Desperate Measures

‘No.’ Philippa bent her head wretchedly. ‘She was quite right. Only—I just didn’t think it would—come to this.’ She glanced at him. ‘You—wouldn’t consider just—lending me the money.’

‘Only with a marriage certificate for security. I want to buy instant respectability from you, ma chérie. I spend a lot of my time in your country. I propose to tell my family and friends that we met on a previous visit, and I have been courting you ever since. We kept our marriage private because of your father’s ill health.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Voilà! All the rumours silenced at one blow.’

She sighed deeply. ‘It isn’t that simple. I can’t answer you now—tonight. You’ve got to let me have time to think—to decide …’

‘That is reasonable. I am staying at the Savoy Hotel. You may contact me there.’ He got to his feet, and she followed suit. ‘But don’t keep me waiting too long, mademoiselle. For both of us, time is of the essence.’ He paused. ‘Would it make any difference if I told you I possess one of your father’s pictures?’

‘Oh?’ Her lips parted in renewed astonishment. ‘Which one?’

‘The Bridge at Montascaux. It would be a pity to let such talent and vigour—waste away.’ He allowed his words to sink in for a few seconds, then smiled at her. ‘Now, may I drive you home?’

‘Oh, no, thank you.’ Philippa took an involuntary step backwards away from him. She felt as if she’d been inadvertently locked into a cage with a tiger, and lucky to escape with her life.

But if I marry him, she thought, panic closing her throat, there’ll be no escape. I shall have to live with him—share a roof. Eventually—a bed.

Her mind blanked off, refusing to accept such a possibility.

Yet there was the money for Gavin—available for her, as he’d promised. That was what she had to remember. She needed a miracle, and perhaps that was what she was being offered.

But it didn’t feel like any miracle. It felt like a two-edged sword—dangerous and unpredictable. I am no saint, he had said, and she could well believe it.

She realised he was watching her closely, the green eyes narrowed, and hurried into speech.

‘I’ll let you know tomorrow what I decide—I promise.’

‘Then I shall wait impatiently until then.’ He strolled across to her, and before she realised what he intended, lifted her hand briefly to his lips. The contact was fleeting, but she felt as if her flesh had been seared.

He looked down at her, smiling faintly into her eyes. He said softly, ‘I wish you a restful night, ma chère. And if you cannot sleep, think well.’

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN SHE AWOKE the following morning to pale sunlight filtering through the curtains, Philippa thought at first it had all been some wild, preposterous dream.

Things like that just didn’t happen, she told herself, huddling under the covers. Not in real life. A girl like herself, with no particular looks to recommend her, couldn’t possibly receive an offer of marriage from a French millionaire for any reason whatever, no matter how practical it had been made to sound. She tried to recall to mind exactly what he’d said, but her brain refused to co-operate, producing only a jumble of confused impressions.

It must have been a dream, she told herself foggily. My worries and the name of Monica’s dinner guest just got muddled in my subconscious, that’s all. There’s a logical explanation for everything.

She stretched her arms above her head, then brought them down slowly in front of her. She had small, workmanlike hands, which she was accustomed to seeing stained with paint. Latterly, though, she’d been using them mainly to help nurse Gavin, and they looked almost respectable for once.

Suddenly, as she looked at them, one of the images in her mind sharpened into a reality she couldn’t ignore. She sat bolt upright, stifling a startled yelp.

My God, she thought, he kissed my hand! She sat for a moment, staring at her fingers, as if she expected to see them marked with the brand of Cain—re-living with shock the swift brush of his mouth against her skin. Knowing helplessly there was no way in which she could have dreamed that particular sensation.

It happened, she thought. It all really happened. And, in that case, what the hell do I do now?

Well, first she could answer the phone, which rang at that moment as if obeying some cue.

‘Well?’ was Monica’s response to her guarded ‘Hello.’

Philippa swallowed. ‘Well what?’ she countered feebly.

Monica sighed irritably. ‘Please don’t behave as if you’re half-witted,’ she commanded crisply. ‘What have you decided? Are you going to accept Alain de Courcy’s offer?’

There were dust motes whirling in the broad beam of sunlight slanting between the thin curtains.

That’s what I feel like, Philippa thought, gripping the receiver as if it was her sole contact with reality. As if I’ve been caught up in something I don’t understand and can’t control, and now I’m helpless—going round and round forever.

‘Philippa?’ Monica’s impatient voice sounded in her ear. ‘Hello—are you still there? I asked what you were going to do.’

She said quietly, ‘I don’t think I really have a choice. I’m going to—to take his money.’

‘Not merely the money, my dear.’ Monica gave a short laugh. ‘You’ll also be getting an exquisite Paris apartment, a country house near Fountainebleau, and a villa in the hills above Nice, and that’s just to start with. And Alain is one of the most attractive and eligible bachelors in France. You’re doing extremely well for yourself.’

‘Am I?’ Philippa asked. Her heart felt like a stone.

‘You’d better be married from Lowden Square,’ Monica went on. ‘Will Gavin be well enough to attend the ceremony?’

Philippa sat up as if she’d been shot. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I’m afraid not. I hope by the time it takes place he’ll already be in America, starting his treatment.’

‘Well, just as you wish, of course. I’ll have a room prepared for you, and expect you some time later today. We’re going to have to do some serious shopping.’

‘Why?’

Monica’s sigh quivered with irritation. ‘My dear girl, although the ceremony will undoubtedly be very quiet, and extremely private, you still cannot be married in denim jeans. Lennox and I will supply your trousseau as our gift.’

‘It really isn’t necessary …’

‘Nonsense,’ Monica said crisply. ‘I’ll see you later.’ And rang off.

An hour later, Philippa found herself being shown into Alain de Courcy’s hotel suite. He was sitting at a table by the window, eating breakfast and reading a newspaper, as she entered, but he rose to his feet immediately, greeting her courteously.

‘I’m sorry,’ Philippa said when they were alone. ‘I should have telephoned first. I’m obviously too early …’

‘Pas du tout.’ He motioned her to the seat on the other side of the table. ‘Have you eaten?’

Philippa realised with embarrassment that the table was laid for two. ‘Oh—you’re expecting company as well.’

He smiled at her. He was casually dressed this morning, she noticed, in slim-fitting dark blue pants and a matching shirt, open at the neck to reveal the tanned column of his throat, and the first shadowing of hair on his chest.

He said, ‘I was expecting you, ma chère. Will you have some coffee?’ He lifted the pot and poured some into the other cup, then offered her cream and sugar which she refused.

Alain de Courcy took an apple from the bowl of fruit which had accompanied his breakfast and began to peel it.

‘You’ve had sufficient time to think?’

She nodded wordlessly.

‘So—what is your answer?’

She picked up the spoon and aimlessly stirred the dark aromatic brew in her cup, deliberately not looking at him.

‘I—will marry you, monsieur.’ She paused. ‘But there are conditions.’

‘I imagined there might be,’ he said with a certain irony. ‘Tell me about them.’

She said, ‘My father’s treatment is to start as soon as possible—and he’s to know nothing about our—arrangement.’

‘You are going to keep our marriage a secret from him? But why?’

‘Because he’d know why I was doing it, and he’d refuse to go to America—to let me sacrifice myself for him. I can’t risk that happening.’

‘I understand, but I am not sure you will be able to carry it through. There will come a time when he has to know.’

Philippa flushed dully. ‘You mean when—if I get pregnant? I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.’

‘I did not entirely mean that,’ Alain said slowly. ‘If the treatment is successful, he will wish to take up his former life again, and you were a close part of that. Don’t you think he might notice you had acquired a husband?’

She said quietly, ‘If the treatment works—when he’s fully recovered, I’ll tell him everything, because it will be too late then for him to object, and I hope he’ll understand why I had to do it.’ She paused, biting her lip. ‘If it doesn’t work, then it won’t matter anyway.’

She hesitated again. ‘Also, I was wondering whether you wanted me to have a medical examination.’

He put down the quarter of apple he was eating and stared at her. ‘Why should I wish such a thing? Are you feeling unwell? Do you believe your father’s illness is hereditary in some way?’

‘Oh, no.’ Philippa’s face was like a peony. ‘I was thinking over what you said about wanting a—a child—an heir. I thought maybe you’d want to check that I was capable …’

Alain lifted a hand and stemmed the halting words. ‘You are not some brood animal that I am purchasing,’ he said bitingly. ‘I think, when the time comes, that nature should be allowed to take its course, don’t you?’

She mumbled something in acute embarrassment.

‘I can’t hear you,’ he said with faint impatience. ‘And why don’t you look at me when you speak?’

She gave him a despairing glance. ‘I said—this is never going to work. I mean, no one in their right mind is ever—ever going to believe in this marriage.’

‘Pourquoi pas?’

‘Well, just look at me!’

‘I am looking,’ he said. ‘You are a little underweight, and your hair needs cutting. What else is there to say?’

Philippa’s hands clasped together tensely in her lap. ‘I don’t feel like anyone’s wife—especially someone who’s a millionaire and has got houses dotted all over France. I don’t know what you expect …’

‘Believe me, I expect very little. At the beginning it will be enough that you exist—that you appear in public at my side.’ He shrugged. ‘As for my homes—I employ efficient staff.’ He gave her an ironic glance. ‘You will not have to keep the rooms clean or cook for me.’

‘But you’ll want me to act as hostess when you entertain—and I’ve never done anything like that before.’ Her voice broke a little as she remembered the endless sundrenched days with Gavin in the southwest of France, the casual camaraderie, the street markets and the tiny bistros.

‘You can speak,’ he said. ‘You can express yourself articulately. But I would be at your side—and I would naturally warn you if there were any topics of conversation best avoided with particular people.’

‘And I’d have to wear—different clothes.’

His mouth twisted in faint amusement. ‘Did you plan to spend the rest of your life in those deplorable jeans, ma petite?’

‘Of course not.’ Philippa was silent for a moment, then said jerkily, ‘I don’t think you realise just how fundamentally my whole life is going to change.’

‘Mine also. Marriage as a concept has no more appeal for me than for you, ma chère.’

‘Well, I still think it would make more sense if you married your cousin Sidonie,’ she said stubbornly, drinking the last of her coffee. ‘She must know you don’t care for her, and if she’s prepared to pretend …’

‘But she is not,’ Alain said coldly. ‘She would wish me to do so, however. She would expect me to act as if I was madly in love with her—to explain every absence from her side each minute of the day and night in order to spare myself tears, temper and jealous scenes. I would find that wearing in the extreme.’

‘I can imagine,’ Philippa said sarcastically. ‘I gather I’m not supposed to ask questions?’

‘Ask whatever you want, ma chère.’ He gave her an enigmatic look. ‘But don’t blame me if you do not like the answers.’

He pushed back his chair and rose. ‘And now we have a busy day ahead of us. I will contact my lawyers, and the London branch of my bank, and arrange to have a preliminary payment made to you for your father’s expenses.’ He walked round the table and stood looking at her with a slight smile. ‘You will not, I hope, take the money and run, chérie. Because that would not amuse me at all.’

‘I’ll keep my word.’ Philippa lifted her chin. ‘We shall just have to—trust each other, monsieur.’

‘So it seems.’ He held out his hand. ‘Shall we seal our bargain in the usual way?’

Reluctantly, she allowed his fingers to encompass hers, and, shocked, found herself drawn forward before she could resist. Alain’s arm went round her, anchoring her against him, and she felt the firm, cool pressure of his mouth on hers.

She tried desperately to pull away, but he would not allow it. If she’d been tempted to think of him as an effete businessman, she now realised her mistake. His muscles were like iron.

Yet his lips were silk, she realised with a kind of wonder, moving gently and persuasively on hers. Coaxing her. Tempting her …

The kiss could only have lasted a few seconds, but it seemed an eternity before he raised his head.

When she could speak, she said thickly, ‘You—shouldn’t have done that.’

‘No, I shouldn’t,’ he agreed, running a rueful hand round his chin. ‘I have not shaved yet today, and I have marked you a little. You have delicate skin, ma belle. I shall have to remember that.’

‘All you need to remember,’ Philippa said hotly, ‘is that you promised you wouldn’t—molest me. That you’d give me time.’

Alain’s brows lifted. ‘What a fuss about such a chaste salute! Now if I had really kissed you …’ He slanted a smile at her. ‘Come and talk to me while I shave,’ he invited softly. ‘And then let us see, hein?’

‘No.’ She took a step backwards, aware that her breathing was flurried, and that he knew it too. ‘I—I have to go. I’ve got to talk to my father—to his specialist—tell them the good news—make arrangements.’

To her relief, he made no attempt to detain her. ‘So how do I maintain contact with you?’

‘I’ll be at Lowden Square. Monica has invited me to stay with her—until the wedding.’

He nodded. ‘Then I will see you there. Au revoir.’

Until we meet again, Philippa thought wretchedly when she was safely outside in the corridor with the door closed between them. She stood for a moment, allowing her hammering heartbeat to abate slightly. But she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to meet someone as disturbing as Alain de Courcy again especially under the circumstances to which she was now committed.

I wish, she thought, that we had just said—goodbye.

A week later, she saw her father leave for America in the care of a private nurse. She’d invented a story that some money had been left inadvertently in a company pension plan. She wasn’t sure he believed her, and if he had been well he would probably have asked some searching questions. As it was, he was having one of his bad spells, and he was clearly too relieved at the prospect of some treatment to interrogate her too minutely, and she was thankful for that. Three days after his departure, she became the wife of Alain de Courcy.

The days in between had passed in a kind of blur. Philippa retired somewhere inside herself, and allowed events to take charge with a kind of passivity totally foreign to her nature.

But then nothing that was happening seemed to bear any resemblance to real life. She tried on clothes with total detachment, sat in the hairdresser’s while her long hair was cut in a sleek and manageable bob, and subtly highlighted, and listened to Monica’s impatient chivvying without actually hearing a word she said.

Reality finally impinged when she found herself on a private jet flight to Paris in the chic amber wool going-away dress which Monica had chosen for her. She stared down at the broad gold band on her wedding finger, and tried to remember without success how she’d felt when Alain had placed it there a few hours before.

Numb, she thought. And that was how she still felt.

But at least she did not have a honeymoon to endure. They would have to dispense with that convention for the time being, Alain had told her, because he had already taken more time off to stay in London than he could spare. So they were going straight to his Paris apartment.

‘I hope it won’t be too dull for you,’ he said.

‘Oh, no,’ Philippa had stammered, hardly able to conceal her relief. Simply sharing a roof with him would be ordeal enough, she thought. The prospect of being alone with him in the bridal suite of some exotic location with all that implied had been more than she could bear. And judging by the sardonic slant of his mouth he’d known exactly what she was thinking.

She put a hand to her throat and touched the string of matched pearls which had been his wedding gift to her.

‘Exquisite!’ Monica had exclaimed as she helped Philippa to change.

‘Yes—but don’t they mean tears?’ Philippa had felt faintly troubled as she fastened the clasp.

‘Not, my dear, if you have any sense.’ Monica’s smile held a touch of envy not unmixed with malice. ‘Enjoy the loot, Madame de Courcy. Because you may find that’s all there is,’ she added cynically, then glanced at her watch. ‘Now do make haste. Your husband’s waiting.’

Your husband. Philippa stole a covert look at this unexpected and alarming phenomenon who sat beside her, apparently engrossed in a sheaf of papers from his briefcase.

She didn’t know whether to feel glad or aggrieved at his absorption, and decided on balance that even if it wasn’t exactly flattering, it was a relief. At least she didn’t have to try to make conversation.

During the past ten days she had seen Alain almost daily, but she knew him no better than she’d done that first evening when she’d walked into the library at Lowden Square, she acknowledged ruefully.

To her relief, he had made no further attempt to kiss her, or move their relationship on to a more intimate level than the friendship he’d promised, although they were still really no more than acquaintances, she admitted to herself.

He had been invariably charming to her, however, setting himself, she realised, to draw her out, discovering her tastes in literature and music as well as art, whether she preferred ballet to opera, if she enjoyed tennis or squash, her preferences in food and wine.

It was as if he was compiling a dossier on her. And perhaps he was—a series of facts to be fed into a computer somewhere at De Courcy International and resurrected at birthday or anniversary times.

And she was only just beginning to realise how very little he had vouchsafed in return, this stranger who was now married to her for better or worse.

For better or worse. Philippa repeated the words in her head, and shivered suddenly.

In no time at all, it seemed, they were landing. The formalities at the airport were mercifully brief, then Philippa found herself being whisked away in a chauffeur-driven limousine. She supposed this was the kind of treatment she would have to get accustomed to.

Almost before she was ready, she found herself walking into an imposing building in one of the city’s most fashionable areas, and travelling up in the lift to the penthouse.

The apartment, Alain had told her, was not part of the family estate which he had inherited, but had been acquired by himself a few years previously as a pied-à-terre near his business headquarters. He was looked after by a married couple, a Madame Henriette Giscard, and her husband Albert, and they were waiting to welcome their master and his new bride, their faces well-trained masks.

When the introductions were completed, Alain took her to one side. ‘Will you be all right if I leave you here?’ he asked in a low tone. ‘I need to go to the office, and I cannot say when it will be possible to return.’

‘Oh, that’s all right—that’s fine,’ Philippa stammered, feeling the colour rise in her face under his quizzical look.

‘I don’t doubt it.’ Mouth twisting, Alain ran his forefinger down the curve of her hot cheek. He turned back to Madame Giscard, waiting at a discreet distance. ‘I shall not be here for dinner, Henriette. Make sure Madame has everything she requires.’ He lifted Philippa’s nerveless hand and pressed a swift kiss into its palm. ‘Au revoir, mignonne.’

If the Giscards considered his departure eccentric behaviour for a new bridegroom, they kept their opinions well hidden. Philippa found herself being conducted over the apartment with a certain amount of ceremony. It seemed evident from the covert glances she’d seen them exchanging that not only was the marriage itself a shock to them, but that the Giscards considered her the last kind of wife they would have expected Alain de Courcy to choose. Her lack of sophistication and experience must be woefully apparent, she thought bitterly, and if she couldn’t fool the servants, how could she hope to deceive his family and friends?

She managed to contain her sigh of relief when Madame Giscard expressionlessly showed her to her bedroom, a pretty Empire-style room immediately adjoining the one used by Alain himself. In spite of the neutral attitude he had adopted towards her up to now, she had still secretly feared some confrontation over the sleeping arrangements once they were actually married. It was good to know he could be trusted after all.

She requested a light dinner, and was served promptly and without fuss with a cup of bouillon, and a perfectly grilled sole with fresh fruit to follow. Afterwards she telephoned the New York clinic, as she always did, to ask after Gavin. She received the usual response—that it was still too early for any definite prognosis—and after that she was left pretty much to her own devices.

She decided to conduct her own, more leisurely exploration of the apartment without Madame Giscard’s chilly presence at her side. She found the place slightly austere and unwelcoming, with its large, high-ceilinged rooms, and vaguely reminiscent of Lowden Square in its elegant formality. There was nothing in the least homelike about it, Philippa decided, hearing the clatter of her heels on the polished floor. The furniture and curtains seemed to warn, ‘Look, but don’t touch.’ She found herself wondering how much time Alain actually spent there.

But there was one blessedly familiar touch—Gavin’s painting of the bridge at Montascaux which hung over the elegant marble fireplace in the salon. She stood, her hands behind her back, staring up at it. She had loved their time at Montascaux. She sighed soundlessly as she remembered the jumble of roofs on the steep hillside sweeping down to the river, with the ruined château towering above the gorge. They’d rented a house high above the village, with a wood behind it. The house in the clouds, she thought nostalgically. While Gavin painted, Philippa had done her own sketching, then shopped at the small but cheerful market, concocting what she now recognised must have been some weird and wonderful meals for them both. But her father had never complained, she thought, a smile trembling on her lips.

As she turned away, uttering a wordless prayer for her father’s safety and restoration to health, she noticed the exquisite clock which occupied pride of place on the mantelpiece.

Certainly Alain seemed in no hurry to return, she thought. Not that she wanted him to, of course, she hastily reminded herself, but, on the other hand, he could have made slightly more effort to ease her into her new environment. Didn’t he realise how totally strange and isolated she must be feeling? she asked herself with faint resentment.