By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ emotional in stressful situations, and Rémy was all too powerfully present for comfort. And when Luc rose to deliver a brief eulogy, mainly in French, and a couple of people on her side of the aisle snivelled, Shari couldn’t help shedding a couple of polite tears in sympathy.

      The trouble was her tears took on a life of their own. It was so ridiculous. Once started they wouldn’t stop. She cried so much about Rémy’s stupid, selfish conceit, the agony he’d caused her and the humiliating things she’d let him get away with, that she filled up bunches and bunches of tissues. Though she tried to keep it as quiet as possible, her sobs probably sounded pretty heartbroken, when she wasn’t at all. Face it, she wasn’t all that sad.

      But Rémy’s family assumed she was. Those nearby patted and consoled her. Aunts, cousins, even the uncle shuffled seats to get near her and murmur comforting things until she gave in, laid her head on the truffle’s shoulder and cried all down his suit.

      Luc kept halting his speech to glower at her with a brow as dark as thunder. She could hardly blame him. When the worst of the embarrassing paroxysm had passed, he lowered his austere gaze to his text and continued on in English with a rather biting courtesy.

      Shari supposed she should appreciate the consideration, although she doubted Rémy was the finest flower of the French nation, cut down in his prime by a heartless fate. She knew damned well what Luc meant to imply by that. A heartless whore.

      And when he said a man was known by the quality of those who’d loved him, and went on to describe Rémy as a man who’d been possessed of earthly treasure and looked directly at her, she glared incredulously back through her tears. Oh, come on.

      The man was a hypocrite. If she hadn’t been so weepy and trembly from stress and the lack of a breakfast, she might have jumped up and said a few very gracious, dignified though at the same time rather terse things.

      But the emotional toll of the past few weeks chose that critical moment to suspend her freedom of choice. Once again, just when she wanted to be at her sophisticated best, she was overcome by a wave of nausea.

      Without time even to fumble for a dry tissue, she sprang up and rushed for the entrance, stumbled outside into the chill air and retched into a flower pot.

      Nothing much came up. How could it? Nothing had gone down.

      Sweating and gasping, as the last wrenching spasm subsided, she noticed a pair of masculine, highly polished leather shoes standing nearby. It occurred to her, even in her woeful state, they looked as if they’d been handmade by some Italian master.

      ‘Are you better?’ Luc’s concerned voice broke through her humiliation and distress. ‘Can you stand?’

      ‘Of course,’ she gasped. ‘I’m fine.’ She straightened up, grateful to feel his strong hand under her tottery elbow, and blotted her upper lip and forehead with a tissue. Foraging in her bag for another, she came across the bottle of cola. God bless the Hôtel du Louvre. Unscrewing the cap, she took a swig and turned aside to discreetly rinse her mouth. ‘Excellent,’ she panted, applying a tissue to her lips. ‘I’m just a little empty. I haven’t had any breakfast.’

      ‘Elle n’a pas pris de petit déjeuner!’ an excited voice relayed from close at hand.

      ‘Comment! Pas de petit déjeuner?’

      Until that ripple of concern about her non-breakfast electrified the crowd, Shari hadn’t really noticed people streaming from the chapel and regrouping. Some had positioned themselves quite near to her and Luc, and were scrutinising her every move.

      From under her chic chapeau, Tante Laraine in particular was watching her with an expression Shari couldn’t quite interpret. Well, how would she? It was a very French expression. Though encountering the woman’s disconcertingly shrewd gaze a second time, Shari corrected that analysis. A very womanly expression.

      She wished she could melt through the stonework. Didn’t these people understand a woman’s need to retch in private? Several of them seemed anxious to remedy her plight, talking rapidly about taking her somewhere and plying her with food and blankets. Judging by the offers and counter-offers one relative tossed to another, and all with cool determined smiles, she gathered there was some sort of a polite contest under way.

      Tante Marise for one was warmly insistent that Shari should go home with her and try a little bouillon and an egg.

      Luc frowned at that and shook his head, instantly quashing the idea. The uncle bounded forward with an offer, but at a cool steel glance from Luc the words died on the old boy’s lips and he retreated.

      Then Tante Laraine intervened. Shari thought she could detect her resemblance to her son. While austerely gracious, this Laraine exuded a certain authority. Shari gathered the matriarch was strongly in favour of whisking her chez Laraine and feeding her some energising chocolat.

      Luc, however, seemed even less keen on his mother having first shot at Shari. ‘Non,’ he said ruthlessly. ‘Pas du chocolat.’ He murmured something to hold them all at bay, then put his arm around Shari and held her close against his lean, powerful body.

      ‘Come. You are shivering. We need to get you out of here.’

      ‘Oh, but …’ she quavered, regretting the chocolat. Even the bouillon. Now that her nausea had passed she really was quite cavernously empty. The egg would have been heaven. And if it had come with some hot buttered toast … ‘I—I—I haven’t properly expressed my condolences.’

      He gave her a sardonic glance. ‘I believe you have made your feelings perfectly clear. Parfaitement.’

      It was glaringly apparent from his tone that the French despised a show of excess emotion. Shari cursed herself for her weakness. On top of everything else he thought was wrong with her, she had to keep giving into this crass emotionalism. It just had to stop.

      Unexpectedly, a ray of watery sun pierced the grey world and lit the amber depths of his dark eyes, their glow sizzling through her bloodstream.

      Luc steered her across to the first of several long, sleek limos that had silently drawn up in the last few minutes, and she went without resistance. Waving the driver back to the wheel, he opened the rear door for her himself and urged her inside. Shari sank into the warmth, grateful for the comfort.

      She waited until he’d given his instructions to the driver and was settled at the other end of the wide seat before impressing him with her serene dignity.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘I don’t usually make such a spectacle of myself. I don’t know what got into me. I feel—mortified to have embarrassed everyone.’

      ‘No need to apologise.’ A tinge of amusement momentarily relieved the saturnine severity of his expression. ‘They loved it. They’ll talk about it for months.’

      She flushed. Though she kept her voice low, it still sounded fraught and emotional. She couldn’t seem to control that. ‘Heaven only knows what they think of me. I’m surprised they were so kind.’

      His voice, on the contrary, was silky smooth. ‘Why wouldn’t they be kind? It is clear you are the very model of a grieving fiancée.’

      She drew in a breath. Her voice grew all throaty and she was dangerously close to another bout of the waterworks. СКАЧАТЬ