Authors: Sara Craven

Desperate Measures (32 page)

BOOK: Desperate Measures

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'You've had better.' Zak took the drawing board and put it down somewhere else. 'Go home, Philippa. Try and relax. Get that good-looking husband of yours to take you out to dinner.' He leered at her. 'Just for starters, that is.'
Philippa flushed. 'He's probably—busy.'
'Then tell him to relax as well,' Zak said largely. 'I want you here tomorrow ready to do some real work.'
Easier said than done, Philippa thought gloomily as she walked downstairs. The previous evening she had driven home with Alain in a frozen silence. He had wished her a curt goodnight and gone to his room, leaving her to tell herself over and over again that was exactly—precisely what she'd wanted.
She went on saying it at intervals during a long and restless night. At some time before dawn, she had conceded defeat, got up, and crept barefoot to Alain's room. It was empty, the bed unruffled and unslept in. She'd stared at it for a long time, then returned soundlessly to her own room, and wept.
The locksmith had arrived to attend to her bedroom door almost before she had finished breakfast that morning. Madame Giscard had worn an expression of outrage as she supervised his endeavours. Philippa was not sure she blamed her.
The housekeeper had also informed her glacially that Marcel would be available to drive her to and from her art class. The orders were from Monsieur Alain.
She came out into the street and looked for the car, but it wasn't waiting for her. Small wonder, she thought, glancing at her watch. She was a good hour earlier than usual.
'Madame de Courcy.' She turned, alarmed, in time to see Fabrice de Thiery loping towards her across the road.
'I hope you didn't think I was another thief.' His smile warmed her. 'I wanted to see you to return these.' He produced her key ring from his pocket and held it out to her. 'I must have picked it up by mistake yesterday.'
'Oh, thank you. What a relief! I hadn't dared confess I'd lost them.'
'Your husband is such a monster?' He sounded amused, but his eyes were serious.
'No—no, on the contrary,' Philippa said hastily. There was a pause.
Then, 'You are early today,' he remarked. 'I was lucky to catch you.'
'Not really.' Philippa sighed. 'I have to wait in future to be driven home.'
'Well, that is the sensible course.'
'Yes, but it isn't what I wanted.'
He looked at his watch. 'You have time, perhaps, for another coffee?'
Philippa hesitated. The sensible course in this instance would be to decline gracefully, and she knew it.
'You're going to refuse, aren't you?' Fabrice de Thiery said ruefully. 'Well, I don't blame you. Your husband is a formidable man, after all. He would not wish you to make a friend of someone of such little importance as myself.'
Philippa stared at him. 'Is that what you really think?'
'But of course.' He looked slightly embarrassed. 'After I left you, I made some enquiries. If it had not been for the keys, I don't think I would have dared approach you again.'
Philippa lifted her chin. 'Monsieur de Thiery, I would be delighted to have coffee with you.'
She learned a considerable amount about him in the half-hour that followed. She discovered that his parents lived in Rouen, where his father had a printing business, and that he was an only child. Fabrice was
working in Paris, completing his training in accountancy with an international firm. In the winter he played rugby, and he enjoyed Japanese films. The information poured out of him.

It was very pleasant, Philippa realised, to sit in the sunlight with someone who so obviously found her attractive. And if a warning voice in her mind murmured that this was a situation fraught with potential pitfalls, she chose to ignore it. And if Alain disapproved of her new acquaintance, what did it matter? she asked herself defiantly. He was hardly in any position to criticise, after what she had seen on the terrace the night before. She was simply having an innocent cup of coffee at a pavement cafe, so what did he have to complain about? She wasn't embarking on a love affair.

All the same, the glow of admiration in Fabrice's eyes, the way he leaned towards her, and almost touched her hand, yet didn't quite—these things were balm to the inner wounds which Alain had inflicted. It humiliated her to remember how she'd clung to him—how she'd allowed him to kiss her—touch her. The way she'd almost forgotten that he was only playing some cynical game with her, amusing himself for a few hours, even though his heart, mind and body belonged to another woman.

She sighed inwardly when she thought of Marie-Laure. Yes, she was beautiful, with a body that would be any man's fantasy. But Philippa found herself wishing that she liked her more, or thought she was worthy of Alain's obsession with her. Was he so besotted that he couldn't see how spoiled and spiteful she was, or did he just not care?

'All of a sudden,' Fabrice said softly, 'I feel I am talking to myself.'

Philippa snapped out of her brief reverie with a start. 'I'm sorry—that was rude of me.' She drank the remainder of her coffee. 'I have a lot on my mind, you see.'

He nodded gravely. 'I do understand. I know more than you think, perhaps.'

She laughed, reaching for her bag. 'After two cups of coffee? I doubt it.'

'I know for example that you are not happy,' he said. 'That your husband lives a life totally his own.'

Philippa bit her lip. 'I'm not prepared to discuss my marriage with you, or anyone, monsieur.'

'Now I have made you angry!' He groaned. 'I apologise. It is not my place to judge.' He put out his hand and touched her fingers. 'Please say you forgive me and that one day soon you will drink coffee with me again?'

This, Philippa knew, was the moment to back away. To smile politely, and make some non-committal reply. She was married, and she shouldn't be making assignations with another man, however innocuous. And if I was really Alain's wife, she thought with a pang, I wouldn't even be contemplating such a thing. But as it is...

'What are you thinking? That it might make your husband angry to know that you sit in the sun and talk—and smile a little?'

'Why should he mind?' she said coolly. 'I live my own life too.'

'Then I may see you again? I have to ask, you understand, because I have nothing else belonging to you that I can use as an excuse.'

Philippa stared at him, her eyes widening. 'Do you mean you deliberately kept my keys?' she asked slowly. 'That was very wrong of you, monsieur.'

He nodded. His smile was rueful and appealing. 'Forgive me? I know it was wrong, but I could not bear just to see you walk out of my life. We will meet here tomorrow at the same time?'

'Perhaps,' she said. 'I don't know.'

His hand closed round hers. 'I shall wait until you come,' he said. 'A bientot, Philippa.'

'Au revoir, Fabrice.' Her smile was shy, uncertain, as she withdrew her hand.

He was nice, she told herself defensively, as she walked back towards Zak's studio where the car would be waiting. She liked him, and it would be pleasant to have a friend—someone to compensate for the loneliness of her life.

With her painting, and Fabrice for a friend, maybe her shame of a marriage wouldn't hurt quite so much any more. Perhaps she would even learn in time to tolerate Marie-Laure's presence in her life.

As she turned the corner, she wondered suddenly if Alain would be equally tolerant about Fabrice. He had no right to be otherwise, of course, considering his own conduct, but she knew he would be perfectly capable of operating a double standard.

But I'm not contemplating an affair, Philippa told herself with decision. I don't want to be involved— not with Fabrice, or Alain either.

Her throat closed painfully at the thought, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

I don't want to be hurt again, she went on silently. Or to spend any more sleepless nights crying. No, I just want to sit in the sun, and talk—and smile a little.

Surely there's no harm in that, is there? Suddenly, in her mind, she saw Alain's face etched in lines of harshness, his green eyes glittering with anger as they'd been the previous evening. And she shivered, remembering the ruthlessness of his response when she had provoked him before, on their wedding night.

No matter how innocent her intentions, she thought, as she crossed the street to the car, she would have to be very careful. Alain de Courcy was not a man to cross.

CHAPTER SEVEN

'I can't,' Philippa said. 'It's impossible, and you know it.'

Fabrice took her hand and held it firmly. 'But why not? It is a concert, nothing more. The music of Ravel and Debussy, whom you have told me you enjoy. Why should you not be my guest?'

Philippa sighed. 'Fabrice,' she said gently, 'I've told you a dozen times already—I'm a married woman.'

'And will attending a concert break your marriage vows?' he asked tartly. 'Mon Dieu, Philippa, your husband has no such scruples, I assure you.'

Philippa stiffened defensively. 'I don't know what you mean.'

Fabrice shook his head. 'This crazy loyalty of yours,' he muttered. 'He does not deserve it, Philippa. You must know that. The man is notorious. His affaires are blatant. Why, even as we speak together...'

'You mustn't talk about Alain like that,' Philippa said forcibly, as pain lanced through her. 'If you persist—well, I shan't be able to meet you again.'

'Don't say that.' Fabrice's clasp on her hand tightened. 'These few snatched moments together have become my life. You cannot take them from me.'

'And you shouldn't say things like that either.' Philippa, her face warming, tugged her fingers free of his grasp. 'You promised to be my friend, Fabrice.'

'Then let me as a friend escort you to this concert,' he said promptly, forcing a reluctant laugh from her.

'Oh, you're incorrigible!'

She was beginning to find his increasing possessive-ness an embarrassment, yet, she had to admit, his company had been a lifeline to her also over the past weeks, in view of the continuing breach between Alain and herself.

She bit her lip. The lock she had demanded on her bedroom door had been fitted, but it had proved totally unnecessary. Since their quarrel, Alain had not been anywhere near her room on any pretext whatsoever.

In fact, he had been away from Paris a great deal, ostensibly on business, although there had been many times, lying awake, staring into the darkness, when she had wondered...

When he was at home, their only encounters seemed to be at the meal table, and the social events to which he still insisted she accompany him, and where he continued to play the part of the attentive, devoted husband.

Clearly, she thought wanly, you can fool some of the people most of the time. And her awkward reception of his attentions was, even more surprisingly, attributed to the natural shyness of a newly married girl, and smiled on approvingly.

At the apartment, Philippa felt increasingly that she was living on a knife-edge of tension. Alain's behaviour to her was always courteous, but totally aloof. Even when he stood next to her when they were out together, and, on rare occasions, touched her, she felt the complete impersonality of the contact, and it chilled her. However physically close they might appear to onlookers, she knew that in reality they were light years apart.

Which was why she had turned with a kind of relief to Fabrice, and the undemanding companionship that, at first, he had seemed to offer.

But of course, she supposed ruefully, she had been naive to think that state of affairs could continue indefinitely. Fabrice wasn't some kind of escort service but a young normal attractive man. And now their relationship seemed to be fast approaching a point of no return, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that.

The question she had to ask herself was—no matter what Alain's conduct might be, did she really and truly want to have an affair with Fabrice or anyone else?

And the instinctive answer which invariably presented itself was a resounding no.

So it simply wasn't fair to Fabrice to keep him hanging around hoping, when she knew perfectly well there was nothing to hope for. There was no future in their relationship, and without doubt she ought to tell him so, quite unequivocally.

But, although she knew it was selfish, she was reluctant to give Fabrice his marching orders. The fact was he at least represented a little human warmth and contact in the increasingly bleak desert of her life. Zak and Sylvie were wonderful, of course, but seeing them together, observing at first hand the close fabric of their marriage, and comparing it with the empty shell she herself inhabited, was becoming almost unbearable.

Her work, she knew, was becoming increasingly superficial and trivial. Zak was having to criticise her over purely fundamental things, and she could tell he was worried about her.

'You need to commit more of yourself, honey,' he told her over and over again. 'It would do you good

to get away on your own somewhere for a few weeks— a few months even—and paint yourself into exhaustion. Let whatever's going on in that mixed-up subconscious of yours take over. Find out what you're about.'

She'd smiled and said it sounded a wonderful idea but it was impossible now. Maybe some time in the future...

Her commitment, after all, she told herself, was to being Madame de Courcy, and not some voyage of self-discovery which might or might not be successful.

But one thing she knew about herself was that if she could roll back time, and find herself once more in the library at Lowden Square, she would run a million miles from Alain rather than submit herself to the pain of this pretence of a marriage.

BOOK: Desperate Measures

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