With This Ring Read online

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said shortly. “We always seem to be striking a sour note, and it’s the last thing I want between us.”

  “You hope for too much then.” His grip on her wrist had slackened, and Tania rubbed at it without thinking, conscious of a slight reddening of her skin where he had held her so fiercely. Claude noticed it, and pulled a face.

  “Your skin marks easily,” he observed as if she hadn’t spoken. “I have some excellent lotion to rub into it while you sunbathe. Don’t risk sunburn, Tania, and don’t underestimate the strength of the sun here.”

  “I won’t,” she answered tartly. “I’ve already seen that it imparts an atmosphere of prickly heat.”

  Claude began to laugh. “You must forgive me, but that’s one English phrase I don’t know,” he said, her sarcasm lost on him. “But come and see the pool, and then we’ll go in and find Henri. He’ll be impatient to be out of doors. He calls his swim the best part of the day.”

  Tania couldn’t argue with that, nor begrudge the child a minute of his pleasure. Claude walked swiftly, covering the ground with his long strides, and she had a job to keep up with him. Then, behind a tall screen of trees, she saw the virginal blue smoothness of the pool, marked out in depths, its surface just asking to be penetrated. The faint tang of chlorine tantalised her nostrils, and it would take an army to keep her away from its inviting coolness, Tania thought fervently.

  Claude watched her reaction, smiling faintly.

  “Your face betrays your feelings, Tania. At least, it does to me.”

  “Really?” She tried to slip the cool mask of indifference over her features. “I’ll need to take more care in future, then. I’m not sure that I like people knowing when I’m thinking bad thoughts about them!”

  “Are they always bad thoughts about me?” He was still amused, refusing to bite.

  “Usually —”

  “But not always.” He laughed more loudly, a note of triumph in the sound. “You can’t have it both ways, ma chérie. Surely you have some tender thoughts in that hard heart of yours for me?”

  “I don’t have a hard heart —”

  “Ah no. I remember now.” At his reflective look, Tania remembered the moment in her flat when she had pressed her hand to her breast in a passionate movement, and through the thin silk Chinese robe Claude had been all too aware of her softness. She turned away from the pool.

  “I shall go and change. Hadn’t you better fetch Henri? He’ll be getting impatient.” She spoke with an efficient tone, not letting him know that she remembered any such thing as the moment in her flat. “You said so yourself five minutes ago.”

  He led her back to the side door of the château.

  “Will you be able to find your way back out here? If not, just tap on my bedroom door.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of finding my own way, thank you,” she said quickly, wishing he would take that knowing smile off his face. Why should he think she wanted to go into his bedroom, for any reason whatsoever? She kept her head held high as she went back inside the coolness of the château, away from the oppressive heat that was already making her feel tacky, and want to lift the heavy weight of her hair from her neck. If she ever had second thoughts about taking a swim with Claude, she dismissed them just as quickly. She was quite capable of being in control of herself, however charismatic a man he was. Besides, Henri would be with them. This was Henri’s hour, and no time for a clash of personalities between herself and Claude.

  In her room, Tania stripped off her garments with a sigh of relief and sought out her bikini and a large towel. She had a lacy coverall to wear over the bikini until she was at the pool, and she put it on quickly, eyeing herself dubiously in the mirror before she did so. The bikini was white and very brief. On a beach in Majorca where half the girls went topless, she had felt almost overdressed in it. Here, in a private pool, with only young Henri and the darkly passionate eyes of Claude Girard to see her, Tania felt conscious of every dip and curve of her body. Knowing that Claude would be aware of them too, because he wasn’t the kind of man to ignore a pretty woman.

  Tania shrugged. She wanted a swim, and to lie out in that glorious sun. And surely Claude would be preoccupied with Henri for most of the time. This was no time to act like a mouse. She gathered up her towel, slid her feet into some beach mules, and made her way out of the château. Claude hadn’t left his room. She knew that, by the small sounds that emanated through the wall between them, of drawers opening and closing, and the occasional humming of a favourite tune. She was glad she would be there first, not to have those sensual eyes watching her approach the pool and slip out of her coverall.

  She didn’t need his suntan lotion either. She had her own. Tania rubbed it quickly over all her exposed areas of skin and lay back on a lounger to soak up a little sun before she went into the pool. It was sheer bliss to feel the heat relaxing her, slackening all the tense muscles and sending her into an almost mesmeric state …

  “Don’t you have a hat to wear?” Claude’s voice said beside her. “You’ll regret it if you don’t shade your face a little.”

  Tania’s eyes flew open, and then she gasped. He lounged against the steel rail of the steps leading into the pool, as if he posed for some male swimwear magazine.

  Tanned to a bronze magnificence, his physique could only be described as stunning. His shoulders were wide, the strength of his muscles apparent with the smallest movement he made. The strong line of his throat and the broad expanse of his chest were covered in rough, dark hair almost down to his navel. He wore black swim briefs, the narrow hips curving outwards and then down to the long, elegantly shaped legs. All the strength he needed to tame the mountains was evident, displayed to perfection for her perusal. Tania realised that she was staring, and knew that her face was tinged with colour, not merely from the sun, but from her own racing pulse. No woman could be unaffected by Claude Girard … She moved her tongue around her dry lips.

  “Where is Henri?” Her voice sounded thin, as she fought to think ordinary thoughts, instead of the strangely erotic fantasies that were spinning around in her head. She didn’t want them there. She didn’t ask for them to exist, any more than she had asked to be here, in this French paradise, with Claude Girard’s superbly proportioned body paraded in front of her. Tania felt a stab of anger. He did this deliberately of course. Maybe the child wasn’t coming here after all. Maybe it had all been a ruse. She would put nothing past Claude.

  “Alphonse is bringing him,” Claude said calmly, as she sat up, realising that his scrutiny of her had been as intense as hers of him. The two brief scraps of material she wore seemed to be non-existent. She would swear he had the power to see right through them. Uneasily, she remembered that she hadn’t worn this bikini in the water before. If it turned out to be transparently thin when it got wet, she would be even more embarrassed than she was now. But she had to risk it. She would prefer to be beneath that enticing blue water than remain here with his hot eyes caressing her in a way more potent than the most physical embrace.

  She rose from the lounger in one easy movement, and Claude’s eyes flickered over her, in one quick appraisal, and then more slowly, taking his time, wanting and taking his fill of her. The few steps to the edge of the pool seemed to be an endless distance beneath that penetrating gaze. Her hand reached out to take hold of the steel rail, and at the same moment, Claude’s fingers trailed lightly up and down her bare arm. As he reached her hand, he turned it over swiftly, turning it palm upwards, and before she could stop him, he had kissed it lightly, and enclosed the point of contact by holding her small hand inside his.

  “One small victory, Tania,” he said softly. “One kiss that is trapped for ever.”

  “How can it be? As soon as I open my hand it will be gone.” She was as crazy as he, discussing a kiss as if it lived and breathed. To her surprise he let his hand go slack, and she opened her palm at once. “There, you see?”

  “But you’ll remember it, and
that’s the important thing. Just as I’ll remember the sight of you, chérie. You have the loveliest body I have ever seen, soft and feminine and —”

  “Let me go, please,” she whispered, although he wasn’t even touching her, except with his mind and his eyes. But he stood back a pace, and as if she was released from some magical hold, Tania stepped downwards into the water, not gingerly as she normally did, letting the water lap her carefully at first, but walking straight down into it. Gasping a little at the shock of its coolness in contrast to the hot sun, her breasts held buoyantly by the water for a moment, she plunged into its caressing balm.

  Almost at the same moment, she heard the sound of Claude’s athletic body slicing into the water, and while Tania still bobbed up and down to adjust herself to the new environment, Claude was already striking past her, his powerful arms scything effortlessly, as much at home here as on the side of a mountain. Tania lifted her feet from the bottom of the pool and struck out in the other direction. The water cooled and caressed her cheeks. It was sheer bliss to feel the hot sun on her head, and yet feel part of this new liquid warmth.

  She turned onto her back, floating luxuriously, her long chestnut hair fanning out like burnished gold before it became saturated, clinging to her shoulders in mermaid strands. Her eyes momentarily closed.

  Her hands idly paddled at her sides, keeping her afloat, when suddenly she was caught in another pair of arms, and her eyes were wide open at once. Claude’s face was a whisper away from hers. At the contact, Tania’s legs plunged downwards, treading water, but his arms held her tight. She could feel the rippling sinews of his forearms as her hands automatically closed around them.

  Droplets of pearly water clung to his dark hair and the bronze of his skin. He was like some dark pagan god, the irrational thought swept through her mind. If this was another ploy to embrace her, Tania didn’t think much of it. All she wanted was to enjoy a swim without Claude’s disturbing presence. Even as she thought it and was angered by it, his legs wrapped themselves around hers, entwining with hers, so that they resembled one person. She was acutely conscious of his flesh against hers beneath the water, and the fact that the tiny scraps of fabric separating them were hopelessly inadequate for disguising his desire for her. Tania burned with fury, refusing to allow the flame of an answering desire to invade every part of her.

  “Let me go.” She kept her voice as steady as she could, considering she was shaking with rage, and something else.

  “I will, now that you’re not drifting straight for the side of the pool,” Claude said, close to her mouth. “I could hardly ignore the fact that you’d have given your head a crack if you’d gone on dog-paddling the way you were.”

  Tania turned her head sharply, seeing that she had gone perilously near the side of the pool from the middle. It was easy to drift along, lulled by the sun and the blue water. She felt her rage dispel, feeling suddenly foolish.

  “Thank you,” she said jerkily, still entwined in his powerful hold. “I think I can manage by myself now.”

  She wanted to be out of his arms, she thought desperately, before he was too aware of the way he rioted through her senses. Even if he didn’t hold her physically, he still had a stranglehold on her emotional reactions, and right now, he was holding her very, very physically. If the pool water hadn’t cooled her down, Tania was certain she would be breaking out in beads of perspiration by now. As it was, her heart raced, and she was sure Claude must know it, feel it, next to his …

  “The feel of you in my arms is the most exciting thing to happen to me in a long time,” his voice was husky-rough. “The feel and the scent of you, and the way you fit against my skin as if God fashioned you for me alone. You’ve started a fever in me, Tania, chérie, that only you can cure. Will you be my medication, my lovely girl?”

  The sudden tremor that ran through her at his words was smothered by his lips tasting hers in sweet salty kisses. While her thoughts whirled somewhere in space, his head lowered slightly, moving downwards beneath the water, to rest against her throat, her breasts, the soft roundness of her stomach … Tania gasped wordlessly at the erotic sensations his mouth was awakening in her.

  The sudden sound of childish laughter brought her back to her senses. Was Claude mad, to behave this way? He loosed his hold on her at once as she began to struggle, shooting smoothly away from her beneath the water, to emerge at the far side of the pool just as Alphonse appeared through the tall trees with Henri, exuberantly calling out to his uncle.

  Minutes later, Tania wondered if the brief seduction had really taken place, or if she had imagined it. Once the child joined them, Claude was a different man, no longer the prowling tiger with her as his prey, but the considerate caring uncle. Tania spluttered the water from her eyes and mouth when she had swam away from the others for a few moments of recovery, treading water at the deep end of the pool, as she watched Claude prepare Henri for his entry into the water.

  Her throat thickened a little. The boy was so thin in his swimming trunks, the arm bands to keep him afloat looking incongruously large. Despite the exercises he did every day, his legs looked wasted through lack of normal childish activity, and the thickening in Tania’s throat became a lump of sympathy as Claude towelled himself off quickly so as not to chill Henri all at once. Then he lifted his nephew bodily out of the wheelchair and stepped gently into the shallow end of the pool with Henri in his arms.

  It was clear that the child trusted Claude implicitly. There was no fear of being dipped into the water too quickly,

  or of being forced out of his depth, or left to battle alone until he was ready. Tania could only admire the infinite patience with which Claude instructed Henri, waiting for him to flex the pale limbs and test his own strength, before he finally managed a crazy dog-paddle with Claude giving him as much encouragement as if he’d swum the English Channel and back again.

  “Watch me, Tania,” Henri squealed out to her as his arms flailed about. She smiled back at him, glad that the droplets of water on her face and body hid the shine of tears in her eyes at that moment. Henri mustn’t see them. Not when such a small thing as flailing about in a private pool was such a personal triumph to him. Tania sensed that all the fierce Girard pride was instilled in Henri every bit as forcefully as in Claude. He wouldn’t want to see pity in her eyes.

  All the same, the sight of Claude being so gentle and attentive to the boy was oddly moving, far more so than she had expected it to be. She was well aware of his love for Henri, but this particular way of showing it was unbearably poignant to her. She could still hear the ring of passion and frustration in Claude’s voice when he had told her he’d give Henri the mountains if he could. They were just words, but what Tania was seeing now was love.

  She decided to sunbathe after a while, drying herself off with the towel while Claude still watched over Henri in the pool. He must have been aware of her movements, however, because he called to her to use some of the lotion he’d brought for her skin. It was far better than her proprietary stuff, he told her. It was in a bag near her lounger, and Tania smoothed its soothing liquid over every exposed part of her. A good tan would be an added bonus of being here, she thought. She may as well make the most of it. She was glad that Claude was still in the pool with Henri. She didn’t want any offers of help to smooth the lotion into her skin.

  She lay back with a sigh of pure pleasure when she was done. The sun and the lotion pampered her skin. If Claude’s fingers hadn’t been the ones to caress the protective oil into it, she had the strangest sensation of knowing exactly how they would have felt. Strong, sensitive, kneading her flesh until it was pliant and supple, responding to whatever he wanted of her.

  Tania moved restlessly on the lounger. The splashing of the water, and the occasional soft breeze and the two voices, one young, one deeply mature, were having a hypnotic effect on her. And despite the suntan lotion, she knew it would be foolish to stay in the sun for too long this first day. Her English skin was unu
sed to its fierce rays, and it felt far hotter than usual to her touch. She would be wise to go indoors soon and take a refreshing shower. It was siesta time.

  “I’m going in now, Claude,” she called out. “I’ve had enough for one day.”

  He smiled at her, and she hoped he wouldn’t make any fatuous remark at that moment. He didn’t. Instead, he scooped Henri up in his arms again, where the boy clung to his neck. They rose out of the shallow end together, and from the awkward angle, Claude’s limp that was normally barely noticeable to Tania, was more evident again. So too were the scars running down the back of one leg, grim reminders of the gashes he had suffered on the mountain. Tania hadn’t seen them before, but the sight of the weals brought James vividly back to her mind again.

  How soon before all this harmonious, elegant château life was disrupted for the excitement and the danger that Claude and James had exulted in so much? How long before another climb was organised, a dangerous rescue mission undertaken, and the women left behind would know the mental torture that accompanied every expedition? A shudder ran through her, and she gathered up her towel and her coverall, sliding it over her head, and left the other two together. She could have offered to dry Henri’s small body, as Claude was gently doing now, but she thought they would prefer to continue their daily ritual. They would prefer to be alone, as she did too …

  * * *

  Within a week, Tania’s body was tanned to a deep golden brown. It was impossible to keep away from the enticing pool, but on other days, Madame joined them at the poolside in a light summer dress and shady hat. Several days Monique didn’t go to the boutique in Toulouse, and made it a more relaxing family party. Relaxing for Tania, without the too intimate ambience produced when she and Claude were there alone before Alphonse brought the boy to join them.