceiling into prisms of rainbow light, almost dazzling her in their brilliance. The landing was galleried, the walls covered in soft pale green silk, and Hope wondered who had chosen the décor which was obviously fairly recent, and who acted as the Comte’s hostess when he entertained his buyers. He indicated one of the doors off the landing, thrusting it open for her, watching her face as she stepped through it and started into the room.

It was huge, almost dwarfing the Empire-style bed with its tented silk hangings, the fabric drawn back to reveal the intricate pleating and the gold and enamel rose set in the ceiling which supported it. A chaise longue covered in the same cream and rose brocade was placed at the foot of the bed, with two Bergère chairs in front of the fire, and the delicate white and gold Empire furniture made Hope catch her breath in awe.

‘The bathroom and dressing room are through here,’ the Comte told her, indicating another door. ‘I’ll leave you to freshen up while I go and find Pierre. He’ll bring your cases up for you.’

When he had gone Hope wandered over to the window. It was already growing dark outside and she could just about make out the shimmer that was the lake below her window—perhaps originally it had been the château moat—and beyond it the formal parterred gardens, before the ring of trees closed round the landscape obliterating everything else.

While she was investigating the bathroom, Hope heard the bedroom door open and then close again and guessed it must be Pierre with her cases and boxes. The bathroom was obviously a modern addition and rather breathtaking. The walls, floor and sanitary ware were all made from creamy white marble, the huge bath sunk into the floor, and one entire wall mirrored. Hope wasn’t entirely sure that she cared for it. It rather reminded her of something she had once seen in a film the nuns had taken them to see in Seville.

The dressing room which she had to pass through to reach the bathroom was lined with wardrobes and cupboards, all of which were mirrored, and thinking that she could hardly expect Pierre to unpack for her, Hope returned to her cases and started to remove the clothes she would need for the morning. She didn’t plan to change for dinner—she would simply wash and re-do her make-up.

Just when would her father arrive? She quelled a feeling of disappointment that he hadn’t been there to meet them, but then she had guessed that this would be the case, for if he hadn’t been busy, surely he wouldn’t have sent the Comte to collect her. Rather like an unwanted parcel, she thought wryly as she stripped off her suit and returned to the bathroom to wash.

Half an hour later, her hair brushed and her make-up fresh, she opened the bedroom door and walked across the landing. Her shoes seemed to clatter loudly on the marble stairs. As she reached the hall a door underneath the stairs opened and a man walked through. Hope guessed immediately that he must be Pierre. His face bore several livid scars, his dark hair streaked with grey, but there was more curiosity than embarrassment in the look he gave her, and trying not to feel too self-conscious, Hope said warmly:

‘You must be Pierre. I am Hope Stanford and …’ Her voice faded away as she remembered that the Comte had told her that Pierre had been rendered both deaf and dumb by the bomb blast and, suddenly feeling awkward, she was relieved to see the Comte coming downstairs.

Unlike her, he had changed and her eyes widened a little as she took in the thick silk shirt and tightly-fitting dark trousers. Gold cuff-links glittered at his wrists, and she was suddenly and overpoweringly aware of him—not as her father’s friend, but as a man. Her heart started to thud with heavy, suffocating strokes, her body turned to marble, as stiff and unresponsive as the stairs, as she stared at him, barely noticing the signs he made to Pierre, or the comprehension burning to life in the servant’s dark eyes as he turned back to the door.

‘Dinner is almost ready. You need not look like that,’ he assured her, obviously misunderstanding the reason for her shocked expression. ‘Pierre is an excellent chef.’ He opened the door that Hope vaguely remembered belonged to the dining room, her eyes dazzled by the sea of polished wood and glittering glass and silver that swam before her, mentally contrasting the magnificence of the château to the refectory at the convent.

Two courses were served and eaten in silence, Hope merely sipping the wine the Comte had poured for her. She refused any sweet, watching instead while the Comte helped himself to some cheese—a local cheese called Chaource, he told her, offering her some. Again Hope shook her head. The long journey had tired her, her mind exhausted by so many new impressions.

A portrait on the wall behind the Comte caught her eye and she studied it. It looked relatively modern and depicted a dark-haired woman, proud and faintly arrogant so that Hope sensed a wildness beneath the conventionally elegant mask.

‘Is that … was that your mother?’ she asked hesitantly.

The Comte turned his head and studied the portrait for a while in silence, his voice harsh as he said, ‘No. My sister, Tanya. She is dead now, she committed suicide.’

For a moment Hope thought she must have misheard him, the words seemed to hover between them, and Hope looked again at the portrait. What could have driven a woman as beautiful and proud as she was to take her own life? She hadn’t realised she had spoken the words out loud until the Comte said bitterly, ‘A man, of course, mon petit; a man, and the shame of knowing herself discarded.’

Hope shivered, unable to tear her eyes from the portrait. ‘It happened six months ago,’ the Comte continued. ‘I was in Paris at the time, Tanya was in the Caribbean with her lover. I suspect she had hoped that in the end he would marry her, but I knew he never would. I had warned her, but she would not listen. In the end, she preferred to take her life rather than face his dismissal of her.’

‘Had he … had he fallen in love with someone else?’ Hope asked huskily, hardly knowing why she asked the question.

The Comte’s mouth tightened. ‘Hardly. No. Tanya was simply a diversion who no longer fitted into his plans, and so she had to go. She, poor girl, went on deluding herself up to the last that he genuinely cared for her. However, her death will be avenged. He shall not be allowed to shame our family unpunished.’ He said the words so quietly that Hope barely caught them.

‘Tanya,’ she pronounced wonderingly. ‘It is surely a Russian name?’

‘As is my own,’ the Comte confirmed. ‘My mother insisted upon it. She could not hand down to her children her own birthright—she was a Princess; Princess Tatiana Vassiliky—but she gave us her family names. Mine is Alexei, after her father.’

It was his Russian blood that demanded reparation for what had happened to his sister, Hope guessed intuitively, sensing as she had done before the savagery and pride that lay so close to the surface of his French sophistication—a sophistication which was barely more than a cloak.

‘Tanya’s lover?’ she pressed, scarcely knowing why she asked the question and yet somehow compelled to do so.

‘I think you can guess,’ the Comte said slowly, forcing her to meet his eyes and holding her gaze as he stood up and came to stand beside her. ‘Your father was Tanya’s lover, Hope,’ he told her softly, so softly that for a moment she didn’t sense the danger surrounding her.

‘My father?’ She stared up at him in bewilderment. ‘My father … but … You and he are friends … Why did you come for me when … ?’

‘How naïve you are, little one. Your father knows nothing of me apart from the fact that I am Tanya’s brother, but I know a great deal about him. I made it my business to know. I discovered, for one thing, that he had a daughter—a pious, innocent child, who was kept secluded from the world, brought up to be innocent in mind and body; a child who he intended to use as a pawn to secure for himself the power he has always wanted. You are that pawn, Hope,’ he told her softly. In the half-light his eyes glittered dangerously, hard and green as emeralds, and fear choked Hope of breath as she fought to take in what he was saying.

‘I swore when my sister killed herself that she would be avenged,’ he told her slowly. ‘The Russian blood in me demands that she is, even while the French mocks me for my passion, but on this occasion the Russian wins out, although I must admit that the French side of me has helped me to plan my campaign with care and thought. My first instinct was to deprive your father of life as he had deprived Tanya of hers.’

Hope, listening, shivered. She could well imagine this man killing her father, the lean fingers fastening round his throat, demanding that he suffer as Tanya had suffered.

‘But, on reflection, I decided that that was not enough. Besides, I have no wish to spend the rest of my own life languishing in prison. No, there had to be a better way. A way in which your father was vulnerable, and then, quite by chance, at a dinner in Paris, I found it. You will be surprised to know, mon petit, that you were the subject of the dinner-table conversation on that occasion.

‘My female companion, I shall not bore you with her name, was telling me of the marriage your father had planned between the Montrachet heir and his carefully reared daughter. It seems your father has been foolish enough to borrow money on his expectations of becoming the grandfather of the new heir-to-be. The Montrachet name is an old and powerful one, and Montrachet brides are always carefully chosen and vetted. Normally, they are also rich, but the numbers of rich young women who are also virginal in body and character are quickly dwindling.

‘However, your father has taken care to make sure that you fulfil both those latter two requirements. His name is also an old one—you have no fortune, of course, but Isabelle Montrachet, Alain’s mother, prefers a bride for her son who is easily moulded and taught. A healthy young bride, moreover, who will provide her son with children; a bride whose virtue is unimpeachable—and who better than her business partner’s daughter; a girl who can bring as her dowry, all these things. In return for your innocence, your father will receive an increased share in the Montrachet business, provided it and his own share is willed to you, and your children after you, upon his death.

‘As I have just said, he has already gambled heavily on his expectations, investing in a holiday complex in the Caribbean, which is not paying off as it ought. Before the summer is out, Sir Henry intends to capitalise on his only remaining investment—you—or at least he did.’

The Comte walked away, standing by the fire with his back to her while Hope watched him in stunned and appalled silence. Was it true? Had her father intended such a marriage for her? She supposed she ought not to be shocked, after all she knew that was what many of the girls were at the convent for; to be prepared for such marriages but, somehow, she had never imagined it happening to her—and to suggest that her father was responsible for his sister’s death! It was preposterous! Struggling with her feelings, all she could manage was a husky, ‘I don’t believe you, my father would never …’

‘Make love to my sister? Discard her like an unwanted toy? Destroy and humiliate her publicly by telling her he no longer wanted her, so that she was forced to take her own life. I assure you that he did. The newspapers were full of the story—I haven’t kept the cuttings, but I could obtain them for you, I’m sure.’

‘No!’ Hope rejected the suggestion immediately, nausea building up inside her. Could her father have behaved so callously? Hadn’t he in many ways behaved equally callously to her? an inner voice asked. Hadn’t he left her at the convent, more or less ignoring her? He hadn’t told her anything about his plans for her.

She shivered suddenly, wondering if that was why she had never been allowed to holiday with her friends, in case she became involved with someone; a boy to whom she might have given her body and thus de-valued herself in the eyes of the Montrachets. It seemed incredible, and yet Hope sensed that what the Comte said was true.

‘I don’t understand,’ she managed huskily at last. ‘If you are my father’s enemy why did you …’

‘Take you from the convent?’ he supplied for her, turning round to study her pale face and enormous eyes, her expression fearful and yet resolute as she tried to understand what was happening to her.

‘You must understand that I mean you no personal harm,’ he told her quietly. ‘But it is only through you that I can harm your father as much as he harmed Tanya. Oh, I don’t mean to kill him,’ he assured her, seeing her pale. ‘Nor will he end his own life as my poor sister did—he is not that kind of a man. But if this marriage does not go ahead, he will be ruined financially. He will not be able to live the jet-set life to which he has grown accustomed. He will no longer be the darling of the Côte d’Azur; permitted entry into every Casino, the escort of models and actresses, and that will destroy him as effectively as he destroyed Tanya. To see his world turn its back on him—as it surely will—will be all the revenge I need.’

‘But how are you hoping to accomplish this?’ Hope protested. ‘You cannot keep me here for ever, and once I leave …’

‘Your marriage can take place.’ He shook his head and the look in his eyes sent a chill curling icily all the way down Hope’s spine. ‘You haven’t been listening to me, Hope,’ he chided almost softly. ‘I have already told you what Isabelle Montrachet looks for in a bride for her son, and she will accept no less. Alain is a young man who has sown more than his fair share of wild oats, and it is rumoured he is looking forward to the piquancy of a virgin bride. My dear, no matter how lovely you are, without your virginity all you can ever be to Alain is simply another pretty diversion.’

As Hope stared up at him, the implications of his words finally struck home, her eyes widening with shocked comprehension, her husky, ‘No!’ trembling on the air between them.

‘I’m afraid “yes”,’ the Comte corrected gently. ‘And that is not the worst of it. You see, I never liked your father, Hope, and I hated him for what he did to Tanya. She was twenty-one when she met him, young and full of hope. She thought he would marry her and gave herself to him willingly, but once she had done so he let her know that the only place he had for her in his life was as his mistress, and loving him as she did, she accepted it. I had to watch as her pride and respect were slowly stripped from her as he paraded her before the world as his whore. I think it a fitting punishment for him that I do the same to his daughter, don’t you?’

She was going to faint, Hope thought hysterically. She couldn’t really be hearing this; she couldn’t really be listening to the Comte telling her calmly and emotionlessly that he intended first to rape her and then to flaunt her publicly as his mistress. For a moment she contemplated telling him that he was too late and that she had already given herself to someone else, but his voice forstalled her.

‘It’s no use, Hope,’ he told her calmly. ‘You have already betrayed to me in a thousand ways that you are an innocent. You cannot leave the château—Pierre will not help you—and by morning …’ He shrugged, and her appalled senses struggled with the knowledge that he intended to start taking his revenge that night. ‘You need not fear that I shall hurt or abuse you—it is not my intention to punish you personally, and indeed in many ways I am sorry that it has to be accomplished through you. Certainly you will suffer no worse at my hands than you would at Alain’s …’

‘Except for the fact that I would be his wife,’ Hope reminded him bitterly. All her life she had heard the Sisters telling her that sex outside marriage was a sin and never for a moment had she contemplated indulging in it with anyone other than her husband. Even if she was married and in love she would still be dreading what now lay ahead of her, she acknowledged inwardly, but to contemplate the Comte’s hands on her flesh, his body … She shuddered deeply, her panicky ‘No!’ bringing a brief grimace of understanding to the Comte’s mouth.

‘I’m afraid your protests only make it all the more difficult for you, mon petit. Here, in this château, it is my will which prevails. We shall stay here for a week,’ he told her, as though they were discussing something mundane. ‘By that time it is my hope that you will have lost that look of undeniable innocence.’ His eyes mocked her pale face and bruised expression. ‘Then we shall fly out to the Caribbean. I have a villa there, and the crowd your father mixes with will be at his hotel at this time of year. No doubt your father will be in a benign mood, contemplating the wedding he believes is to take place later in the summer. Your appearance at my side, so incontestably mine, will surprise him.’

‘I shall tell him what you have done,’ Hope cried out. ‘You can’t force me to stay with you then, I shall leave you …’

‘And your father will take you in?’ He shook his head. ‘Oh, no, mon petit, he won’t.’

‘How long … how long will I have to stay with you?’

‘As long as it takes.’

‘And afterwards?’ Hope shivered again. The nuns had always stressed to their pupils that once a girl sinned, once she lost her innocence, the downward path was a very steep and slippery one indeed, and a hundred lurid pictures tortured Hope’s mind. ‘After you have … finished with me, what becomes of me? No man will want me as his wife …’

‘I did not say that, nor is it true. You cannot really believe that all men marry virgins—or indeed want to. You are a beautiful girl, Hope, many men will be attracted to you. You have intelligence, and depending on how much you use it, you can be happy and content in your life or not.’

‘Would you marry a girl who has … has had other lovers?’ Hope flung at him bitterly.

‘I would—if I loved her; if she had other assets that I wanted. The confines of your upbringing have been very narrow, Hope. If the Montrachets were not as they are, if your father had not callously traded in your innocence for their wealth, my plans could not come to fruition. In many ways you are an artificial product. Had you been left to grow and develop naturally I doubt you would be a virgin. It is as acceptable for girls to experiment these days as it is for boys.’

‘But you intend to … to ravish me because …’

‘It will not be a ravishment in the terms that you are thinking of,’ he told her calmly. ‘I have no desire to inflict pain or degradation on you. On the contrary, I want your father to see that you come to me willingly.’ He smiled at the expression in Hope’s eyes, and her bitter:

‘Never—I could not. I do not love you!’

‘How little you know,’ he mocked her softly. ‘But you will see. Love is not always necessary for pleasure, Hope.’

She closed her eyes in mute agony, unable to understand what was happening to her. Could she really believe that this cool, sardonic man, talking reasonably, almost lightly to her, actually meant to despoil her body, to deprive her of her virginity?

She saw him glance at his watch. ‘It is getting late, and you must be tired. Why don’t you go to bed?’

Her eyes flew to his face, but he wasn’t looking at her. ‘I have some work I have to attend to. Don’t even think of trying to escape, Hope. The doors are all bolted, the drawbridge raised, and Pierre will not aid you—he was fanatically devoted to my sister. Would you like something to help you sleep?’

For a moment Hope was tempted. Perhaps if he came upstairs and found her sleeping he would … what? Change his mind? Hardly, having gone to so much trouble to bring her here. This wasn’t something done in the heat of the moment; his anger had cooled and hardened, and he wouldn’t be turned aside from what he intended.

‘No, thank you,’ she responded formally, wondering if it was admiration she had seen flicker briefly in his eyes, or if she had imagined it.

CHAPTER THREE

IN the end she was not left alone with the torment of her thoughts for long. A warm bath had done little to soothe her jangling nerves, her various plans for escape all dismissed as wildly impossible as she went through them; there wasn’t even a telephone anywhere in sight she could use to contact her father. If she was the heroine of a novel no doubt she would have a knife or a gun to hand with which to defend herself, she thought painfully as she pulled on the old enveloping cotton nightdress she had brought with her from the convent. Not for the world would she wear the fine, silk garments she had bought in Seville. She was glad that the room was in darkness—she didn’t think she could bear to look at the Comte, it would be bad enough to have to endure his touch.

Her fingernails were digging into her palms when she heard the door open. The light was clicked on and the Comte surveyed her, a small smile touching the corner of his mouth as he studied her nightdress, but he made no comment, simply locking the door and pocketing the key, before walking past her into the dressing room.

When he was gone Hope found that she was trembling. She heard the sound of running water, muted by the closed doors, and tried to stop her fevered imagination relaying pictures to her as she visualised the Comte’s body, his undeniable strength and her own weakness. A thousand primitive, feminine terrors tormented her, until she had virtually forgotten what little knowledge she had, her fear reducing her body to a trembling mass of nerves and muscles.

When the Comte came back he was wearing a dark towelling robe, his hair damp and curling slightly into his neck, the sight of the dark hair on his chest and legs making Hope’s stomach clench protestingly in shock at the intimacy he was forcing on her. She had seen photographs of men on the beach, pictures in magazines, of course, but they had not prepared her for the actual physical reality, the raw maleness that emanated from masculine muscle and bone.

‘Monsieur,’ her intention to plead with him, to change his mind, was silenced when he laughed, his teeth gleaming whitely against the tan of his skin. It was the first time she had heard him laugh and Hope coloured angrily, wondering what she had done to make herself the object of his mirth.

‘The good Sisters have certainly taught you to be polite, mon petit,’ he told her, ‘but in view of our … proposed intimacy, I suggest that you use my name instead of calling me Monsieur. Say it, Hope,’ he demanded softly, watching her with eyes that now held no trace of humour. ‘Say it …’

She pressed her lips together firmly, fingers curled into small fists, mutely defying him. If he wanted to hear his name on her lips he would have to beat her first. She couldn’t deny him her body, but this small defiance she could and would make.

‘No matter. You will say it, either tonight or some other night.’ He shrugged off his robe, not heeding her shocked gasp, and Hope comprehended that this might be a subtle form of punishment for her defiance. The sight of his body awed and terrified her, but she couldn’t drag her gaze from the silken ripples of muscles under his skin as he bent to throw back the covers on the bed.

Her immediate urge was to run, but there was nowhere to run to, and she wasn’t going to humiliate herself further. No doubt her panic would only amuse him.

‘So …we are ready.’ He turned to face her, his eyes narrowed as he added, ‘Apart from this.’ His fingers flicked disdainfully at the shabby nightdress. ‘You chose to wear it as a tactical move to deflect me from my purpose, I imagine?’ His eyebrows rose queryingly, but Hope gave no confirmation. ‘Umm …’ He studied her for a moment, his fingers curling smoothly round the neck fastening. ‘I regret the necessity for this, little one, but I do not propose to lose my dignity and possibly my temper in trying to extricate you from it.’

His fingers tightened and Hope tensed, her eyes rounding in stunned horror as he ripped the thin fabric from neck to hem, the violence of his action catching her off balance and propelling her against him, her hands immediately raised to fend him off, her palms resting against his chest for the briefest moment before she withdrew them as quickly as though she had been scorched, barely able to comprehend what had happened until she saw the remnants of her clothing lying on the floor. The knowledge of her nakedness brought her arms to her body in an age-old gesture of protection, and her agonised, ‘the light!’ brought a glimmer of understanding to the green eyes and a hesitation which made her suspect that he meant to torment her still further by leaving them on. He had said he didn’t want to hurt her, but Hope wondered wildly if that was true—he certainly hadn’t shown her any compassion up until now.

He didn’t turn the lights off, but he did dim them. ‘It will be less frightening than the dark,’ he told her, coming back to the bed, adding emotionlessly, ‘there is really nothing to fear, Hope. A moment’s pain, which you will have to endure only once. The nuns did tell you …’

‘Yes, yes,’ she agreed in an agonised whisper, longing now only for all of it to be over and done with. There was no escape and therefore she must bear the inevitable with what fortitude she could. That was what the nuns had taught her.

‘You are cold.’ He was standing in front of her, his hands on her shoulders, sliding them downwards over her skin until they reached her waist—it was a slow, gradual exploration during which Hope hadn’t breathed at all. When he lifted her on to the bed she held herself as immobile as a statue, refusing to look at him as he pushed back the covers and joined her, his hands gliding slowly over her skin, exploring every shivering inch.

She made no attempt to repulse him, forcing her mind into numb acceptance, expending all her energy in trying to keep still, trying not to cry out a protest or give in to the instincts urging her to move away. The shock of his mouth against her skin, exploring the curve of her throat and shoulder, was like fire against ice. She shuddered deeply, tensing as his hand moved from her arm to her breast, her mind cringing away from the implications of his assured touch. She began to shiver uncontrollably, tremors of fear and shock gripping her body, the Comte’s voice reaching her from a distance, the tone low and soothing, although she couldn’t understand what he said, only she wasn’t to call him ‘Comte’ or ‘Monsieur’, but ‘Alexei’.

The touch of his hands on her body wasn’t painful or unkind in any physical way, but her mental anguish blocked out the knowledge that he wasn’t hurting her. He had no right to be touching her like this, to be looking at her and watching her, and she told herself that the strange feelings she could sense stirring within her body came from fear, unable to comprehend why her breasts should swell and harden when they touched his chest, or why she should experience a strange melting sensation in the pit of her stomach when he touched her, as though her bones and muscles had turned completely fluid.

Her mind and body fighting a battle that exhausted her fragile defences, Hope was torn between yielding to the instincts of her body and the knowledge that the man touching her was neither her husband nor someone she loved, but a stranger who was using her as he would doubtless have used anything else that had come to hand in his war against her father. In the end, her mind won, subduing the strange sensations of her body, commanding her to tense every muscle and nerve against the intrusive heat and weight of Alexei’s alien body which was forcing her against the bed as he parted her thighs remorselessly, and her body stiffened in real terror, panic washing over her in ever-increasing waves.

She fought against him in mind and body until she was numb with exhaustion, hysteria edging under the control she had let go when his body covered her, and the cry of pain she had sworn he would never hear was followed by tears that welled from her eyes and shook her slender frame. Her agony of mind was more potent than the ache of her body as he withdrew, and she turned from him curling up into a small foetal ball.

She had known what would happen, but the lectures she had heard, the whispered gossip of the other girls, had not prepared her for the trauma of having her body invaded, violated by this stranger. In some ways she could have borne it more if he had deliberately tried to hurt her, but there hadn’t even been that much emotion in what he had done and her mind cringed from what had happened as much as her body had done earlier.

‘Hope.’ She felt his hand on her shoulder and tensed. ‘It’s all right, I’m not going to touch you.’ She didn’t move, terrified into immobility, not even relaxing when he cursed and withdrew. She felt him leave the bed and walk round it to the window. He didn’t bother to pull on his robe, and Hope’s eyes, unable to blot out the shape and power of his body, watched him look into the darkness.

‘I’m sorry it had to be like that, but you were so tense and terrified it couldn’t have been any different. But next time …’ She must have made some small sound that alerted him because he swung round, catching her anguished, bitter expression. ‘Try to get some sleep. Things will seem different in the morning.’ He came and sat down beside her, watching her shrink back. ‘You were fighting yourself as well as me, Hope. The Sisters have doubtless taught you that sex is a duty you owe your husband, a means to an end—children—but it is also a rare and lovely pleasure. If you listen to your body and not your mind you will discover that for yourself.’

She saw him get up and expected him to go away, but to her dismay he walked back to the other side of the bed and climbed in beside her, pulling the covers over them both, but not touching her. As she lay tense beside him, Hope heard his breathing deepen into sleep, her body gradually relaxing a little, her breathing still shallow.

Had what happened between them brought him any physical satisfaction? It seemed impossible to believe it could, but the Sisters had said that male needs were different from female. Hope sighed. She was not completely ignorant—she knew from her reading that there were women who enjoyed the sexual act, but felt that she was never destined to be one of them. Her mind and body both felt bruised and sore, her skin defiled, and she felt an overwhelming need to soak her body in water, to scrub away all memories of Alexei’s touch.

Slowly, Hope slid out of the bed, taking care not to disturb the sleeping figure behind her. The carpet felt soft to her bare feet, but she felt oddly dizzy and breathless. She reached the bottom of the bed before she felt her knees start to buckle under her, her body floating, weightless almost. She heard a sound behind her, barely registering what it was, uncomprehending even when Alexei caught her, swinging her up against his chest as the room whirled unpleasantly round her.

‘I wanted to wash,’ she told him, scarcely aware of what she was saying. ‘I want …’

‘Yes, mon petit, I know.’ The words floated around her, her head dropping on to Alexei’s shoulder, her mind and body too drained to respond. She was distantly aware of being carried into the marble grandeur of the bathroom, of being wrapped in a huge warm towel as water gushed into the bath, but it was too much of an effort to pay much attention. She didn’t want to think or remember, this floating, hazy feeling was so much pleasanter.

The water was warm and scented and she wanted to lie in it for ever, but someone kept talking to her, gently sponging her skin, the touch soothing, reminding her of her childhood and the nanny she had had before she was sent to school. But she had left school now and … Her mind veered away from the pain she could sense waiting for her. She was being lifted out of the bath and rubbed dry, her skin glowing and warm, a brisk command to open her mouth instantly obeyed, the tablet she was given making her pull a face and gratefully accept a glass of water. Almost within seconds she seemed to be pulled down into an abyss of darkness, fighting against it instinctively, terrified by dim memories of unperceived horrors waiting for her in the Stygian darkness, until a cool voice murmured her name, a hand lifting the heavy weight of her damp hair, her face pillowed against something warm and somehow vaguely comforting.

‘Hope.’ The sound of her name penetrated the thick mists. She opened her eyes—she was in Alexei’s arms, her face resting against the curve of his throat.

‘You hurt me.’ She said it sorrowfully, as though she were still a child, wondering at the way he tensed, and then the sleeping pill he had given her did its work and she was sucked back down into the blackness, unaware that when he returned her to the bed, it was to Alexei that she turned, curling into his body in an instinctive search for comfort, or that he watched her long after she had fallen asleep, something very like pain darkening his eyes. It wasn’t his way to deviate from any path he had decided upon. Tanya’s suicide had to be avenged and this was undoubtedly the best way.

Muttering something under his breath he looked down at the silver head pillowed against him, tear tracks faintly discernible on the pale skin.

Hope opened her eyes, awareness immediately flooding over her, her movements jerky as she turned her head, relief invading her tense body as she saw that she was alone. Shakily she threw back the bedclothes, moving gingerly towards the edge of the bed. She had a dim memory of getting out of bed last night after … She frowned, checking as she fought to remember exactly what had happened, her eyes widening as tiny scraps of memory floated to the surface of her consciousness.

‘Ah, you’re awake.’

She froze as the door opened and Alexei walked in, tall and lithe in a cotton shirt and jeans. ‘Breakfast,’ he told her, indicating the tray he was carrying. When she averted her face he put the tray down on a small table and she felt the bed depress as he came and sat beside her.

‘There’s no point in sulking, Hope,’ he told her, not unkindly. ‘It won’t always be as it was last night. What you suffered was no worse than you would have endured at the hands of Montrachet, probably less, although you probably can’t believe that now.’

‘Except that he would have married me,’ Hope pointed out, ignoring the last part of his sentence. How could he talk so calmly about what had happened between them? The invasion of her privacy as much as the violation of her body had shocked her. She couldn’t accept the unwanted intimacy of their situation; she couldn’t endure knowing that this man had not only possessed her body, but also seemed to know, to the last degree, her every feeling and emotion. She felt as though there was nothing left she could call her own, no corner of her soul in which she could hide from him, and the knowledge frightened her.

‘Hope.’ His hands grasped her shoulders, and he frowned when she tensed, obviously guessing one of the causes of her concern when he saw the sunlight dance on the exposed curve of her shoulder. He got up and walked over to the dressing room, returning with a flimsy, silky robe. ‘Sit up and turn round,’ he told her, sitting on the bed behind her, and sliding the robe over her arms when she reluctantly did as he instructed.

‘Now,’ he said, when he had firmly tied a bow in the ribbons that secured the front. ‘Try to understand,’ he said slowly. ‘In the eyes of people whose opinion your intelligence tells you matter, the fact that we have been lovers will mean nothing. They will judge you as the person you are, Hope. Your virginity or lack of it matters only to your father because he regards you as a commodity, as something he can sell,’ he told her brutally. ‘Women don’t barter innocence for marriage these days, little one. Strange though you may find it now … one day you will perhaps thank me for this.’

‘Don’t lie to me.’ Angrily, Hope pushed him away. ‘You told me yourself last night that my father made your sister his mistress, that he wouldn’t marry her …’

‘He wouldn’t marry her because of her lack of wealth, not her lack of virtue,’ she was told grimly. ‘And it was not because my sister chose to give herself to your father that I have brought you here, but because of his treatment of her once she had. Now, I suggest you have your breakfast and then get dressed.’

‘What in?’ Hope demanded childishly. ‘I don’t have anything in scarlet …’ He laughed, further infuriating her, seeming more amused than annoyed by her comment, saying wickedly:

‘Even dressed in the garments of a putain, you would still look exactly what you are, mon petit—an innocent bearing the outward and inward bruises of her ravishment.’

‘When do we leave for the Caribbean?’ Hope asked him, trying to subdue the high colour his words brought storming to her face.

‘When you have ceased to look like a ravished child and have become a woman.’

‘That will never be,’ Hope promised him rashly, hating him when he laughed again, curling a strand of her hair round his finger until she jerked away.

‘Au contraire, ma jolie,’ he mocked her. ‘I would hazard a guess it will be sooner than you think–much sooner.’ He leaned forward, his fingers sliding along her throat to her jaw, holding her prisoner while he stroked his tongue against her lips and then kissed her, withdrawing to study her flushed cheeks and tumbled hair with a thoughtful expression. Just for a moment, Hope thought that he would touch her again, but to her relief he made no move to do so, simply saying, ‘Now, I have to go and inspect the vineyards. You are at liberty to explore the house and inner courtyard, but I’m afraid you cannot wander any further. The drawbridge will remain up, and remember Pierre cannot help you. Take my advice and accept the inevitable, Hope,’ he finished quietly. ‘There is no shame in finding pleasure in the sexuality of your body, you know, despite what the Sisters may have taught you.’

‘How can I find pleasure, as you call it, when I hate you,’ Hope flung at him, watching the smile crease his skin, tiny lines fanning outwards from his eyes.

‘You will see,’ he promised softly, heading for the door. ‘Eat your breakfast. I shall see you tonight.’

He was gone before she could think of a suitably cutting retort, leaving her alone with her thoughts. What a complex man he was, one side of his nature passionately Russian, thirsting for the revenge his pride demanded and determined to have it no matter what the cost to anyone else, and yet there was another side to him almost completely opposite, and that had been the side she had experienced this morning. But she wasn’t going to make the mistake of underestimating either, Hope decided with a shiver. She couldn’t escape, he had told her, but even if she could it was too late, if what he had said about her father’s plans was true, and somehow she sensed it was. He would do with her what he had said and nothing would swerve him from his purpose, but one day he would no longer have any use for her, there was nothing to hold them together, no emotion on either side bar his thirst for revenge, and once that was satisfied …

Hope’s skin chilled and goose-fleshed, and she shivered, struggling to come to terms with what had happened and what her life would now be. Life in the convent had been ordered and peaceful, not requiring any effort upon her part other than obedience, but she wasn’t a child any longer and somehow she was going to have to find a way to make her own life. Alexei’s plans for her were something she would have to endure until she could escape from him, but once she did … gnawing her bottom lip, she wondered what was going to become of her, jolted out of the passive acceptance that had become second nature to her. She would have to find a job; thousands of other girls her age survived on their own. Thousands of other girls had affairs with men outside marriage; thousands of girls learned to cope as she was going to have to learn, and feeling sorry for herself would achieve nothing.

Her coffee was cold by the time she had washed and dressed. She found the kitchen eventually, and saw Pierre standing over the sink peeling some potatoes. He raised his head warily and Hope guessed that Alexei had warned him about her. A coffee percolator stood on a table next to the sink and she picked it up miming a pouring action. Nodding his head, he took it from her and Hope watched him fill it with fresh coffee and water. While it was perking, he opened the fridge door and indicated the contents. Guessing that he thought she might want some breakfast, Hope shook her head, unable to face the thought of food, although the hot strong coffee was blissfully reviving.

When she had finished it she went outside into the courtyard, and walked aimlessly around it. Stables bordered it on one side, but the stalls were empty. When she peered over the wall Hope saw the water of the moat glistening below, some ducks diving for food. It was warm enough for her to be tempted to sit in the sun, but she felt too restless, too keyed up to relax.

Unwillingly, she returned to the château, wandering from room to room, studying the portrait of Tanya for several minutes before going into the library and searching the shelves for something to read.

Eventually, she picked out a volume of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, something she had not read, hoping she could lose herself and her fears inside its pages.

At one o’clock, Pierre brought her some lunch—a light, fluffy omelette and a pot of fresh coffee with some fruit to eat afterwards. The smell of the omelette made her realise that she was hungry, and when she took a forkful, she found that it tasted as delicious as it looked. When she returned the tray to the kitchen, Pierre eyed the clean plate with a glimmer of approval.

Hope read well into the afternoon, tension curling through her body as the afternoon wore on until she was no longer able to deceive herself that the novel was holding her attention. Closing it, she wandered to the window, looking out on to the lake. The ducks were diving industriously in the pale green water, and suddenly restless she went to the kitchen looking for some bread to feed them, thinking the activity might distract her mind, if only momentarily.

There was no sign of Pierre, but she found a loaf and cut off a small chunk, going outside and walking through the courtyard until she came to the small gap in the wall she had noticed that morning, leaning out from it so that she was directly over the water, breaking the bread into crumbs and calling to the ducks. For several minutes their antics amused her, the inept attempts of the small ducklings to get their share making her smile.

The heavy sound of wood and moving machinery drew her attention, and frowning, she turned, just in time to see Alexei’s car drive into the courtyard. He climbed out, hesitating when he saw her, calling her name sharply, his forehead creased in what looked like anger.

Automatically, Hope panicked, retreating into the embrasure as he strode towards her, shrinking away instinctively, not realising how tenuous her foothold was until her shoe slipped and she overbalanced, the water of the moat rushing up to meet her, engulfing her, silencing her choking cry as her mouth and nose filled with the cold water. She could swim, but the shock of falling made her panic and struggle instinctively as she felt something clasp her arm, Alexei’s angry features swimming in front of her eyes.

Later, she remembered thinking in a confused way that Alexei was trying to drown her, before she realised that that couldn’t be true. He couldn’t flaunt her in front of her father if he drowned her, but at the time the thought made her fight against his constraining arms, consciousness ebbing and flowing until she was suddenly aware of sun-warmed stone beneath her body, and the cold darkness of wet clothes. Alexei was standing over her, water dripping from his lean body, his mouth a grim line that made her shudder.

He muttered something in Russian as he bent to pick her up, and Hope realised that Pierre was standing beside him. Alexei must have indicated something to him, she realised, because the other man hurried into the house.

‘Mon Dieu!’ Alexei swore as he carried Hope inside. ‘Is that how your mind works, you little fool—death before dishonour?’

Hope struggled to tell him that her fall had been an accident, that his sudden grim-faced appearance had frightened her, but the words wouldn’t come.

‘This is the second occasion on which I have had to bathe you, mon petit,’ she heard him say seconds later as he set her on her feet in the bathroom. ‘I confess the role of nursemaid is not entirely an unappealing one, although on this occasion …’ Hope shivered as full consciousness returned and she realised how easily she could have been drowned.

‘I didn’t jump.’ Alexei had his back to her, his wet jeans clinging to his body as he bent over the bath running the water. She bit her lip—now what had made her say that? A desire to show him that she wasn’t quite the weak, childish fool he had thought her? ‘It was an accident,’ she added huskily. ‘I was feeding the ducks, you startled me and …’

‘And you fell into the moat rather than endure my company?’ he offered grimly. ‘God, you are such a child … determined to cast me in the role of villain. Has it not occurred to you yet that once you are free of me you may choose what to do with your life, Hope, instead of having someone else’s will imposed upon you—and do not make any mistake, as the bride of Montrachet you would have no choice. Have you no ambitions? No desires of your own? Nothing you want from life?’ His voice was edged with impatience, and he gave a muffled curse before straightening up and looking at her. ‘You are a person, Hope, a reasoning, intelligent human being. Can you honestly tell me that you would be happy with the life Montrachet would offer you?’

He sighed, suddenly looking tired, and Hope reflected wryly that it must have been a shock to him when she fell–her death would have deprived him of any chance of obtaining his revenge. No wonder he had fought so strongly to save her.

‘Get out of those wet things,’ he instructed curtly. ‘Pierre is making you a tisane. I thought we’d dine out tonight, but perhaps in the circumstances …’ He looked at her doubtfully, but Hope seized on his words as though they were a life-line. Dining out would be infinitely preferable to remaining here alone with him, dreading the time when she must eventually go to bed.

‘No … please, I should like to go out.’

Alexei studied her for a moment, shrugged and then glanced distastefully at the jeans plastered to his legs. Against her will Hope’s glance followed his, the taut pull of the fabric against the hard muscles mesmerising her.

‘Get in the bath, Hope,’ she heard him say in a suddenly hard voice, ‘and don’t stay there too long—I might be tempted to join you, and something tells me you’re far from ready for water sports—yet.’

Her face flaming, Hope glanced mutely at the door, shivering under the impact of raw sensuality she caught behind the words. For a moment she thought he meant to stay, but after a glance at the water, he moved towards the door saying wryly, ‘I doubt that it’s deep enough for you to drown in, but I’ll be back in ten minutes to check—so I wouldn’t linger if I were you, unless you want me to join you?’

When he came back, dressed in a brief towelling robe, rubbing his damp hair, Hope was seated in one of the chairs, wrapped in a towel, drinking the tisane Pierre had brought. There was coffee on the tray as well, and Alexei poured himself a cup as he watched her. Watching him, Hope felt a strange tendril of sensation curl upwards from her stomach; a curling, hesitant feeling that made her pulses race and heat flood her body, the sensation so unexpected she replaced her cup and stared sightlessly in front of her.

‘Hope? Hope, are you all right?’ Alexei’s voice, sharp with impatience, cut through her thoughts. She looked up, her eyes skimming the length of his legs, darkly tanned and sprinkled with dark hairs. She had an inexplicable desire to reach out and touch him, to discover if the dark hair felt as rough to her fingertips as it had against her thighs last night. Hard on the heels of the desire came realisation of what she was thinking, her breath expelled on a stifled gasp, her fingers whitening as they tensed on the cup. She forced herself to look into Alexei’s face to see if he was aware of her reaction. He was looking down at her through half-closed eyes, smiling faintly, and Hope’s skin burned painfully.

‘Poor little one,’ he said softly. ‘It is all very confusing and painful, hmm? But it will not always be so. Drink your tisane and then try and rest for an hour.’ He saw her glance at the bed and sighed, removing the cup from her tense fingers. ‘What an ogre you make me feel, child, but there is no need to look at the bed as though it is a place of torture. Can you not try to believe me when I assure you that one day not too far distant you will find it a place of considerable pleasure.’ He was laughing at her, Hope was sure of it, and all at once the emotions she had held at bay rioted angrily through her, all the years of convent training overwhelmed in a flash-flood of rage that would have reminded her father of his mother, a red-headed McDonald from the Islands whose temper matched her hair.

Hope’s grey eyes as stormy as gale-blown skies, she turned her face to her tormentor, a high flush of colour burning along her cheekbones. ‘I will never find any pleasure with you,’ she hurled at him, held fast in the grip of a fury that made her long to rake her fingernails along the smooth brown skin to draw blood, anything to make that cool, knowing smile disappear. ‘You think you know everything,’ she panted. ‘But you don’t. Whatever you do to me, whatever response you get from my body, my mind will always hate you. You talk about my father using me as a commodity, but that’s just what you’re doing.’

‘You’re becoming hysterical,’ he told her coldly. ‘If you don’t stop this tantrum right now I’ll …’

‘Slap my face?’ she taunted bitterly, eyes glittering with rage and pain.

Alexei shook his head, the anger suddenly leaving him, a smile curving his mouth. ‘No, it would be a different part of your anatomy to which I would apply the weight of my hand, mon petit, but of course I would always be willing to kiss it better—if you asked me.’ Her shocked eyes told him that he had won the battle, and Hope was left to acknowledge painfully that in any war against him he would always have the advantage. She put her hands to her burning face, her skin still betraying her shocked reaction to his teasing comment, and the glinting amusement in his eyes when he made it. He was a devil, a cold, hateful devil, and she loathed him!

‘Are you sure you want to go out for dinner?’ Alexei was standing in the dressing room door, fastening gold links in the cuffs of his white shirt. Hope nodded her head. She was already dressed, and had just finished applying her make-up. Alexei’s shirt was unbuttoned to the waist, and Hope was sure he knew how much the sight of his naked chest alarmed her. Again she felt that same wrenching sensation in her stomach. Alexei was buttoning up his shirt, tucking the tails into his trousers with a carelessness that said more loudly than any words that he did not find it strange that someone else should witness such intimacies.

Some of her feelings must have shown in her face because he paused in the act of fastening his shirt to eye her thoughtfully, before abandoning his task to stroll across the room. He stood behind her, and Hope shivered when he picked up her hairbrush, startled grey eyes meeting unreadable green ones in the mirror as he drew the brush smoothly through her hair, repeating the movement until Hope felt herself relax beneath the soothing strokes.

‘I appreciate that what has happened to you has come as a shock, ma jolie.’ In the mirror the green eyes still held her own and even though she wanted to look away, Hope found it impossible to break the contact. ‘But you are an intelligent child, who must realise by now that I mean what I say. That being the case, there is nothing to be gained from pointless defiance—you will hurt yourself far more than you will hurt me. Try to look upon this as another period of learning, after which you will be free to make your own life.’

‘Free to be some other man’s plaything,’ Hope stormed back at him. ‘The things I shall learn from you are things I should only have learned from my husband.’ Tears quivered on her eyelashes, a feeling of complete desolation surging over her as she remembered the Sisters’ stern warnings about the fate of girls who were foolish enough to ‘misbehave’. And now this man who had calmly taken her away from the sanctuary of the convent was equally calmly telling her that what he had done would benefit her.

‘You’re exaggerating like a child,’ he told her coolly. ‘Life is not all black and white, there are many, many shades of grey, and the days are long gone when a young woman assessed her value in terms of her virginity. In fact, you demean yourself by doing so. In the modern world a woman is assessed as she assesses herself, physical beauty without intelligence, compassion and humour is nothing. No one will judge you unfavourably because you’ve been my mistress, Hope. It’s only in your own juvenile imagination that “fallen women” exist.’

‘If that was true you wouldn’t be planning to get back at my father the way you are doing,’ Hope told him scornfully. Did he think she was completely without intelligence?

The brushing stopped. He bent down until his head was level with her own, grasping her chin and turning her to face him. ‘My dear child.’ His voice was dangerously cool. ‘Your father is far too much a man of the world to give a damn about your virginity, other than as a saleable commodity.’

‘I hate you,’ Hope told him pathetically, wishing she had the conviction to deny his allegation. ‘I can’t understand how the Reverend Mother allowed me to leave with you.’

‘Quite simple. I forged your father’s signature, and anyway, the Sisters were growing concerned about you. They were too relieved to discover that, after all, your father was not the uncaring parent they had believed to question my authority too deeply. And by the way,’ he added, reading her mind with an ease that shocked her, ‘don’t even think about trying to run away. I have your passport and I intend to keep it. You have no money, no friends here, and this part of France is still feudal in many ways. My family have been here for centuries, the same tenants living always on the land. Unless you give me your word that you will not try to escape, I shall let it be known that you are suffering with a mental disorder which makes you think you are the victim of a kidnap plot …’

He was still watching her, and Hope knew with a sickening sense of certainty that he meant every word he said. Dear God, how she longed to be able to do something …anything to break through that implacable mask, to hurt and destroy him as he had done her.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said bitterly, ‘I don’t want to go out to dinner after all.’ She turned away, refusing to look at him although she was aware that he was standing up and then walking towards the dressing room.

‘Very well,’ he said from the door. ‘I shall instruct Pierre to prepare something for you.’ He went on fastening his shirt, and it was several seconds before the implications of his words sank in. He would still be dining out, she would be eating alone. Hard on the heels of the knowledge came a sense of … disappointment? No, simply one of anticlimax, Hope assured herself, anticlimax because her opponent had removed himself from the ring. The action of someone who knows he cannot win, she told herself, but somehow the thought was not convincing. If ever a man knew exactly how to win, it was Alexei.

Pierre brought her meal into the library, placing the tray on a small table in front of the fire. It was some kind of casserole, and Hope saw that he had also opened a bottle of wine and set the tray with a glass. The wine bore the crest of an eagle and Alexei’s name and she sipped it cautiously. Although they had been taught to recognise all the great vintages, and how to select the correct wine to serve with a meal, Hope had seldom tasted any.

The liquid she had poured into her glass was pale gold, sharp and clean to the palate, bringing out the flavour of the chicken in its delicate sauce. The world, which had seemed a grey hopeless place when she first came down to the library, suddenly seemed less oppressive. In fact, she could well understand why people drank, Hope decided owlishly as she poured herself a second glass.

She was halfway through her third when Pierre came to remove the tray and replace it with a pot of coffee, and Hope felt that the warm, slightly hazy cloud enveloping her was a definite improvement on the terrifying misery that had gripped her ever since Alexei had told her of his plans. Recognising that she was probably a little drunk, she contemplated the coffee pensively and then decided that her present delightfully relaxed state was infinitely preferable to sobriety.

The Sisters would be shocked if they could see her! For some reason the thought of the convent was so upsetting that Hope took another few gulps from her glass, dismayed to discover how the room whirled colourfully round her when she tried to stand up. Her only clear thought as she walked unsteadily upstairs was that at least she was spared the ordeal of having Alexei witness her foolishness. Deep down inside herself she knew that there could be no escape, and the rosy glow of good-feeling fostered by the wine started to fade as she opened the bedroom door and stared at the bed. There was no key in the door and somehow she knew that if she found another bedroom Alexei would only seek her out and bring her back. A small sob-turned-hiccup broke the silence of the darkened room.

It was only ten o’clock, but suddenly she felt very tired, so tired that she almost fell asleep in the bath, but at last she was dry and wearing one of the thin silk nightgowns she felt she hated, her body a tiny bump in the vastness of a bed plainly meant for dual occupation. Just as her eyes closed, for a brief heartbeat her mind cleared and Hope had a vivid impression of how her life would now be, her soul in perpetual torment, unless, as Alexei had suggested, she found a way to live with what had happened, to build on it and grow from it … Could he be right? Was the world not as clearly divided into black and white, good and evil as the Sisters had taught her? She couldn’t withstand him physically, but her mind was still her own, still inviolate, and she could keep it that way …

CHAPTER FOUR

HOPE was dreaming. It was an intensely pleasurable dream. She was lying on a warm beach, the heat of the sun caressing every part of her body, its touch so relaxing that she felt as though her flesh and bones were dissolving, becoming part of the sun’s warmth, fluid and formless. But all the time at the back of her mind was the fear that something would take the sun away from her and that without it she would no longer be able to enjoy the languorous pleasure its touch brought.

Even as she enjoyed its caress her fears grew bigger, growing from a small cloud to a large one, a shadow stalking across the sand, obliterating the heat of the sun, depriving her of its touch. The shadow took on human form. Her heart started to pound, her mouth dry with fear as she struggled to recognise the formless person standing over her, knowing that she could recognise the features while struggling to put a name to them, until it swirled from the depths of her subconsciousness, forcing its way past her lips, breaking and shattering her dream, bringing her shiveringly awake, suddenly conscious of her whereabouts and Alexei’s arm curving her possessively against his body.

‘Hope? Are you all right?’ Any hopes she had had that her dream had been pure imagination were shattered as Hope recognised the impatience edging his voice.

‘I was having a dream,’ she muttered, suddenly conscious of the spread of his hand against her midriff, and the pleasurable heat of his body against her back, the same heat she had been dreaming about when …

‘You called for your father. Why? Were you dreaming about him rescuing you?’

The warmth of his hand seemed to radiate right through her body, and Hope had to restrain a small murmur of protest when it lifted, both hands going to her shoulders and turning her so that they were face to face.

‘I can’t remember what I was dreaming about,’ she lied huskily, ‘but isn’t it only natural that I should want my father, that I should dream that he is helping me …’

‘Quite natural, but you cried his name in pain and rejection, Hope, and the tears came afterwards, not before. In short, you were crying because of your father and not for him.’

She wanted to deny it, but all her energy was absorbed in trying to understand her own emotions. When the dark head bent towards her she made no move to avoid it, lying boneless and unresisting as Alexei’s mouth brushed her lips.

‘Pierre has been giving you the Serivace wine, I can taste it on your mouth.’ His tongue licked along the outline of her lips and something seemed to quiver into life inside her, fragile and trembling. She must still be suffering from the after-effects of the alcohol she had consumed, Hope thought dizzily as she lay motionless while Alexei removed her nightgown. She knew she ought to resist, yet she was too curiously weak to do any more than simply follow the movements of the lean brown hands as they dispensed with the fine silk, the moonlight revealing the hard contours of Alexei’s body to her as he thrust back the covers, propping himself up on one elbow to study her silvered curves in silence.

As he watched her Hope felt something happening inside her. It was the same sensation she had experienced during her dream, only this time the heat seemed to come from within herself, spreading languorously through her body, the alcohol relaxing her mind and undermining her defences, so that although she could register the slow movement of Alexei’s hand as it drifted over her body, it was with curiosity rather than tense panic. Her skin relayed the fact that the hardness of his palm and fingertips against her was pleasurable rather than painful, and her mind noted hazily that he was touching her rather as one might stroke a cat, and she felt the same urge to stretch and luxuriate beneath the slow caress.

If she closed her eyes the urge became even stronger, her senses oddly sharpened so that she was acutely aware of the differing textures of their skins. Her breath suddenly caught as Alexei’s hand reached her breasts, his palm cupping one gently until she felt weak with the surging sensation of her own flesh, the need to press herself into his hand, a tugging, aching sensation beginning somewhere deep inside her so intense that in ordinary circumstances it would have sent alarm signals racing to her brain. But now it only made her open her eyes in hazy surprise—not even the suddenly brilliant green of Alexei’s gaze alerting her to impending danger.

It was only when Alexei removed his hand and she glanced down and saw the unfamiliar burgeoning of her breasts, her nipples swollen and aching, that awareness finally pierced through her sleep and alcohol-induced haze, her mind shrinking in panic from the knowledge that she was exposing herself to Alexei like a … like a slave girl bent on teasing and arousing her master.

Instinctively, she knew that the languorous curves of her body were provocative, deliberately enticing the smooth brush of his hand against her, and the knowledge shocked her into panic, her body tensing, the fierce intensity of Alexei’s gaze shifting from her body to her face, his hands clamping on her shoulders forcing her back against the bed, stroking and soothing until panic gave way to a return of her earlier languor. This time it was very much against her will, her mind revolting against the weakness of her body, even while she admitted her inability to do anything about it.

By the time Alexei’s mouth touched the pulsing nerve at the base of her throat, her body was already a quivering mass of responsiveness. She should never have drunk all that wine, she thought weakly, subduing a small moan of pleasure as Alexei’s lips teased the smooth skin of her throat, tracing a line of tiny kisses from her ear to her lips. His breath was warm against her face as his tongue drew the shape of her mouth, his voice husky as he instructed her to part the lips she had tightened against him, teasing her with light kisses until she did so, her body’s involuntary response to the warm possession of his mouth making her tremble convulsively as he held her against him, deepening and intensifying the kiss until nothing else existed.

Vaguely, Hope was aware of Alexei’s hand resting at the top of her thigh, her lungs drawing in deep breaths of air, her body still trembling from the impact of his kiss. His teeth nibbled gently on her ear-lobe, waves of sensation exploding inside her as he explored the shape and curves of her ear, one hand holding her securely against him, the other …

She gasped and tensed, trying to pull away, trying to stop his hand from parting her legs, her small fists making no impression against the breadth of his shoulders, shock and outrage rapidly overtaken by sensations she tried to deny. Her eyes widened in stunned reaction, and she looked straight into Alexei’s face, hard-boned and watchful, something fierce and elemental glittering behind the impassive shadows in his eyes. The touch of his fingers made her writhe and gasp, hating him for touching her so intimately—what he was doing to her was worse, far worse than what he had done last night—and yet unable to prevent her body from responding almost deliriously to him.

‘Stop it. Stop it,’ she panted unsteadily, fingers curling into her palms as she tried to move away, but his free hand merely curled round her throat, tilting her head back until the pale skin was fully exposed. His lips moving lingeringly along it, his kisses punctuated with softly murmured sounds of pleasure, and a furious desperation was building up inside her. Barely aware of what she was doing, Hope uncurled her fingers from her palms, transferring them to Alexei’s shoulders, small whimpers of pleasure forced past her tightly-closed lips, her body abandoning her, seduced by Alexei’s touch, the aching urgency below her stomach increasing in time with the waves of sensation burning through her, her body trembling violently.

Gradually, the touch of Alexei’s hand became soothing rather than arousing, comforting her for the vague sensation of disappointment that somehow lingered, her mind too confused and bewildered by the reactions of her body to martial what was left of its defences. When Alexei’s mouth left her throat to explore the slope of her shoulder she was too exhausted to protest, too drained to even move when his hands cupped her breasts, his lips exploring their curves.

It wasn’t until she felt the rasp of his tongue against her nipple that Hope felt a resurgence of that earlier sensation, a tensing in the pit of her stomach, and then the slow uncoiling of tense muscles, the heady, liquid warmth that spread right through her urging her shamelessly to abandon herself both to the feeling and to the man arousing it.

She heard Alexei’s hoarse murmur of satisfaction as she stretched against him, but it was lost in her own sharp cry of pleasure as his mouth closed once again over her tautly erect nipple, his eyes closing and the moonlight revealing the dark surge of colour to his face as his body responded to the taste and feel of her, the ache inside her still unappeased when he eventually released her swollen flesh.

Hope shivered in rejection as she felt him move away, her mind telling her that what he was doing was wrong, but her body wantonly aching for closer contact with his maleness.

‘Hope, open your eyes.’

Unwilling, she did as she was bid, conscious of Alexei’s hands on her shoulders, his chest hard against the softness of hers.

‘I had no idea our wine would have such an effect on you, little one, or else I might have thought to give you some last night.’ There was humour in his eyes and something else too, that brought her to shivering awareness of where she was and what she was doing.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she stammered bitterly. ‘I hate you …I hate what you’ve done to me … I …’

‘You hate yourself for responding to me?’ he suggested dryly, shaking her gently. ‘Ma belle, that was almost inevitable. Your body is ready for maturity even if your mind is not. Beneath the conventions taught to you by the Sisters, you have a very sensual nature.’ He saw her colour, anger darkening her eyes, and laughed softly, ‘You don’t want to believe me, but I assure you it is true. Tonight, when I came home, you curled into my arms as naturally as though you had always slept there. It was all I could do not to wake you up there and then … Even now, while you are glowering at me, your body craves physical satisfaction, as does mine,’ he added softly, his eyes on her breasts as he held her a little away from him, Hope’s own eyes widening and hurriedly averting from the evidence of his physical arousal.

She tried to tense her body against him, and for a moment her muscles did lock in fear at the remembered pain of his possession, but other alien sensations spread through her as Alexei looked down at her, and when his body moved over hers, he parted her thighs easily, the weight of his body strangely pleasurable, reminding her of the sensation his fingers had induced earlier—an aching, wanting sensation building up inside her, her breathing ragged and unsteady as she felt him move against her and tensed herself for the expected pain.

‘Relax … there’s nothing to be frightened of.’ He seemed to be breathing the words into her, parting her closed lips with the tip of his tongue, coaxing her to relax and share the pleasure of his mouth against hers, his hand touching her as it had done before, bringing back the same sensation of pleasure, only this time increased to such a pitch that she ached for something more, for … As though she had spoken her need out loud, she felt the pulsating hardness of his body against her, within her, but this time without pain, this time bringing only wave after wave of mindless pleasure, until Alexei muttered something against her mouth and the world seemed to shatter into a million brilliant crystals around her, tears cascading down her face as her body trembled in the aftermath of satisfaction.

She came back to earth to find that she was still in Alexei’s arms and that strangely she wanted to remain there. Her lips were pressed against his throat, his skin warm and salty, her body entwined with his, her mind trying to comprehend what had happened. When the Sisters had discussed the sexual act they never mentioned this. The pleasure was a man’s; a woman found hers in the children she would ultimately bear.

Hard on the heels of pleasure came pain and self-disgust, how could she have behaved so wantonly, so abandonedly? She tensed and tried to pull away, but Alexei’s arms merely tightened.

How triumphant he must be, probably laughing at her naïvety and surrender! Tears stung her eyes and she raised her hand to brush them away, tensing when she felt Alexei’s mouth against her lashes, his tongue delicately licking away the salt moisture.

‘I hate you for what you’ve done to me,’ she told him in a low voice that trembled.

His mouth stilled, and then placed a light kiss against her skin, his hands framing her face as he tilted it upwards.

‘No, little one,’ he said softly. ‘You hate yourself for responding to me. That is only natural, but it will pass. There is no shame in finding pleasure in someone’s caresses. I am not ashamed of telling you that I look forward to the day when your hands and lips explore my body with as much pleasure as I have explored yours.’ He felt her tense and pull away and laughed.

‘It is all so very shocking, is it not, but I promise you that will soon pass, and there will come a day when you cease to be embarrassed or humiliated by your body’s sensuality, and instead find pleasure in knowing yourself so responsive to the caresses of a lover.’

‘You are not my lover,’ Hope threw back at him. ‘You are simply a man who has taken me because he wants to be revenged on my father.’

‘And that is why you are so angry, isn’t it?’ he said, watching her. ‘Because there is no love between us? Sometimes two people love each other very much and yet are unable to find the physical pleasure together we have just experienced. Love and sexual satisfaction do not always go together, mon petit, and of the two, I’m afraid I much prefer the latter.’

Cynical, loathsome creature, Hope thought bitterly. Her skin burned when she thought of how he had touched her, and how she had responded. She wanted to pull out of his arms, but he wouldn’t let her, and her body traitorously wanted to remain entwined with his. She felt physically sick whenever she thought of what had happened—of how he had touched her and how she had felt. It must have been the wine, she would never have allowed him to touch her like that if she hadn’t drunk it. He had talked about them sharing ‘pleasure’, but at least then she had retained her self-respect and her pride, now … Shivering, she told herself she must try and get some sleep, although how she was supposed to do that when every breath from the man lying against her brought his body into contact with hers, she didn’t know.

‘Wake up, sleepyhead, I’ve brought you your breakfast, and the morning papers. Sorry to wake you so early, but I have to leave in an hour.’

Groggily, Hope opened her eyes and struggled to sit up, realising too late that she was completely naked, her eyes angrily daring Alexei to look at her as she reached for the protection of the covers.

How long had he been awake? He was wearing a formal business suit, and an immaculate white shirt, the suit emphasising the lean, powerful lines of his body. Against her will, Hope found herself remembering things from the night, a dark, painful tide of colour sweeping over her body.

‘Hope, you must learn that there was nothing to be ashamed of in what happened between us last night. The fault is perhaps mine in that I didn’t fully realise how uninformed the Sisters had kept you, and that it had never occurred to you that you might feel as you did. Am I right?’

Wishing him a thousand miles away, Hope could only wonder at his ability to remain so clinically detached when he asked such intimate questions, the mere sound of which was enough to subject her to another wave of burning heat.

‘The Sisters said that it was men who … who … experienced … pleasure,’ she managed at last, knowing that he wouldn’t go until he had received his answer.

‘And you believed them?’ He had come to sit beside her. She felt the bed depress under his weight and tried to move away, but his hands were on her shoulders, pulling her into a sitting position, her arms folding instinctively over the sheet she had tucked around her body.

‘I … I don’t know …’

‘Umm. What I think you mean is that you had perhaps read that it wasn’t always so, but never expected to experience it for yourself. Only a certain kind of women experience sexual pleasure, that’s what you thought, I suspect?’

He had gauged her thoughts so accurately that Hope could only nod dumbly. ‘I should have talked to you more, prepared you for what you would experience, although something tells me that you would not have believed me, so perhaps after all … Try not to hate yourself too much, Hope. I shall be away for several days, and although I have given instructions to Pierre that you are not to leave the château, my library is at your disposal. Every day I receive several journals and papers from Paris. You might find it educational to read them and discover more about the world you are shortly to enter. That way it may not come as such a culture shock.’

‘You are going away?’ Hope was appalled by the sense of panic that gripped her, the longing to clutch hold of his immaculate jacket and beg him to stay. To punish herself for such a stupid weakness, she added bitterly, ‘I should have thought you would lose no time in whisking me off to the Caribbean to flaunt me before my father, or do you want to savour your vengeance?’

‘Revenge, like a fine wine, matures with keeping,’ he agreed, smiling at her. ‘But you are far from ready to be “flaunted”, as you put it, before your father yet. Only when you are ready to welcome my caresses will we seek out your father. I want him to know that you come to me willingly.’

‘Never!’

He laughed softly, getting up from the bed.

‘Most assuredly you will, and I confess that when you do, my pleasure will not come completely from the fact that I have accomplished another step on the road to fulfilment of my vow to avenge Tanya. You yourself are proving an unexpected bonus, mon petit,’ he informed her lazily. ‘I confess last night, hearing the cries of pleasure on your lips, made me forget why you were in my arms and think only of the pleasure of having you there. Go and shower, and I will pour our coffee.’ He looked up at her and laughed at her expression. ‘Ah, no, you are quite safe this morning, I have no intention of following you there, but perhaps on another occasion … if you were to ask me nicely …’

His laughter followed her into the bathroom, reinforcing her bitter anger. He had humiliated her by subjecting her body to physical need, by kidnapping her and holding her prisoner, and all he could do was laugh. Well, she would show him. Somehow, during the time he was away, she would find a defence against him. What happened last night was not going to happen again!

When she returned from the bathroom he glanced up at her, indicating the chair opposite him. Feeling at a disadvantage wrapped in a towelling robe when he was formally dressed, Hope sat down, picking up the cup of coffee he had poured, inhaling the rich fragrance, studying him over the rim as he read his paper.

‘Taking an inventory?’ His lazy amusement unnerved her, her hands shaking as she gripped her coffee cup.

‘I was just thinking,’ she lied, hastily looking away, flushing when he laughed, and said softly:

‘Liar.’

Before she could repudiate his comment, he passed her one of the papers, her eyes automatically scanning the headlines as she took it from him. Current affairs were included in the school curriculum, but they had been taught as dry, dusty facts, and Hope found her interest growing as she read the front-page stories.

‘You have a keen brain, Hope,’ Alexei remarked as he poured them both a second cup of coffee. ‘Use it and you will find it a constant source of compensation.’ The look in his eyes rather than his words made Hope aware of a streak of cynicism in his nature underlined by the mockery in his smile. The blend of Russian and French blood couldn’t be one it was easy to live with, she reflected thoughtfully, there must be times when war broke out between French hard-headed cynicism and Russian hot-blooded passion. She didn’t need to ask which side of him had prompted his need for revenge against her father, but it was the French blood in him that had carefully thought out the nature of that revenge, not the Russian.

‘I must leave now.’ She saw him glance at his watch and then frown. ‘I’m taking your passport with me, Hope, and I’m not leaving the car. Remember, you gave me your word that you wouldn’t attempt to leave.’

‘It would be too late if I did, wouldn’t it?’ Hope asked dully. ‘My father can’t marry me to Alain Montrachet now, although if I did leave, at least I would spare him the humiliation of having me paraded in front of his friends as your mistress.’

‘You have two choices, Hope,’ Alexei told her evenly. ‘Either you stay here as my … guest … with the freedom of my home, or I shall instruct Pierre that you are to be locked in these rooms until I return—the choice is yours. You can be treated as an adult or as a child.’

‘You accept my word?’ Hope asked him half scornfully and half curiously.

‘I believe that I can do so,’ Alexei said quietly. ‘Am I wrong?’ What could she say? That he couldn’t trust her to keep her word? Biting her lip, Hope looked away. ‘Am I wrong, Hope?’ Alexei repeated.

‘No, damn you,’ she flung at him. ‘You needn’t tell Pierre to lock me in. After all, I’ve nowhere to go, have I? According to you, my father won’t even give me house room now, and I don’t suppose they’d take me back at the convent.’

‘Poor little unwanted girl,’ Alexei mocked. ‘You will always be wanted … by someone, Hope, but first you would be wise to learn to want yourself, to accept yourself as a human being.’ He got up, stooping swiftly to drop a kiss on her unguarded lips, straightening with a smile to tousle her hair and open the door. ‘Think of me tonight, little one,’ he drawled as he paused by it, ‘sleeping alone without the tempting distraction of your body in my arms.’

He was gone before she could think of a fitting retort, and although she heard the car engine fire a little later in the courtyard, she didn’t leave her seat, instead forcing herself to finish her cup of coffee.

An hour later she was dressed, and she had stripped and remade the bed, gathering up the breakfast things automatically. Pierre turned round as she walked into the kitchen and Hope ventured a tentative smile, feeling unreasonably pleased when it was returned.

The day stretched emptily in front of her and she frowned, impatient at her own boredom. She was intelligent, Alexei had said, and that intelligence told her that the blame for her boredom and its relief lay within herself. One day she would be free of Alexei, free of the nightmare that had darkened her life since Alexei arrived in it, but what was she going to do? She chewed her lip as she walked towards the library, remembering her wistful ambition to make a career for herself using her languages. She would do what they had done at school, she decided impulsively. She would make herself think, speak and read in a different language each day, starting today with Russian—the most difficult and least fluent of her languages.

As she had expected, she managed to find some Russian books in the library, and settling down with a selection of short stories by Chekhov, Hope forced herself to concentrate on the written words.

When Pierre came in at lunchtime he found her engrossed, and mimed to her that he had prepared some food. Unwilling to eat alone, Hope followed him to the kitchen, wondering if it would be possible for her to see the wine cellars and the bottling plant Alexei had pointed out to her. It would be pleasant to go out for a good long walk, but Pierre might mistake her motives and she decided she would have to content herself with exploring the gardens, irritated with herself for her self-imposed imprisonment.

If she had not given Alexei her word … If she had not he would undoubtedly have instructed Pierre to stand guard over her night and day, Hope thought wryly. He was unswervingly determined to have his revenge on her father.

What had Tanya been like, she wondered idly. Her portrait showed a startling similarity to her brother, although in Tanya, the harshly masculine features were softened into feminine lines. There was a vulnerability about her, too, that Alexei didn’t possess, and Hope shivered, remembering that she had taken her own life. She must have loved her father very deeply, and he … hadn’t he guessed how she would react when he ended their relationship?

In many ways her father was more of a stranger to her than Alexei. It was a disquieting thought, but one which Hope found recurring as the days passed.

The fourth morning of Alexei’s absence found Hope reading Claire Bretécher’s cartoon in Le Nouvel Observateur, when she heard the sound of a car outside. Immediately her body tensed, but she forced herself to keep on reading, picking up her coffee cup and drinking a little unsteadily from it, not because she was thirsty, but because the action prevented her from jumping up and running to the window overlooking the courtyard.

Masculine footsteps and the deep timbre of Alexei’s voice warned her of his arrival before the kitchen door opened, and Hope was amazed at the wealth of information her senses relayed to her about him long before she lifted her eyes from the papers.

‘Bonjour, mon petit. Have you missed me?’

His tan had deepened while he was away, and Hope felt her stomach clench disturbingly as she looked into his face. Had he been to the Caribbean? Making sure perhaps that the scene was set for his big dénouement. She responded coolly to his greeting, seeing his smile widen, his teeth white against the darkness of his skin, as he bent towards her and murmured against her ear. ‘I have driven at a speed well in excess of the limit all the way from the airport, hoping to find you still in bed, but Pierre tells me you have become an early riser during my absence. Dare I hope it is because you find our bed lonely without me beside you in it?’

‘It is not “our” bed—it is yours—and if I rise early perhaps it is because I have no wish to linger somewhere that holds unpleasant memories for me.’

She had had three days in which to martial her defences against him and Hope had the satisfaction of seeing his mouth tighten, the smile disappearing. The sensual response of her body to his lovemaking was something that still had the power to shock and disturb her and her own intelligence conveyed to her the knowledge that she could not depend on herself to resist him physically. For the sake of her pride and her sanity she had to find some other way to erect a barrier between them and she had come to the conclusion that while she could not resist him physically, she must do so mentally, so that no matter how many times he tortured her with the vulnerability of her body, her mind remained aloof and antagonistic.

Pierre came in with fresh coffee and warm croissants and Hope watched as Alexei poured himself a cup and bit into the flaky, sweet roll. He looked well-pleased with life, a warm smile curling his mouth, faintly reminiscent as though he were remembering something—or someone—with whom he had shared pleasure. What did he do when he wasn’t pursuing his vengeance against her father, Hope wondered sharply. He was a sophisticated man, who had already shown her by his tastes and conversation that he did not remain on his estate all year round, merely tending his vines, and yet he had mentioned his sister’s lack of wealth which seemed to suggest that he himself was far from being a wealthy dilettante, free to pursue a life of pleasure and idleness. No, that was definitely not Alexei, she thought intuitively, his mind was too keen and sharp to be that of a man who did not use it. The papers which were delivered daily to the château covered a diverse number of subjects.

‘You’re looking very thoughtful.’

Hope raised her head, her eyes clashing bitterly with his. ‘And you find that surprising?’ Her temper rose when she saw the indulgent amusement her anger brought to his eyes. ‘Your absence seems to have improved your mood in addition to your tan,’ she said heatedly. ‘What did you find in the Caribbean? That my father is in even greater financial difficulties than you thought?’

‘The Caribbean? What makes you think I have been there?’ The good humour fled from his eyes and he said curtly, ‘You are behaving like a child, Hope. If it has not yet occurred to you that I have a life apart from that which contains my feelings towards your father, perhaps it ought to. I have been to the Napa Valley where I own a vineyard. It is a new venture for me, and one in which I have sunk a large amount of capital. If my “mood”, as you call it, strikes you as “good”, you can put that down to the fact that I now believe my investment will pay off. I am not a wealthy man in the terms that your father and his crowd define “wealth” …’

‘And you envy those who are?’ Hope demanded scornfully. His face tightened and darkened slightly. ‘No, Hope, I do not,’ he corrected slowly. ‘When you have a little more maturity, you will appreciate that men value most that which they earn for themselves. I personally can conceive of nothing worse than inheriting or owning vast wealth. Everyone needs a goal in life, something to work and aim for. My aim, or one of them, is to restore this château to what it once was—that, and to produce a new wine from my Napa Valley vineyards which might one day equal those we produce here in France. My trip to California had already been postponed once, and consequently there is a considerable backlog of work for me to catch up on.’

‘Here at the vineyard?’ Hope asked the question reluctantly. She didn’t want to get involved in Alexei’s day to day life. She wanted to hold herself aloof, to remain distant from him, and yet, in spite of her resolutions, she was interested.

‘Here, in Beaune, where I serve on the committee which upholds the old traditions of this area, and in Paris, where I have an interest in a wine-broking business.’

‘I’m surprised as such a very busy man that you managed to fit in the time to … to kidnap me, and plan your revenge on my father,’ Hope said with what she hoped was a commendable degree of sarcasm, but it was her face that was tinged with betraying colour and not her opponent’s, his face calmly unimpressed as he poured himself a second cup of coffee.

‘You would do well to learn how to wield the rapier correctly, before you attempt to thrust against an expert, mon petit,’ he mocked her, refilling her own cup. ‘Now, have you any more questions for me, anything more you wish to know about my life?’

‘Nothing!’ Hope told him vehemently, too vehemently she feared if his amused expression was anything to go by. She glanced into his dark face and wondered numbly about the women who shared his life, quickly trying to quell the thought. What were they to do with her? Did they resent his absence while he spent his time with her? What sort of relationships did he have that he was able to do so? Was he as remote and taunting with them as he was with her?

‘So many busy thoughts chasing one another through your head.’ He picked up his cup and finished his coffee. ‘What is it that brings such an arrested expression to your face, I wonder?’

‘I was just thinking. You are spending a lot of time with me.’ She had blurted out the truth without thinking, and came to an abrupt halt, realising the dangerous ground on which she was treading, but it was too late.

‘And …’ Alexei pressed softly, the mockery in his eyes daring her to ask the questions she was sure he knew were racing through her mind, prompting her to ignore the warning voice inside her skull and to say instead, her chin lifting firmly:

‘I was thinking you must be a very cold, hard man, and one who does not care where he causes pain, just so long as he is able to accomplish what he desires.’

‘Meaning?’ Now there was an iron hardness beneath the soft tone.

‘Meaning, I am not so naïve as to suppose that you live your life as … as a monk,’ she managed, hating the colour seeping up under her skin, ‘and that it surely must cause your …’