A Husband For Christmas. Emma Richmond

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СКАЧАТЬ at him, her gentle face harder, firmer, she shook her head. ‘No. Not to my knowledge.’ Just close friends, intimate friends—like Nathalie, she thought bitterly. Nathalie, who had completed the horror that Sébastien had started. But he had presumably also forgotten Nathalie, and she wasn’t about to reintroduce her.

      ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘Nothing,’ she denied quickly. Making an effort, trying to think what she should do, she asked instead, ‘What are you doing in Portsmouth?’

      ‘Disembarking. I was a deck hand on the Pilbeam. Cargo ship.’

      ‘Oh. You remembered you liked the sea?’

      ‘No—did I?’

      ‘Yes, you used to go out sailing quite a lot.’

      A rather bleak expression in his eyes, he gave a brief laugh. ‘It was—expedient. The easiest way out of South America. No papers, no money; someone took me on as a deck hand. And, in between trying to find out who I was, deck hand I’ve been ever since.’

      ‘Why did you have no papers or money?’

      ‘Because someone presumably “lifted” them whilst I was unconscious after the accident.’

      ‘Car?’

      ‘Truck.’

      ‘Then how have you managed since?’ She frowned. ‘With no papers...’

      He reached into his pocket, tossed a passport down in front of her.

      Taking it in a hand that still shook, she opened it. It was his picture, but the name was William Blake.

      ‘You didn’t know you were French?’

      ‘Yes—or assumed, anyway. I think in French,’ he explained. ‘But it wouldn’t have mattered if I was Chinese. Beggars can’t be choosers, can they?’

      ‘No,’ she agreed, and didn’t know how she could sit here and talk about incidentals with a man who had betrayed her, disappeared from her life, and had now come back. Still feeling numb, disbelieving, she asked foolishly, ‘Is it...?’

      ‘Forged? What do you think?’

      ‘But surely the authorities could have helped you?’

      ‘Could they?’

      ‘Yes! In South America...’

      He shrugged. ‘They did their best. But with no paper, no memory, no knowledge of what I was doing there, no missing persons reported...’ he added bitterly as he remembered those frustrating, fruitless days.

      ‘But when you got out,’ she persisted weakly. ‘Surely the French authorities would have helped?’

      ‘Why? I couldn’t prove I was French. According to them, I was just another illegal immigrant. And suppose I wasn’t French but French Canadian? From somewhere else that speaks French? You think I didn’t try?’

      Feeling sad and lost, unprepared for this, Gellis asked emptily, ‘So it was just coincidence that you came to Portsmouth?’

      ‘Not entirely. Do you live here?’

      Hesitating for a moment, she tried to think rationally, sensibly. But her mind was a whirl of conjecture, speculation, worry, and so she nodded, because it seemed best not to tell him the truth.

      ‘So I would have known the town? Would have been here?’

      ‘Yes.’

      He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Then I was right I’ve been here several times, looking, waiting, hoping. When I was found after the accident I was wearing a brown leather belt. Stamped on the inside was the name and address of a shop in Portsmouth. Presumably where it was made and bought. Unfortunately, the shop has since closed down.’

      ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

      ‘You know it?’

      She nodded.

      ‘You bought it for me?’

      ‘No,’ she denied quietly. ‘My mother. She bought it for you for Christmas.’ And this Christmas, in a few weeks’ time, there would be no presents for Sébastien. Not from her parents. Not from herself. No presents from Sébastien to his—family. With a hard, painful ache inside, she asked listlessly, ‘Will it come back? Your memory?’

      ‘Who knows?’ he shrugged.

      ‘You’ve seen doctors?’

      ‘Yes,’ he agreed mockingly.

      ‘What will you do now?’

      ‘Go to France. With you.’

      Shocked, utterly panicked, she just stared at him. ‘I can’t go to France!’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because I can’t!’ Couldn’t go anywhere with this man! And you couldn’t go back, could you? Yet she had loved him. No—she had loved the man he had been. And getting to know him again would be—dangerous. Hardening her heart and her mind, she shook her head. ‘No. I have a new life now. I’m sorry you’ve lost your memory, I’m sorry you’ve been hurt. I’ll give you the addresses I know in France that might help, but—’

      ‘No,’ he put in softly.

      ‘What?’

      ‘No,’ he repeated. ‘You are the only person I’ve found in four months who knew me. The only person who can tell me what I was like. Are there others in Collioure who would know me?’

      ‘Yes, you have a rented apartment there.’

      ‘Have?’ he frowned.

      ‘Yes. The bank automatically pays the rent each month. At least, I assume they’re still doing so.’

      ‘And we lived there together?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘As lovers?’

      ‘Yes!’ she agreed tightly.

      ‘And then I, what? Got bored with you? Met someone else?’

      Yes! her mind screamed. You met Nathalie. Nathalie who was beautiful and blonde and French. ‘You went out one day,’ she stated flatly, ‘and didn’t come back.’

      ‘And you didn’t look for me?’ he asked with that hatefully mocking smile.

      Slamming to her feet, she glared down at him. ‘Yes, I looked for you! Looked and looked and looked! And even though—’ Biting off what she had been going to say, she grabbed up her bag and ran away.

      Wrenching open the café door, she hurried out onto the crowded pavement. She was shaking. Badly. Why? she wondered in despair. Why? And it hurt. Dear God, СКАЧАТЬ