Bride of Desire by Sara Craven Page A

terribly wrong, and she had everything to fear from encountering him again.
     
      Her arms closed more tightly around Tom, who wriggled in protest, demanding to be set down.
     
      She held his hands, steering him back to the car as he paced unsteadily along, face set in fierce determination.
     
      ‘I know the feeling,’ she told him as she lifted him back into his seat for the short drive to Les Sables. ‘And from now on, my love, it’s you and me against the world.’
     
       
     
      The house stood alone, grey and solid against the slender clustering pine trees behind it. Allie eased the car along the track, remembering her father’s concern that Tante should have chosen such an isolated spot.
     
      ‘It wouldn’t do for me,’ he’d said, shaking his head. ‘The silence would drive me crazy.’
     
      Tante had laughed gently. ‘But there is no silence, mon cher. I live between the wind singing in the trees and the sound of the sea. It is more than enough.’
     
      The front door was open, Allie saw, and a woman’s small, upright figure had emerged, and was standing, shading her eyes against the sun, watching the car approach.
     
      It’s Tante Madelon, Allie realised with astonishment. But if she’s been ill, surely she should be in bed, or at least resting on the sofa.
     
      She brought the car to a halt on the gravelled area in front of the house and paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. She’d already decided on her strategy. No reproaches or recriminations. Instead, she too would practise a deception—she would pretend that she’d simply driven through Ignac and seen no one. As far as she was concerned, Remy de Brizat was still on the other side of the world.
     
      And if Tante mentioned his being back in Ignac, she would produce a look of faint surprise, maybe even risk a polite question about his life inBrazil . Or had he, in fact, moved on from there?
     
      She’d tried so hard not to think about that. Not to wonder where he was and what he was doing.
     
      And now it seemed as if all her desperate efforts to blank him out of her mind had been in vain.
     
      Ah, well, she thought bleakly, as she marshalled her defences. Just as long as it doesn’t show.
     
      And she opened the car door and got out, smiling resolutely.
     
      Madelon Colville had never been a large woman, but now she seemed to have shrunk even more. In Allie’s embrace, she felt as insubstantial as a captured bird. But her eyes were still bright, shining with love and pleasure, and her voice was husky with emotion as she murmured words of welcome.
     
      ‘Dearest child, you cannot know what this means to me.’ She looked towards the car with unconcealed eagerness. ‘Now, where is your little son?’
     
      Finding himself on show, Tom decided to be shy, and buried his face in his mother’s neck. But Tante was unfazed by the reaction.
     
      ‘It is all too new and strange for him,’ she declared. ‘But soon we will be friends—won’t we, chéri?’ She took Allie’s hand. ‘Now, come in, and meet Madame Drouac, who looks after me. She is a widow, like myself, and so good to me. However, she speaks no English, and you will not understand her patois, so I shall translate for you both.’
     
      Madame Drouac, who was standing at the range, stirring a pan of something that smelt deliciously savoury, was a tall, angular woman with a calm face and kind, shrewd eyes. As she shook hands, Allie was aware of being subjected to a searching look, followed by a low-voiced exchange with her great-aunt.
     
      But Allie did not need a translation. She remembers me from the last time I was here, she told herself without pleasure. Recalls who I was with, too.
     
      ‘Amelie thinks you have become thin, ma mie.’ Madelon spoke lightly. ‘She says we must fill you with good food. Also le petit.’
     
      She indicated an old-fashioned wooden highchair, polished to within an inch of its life,