Still Waters by Katie Flynn Page B

had first wondered if she might be pregnant. She knew that Peter had taken precautions, but accidents do happen. She had been horrified – the very last thing she wanted was a child – but then she had realised that a baby might well be her trump card. Peter was, above everything else, a true English gentleman. He would never desert her, and judging by the ridiculous, obsessive way he loved his daughter, he would be sure to love a child which he and Marianne had made together at least as much he loved Tess.
    ‘There’s no mistake. I went and saw the doctor, he says I’m enceinte . Peter, I know it isn’t what we wanted, what we’d planned, but – don’t you think that perhaps it’s for the best? You need a woman in your life, so why should that woman not be your wife, the mother of your child – children, I mean? Peter, you’ve told me you are a widower, it isn’t as if you’ve a wife, living . . . you wouldn’t cast me off?’
    It sounded melodramatic and Marianne flinched internally, but she knew she could not bear to lose Peter. She had thought herself to be, if anything, cold, because she had come to England with one purpose in mind; to marry a rich Englishman and to make her life here, as far away from France as she could envisage going. Only a marriage such as that could make up to her for the pain of seeing her younger, plainer sister wed before her.
    Because, rather later in her life than she had expected, Marianne had met and become engaged to a rich, languid young man with a château in the Dordogne, a seaside house in the South of France and a little pied-à-terre in Paris. Armand Nouvel’s family owned famous racehorses, made famous wines, mixed with the upper five thousand. Proud as a peacock of her conquest, Marianne had taken Armand home, introduced him to her family . . . and watched, helpless, as her plain but brilliantly clever sister, Dédé, had made it clear that she really liked the gentle, rather spineless young man. And Armand, who had seemed dazed by Marianne’s beauty and wit, had simply ditched her for her wretched, wretched sister Dédé.
    Even now, Marianne could remember her pain, her fury. She hadn’t loved Armand, but she had wanted him! And she had not even considered Peter as a possible man-friend when they had first been introduced. He wasn’t rich, or stunningly handsome, or titled, even. He was just a not-so-young man at a rather boring party who had been introduced to her, and who had made her laugh. So she eyed him covertly whilst waiting for something better to come along, and finally allowed him to dance with her because one glance at the assembled company had told her that this was a wasted evening. There were a couple of rich young men but they were with boring, po-faced English girls. She would wait until she knew rather more people before casting out any lures. She intended to make use of her advantages – her beauty, her intriguing French accent and her sharp wit. A rich, possibly titled, Englishman would show Armand that he wasn’t the only pebble on the beach and would prove to that cat, Dédé, that there were better fish in the sea than ever came out of it. But she was at the party, and she was bored, and Peter was bending his head to speak conspiratorially into her ear. The least she could do was listen.
    ‘Why don’t we go for a walk along the river bank?’ Peter had said. ‘I’m sure the air in here is at least twenty degrees hotter than the air outside, to say nothing of being full of cigarette smoke. Or don’t you trust me?’
    He had smiled lazily down at her, as though the question of any woman not trusting him was totally absurd, and indeed she had looked up at his open, friendly countenance and thought that both of them were safe enough. He’s likelier to bore me than bed me, she thought. But it would be nice to get out of this hot room.
    So she had smiled back and gone with him, down their host’s long lawn to the river which wound its way