His Perfect Partner. Laura Martin

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      ‘Of course.’ He kissed her again. Rachel loved the wonderful fact that she seemed to be irresistible to him. It was quiet in the bedroom for several minutes. Rachel knew she would never forget this moment. Jean-Luc’s gaze, his tender hands, told her all she needed to know. He loved her, just as she loved him.

      Never mind what Aunt Clara thought, it wasn’t her fault. She was just…old, out of touch, unaware of the depth of feeling between them. Once she understood the seriousness of their relationship, Rachel told herself, everything would be better. She would be happy for her niece, happy that she had found love.

      ‘You’re frowning.’ Jean-Luc’s dark brows drew together in comical imitation of hers, his smile gently teasing. ‘Have I woken you too early? Would you prefer to be a lazybones and sleep in?’ He lifted her into his arms suddenly and laid her back down on the bed. ‘Would you like to stay here?’ he murmured huskily, kissing her neck. ‘Shall we both stay here?’

      ‘You know we can’t.’ Rachel linked her arms around Jean-Luc’s neck. ‘If Aunt Clara or Naomi finds you here…’ She glanced towards the closed door of her bedroom, conscious of the sounds of the house below. ‘How on earth did you get up here, anyway?’ she asked, smiling. ‘And don’t tell me you knocked on the front door, informed Hayes that you wished to see me and simply marched straight upstairs to my bedroom because I won’t believe you!’

      ‘Do I look that mad?’ Jean-Luc replied, with a curl of a smile. ‘No, I did the correct thing and took the tradesman’s entrance.’

      ‘But surely Naomi was busy in the kitchen?’

      ‘She was. But I have a very good line in distraction.’ Jean-Luc’s eyes sparkled mischievously. ‘I knocked at the kitchen door, hid around the side of the house, Naomi came out, followed my trail and…’ He gestured with his hands. ‘Voilà! I simply slipped inside.’

      ‘Trail?’ Rachel’s expression was a mixture of perplexity and excitement. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘The milkman had been. There were eggs, a lot of them. I simply placed them in a line which led away from the house. Naomi followed like un canard…a duck, waddling after a trail of bread!’

      ‘You are incorrigible!’ Rachel smiled happily, kissing his mouth. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’

      ‘Incorrigible?’ Jean-Luc’s sensuous eyes gleamed. ‘What is that?’

      ‘Naughty!’ Rachel kissed his finely moulded mouth. ‘Very naughty indeed!’

      ‘I like naughty.’ Jean-Luc cradled Rachel’s blonde head with both hands and returned her kiss. ‘It feels good. Now, come!’ He rolled away from her suddenly, and Rachel knew that he was having to exert the utmost will-power as he rose from the bed. ‘Get dressed. It’s a beautiful morning—the sun is shining, the birds are singing. I want us to share every second of it together.’

      Rachel did as he requested. It never entered her head to refuse—why should it? This was what she wanted—this excitement, this sense of freedom and fun. This passion.

      Jean-Luc lifted the sash window while Rachel slipped on jeans and a jumper. She watched him as he stood with his back to her, breathing in the fresh spring air. She loved to look at him. Her blue eyes lingered on the broad shoulders, on the dark brown, slightly wavy hair that brushed the collar of his blue linen shirt, on the clean, but undeniably worn denims that hugged slim hips.

      He was everything she’d ever wanted. It really was as simple as that. Everything. The fluttering sensations of desire and excitement had been old friends ever since that day almost two months ago when he had first come to work in the gardens for her aunt.

      ‘Ready?’ He turned, holding out a hand, leading her towards the window. ‘We are taking an alternative route.’ His lips curved at Rachel’s expression. ‘Don’t look so shocked. It will be perfectly safe. See? We step out onto the flat roof, then a careful negotiation of the drainpipes and a small leap down to freedom.’

      Rachel smiled. ‘Maybe you should have rung the front doorbell,’ she said, stretching up on tiptoe and kissing him tenderly. ‘I think it would have been a lot simpler.’

      ‘Ah, but not so much fun. And, besides,’ he continued, with more than a hint of bitterness, ‘I would have had to wait until much later in the day, and then I would have had to endure the disapproving looks of your aunt—it really isn’t the done thing for the gardener’s boy to court the mistress’s niece, is it?’

      ‘Don’t, Jean-Luc, please, not now!’ Rachel placed a fingertip to the suddenly angry mouth, hating the old argument coming between them once again. ‘Aunt Clara’s just being protective. I’m just eighteen. I’m the only family she’s got. She only wants to look after me—’

      ‘To stifle you.’ Angry brown eyes held Rachel’s gaze. ‘She imagines I would hurt you?’ The incredulity in Jean-Luc’s tone was hard to miss. He shook his head in disgust. ‘I swear, this house, it is still living in the Victorian times. Your aunt would look very convincing in a black gown with a white lace cap on her head!’ His mouth curved, but beneath the humour the anger was still evident.

      ‘She doesn’t trust me because I’m a foreigner…or a gardener…’ He lifted his hands in a typically Gallic gesture. ‘What does she think I’m going to do—whisk you off and sell you to the white slave trade?’

      ‘Jean-Luc!’ Rachel shook her head. ‘Please! Don’t be cross.’ Rachel glanced anxiously towards her bedroom door again.

      ‘Although, I think,’ he added, pulling her close against his rugged body, his smouldering eyes lingering over Rachel’s feminine curves, ‘it might not be such a bad idea. I think you would fetch a very good price.’

      Rachel giggled. ‘Jean-Luc, you are not only incorrigible, you are irreverent, too!’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed his mouth. ‘Do you think that’s why I like you so very much?’

      ‘Like?’ He pulled her closer still so that she felt the full power of his body against hers, and tipped her face back so that her long golden hair fell free behind her like a waterfall of pure gossamer. ‘What is “like”?’ he growled in mock anger….

      Rachel negotiated the climb down over the rooftops, laughing because she had never felt so carefree, so incredibly happy. In a few short weeks Jean-Luc had become everything to her—the sun, the moon, the stars. She would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked her, walk on a bed of hot coals if it meant spending the rest of her life with him.

      In comparison to all of that, a short trip over the rooftops was nothing.

      They ran like the wind, hand in hand, around the side of the huge manor house, across the crunching gravel drive and out through the wooden door in the walled kitchen garden into the fields beyond…

      Rachel hardly noticed the outside world. Her only thoughts were for Jean-Luc. Uncaring of her aunt’s disapproval, every spare moment was spent with him. Early morning rendezvous became the norm. Beautiful hours spent walking and talking, passionate encounters in orchard or barn—anywhere. It didn’t matter, as long as they could be together.

      Rachel had never imagined that such happiness as she felt could exist. During the beauty of those few precious weeks together the whole world was transformed into a glorious place. She loved Jean-Luc with all her innocent СКАЧАТЬ