By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ if she drank it and the poor little face shrivelled up in agony?

      Her insides clenched. She put her glass down.

      ‘While you are here you must visit the village where Rémy and Emi grew up,’ someone offered.

      ‘I am certain Luc would be happy to take you there and show you everything,’ Tante Laraine said warmly. ‘Tiens! I say, we must all go together and picnic in the woods.’

      ‘Bien sûr, Shari,’ Tante Marise added kindly. ‘Rémy would have liked to see you there.’

      She guessed they weren’t intending to torture her, but with her world now dominated by an embryo—Luc’s—this constant harking back to Rémy was an agony.

      When she wasn’t moving her food around the plate or being addressed by someone, Shari rested her gaze on a burnished antique sideboard with lovely pieces of delicately painted china. An exquisite vase holding jonquils, a Chinese bowl, a fragile urn painted with birds and flowers.

      Once she disciplined herself to look at Luc firmly, like a normal, non-pregnant person. His eyes locked with hers, alert, guarded, and her heart turned over.

      It was during the cheese she lost her cool. Tante Marise said, ‘Poor Shari, you must feel you have lost your whole world. Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk.’

      Shari shook her head, ready to deny the charge and explain about Rémy, when Laraine exchanged a meaningful glance with all the others and leaned tenderly towards her.

      ‘Forgive us, Shari. This is a delicate subject, ma chérie, but it must be dealt with. We have spoken with Emilie and do not believe Rémy has left any instructions. Are you aware of his thoughts? We must decide how to dispose of his ashes. It is good you are here in France and you are able to participate.’

      Appalled, Shari said, ‘Oh, look. No, no, please.’ She glanced about at their enquiring, sympathetic faces and cast an agonised look at Luc. Then she rose to her feet, the better to breathe.

      ‘Please, you know, you’re all being so kind, but I—I really must explain.’ She saw Luc’s dark brows draw into an alarmed frown, but she carried on regardless. ‘The truth is, that while I was engaged to Rémy for a while, it was not a—a very happy thing. Our engagement ended several months before he—before the accident.’

      A heavy stillness descended on the room. She could hear pigeons cooing on a distant steeple.

      ‘I haven’t wanted to mislead you. And truly, I don’t want to hurt anyone. I know you all loved him, he was part of your family, but in fact to me Rémy wasn’t always the most gentle person. He could lose his temper and be really quite—’ Just at that moment, her eye fell on the painted urn resting innocently on the bureau.

      A horrifying realisation shocked through her. She grasped at her throat. Unable somehow to manage breathing, she felt herself grow unbearably hot, then without warning whirled forward into a bottomless black hole.

      Through a misty haze she heard Luc’s shocked voice, distant chairs scraping, a babble of consternation. She opened her eyes again immediately, or so it seemed to her. Well, perhaps some time had passed, because she was now horizontal and in another room, her head on a feather soft pillow, a feather-soft blanket tucked around her.

      Luc’s mother was sitting at her side patting her knee while Luc was standing over her, looking anxious. They didn’t notice she was awake because they were deeply involved in an intense, murmured conversation.

      Shari couldn’t follow it because they were speaking in rapid French. Not all of it, anyway. There was one word she picked up. She knew it rather well from years of experience with Emilie.

      Enceinte.

      She knew the meaning of that, all right. It meant pregnant; with child; having conceived; in the family way; up the duff; in the pudding club; fat. It was Laraine who uttered the fateful word, and when she did Shari saw Luc’s face change.

       CHAPTER NINE

      A STRAINED silence persisted all the way from Tante Laraine’s to the Luxembourg Gardens. Luc had hustled Shari so fast out of the family lunch she was breathless. But not nervous. She had no reason to be scared. He was a civilised, non-violent guy, she was an adult woman capable of making her own decisions and defending herself, so this silence wasn’t playing on her nerves.

      Much.

      It was just that, in a small car, when they were physically in such close proximity, she could hear his very breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Or maybe that was the jackhammer in her heart.

      Anyway, he parked and took her for a charming stroll through the afternoon shadows, under trees, past grassy banks to a beautiful old rhimey fountain. Most of the people had left or were on their way home. The clowns, a juggler in his harlequin costume. Lovers holding hands. A kid playing with a hoop. Mothers pushing their babies.

      Shari wouldn’t have minded a few of them hanging around, just in case, but she guessed it was time for them all to repair to their kitchens and prepare the family cassoulet.

      She concentrated on small things along the way. Water lilies floating on the pond. Jonquils nodding along the garden path, closing their faces now as the shadows lengthened.

      They paused by the fountain. Luc faced her. She made her mind go empty, the way she always had when she suspected Rémy was about to strike.

      ‘Do you have something to tell me?’ He took her arms in a gentle grasp that might as well have been of steel. There was no escaping this moment of truth.

      ‘Yes.’ Not breathing, she met his compelling gaze. ‘It’s true. I only found out for sure myself this morning. I’m—we’re—pregnant.’

      She braced.

      He scrutinised her face for what felt like for ever. Worlds of calculation glinted in his eyes while he evaluated the available data. In a romance novel he would have said Then we must get married. No question about it.

      ‘And you are certain?’

      That expression on his face. The tinge of doubt. She remembered it well from the night in Sydney. That occasion when he’d asked her how recently she’d seen Rémy. How recently she’d been hot from his cousin’s bed.

      ‘Pretty certain,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I took a pregnancy test this morning. It came up positive. It was what I—expected.’

      He didn’t lash out, just sat down with her on a nearby bench. But she could see he was in shock. He was blinking fast and there was a pallor under his olive tan, a grave set to his mouth.

      ‘I know what you are wondering,’ she said suddenly. ‘You’re wondering if the child is yours. You’re thinking I might be—exploiting this opportunity to foist Rémy’s child onto you, and …’ Her voice choked up. Tears came into her eyes and she turned her face away.

      He took her hand and held it tight. ‘Please. I have to ask the question. Is it mine?’

      ‘Yes. СКАЧАТЬ