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CHAPTER THREE

A MAN likes to be seen with a woman who knows how to dress, Harvey used to say. That she cares enough about his opinion to want to make him proud when he takes her out in public, tells him he made the right choice in marrying her.

A belittling definition of a wife’s worth, Diana thought now, although she hadn’t said so at the time, and she was pretty sure Anton de Valois would see past such superficiality. Even so, she dressed with care, and from the way his glance swept over her in frank approval when she joined him again, knew she’d chosen well. Her sleeveless navy dress, deceptively simple but superbly cut, was enhanced only by a silver bracelet, lending just the right touch of low-key elegance for what, to all apparent intents and purposes, was supposed to be a low-key dinner.

“You took rather longer to return than you were supposed to, but it was well worth the wait,” he remarked, pulling out her chair. “You look quite lovely, Diana, and very much better than you did half an hour ago.”

“Thank you. I’m feeling better.” She took her seat, outwardly poised, but when his hand brushed against her bare skin, a shock of sensual heat flashed through her, and briefly—very briefly indeed!—she longed to lean into his touch and soak in his warmth.

This was a man put on earth to tempt a woman to stray from her intended course. He turned her thoughts to such nonsense as love at first sight, to happy-ever-after, when any person with a grain of sense knew there was no such thing. Yet for all that she tried to distance herself from him, his magnetism tugged at her, drawing her ever deeper into its aura.

Simply put, she found him both irresistible and intriguing. The cast of his mouth, the slow-burning fire in his eyes, spoke of a passion which, once aroused, be it from anger, pride or sexual desire, would not easily be quenched. The lean strength of his body betrayed a working familiarity with manual labor, yet cashmere, silk and fine leather were created with his particular brand of natural elegance in mind.

Why hadn’t she met him sooner, before she’d learned to be so wary, so disillusioned? she lamented. Before she’d married the wrong man and had all her womanly dreams turned to ashes?

Annoyed by her wandering thoughts, she stiffened her spine, both physically and mentally. She was here on a mission, and the handsome French Count resuming his seat across from her, merely the means to an end.

Blithely ignorant of her thoughts, the handsome French Count smiled winningly and said, “Enough to tolerate a glass of wine before we eat?”

“Perhaps not quite that much,” she said, deciding she needed to keep a clear head. So what if his voice was dark as midnight, his smile enough to melt the polar ice cap, and his face the envy of angels? She’d learned the hard way how easily sexual awareness could cloud other important issues between a man and a woman, and she wasn’t about to let it lead her astray again. “At least, not until I have some food in my stomach.”

He indicated a basket containing a sliced baguette, and a shallow dish of black olives mashed to a paste with roasted garlic. “Try some of this, then. Henri bakes his own bread, and the olives are home grown on de Valois soil.”

“Ah! So you own olive groves. I was wondering how Counts earn their keep these days.”

She spoke lightly, hoping he wouldn’t discern such a nakedly transparent attempt to discover more about him. But knowledge was power, and the more she learned about Anton de Valois, the better prepared she’d be to withstand his appeal and deal with whatever it was that really motivated his interest in her. Because all his smooth Continental charm notwithstanding, the alert calculation in his gaze whenever it settled on her, betrayed him. For some reason she couldn’t begin to fathom, he didn’t trust her. And that, she reminded herself sternly, was ample reason for her not to trust him.

“Olives keep me busy enough,” he replied, bathing her in a singularly breathtaking smile, “but they’re by no means my chief obsession.”

She spread a little of the paste on a piece of bread and sampled it. “They should be. This is outstanding.”

“Then I insist you try at least a mouthful of the wine. My vineyards produced the grapes which my vintner blended to create this very fine Château de Valois Rouge.”

“Thanks anyway, but I’ll take your word for it. As I mentioned not five minutes ago, I don’t care for any wine right now.”

She might as well have saved her breath. “Mon dieu, Diana, relax and live a little!” he scoffed, pouring a small amount into her glass. “A sip or two won’t send you to hell in a hand cart, but I promise you, it will enhance your meal. In this part of Provence, a well-chilled red wine is, to bouillabaisse, what American beer is to pretzels.”

It was a pretty wine, she had to give him that. It glowed in her glass with all the fire of a ruby. Still, if getting her drunk was his aim, he was in for a disappointment. She found him intoxicating enough, without falling victim to his vin rouge. She’d wet her lips with the stuff, and that was all.

“Very pleasant,” she said, allowing a mere trickle to roll down her throat, and changed the subject before he decided she hadn’t tasted enough to know if it was wine or water. “So what else keeps you busy, apart from overseeing your vineyards and olive groves?”

“Doing the same for my lavender farm and distillery. I’m a hands-on kind of man and, given a choice, I’d prefer to be more actively involved in the actual operation of all three enterprises, but the administrative end of things is so time consuming that I frequently put in ten-hour days without once setting foot outside my office.”

“My goodness, you really are a working model of a Count! What do you do for relaxation?”

She realized at once her mistake. Without missing a beat, he lowered his long lashes in seductive slow motion, a move that aroused a disturbing response in the pit of her stomach. “Coerce beautiful Americans into having dinner with me. Speaking of which, here comes our bouillabaisse. Prepare to be impressed.”

Oh, she was already impressed, pathetically so, but not by Henri’s culinary skills! Anton de Valois, however, was a different matter altogether. She should be ashamed for falling victim to the practiced moves of the French equivalent of Don Juan!

Henri arrived at their table, wheeling a cart holding a thick pottery tureen on a matching platter, as well as bowls, plates and cutlery. With great pomp and ceremony, he removed the tureen lid and wafted his hand over the escaping steam, sending a mouthwatering aroma of slow-simmered tomatoes, garlic, saffron and herbs drifting her way.

Chunks of red mullet, monkfish, John Dory and conger eel, as well as mussels and various other shellfish, floated in the rich broth. “Bon appetit, mes amis!” he pronounced with a smile, and left them to it.

Anton ladled a generous helping of the stew into a bowl and passed it to Diana. “Try this and tell me what you think,” he coaxed.

What she privately thought was that simply feasting her eyes on him and drinking in his charm was sustenance enough. But since that route surely led to nothing but trouble, she wrenched her runaway emotions under control, obediently took a spoonful of the fish stew, savored it slowly, then closed her eyes and sighed with genuine pleasure. “Pure heaven!” she sighed.

“That’s pretty much the reaction Henri Molyneux always gets when his bouillabaisse is on the menu.”

She couldn’t have asked for a better reminder of the real reason she was supposed to be sharing a meal with him. Swallowing her food along with the lie she was about to fabricate, she said, “I don’t think I’ve come across that name before.”

Another mistake she quickly came to regret! “A woman with your fluency in French has never heard the name Henri?” Anton inquired with blatant disbelief. “Come now, Diana! You surely don’t expect me to swallow that!”

“Oh, not his first name,” she amended hastily, a telltale blush warming her face. “I was referring to Molyneux. Is it…very unusual?”

“Not in these parts,” he said, continuing to eye her suspiciously. “There are Molyneux’s everywhere.”

Her pulse gave an erratic leap. Struggling to sound as if she was merely making trivial dinner conversation when, in reality, her entire world hung on his reply, she asked lightly, “Don’t tell me they’re all related.”

“Not necessarily all, but quite a few, certainly. So many families are linked, either directly, or through marriage. As I said, it’s a very common name. Henri, for instance, is the eldest of seven children, and has three of his own, as well as two grandchildren.”

“He doesn’t look old enough to be a grandfather.”

Anton rolled his rather magnificent eyes. “Tell him that, and he’ll be your slave for life! He turns sixty next month. I know, because a big birthday bash is in the works, to which everyone within a fifty-mile radius is invited.”

Filing away that gem of information, Diana continued her inquisition with a casual, “What about his siblings? Are they married, as well?”

“Yes, and all but one with children and grandchildren of their own. At last count, there were thirty-eight Molyneux’s in his branch of the family alone. Multiply that a few times, and you’ll understand why I say the name is as thick on the ground in these parts, as plane tree leaves in autumn.”

Little pieces of her personal jigsaw puzzle were beginning to fall into place almost too neatly. Trying hard to contain her growing excitement, Diana said, “And Henri’s six siblings, are they all brothers?”

“The youngest is a sister, and just as well, according to Henri’s father. Gérard always said that if the seventh baby had been another boy, he’d have been kicked out of the house and made to spend the rest of his days with the cows in the barn. Not that anyone believed the story. He and his wife were devoted to each other, and to their sons. But from what I understand, there’s no doubt that Jeanne was special. Their whole family adored her.”

“Does she have children, too?”

“No,” he said coolly. “Tell me, Diana, why are we talking about people who can’t possibly be of interest to you, when we could be spending the time getting to know one another better?”

Back off! the voice of caution advised. You’re betraying too much interest in the Molyneux family and arousing his suspicion! But increasingly convinced she was finally onto something, Diana ignored the warning and leaned forward urgently. “I don’t agree. Even the lives of strangers are interesting, so please go on.”

“Go on?” The chill in his voice was more pronounced than ever. “Go on with what, exactly?”

She needed to stop. To dismiss the subject with a laugh, and turn the conversation to something light and inconsequential. And she would have, if it hadn’t been that so much of what he told her fit the profile of her birth mother. Henri was almost sixty and the eldest of seven. He had only one sister, the baby of the family, and the woman Diana had traveled halfway around the world to find was forty-five. Mental arithmetic might never have been her strong point, but even she could do the math on this one.

“With what you were telling me about Henri’s family,” she said, hard-pressed not to reach across the table and literally shake the words out of him. “The whole idea of seven children in one family fascinates me.”

“Really,” he said, with marked skepticism.

“Yes, really!”

He regarded her steadfastly over the rim of his glass, and took a slow sip of his wine. “Then I’m sorry to disappoint you but there’s nothing else to tell. The Molyneux’s are good people, and that’s about it.”

He was wrong. One ambiguity remained, and terrified though she was of what she might learn if she questioned it, the prospect of remaining in ignorance terrified her even more. She’d lived with enough uncertainty to last her a lifetime. She wouldn’t allow it to derail her now. So, clearing her throat, she plunged ahead. “But I notice you speak of Henri’s sister in the past tense. Is that because she died?”

Oh, how horribly blunt the words sounded, and Anton must have thought so, too, because he almost choked on his bouillabaisse. “Mon dieu, non!” he exclaimed. “Why would you think such a thing?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, fumbling for a plausible reply. “It was just the way you spoke of her, that’s all. It made me feel…sad.”

“But why? You don’t even know these people. Why do you care about them?”

“I don’t,” she whispered, blinking furiously to stem the sudden rush of tears welling in her eyes.

But he was too observant to be so easily fooled. “That simply isn’t true. Clearly you care very much—indeed, far more than the occasion warrants. Did my speaking of the Molyneux’s somehow revive unhappy memories of your own family?”

The candle flame bloomed into a multihued disc, perforated at its rim with pinpricks of brilliance. She blinked to clear her vision and a tear rolled down her face. “In a way. Hearing you talk about families and marriage brought home to me that I don’t have either anymore.”

“Your parents—?”

“Died within six months of each other, two years ago.”

“And you were an only child?”

I don’t know for sure, she cried inwardly. That’s what I’m trying to find out. “Yes.”

“Then we have even more in common than I first supposed,” he said, with more kindness and compassion than Harvey had ever shown, “because I, too, was an only child. My parents died in a train derailment when I was seven, and I was left in the care of my two aunts who live with me still.”

“Oh, Anton!” she cried, mortified. “You must think I’m incredibly self-absorbed, to be wailing on about my own woes, when you had a much tougher time of it.”

“Not at all. My aunts are exceptional people and came as close as anyone could to taking the place of my mother and father. Of course, I grieved, but I never felt alone or abandoned, because those two women, who never married or bore children of their own, stepped into the role of parents as naturally and wholeheartedly as if they’d been preparing for it their entire lives. They loved me unconditionally, gave me the gift of laughter, instilled in me a respect for others, taught me the meaning of integrity and never once lied to me.”

He paused a moment, seeming lost in thought, then suddenly lifted his gaze and stared at Diana. The absolute candor in his eyes, the utter integrity shining through, struck her with such force that, with a sudden sense of shock, she found herself wishing he’d been the man she’d married.

Yes, he was a stranger, and yes, he made her uneasy with his probing gaze, but she knew instinctively that he’d never have cheated on her. Never have lied so cruelly.

“At the end of the day, they’re the qualities that define us as human beings. Without them, we’re not worth very much at all,” he finished soberly. “Don’t you agree?”

Shame flooded through her. How was she supposed to reply, knowing as she did that she was deliberately misleading him about herself and her reason for being there? Yet he was too astute not to notice if she tried to evade his question.

“In principle, yes,” she finally allowed, steering as clear of outright deceit as possible. “Unfortunately no one’s perfect, and even the best of us sometimes fall short.”

He continued his close observation a few unnerving seconds longer, then dropped his gaze to her hands, playing nervously with the stem of her wineglass. “I appear to have a talent for making you uncomfortable, ma chère.”

“Whatever makes you think that?”

“You keep fidgeting with your glass.”

“Well, if you must know,” she said, somehow managing to meet his unwavering gaze without flinching, “I think I might like a little more wine, after all.”

“As you wish.” He poured an inch into the bowl of her glass. “This is a Syrah and something of an experiment for us. Take a decent taste, this time, and save your dainty sipping for afternoon tea with English royalty.”

Add “insufferably arrogant” to his list of qualities, she told herself, bristling at his tone, and just to let him know she wasn’t a complete ignoramus, she took her time going through the ritual of sniffing, swirling and tasting the wine.

“Well?” he demanded imperiously. “Will it do?”

Still playing for time, she let the mouthful she’d taken linger on her tongue a moment longer, swallowed, then closed her eyes and did that weird little trick of exhaling down the back of her throat to catch a final bouquet—the mark of a true oenophile, according to Harvey, who’d always made an exorbitantly big deal of conferring approval on the wine, when they entertained or dined out.

“Delightfully complex, with a remarkable nose,” she conceded.

Harvey would have been tickled pink by her performance. Anton, on the other hand, didn’t seem at all impressed. He simply poured more wine into both their glasses and returned to a subject she’d hoped he’d forgotten about. “You mentioned earlier that you came here looking for a little peace.”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve always seen peace as a state of mind, not a place on the map.”

“Normally I’d agree with you, but I needed a change of scene, as well.”

“Why is that?”

“Because running into my ex-husband all the time wasn’t helping me recover from the breakup of my marriage.”

“You live in a small town where that sort of thing happened often, do you?”

“No. I live in Seattle.”

“Ah, the Space Needle city.” He raised his elegant eyebrows derisively. “Large enough, I’d have thought, that you could easily avoid one another, unless, of course, you work together.”

“Hardly! He’s a surgeon.”

“And what are you, Diana?” he inquired, imbuing the question with unspoken skepticism.

“Nothing,” she said, rattled as much by his questions as the cool disbelief with which he received her answers. “I was his wife, and now I’m nothing. Why are you giving me the third degree like this?”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“Getting to know you.” He permitted himself a satisfied little smile and lifted his shoulders in a perfectly executed Continental shrug. “You surely can’t blame me for that?”

He was playing with her the way a cat plays with a mouse before closing in for the kill. And she was helpless to put a stop to it.

Oh, he was too suave, too sure of himself, too…everything, with his chiseled features, and sexy, heavily lashed eyes, and tall, elegant frame! “How am I supposed to answer that, Anton?”

“You can start by relaxing, and not judging every man you meet by your former husband. As for your remark about being nothing, that’s absurd. You’re intelligent and beautiful and sensitive, three good reasons for any man with half a brain to find you interesting. How long do you plan to stay here?”

The man had the unnerving habit of infiltrating a woman’s defenses then, before she could regroup, firing a sudden question in her face. “A few weeks,” she admitted, bracing herself for further interrogation.

“Good. That means we can see more of each other.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to start dating again.”

“I’m not casting myself in the role of suitor,” he informed her dauntingly. “I’m extending the hand of friendship to a stranger, in an effort to ensure she leaves here satisfied that it was worth the time and effort it took her to make the journey in the first place.”

Good grief, was the man never at a loss for just the right words? “I already feel that way.”

“Excellent!” He added more wine to her glass. “So tell me, Diana, what were you, before you became a wife?”

“A university student, majoring in modern languages. I’d hoped to become a teacher after I graduated.”

“But you changed your mind?”

“Yes.”

“Because you decided you didn’t like children enough to want to spend six or more hours a day with them, ten months of the year?”

“Not at all! I love children. If it had been up to me—” She stopped, Harvey’s ultimate betrayal flaring up like a nagging toothache that never quite went away. “But it wasn’t.”

“You couldn’t have children?” Anton asked, his voice hypnotizing in its sudden deep sympathy.

“I don’t know, because I never tried. Harvey thought we should wait until he was established before we started a family, so I quit university and went to work as a translator for a law firm whose major clients were European.”

“What you’re saying, in a very nice way, is that you put your own career and wishes on hold, in order to promote your husband’s.”

“Something like that, yes.”

“I wonder how long it will be before this foolish man realizes what a treasure he cast aside—which is, of course, exactly what will happen, in time.”

“I rather doubt that.”

Reaching across the table, he wrapped her fingers warmly in his in a way that gave her palpitations. “But if it did, and he asked, would you take him back?”

“Never,” she managed breathlessly, and wondered what it was about him that left her feeling as if she’d never held hands with a man before.

Whatever the reason, she steeled herself to resist him. Because, of course, he was coming on to her, whether or not he admitted it, and given half a chance, he’d probably be quite happy to take her to bed and make love to her.

The problem was, although he’d probably dismiss such a happening as a pleasant summer interlude, she was an all-or-nothing kind of woman, no better at casual sex than she was at flirting. Emotionally vulnerable and needy as she knew herself to be, she couldn’t afford to lay her heart on the line again, just to have him trample all over it when he decided he’d had enough of her. She’d already gone through that with Harvey, and once was enough.

“That’s what I was hoping to hear,” Anton said, bathing her in a slow, seductive smile that threatened to reduce her rational judgment to a blob of molten hormones. “I’d hate to have to challenge him to a duel at dawn.”

She untangled her fingers from his while she still retained a smidgeon of common sense. “There’s no danger of that. My ex-husband is no more interested in me than I am in him.”

“What does interest you, then?”

“Catching up on my sleep.” She faked a yawn behind her hand. “It’s past my bedtime.”

He made a big production of looking at his watch. “You’re surely not serious?”

“I surely am.”

“But the night is still young, ma belle ange.”

Withstanding his flattery was definitely more than she could handle. “Not for me, it isn’t,” she insisted, forcing herself to her feet and clutching her purse to her breasts like a shield. “I’m fading fast, and your wine, excellent though it was, isn’t helping any. Good night, Anton. Thank you for a lovely evening.”

Before she could make the speedy exit she’d planned, he was on his feet and blocking her escape. “The pleasure was all mine,” he murmured, brushing his lips over the back of her hand.

That she could deal with. He was French, after all, and a Count, to boot. But then, instead of releasing it, he turned her hand over and pressed a soft, warm kiss in the center of her palm. And for reasons that completely eluded her, she felt the effect all the way to the soles of her feet. She wasn’t absolutely certain, but she thought she might even have let out a tiny whimper of pleasure, too.

Accurately guessing exactly the effect he’d had on her, he folded her fingers over the spot, and fixed her in a gaze veiled by his fringe of dense black lashes drooping at half-mast. “Until tomorrow, Diana,” he murmured.

Not if she had any say in the matter! Vividly aware of his gaze measuring her every step, she resisted the urge to bolt, and schooled herself to walk with a reasonable facsimile of decorum through the inn’s front door. Then, when she was quite sure she was out of his sight, she did bolt, scuttling up the stairs and down the narrow corridor to the sanctuary of her little room as if the devil himself were in pursuit.

The woman was a mass of contradictions, he decided, watching as the light came on in her room. Educated, refined and with a certain sophistication, on the one hand; on the other, curiously naive and unsure of herself.

She blushed like a teenager, and looked out on the world with the eyes of an innocent. But she’d pursued her interest in Henri and his family with the sharp-minded tenacity of a terrier on a rat. If, as Anton had first suspected, she was really a tabloid reporter hiding behind a false identity, she was either very good at what she did, or hopelessly inept.

Instinct told him that she had a hidden agenda, and he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts. Yet despite his doubts and suspicions, he found himself drawn to her like no other woman he’d ever met. All of which made her doubly dangerous to his peace of mind.

Absorbed in his thoughts, he didn’t notice his general manager had joined him until the man dropped into her recently vacated chair. Julien Laporte looked after the publicity end of things, and was very good at it. But from the discouraged slump of his shoulders now, he clearly brought bad news.

“I’m glad I caught you, Anton,” he began. “That university student who was supposed to replace the other who broke his leg, has changed his mind and won’t be coming to work for us this summer, after all. I’ve called in all my markers, trying to find a suitable substitute, and come up empty-handed. The kind of seasonal employee with the qualifications we’re looking for was snapped up long ago. The way things look right now, we might be forced to cancel tours of the château and gardens this summer. A pity, I know, but better that than to bring in someone unable to do the job well. We have a reputation to maintain.”

Up in her room, Diana showed no sign of her professed exhaustion as she paced back and forth in front of the window. Even from a distance, it was obvious she was either very agitated, very excited, or both.

“Courage, mon ami!” Anton replied thoughtfully, pushing himself to his feet. “We haven’t exhausted all our options quite yet. Order us a cognac, Julien, and I’ll be right back.”

He could have made no secret of where he was going, and simply entered the inn through the main entrance and made his way upstairs in full view of the other patrons. But not even he would have been able to silence the gossip such a move would provoke, so in the interest of discretion, he went around the back of the building to where an iron fire escape connected the upper floor to the rear courtyard.

As usual at this time of year, the door at the top stood open, giving him easy access to the interior. What struck him as somewhat less usual was that her bedroom door also was slightly ajar. Not only that, her voice floated clearly into the quiet corridor, and given the frequent pauses in the conversation, it became immediately clear that she was on the phone.

“I was all ready to give up,” he heard her say. “Honestly, Carol, it just seemed as if the entire village closed ranks against me…. Oh, no one actually said anything, but I could tell they were wondering what I was doing there…I know you said it wouldn’t be easy, but I really thought I’d pick up some sort of lead that would point me in the right direction, since I could hardly just come straight out and ask… Oh, stop saying ‘I told you so.’ I can lie along with the best, when I have to, and do it without swallowing my tongue!

“…Okay, that’s why I called you, because the day turned out not be a total loss after all. I met the local Count…yes, that kind, although I haven’t noticed anyone tugging on a forelock when they address him. They’re respectful enough, without going overboard…. How do I know? Because I ended up having dinner with him, that’s how… In his mid-thirties, I’d guess…

“Well, now that you mention it, yes, he is. Rather too gorgeous, for my peace of mind. Reminds me a bit of George Clooney and I don’t mind telling you, when I’m with him, I have a hard time focusing on why I’m here. Look, the point is, he’s the one who gave me the opening I’ve been looking for, so first thing tomorrow, I’ll follow up on it. Just think, Carol, the next time I call, I might have real news…

“I am being careful. I can see the square from my window. He’s already left, and some other guy’s at our table…. I know, I’m losing you, too. It’s because I’m using my cell phone, instead of the public phone downstairs, and the reception’s not the best…. Of course I’ll keep you posted. Say hi to Tim, and sorry I disturbed you so early in the day, but I knew you’d be anxious to find out how things are going….”

So she was a fraud, just as he’d suspected! Stealthily Anton retraced his steps, fueled by a flame of anger that reduced his attraction to ashes. In its place rose a grim determination to best her at her own game.

Given a choice, he’d have her run out of town before she could put into action whatever plans had brought her here, but even the Comte de Valois couldn’t resort to such extreme measures on the strength of eavesdropping. However, he’d learned at his father’s knee the value of an iron fist disguised in a velvet glove when necessity called for one, and he’d have no compunction about using it in this instance.

Whatever she was up to, he’d uncover it, and the easiest way to accomplish that was by keeping her firmly in his sights. And from her unguarded comments to whoever Carol was, he knew exactly how to go about it.

Whether or not she was ready to admit it, Diana Reeves was starving for male attention, and ripe for the plucking. And he was more than man enough for the job.

Nobody made a fool of Anton de Valois with impunity, least of all a slip of a woman like her.