French Leave. Penny Jordan

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СКАЧАТЬ was still seething with bitter resentment over the reaction of the Englishman. How dared he assume that she had actually encouraged, never mind wanted, that lout’s attack on her? Surely he could see that she had been struggling against him, not abandoning herself to the mindless passion he seemed to think she had been experiencing, if the disgust in his eyes had been anything to go by.

      What kind of women was he used to, for heaven’s sake, to have thought that?

      The more she thought about the way he had behaved, the more angry Livvy became. She could have been raped and it would virtually have been his fault.

      Much he would have cared what might have happened to her. Look at the way he had behaved in the car park—that should have warned her what kind of man he was. Arrogant pig. Thank goodness she had never been the type to be susceptible to that kind of darkly powerful male sexuality. It was personality that mattered to her, not looks. Uncomfortably, she suddenly remembered that odd and unwanted frisson of sensation she had experienced when he’d looked at her.

      It had been caused by shock…fear…everyone knew that very strong emotions could have the most disconcerting effect on people. Her reaction had had nothing to do with the man himself. How could it have done? There had been nothing…nothing about him that she had found remotely attractive…nothing about him as a human being that could have caused that sharp, jagged lightning flash of sexual awareness.

      She had probably imagined the whole thing…exaggerated the force of it. In her heightened emotional state it would have been strange if she had not done so, she comforted herself as she climbed back into bed.

      She needed a good night’s sleep if she was to be fresh for her journey in the morning. Resolutely she told herself to put the evening and its entire events firmly out of her mind.

      An hour later she had to repeat this admonition more severely to herself; she reminded herself that she was a teacher, and a firm fan of self-discipline, someone who prided herself on her logical, calm approach to life’s problems.

      So what was going wrong? Why were the arrogant, contemptuous features of a certain man coming between her and her attempts to go to sleep? If the thought of anyone was keeping her awake, it should have been the man who had tried to attack her, but disconcertingly she could barely remember his features, while the other…the Englishman’s were so firmly etched on her memory that she might have known him for years, not merely glimpsed him for a handful of seconds.

      No doubt, after closing his door on her, he had not even given her a second thought.

      Across the hallway in his own room, the object of her thoughts was also trying to sleep. He moved irritably in his bed, his body tense and unrelaxed. This was the last thing he needed.

      The whole purpose of this trip to France was to allow him to unwind, to give him a small breathing space, not to…

      Not to what? Make him remember things he’d far rather forget?

      Damn that woman. He had known she was trouble the moment he saw her in the car park, standing there, all lissom, delicate, provocative feminine sensuality.

      He had watched her walking away from him, her movements confirming what his senses had already told him.

      She had look so vibrantly, so sensually alive, her hair an unfettered banner against the sky, her skin soft, glowing, her body…

      He turned over, cursing. What the hell was wrong with him? He had seen for himself what type she was. That soft, full-lipped mouth was not as vulnerable as it looked, and certainly nowhere near as untutored.

      He felt his muscles bunch. Why the hell hadn’t she and the man she had so obviously picked up in the auberge waited to begin their lovemaking until they were inside her room? Lovemaking. What was it about some women that made them want to degrade themselves with that kind of involvement…?

      To judge from the things her companion had been saying to her, theirs was no tender, emotional coming-together…He doubted that they had even bothered to exchange names.

      He frowned as he turned his head towards the window. Why waste his time thinking about her…letting her get under his skin?

      Why?

      He already knew the answer, and it wasn’t just that, for a moment, outside in the car park, not only his body but his senses as well had responded to the feminine sensuality of her.

      It was well over a decade, thirteen years ago today to be exact, since the ending of his marriage. His marriage…what a farcical black comedy of errors that had been. What a fool he had been, to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book.

      She had been taking precautions, Claire had assured him tearfully, but something had gone wrong, and now she was pregnant with his child.

      His child…He had had no option but to marry her.

      Thirteen years, and surely in that time he had come far enough down life’s road to know far better than to let himself be disturbed by his awareness of a woman, especially a woman like that one.

      What would she have done if he had been the one to approach her, to…?

      He cursed again. What in God’s name was he thinking? He didn’t want her really, of course he couldn’t want a woman like that.

      Could he?

      CHAPTER TWO

      ONE O’CLOCK… Livvy sighed as she heard the town clock striking the hours, acknowledging that she was no closer to sleep now than she had been when she first came to bed.

      And since she couldn’t sleep, why waste time trying…? Why didn’t she give some thought to the events which had brought her here to France instead?

      Everything had happened in such a rush that she had barely had time to think everything through properly, a fact which her cousin Gale had used to her advantage, she reflected wryly as she admitted the way Gale had manoeuvred her into doing what she wanted.

      Her pupils and her fellow teachers would have found it hard to believe that she had let Gale get her way so easily, but then the offer of several weeks’ holiday in such a lovely part of France had been too tempting to resist, even if she had initially had doubts about the reasons Gale had given her for wanting her to stay at the farmhouse.

      It had all started three weeks ago, when Gale had rung her and said that she needed to talk to her urgently.

      This on its own had surprised her. Gale was not in the habit of needing to talk to anyone, much less her ten years younger and in her eyes far less worldly cousin.

      At that stage, Livvy had assumed that the ‘urgent talk’ must have something to do with her nephews, and that Gale, who despite her husband George’s having a well-paid job considered thrift not just a virtue but a positive pleasure, wanted to persuade her to give the boys some free private coaching.

      Livvy had all her arguments ready. She was quite genuinely far too busy to be able to be of any help to her nephews. The fact that the long summer holidays were only three weeks away did not mean that she had time on her hands-far from it. Not only did she have to sit down and give some serious thought to whether or not she really wanted to take the job of assistant head which she had been offered, she also СКАЧАТЬ