Chapter One #2
Arielle stepped through the kitchen door into the courtyard.
It was cobbled, with a gateway set in one wall that was wide enough for a car or farm cart.
There was a row of barns opposite, one of which she used as a garage for her ancient but still roadworthy car, the others for general storage and her poultry.
Inset into the wall facing the gateway was a much narrower wooden gate that led through to the gardens.
She headed through the narrower gate, picking up the two watering cans that she’d filled the previous evening, to water the pots against the day’s later heat, part of the slow rhythm of life here at the mas.
Though money was tight, she was grateful that the money her father had given to her when she turned eighteen to fund her music studies allowed her to live here—albeit modestly.
Until Gerald sells it.
No, she would not spoil her peaceful mood by thinking of that.
She carried on with the watering, glancing fondly at her beloved home with the morning sunshine glancing off the French windows leading into the parlour.
Not grand enough to be a drawing room, nevertheless, she loved its old-fashioned charm, with its stone fireplace, worn but comfortable sofas and chairs, old wooden painted armoire against one wall, and some not very good but familiar and well-loved paintings on the walls in their faded gilt frames.
In pride of place was her piano. A baby grand that had been a gift from her father when she had been accepted into music college seven years previously.
Watering done, she stood for a moment enjoying the quietness.
She wasn’t yet dressed, but the cotton, belted dressing gown she wore over her nightshirt was fine to eat breakfast in.
There was no one to see her and, unless she went into the village, or called on her nearest neighbours who lived on another farmstead a good kilometre away, she wouldn’t see anyone from one day to the next.
She liked it that way. Who knew she would be forced to leave the mas?
She gave an instinctive shiver, despite the morning warmth, and went back into the courtyard. The next task was to let out the poultry and feed them before having breakfast at the ironwork table on the terrace in front of the parlour.
Then, abruptly, she paused, frowning. The sound of a car engine along the lane reached her.
It was an unusual sound at the best of times, for the country lane led only to Mas Delfine.
The engine note grew louder and she stared through the open gateway to see a vehicle approaching slowly over the stony, uneven surface.
It was a vehicle such as she had never seen anywhere near the mas.
Completely unsuitable for the narrow lanes and completely out of place here.
Low, lean, black and very, very clearly an extremely expensive supercar.
What on earth?
The car nosed, engine growling, up to the gateway then stopped, the engine cutting out. The driver’s door opened and a man got out, looking about him as he slammed the car door shut. The noise reverberated in the silent air like a gunshot.
Arielle clutched at the lapels of her dressing gown. Fear crabbed in her stomach.
Then, reason fought it down. The driver was obviously lost. There was no other explanation for him having turned up here.
Not just in a car like that but also, she realised, dressed in, of all things, a tuxedo.
God alone knew where he’d come from—maybe some grand chateau had hosted a flash party and he’d got lost leaving?
He continued to look around him at the front of the mas, visible from where he’d pulled up, and she studied him a moment.
He was tall, dark-haired and, though she could not see his face well, his profile seemed to show him frowning.
Obviously wondering where on earth he’d arrived at by mistake.
She had best put him to rights and send him on his way.
Taking a breath, she headed towards him, her soft-soled slippers making no sound on the cobbles. In the open gateway she paused.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked, speaking French.
The man’s head whipped round, focussing laser eyes on her. For a second he did not speak. Nor could she.
Arielle’s lungs seemed suddenly empty of air. Her gaze fixed on him. She could feel her fingers clutch more tightly at her lapels as she stared. Stared at the most incredible looking man she had ever seen in her life…
Lycos did not move. His gaze rested on the woman standing there.
Slender, wearing nothing but a thin, pale blue cotton dressing gown with a cross-over belt that distinctly displayed her shapely figure.
Her dark hair tumbled down over her shoulders and waved back from her face.
A face that made his gaze even more keen.
Oval-shaped, with a tender mouth, peach soft cheeks, delicate arched eyebrows set over deep set eyes. Eyes that were wide and startled.
He started to walk towards her and saw her take a half step back. He saw her hands, with their long fingers and unvarnished nails, clutch more tightly at her lapels.
‘Can I help you?’ she said again. ‘Are you lost?’
Lost? The word echoed meaninglessly in Lycos’s head. No, he was not lost—
Or was he?
He continued to walk towards her, a purpose in his steps now. He wanted to see her up close. As he approached, stepping across the cobbled courtyard, he saw her poised more tensely yet.
‘Are you lost?’ she asked again. This time she addressed him in English, a frown of puzzlement on her face.
‘Lost?’ he echoed, matching her English. ‘No—not if this is the Mas Delfine?’
He saw her eyes widen even more, alarm now evident and confusion.
Absently he noticed now, closer to her as he was, that her eyes were a vivid shade of blue, fringed by smoky lashes.
His own dark eyes washed over her, taking her in.
Whatever he’d expected to find here, if he’d expected anything at all, it was not a woman like this.
So breathtakingly lovely…
She was speaking again and he made himself focus on what she was saying, not her loveliness as she stood there illuminated by the early morning sun that bathed her in its light.
‘What…what do you want with the Mas Delfine, monsieur?’ she was saying, sticking to English. Now there was more than alarm in her voice.
Lycos let his eyes rest on her. Whoever she was and however lovely she was standing there—graceful, beautiful and deshabille with her dressing gown, tumbling hair and blue, blue eyes—it was time to make something clear to her.
‘I want to take possession of it, mademoiselle,’ he said echoing the formality of her address to him. ‘It happens to be mine.’