Young Giles Barcourt had thought so too, Anatole thought, with an atavistic male instinct. Was that why he’d felt the need to make a point of emphasising his family link with Christine? Staking his claim to her?
Re-staking it.
She is mine. She’s always been mine!
Certainty streamed through him. Possessiveness.
Remorse and regret.
Why did I let her go—why did I not rush to her and claim her from Vasilis before he married her? Instead I gave in to anger and to my determination not to be forced into marriage and fatherhood.
Well, he hadn’t been ready then—but he was ready now. More than ready. All he needed was to persuade Christine that he was right. And if words could not do so, then other means might.
He made some anodyne remark to her now—about the evening, about the pair of Gainsboroughs hanging in the dining room that Vasilis had itched to see cleaned—and said that he agreed with their hosts that perhaps they were best left covered in thick varnish. He had the gratification of hearing Christine chuckle, and then she asked if he’d spotted the very handsome Stubbs in pride of place over the fireplace.
‘Indeed,’ he replied. ‘Do you think Bramble is one of the descendants?’ It was a humorous remark, and intended to be so.
‘I hope not!’ Christine returned. ‘That Stubbs stallion looks very fearsome!’
‘Do you mind Nicky learning to ride?’ Anatole asked as he steered the car along the dark country lanes back to the house.
She shook her head. ‘I’m very grateful to Giles and Isabel,’ she acknowledged. ‘I want Nicky to grow up here, so riding will certainly make him feel at home. And he’s very attached to Giles—’
The moment she spoke, she wished she hadn’t. Even in the dim interior she could see Anatole’s face tighten. She recalled Mrs Barcourt’s words to her—not about her son, who was perfectly well understood between them, but about Anatole. Dear God, surely she and Anatole weren’t coming across as a couple, were they? Please, please not! The very last thing she could bear was any speculation in that direction.
It was bad enough coping with the pressure from Anatole, let alone any expectations from the Barcourts. Consternation filled her about how she was going to handle Anatole’s comings and goings—even if they were only to see Nicky. Talk would start—it was inevitable in a small neighbourhood. People would have them married off before she knew it.
Turmoil twisted in her, keeping her silent.
Anatole, too, was silent for the remainder of the short journey.
When they arrived back at her house she got out, preparing to bid him goodnight before he drove back to the White Hart. But instead he said, in a perfectly conversational voice, ‘I could do with a nightcap. As the designated driver I got very little of that excellent claret over dinner—and none at all of the port that Barcourt Senior tried to press on me! So I could still have one more.’ He glanced expectantly at Christine. ‘He mentioned that he gave Vasilis a bottle at Christmas...’
Reluctantly, she let Anatole follow her inside. The house was very quiet—the Hugheses were in their apartment in the converted stables, and Nanny Ruth was away for the weekend. In the drawing room she switched on the table lamps, giving the elegant room a soft warm glow, and extracted the requisite bottle and two port glasses from a lacquered cabinet, setting them down with a slight rattle on a low table by the silk-upholstered sofa.
Anatole strolled across and seated himself, but Christine chose the armchair opposite, spreading her velvet skirts carefully against the pale blue fabric. He poured her a generous measure, and himself as well, then raised his glass to her. His gaze was speaking.
‘To us, Christine—to what we can make together.’
His eyes held hers—dark, long-lashed, deep and expressive. She felt their power, their force. The long-ago memories they kindled within her. Emotion swirled, dark and turbid, troubling and disturbing.
It was as disturbing as feeling Anatole’s lambent gaze upon her, which did not relinquish her as he took a mouthful of the sweet, strong, rich ruby port. She took a mouthful herself, needing its strength to fortify her.
The bottle had not been opened before—Vasilis’s health had worsened steadily, remorselessly after Christmas, and he’d openly prepared her for the coming end. She felt her eyes blur with a mist of tears.
‘What is it?’ Anatole’s voice was quiet, but she could hear the concern in it. ‘You’re not worrying about Nicky, are you?’
She shook her head. ‘No—I’m used to leaving him for a night or two. He never fretted when I went to London with Vasilis.’
Her voice trembled over her late husband’s name. Anatole heard the emotion in it and it forced a recognition in him. One he had held back for many years.
‘You cared for him didn’t you? My uncle?’ he said.
His voice was low. Troubled. As if he were facing something he didn’t want to face. Something he’d held at bay for five long bitter, angry years.
‘Yes—for his kindness,’ she said feelingly. ‘And his wisdom. His devotion to Nicky—’
She broke off. Thoughts moved within Anatole’s mind—thoughts he did not want to think. His uncle—decades older than Tia and yet she’d had a child with him.
His mind blanked. It was impossible, just impossible, to envisage Nicky’s conception. It was wrong to think of Tia with anyone else in the whole world except himself. Not his uncle, not young Giles Barcourt—no one!
The same surge of possessiveness he’d felt in the car swept over him again as his eyes drank her in, sitting there so close to him, looking so beautiful it made his breath catch.
How did I last this long without her?
It seemed impossible that he had. Oh, he’d not been celibate, but there had been only fleeting liaisons, deliberately selected for their brevity and infrequency. He’d put that down to having had such a narrow escape with Tia, when she’d so nearly trapped him into marriage—into unwanted fatherhood—exacerbating his existing resistance to women continually seeking to marry him. And yet now that he did want to marry her—the same woman who’d once dreamt of that very thing—she was refusing him.
Her words to him echoed in his head, giving him a reason for her obduracy that he could not accept. Would not.
‘But that does not mean you cannot marry again!’ he said.
Her gaze shifted away. ‘Anatole—please. Please don’t.’
Her voice was a thread. It was clearly unbearable to her that he should say such a thing. But he could not stop.
‘Did he...care...for you?’
He did not like to think of it. It was...wrong. As wrong as Tia having feelings for a man who had probably been older than her own father, had he lived.
‘He was fond of me,’ she said. Her eyes went to him. ‘And he adored Nicky.’ She took a breath. ‘That was what I valued most—that I was able to give him Nicky. He would never otherwise have had a child had he not married me.’
There was defiance in her voice, and Anatole knew the reason for it. Felt the accusation. Knew he had to answer it. That it was time to face what he had said, what he had done.
He took a breath—a difficult one—and looked her in the face, his expression sombre. ‘I’m sorry, Christine. Sorry that when we were together I did not want a child. That I welcomed the fact you were not pregnant after all.’
He took a mouthful of port, felt it strong and fiery in his throat.
‘I was not ready to be a father.’