His Mistress Proposal?: Public Scandal, Private Mistress / His Mistress, His Terms / The Secret Mistress Arrangement

‘Is that why you’ve come here? You’re a painter?’ she said. A volatile artistic temperament might go a long way to explaining, if not excusing, his behaviour. Maybe that tabloid he had been so furious about had given a rotten review of his work.

He stood up. ‘Nice try, Veronica,’ he said cynically. ‘Those big, bemused eyes are a convincing touch, but it’s a little late to feign innocence.’

He bent, angling his torso across the narrow table and bracing his hands flat on the crumb-strewn cloth on either side of her unconsciously bunched fists, and thrusting his face close enough for her to feel the heat of his menacing purr.

‘This is your first and last warning, Veronica—stay well away from me and everything that’s mine or I’ll make you rue the day you ever came to France.’ He jerked slightly, as if to leave, but then settled back, one hand moving up to cup her jaw, firmly tilting her pale, freckled face to his. ‘And by the way, just off the record, between the two of us—’ he rocked forward on his toes and kissed her square on her stunned mouth, taking his own, sweet time over it before he pulled back to conclude ‘—thanks for the memories. You were great last night, a real handful in more ways than one—the best lay I’ve had in a long, long time …’

And he walked down to the kerb, jumped into his car and was gone in a rumbling roar of exhaust fumes before she could recover sufficiently to throw her empty coffee-cup at his arrogant head. Her hand went to her bare throat and she realised that in the turmoil of their exchange she had never thought to ask about her pendant. Perhaps she should have accused him of being the thief!

Hours later as Veronica did another careful circuit of the narrow roads on the outskirts of St Romain-de-Vaucluse she was still festering over his insolence and inventing the clever comebacks that had escaped her at the time.

Thanks for the memories? The best lay. They ranked alongside the ‘plush bottom’ remark for sheer, face-slapping gall.

If she ever saw him again, she decided, she would slap his face.

She lifted her foot off the accelerator, slowing down as she approached the intersection of two roads leading out of the village in different directions where, according to Karen’s roughly sketched map, Mas de Bonnard was supposedly located.

She recognised the main route by which she had first entered the village and, not wanting to go further out in the wrong direction, she did a U-turn, and came back to park on a rough grass verge beside a large, open acreage of vines stretching away in parallel rows from the roadside with nary a sign of a fence or hedge marking out the edges of the property, very unlike the farms and vineyards of home. She sighed and rested her elbow on the open driver’s window while she sipped at her lukewarm bottle of water, looking towards the church steeple and clock-tower she could see rising above the tops of the venerable plane trees that lined the narrow main street, and had made it such a challenge for her to negotiate. It seemed to still be siesta-time, for there were few people moving about. Heat lay like a blanket over the countryside, the cream and brown houses of plaster and stone in the historic village looking as if they had grown up out of the rocky land itself. It was an idyllic scene, incredibly peaceful—if you discounted the ceaseless chorus of the cicadas, loudly quacking away in the trees like a flock of miniature ducks.

As if to contradict her, the bell-tower chimed the half-hour and two teenagers on motor scooters buzzed past the corner shouting catcalls to each other.

Maybe if she made the five-minute drive around the village one more time she might be able to better orientate herself to the wiggly lines on the map. Or she could buy herself something at one of the little shops or cafés in the main street and lower herself to actually ask for directions. She wasn’t really in any hurry, so it didn’t matter if she took all afternoon to trace her hosts.

She heard a metal creak and turned to see a man coming out of a large, barred double-gate in the high stone wall on the other side of the tar-sealed road.

‘Are you just browsing around the area, or looking to buy that particular vineyard?’ he inquired with a smile as he sauntered up to her open window.

Veronica smiled back. ‘I wish! Just browsing, thanks, Miles—and sitting here trying to make head or tail of this map of Karen’s! I didn’t realise I was right on top of you.’

Miles Reed’s weathered face creased in a chuckle. ‘Hello, Veronica. We weren’t sure it was you at first. We watched you whiz past a few times before Melanie thought she recognised that reddish hair—’

He didn’t notice her flinch as he continued, ‘Don’t blame your sister—everyone gets confused. The roads are very wiggly-waggly around here. If you turn around, I’ll open up the gates for you. Bear left when you come in and you’ll see the parking bay where you can leave your car.’

The paved driveway sloped gently down and curved around a profusion of tall, flowering shrubs and clusters of cherry, apricot and almond trees before splitting into two—one broad section turning right towards the large, two-storeyed stone house overlooking a cobbled courtyard and the other, narrower drive terminating in a vine-covered pergola next to the windowless back wall of a small, rectangular cottage with rough-plastered walls painted the colour of clotted cream and deep-set windows covered by blue shutters.

Miles followed her down on foot and handed her two keys on a small ring. ‘One for the gate, one for the cottage,’ he told her as she opened the boot of her car. ‘Let me help you take these bags around—Melanie should be along in a minute to show you all you need to know about the cottage. She was just trying to drag Sophie out of the pool.

‘I hope you had a good trip from Paris,’ he said, swinging out her larger case as if it weighed no more than a feather and reaching in for the soft roll-bag. For a man in his early sixties he had the vigour and energy of a much younger man, perhaps because of his very physical lifestyle, being very much of a hands-on builder, according to Karen. ‘And you found your way to St Romain with no nasty little surprises on the road from Avignon.’

Just one big one! Veronica bent over to refasten the buckle on the side of her case and when she straightened her face was excusably pink.

‘It was a very interesting drive,’ she admitted with perfect truth.

She followed Miles down the steps and around onto a sunny, paved patio edged with flowering plants at the front of the cottage, where he put down her bags beside a wrought-iron table and chairs.

‘I’m very grateful to you both for allowing me to stay,’ she added shyly, looking around the walled garden with its wonderful profusion of plants and trees, a white, crushed-stone pathway leading off between two stone pillars to join the sweeping curve of the main driveway. Only just, through the tracery of leaves and branches, could she make out an occasional glimpse of the clay-tiled roof of the main house.

Miles ran his stubby, carpenter’s fingers through his healthy thatch of iron-grey hair. ‘We’re the ones who’re grateful, Veronica. After all, your holiday is just as important as ours.’

‘Uh, yes, well … thank you,’ murmured Veronica, not quite sure what he meant. ‘I was sorry to hear about Melanie’s accident …’

‘Aren’t we all!’ he said, pulling a face. ‘It threw a real spanner in the works. She’s been planning this big get-together for so long she was furious at being told she’d have to curtail her activities and wear a sling—particularly the bit about not being able to drive!’

Big get-together? Veronica felt a ripple of dismay. ‘How many are coming? I was sure that Karen said it was only going to be your family …’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean big in terms of numbers, there’s only seven of us,’ he explained, to her relief, ‘but the kids are so rarely all in the same place at the same time any more, that it’s a Very Big Deal for Melanie, especially since it was planned around her mother’s seventy-fifth birthday …’ He gave her a long-suffering roll of his hazel eyes. ‘No family holiday is complete without the old ma-in-law tagging along, right?’

Veronica laughed, because she had seen them together, and knew that he and Zoe Main got on extremely well. She also knew that two of their three offspring were no longer ‘kids’ in the strict sense of the word. The twenty-one-year-old twins might object to being put in the same grade as their much younger sister.

‘And, of course, Melanie’s stepson from her first marriage has agreed to come too, so that makes it even more of a VBD as far as she’s concerned,’ Miles said.

‘Oh, I didn’t even know she’d been married before,’ she murmured in surprise.

‘Long ago and very briefly,’ said Miles, with a brevity of his own that spoke volumes. ‘But it’s good for Melanie that he still considers himself part of the family—’

He broke off as his wife came down the crushed-stone pathway, accompanied by a plump little girl in a blue swimsuit with a thin towel wrapped around her waist, her wet plait dripping down over her shoulder, her round spectacles glinting in the sun.

‘Veronica—how wonderful to see you!’ Melanie’s clear voice rang out across the garden as she approached in a characteristic rush of enthusiasm, her cool, floral dress fashionably smart on a matronly figure that attested to her love of good food. She ruefully flapped her right arm helplessly in its blue sling and threw her left arm wide, going on tiptoes to offer a welcoming half-hug, laughing at the great disparity in their statures that forced Veronica to bend her knees.

‘Oh, but we must do this the French way,’ she said, and gave Veronica a brief kiss on both cheeks, and then another peck on the left. ‘The third one demonstrates that you’re an extra good friend—’ her blue eyes twinkled as she backed off, her ash-blonde hair framing a face whose rounded contours were cheerfully unadorned, and remarkably girlish for a woman of nearly fifty ‘—which you most definitely are, Veronica, to step into the breach like this … poor Karen was terrified I was going to ask her for the ultimate sacrifice! Can you believe my horrendously rotten timing? I tripped over a silly kerb, of all things, when I was running after something I’d left in the bally car, and hit my elbow on a bollard. I’d just met Miles and Mum and Sophie at the airport. Poor Sophie saw me go shooting past her like a speeding bullet, didn’t you, Soph?’

‘A speeding bullet smacking into a wall,’ the girl said with ghoulish accuracy as her mother paused for a breath. ‘Hi, Veronica.’ She held out a slightly damp hand, and Veronica politely shook it, hiding her smile as she looked down into the solemn little face.

‘Hello, Sophie. It’s been ages, hasn’t it? I don’t think I’ve seen you more than once or twice since you went off to boarding school and that was—what—nearly two years ago? I hear you got an extension of your school holidays to come to France?’

‘Yes, but I still have to do the work, and have it marked when I get back. I don’t mind, really—I don’t want to fall behind the others.’

‘That’s not likely—Sophie’s way out on top of her class,’ said Melanie smugly. ‘My late baby is a very early bloomer!’

‘Congratulations,’ Veronica said to Sophie, who didn’t look the least bit smug, just ever so slightly anxious at her mother’s boasting. ‘One of the burdens of brightness, huh, having to constantly beat off all that praise?’

Sophie’s air of gravity lifted at the dry comment, dimples forming in her plump cheeks as she grinned at Veronica with approval, her eyes bright behind their glass shields.

‘Obviously the school has worked out well, then,’ Veronica commented to Melanie, recalling the anguished soul-searching that Karen had reported going on in the Reed household when the idea was first mooted.

‘Yes, but it was Sophie who was determined to go,’ said Miles, giving her soggy braid a squeeze. ‘I don’t think our feeble brains were providing her enough of an intellectual challenge at home.’

‘Oh, Dad!’ the girl groaned at his teasing.

‘Come on, Shrimp, you can’t go dripping all over the cottage. Let Mum show Veronica around, and perhaps you can see her again later.’

‘Oh, yes—you will come over and have dinner with all of us tonight, won’t you, Veronica?’ said Melanie confidently.

‘Uh, ah, well …’ She immediately felt the awkwardness that she had feared would shadow her visit. Did Melanie think that she had to invite her over because she was by herself? ‘I really wasn’t planning on much dinner. I had rather a big lunch …’

‘Oh, but—’

‘Melanie,’ her husband cut her off with laughing affection, ‘give the girl some breathing room. Veronica would probably appreciate a little time to settle in, and maybe relax and do her own thing on her first night …’

‘Oh, of course, how thoughtless of me—we’re going to be pestering enough of you as it is.’ Melanie was instantly apologetic as her husband and daughter retreated along the path.

‘But you must at least drop over for a pre-dinner drink and a few nibbles, so I can give you all the gen about the area and the village opening hours and best places to eat—say, about six?’ she suggested, opening the glass door to the cottage. ‘It’s a tradition at the Mas when anyone rents the cottage, so Miles can’t claim I’m putting undue pressure on you, and it’ll give you a chance to say a casual hello to whoever’s around.’

Although there was no air-conditioning, it was cooler inside the cottage than out, which Melanie attributed to the traditional, thick-walled construction of the cottage, although it was of relatively modern vintage. To keep the temperature more or less constant she advised Veronica to leave the windows open with the shutters loosely folded across them to provide maximum ventilation and protection from the sun’s penetrating heat. ‘They’ve all got insect screens on them, so you can leave the windows open all night, too,’ she added.

The well-equipped kitchen and the rustically furnished living area were part of the same large square room, the pale walls and sloping, beamed ceiling high overhead adding to the illusion of space, even though the area was quite compact. Large, dark orange terracotta tiles were cool underfoot and led through to the large bedroom with its matching twin beds and adjoining bathroom, which also housed a washing machine.

‘I’ve left you some milk in the fridge, and there’s tea and coffee sachets in the basket on the bench,’ Melanie said as she headed back out the door a few minutes later. ‘If you do want to go up to the village, it’s only a two-minute walk turning right at the end of the vineyard and you’ve got a butcher, two groceries and three bread shops, so plenty of choice.’ She suddenly halted. ‘Oh, I just remembered the pool—feel free to use it whenever you like … follow the driveway down to the house and then turn left through the stone archway.’ She beamed at Veronica. ‘Just wander up around six and you’ll find us sitting out in the kitchen courtyard, under the vines. Or shall I send Sophie?’

‘To winkle me out?’ Veronica raised her eyebrows and Melanie laughed.

‘You needn’t feel shy,’ she said. ‘You know most of us already, although not everyone’s turned up yet. Ashley’s here, of course … she arrived a few days ago with her fiancé—she’s been working at a gallery in Melbourne while she continues her art studies. I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you again—and to have another young woman around.’

Veronica smiled noncommittally. She had never particularly warmed to the younger girl on the few occasions they had met, but perhaps she had outgrown her snootiness.

‘And Justin?’ she asked of Ashley’s twin, who had always been the opposite—very amiable and easy to like.

‘He’s getting the train up from Rome in a few days—he’s been working as a chef in a restaurant there. Oops—listen how time flies,’ she said as the village bells performed their full carillon followed by the striking of the hour. ‘Must go back and see how Mum’s getting on with the apple tarts.’ Her ‘see you later’ and ‘don’t bother to dress up’ wafted behind her on the sun-soaked air.

After she had unpacked, Veronica made herself a cup of tea and sprawled on the sunlounger under a leafy tree in the walled garden, leafing through the stack of tourist brochures that had been left in the cottage. She had been intending to cool off with a swim but she fell into a doze and when she woke up it was nearly five o’clock so she decided to walk into the village and stock up on something for breakfast next morning as well as for dinner … not that she was particularly hungry after the trout with almonds she had eaten for lunch at a shady, riverside restaurant beside a giant waterwheel.

The little grocery in the main street had everything that she needed, so she bought sun-ripened melon, warm fuzzy apricots and tiny raspberries to go with her yoghurt in the morning, and a sampling of local fresh cheeses for her dinner along with a bottle of wine, stopping last at the boulangerie nearest the cottage to buy a small loaf of crusty bread.

When it was approaching six she had a silky-cool shower and washed her hair, confident it would dry within minutes in the heat, and, hoping that she could take Melanie at her word, slipped into a sleeveless green top and loose white muslin pants and thrust her feet into a pair of good old Kiwi Jandals.

When the clock-tower began to ring she was just stepping onto the driveway and Sophie trotted into view from the direction of the big house, wearing a tee shirt and baggy shorts. ‘Mum said I had to wait for the bells to start before I came,’ she said, pink-faced from her jog. ‘Wait ‘til you see what Gran brought back from her friend’s place for you.’

‘I don’t think I can wait,’ said Veronica with a smile, seeing she was practically bursting from the effort of withholding the news.

‘Her friend has a snail farm,’ Sophie said in tones of awe. ‘There are thousands of them from babies to big ones. You can go there and watch them feeding, just like in a zoo.’

‘Really?’ Veronica’s stomach gave a little lurch.

Her face must have given her away because Sophie said kindly: ‘They don’t really have much taste, you know, but they’re a bit chewy. If you pick a little one you can swallow it down real quick.’

‘Thanks for the tip, kid.’ She grinned as they walked past the stone pavilion that served as a garage and around by the row of young olive trees at the side of the house.

It wasn’t until they had stepped into sight of the group of people sitting in various casual attitudes around a large table on a sun-dappled terrace that Veronica suddenly registered what it was that she had seen out of the corner of her eye, parked in between two family saloons.

A streamlined silver convertible with red upholstery!

CHAPTER FOUR

‘ROSS and Ashley got engaged four months ago,’ Melanie was saying as she set out a dish of black and green olives, amongst the tomatoes, roasted peppers and cluster of wineglasses on the blue and yellow striped tablecloth. ‘Ross’s in the finance department of a big international bank. He’s expecting a posting to New York or London in the next few months, so we’ll probably be seeing even less of Ashley than we do now.’

‘Oh, really,’ murmured Veronica, struggling to maintain the minimum of polite interest when all her attention was focused elsewhere, on the tall, dark-haired man emerging from the dimness of the house, one arm slung around the thin, wiry figure of Zoe Main, the other loosely carrying an opened bottle of red wine.

She was hardly aware of Ross Bentley’s winning smile as he shook her hand, or the wheat-blond hair and golden eyes that added the gilt to his chunky good looks. Nor did she notice that the clasp of his hand lingered slightly too long as she failed to flatter him with her full attention, but his sharp-eyed fiancée did.

‘Veronica—perhaps it’s only an optical illusion, but you seem to have grown taller since we last saw each other,’ Ashley drawled from her comfortable seat at the far end of the table, the large diamond ring on her finger sparking in the sunlight as she deliberately moved her wineglass out of a patch of shade thrown by the vines twining the overhead lattice.

‘The taller the woman, the more there is to appreciate,’ Ross Bentley said in a suave murmur, which would have made Veronica cringe if she had actually been listening.

‘I understand that Melanie is insisting we observe local custom, so this is obligatory at the first meeting,’ he raised his voice to add with a smooth laugh, putting his hands on her upper arms and making a charming production of bussing her on both cheeks. Since he was several inches shorter than Veronica it made for a slightly awkward manoeuvre as she remained stiffly upright, staring past his head, only vaguely aware of the moist smear of his lips against her pale cheeks.

Visions of mortification danced in her head as she watched the pair moving away from the house. If only she could faint!

But she had a constitution that was as strong as her build, and although it felt as if much of the blood had drained out of her brain she could still pull together a few rational thoughts.

One being that if she toppled over now, she might well take the hovering golden boy down with her, which would give Ashley even more reason to pout.

She could pretend to feel faint, and blame it on the heat, but, knowing Melanie, she wouldn’t be able to simply totter her way back to the cottage, a handkerchief discreetly pressed to her face, but would be instantly sat down and very publicly fussed over.

Besides, it was too late to avoid the confrontation looming out of the old stone farmhouse, for Lucien was looking right at her—or, more precisely, looking at her and Ross Bentley, his eyes narrowing as they flicked back and forth, his features cast into a dangerously unreadable stillness.

‘Luc, I wondered where you’d got to … come over and meet Karen’s sister.’ Melanie removed the bottle of wine from his hand, giving it to Miles to pour while she one-handedly shepherded her mother and her companion over to where Veronica was standing, shoulders squared as if she were facing a firing squad.

She had a sinking feeling that she knew who he was, far too late for it to do her any good.

Veronica’s grey eyes latched onto Zoe’s bright, bird-like gaze and she concentrated hard on blocking out all knowledge of her impending humiliation.

‘H-hello, Zoe.’ She stumbled to get her clumsy tongue around the innocuous words, pushing them out in a rush. ‘Karen told me your birthday was coming up, but not that it was such a milestone one—’ Another black mark against her sister.

Zoe waved her words away with an acerbic laugh. ‘Oh, please, let’s forget about that until next week when I have to think about it!’

‘No one would believe it to look at you, anyway,’ managed Veronica, trying not to feel the searing heat of a concentrated brown stare lasering holes in her wafer-thin composure.

It was true. Melanie had said her mother was a lifelong golfer and gardener, and she looked the part—a spritely, nut-brown, vigorous woman who rarely permitted any concessions to her age. Even her short, no-nonsense white hair seemed to vibrate with energy.

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me I don’t look a day over seventy-four, which is what this silver-tongued rascal had the nerve to say!’ said Zoe, with a fond frown at the man at her side.

Now there was no more avoiding it. Slowly Veronica turned her unwilling gaze to meet that of her erstwhile lover. He was dressed all in white—crumpled pants and a carelessly buttoned short-sleeved shirt—but his aura was pulsing with ominous darkness.

Stay away from me and mine …

‘Veronica, this is my stepson, Lucien Ryder,’ Melanie was saying with an odd mixture of pride and diffidence. ‘Luc lived with us for a few years before Sophie was born—until he went to Oxford University on a scholarship when he was sixteen. He stayed on in Europe after he graduated, doing as brilliantly at business as he did at university—but for all that he still considers himself a Kiwi at heart!’