Chapter Twelve
Sandrine sat perched on one of the benches scattered amid the green near her house, watching children race past with their balls and hoops, their cloaks flying, while white-capped nannies chased after them.
It was a cold but sunny day in Bath, fluffy clouds hopping by like sheep overhead, casting little shadows over the honey-coloured houses and gleaming windows, and the merry giggles and happy shouts of the children cheered and steadied her.
She needed a great deal of steadying that morning. It had been a sleepless night, tossing beneath her blankets as her mind turned over every second with Alain in their hidden closet at the assembly. That kiss, that kiss! Oh, what a mistake it had been. Yet so delicious.
Then, not content with tormenting her over her out-of-control desire for him, her mind had thrown her back to those long-ago days she’d tried so hard to forget. The moments she’d realised her marriage would not be as she had dreamed. That she’d been foolish.
At last, sure she wouldn’t sleep at all, she’d got up and tiptoed across the landing to Marie’s nursery.
Her daughter was fast asleep in her frilled pink and white bed, her favourite doll cuddled close, her rosebud mouth pursed in her dreams. Her tangled dark curls spilled over her pillows, and Sandrine smoothed them back.
She was sure her heart would burst with joy as she watched Marie, would burst with the force of love and worry, just as it had since the day that miraculous little creature appeared in her life, her arms. If only she could have held that tiny soul safe against her forever!
People, except maybe great poets and great artists, seemed to think a joy meant any pleasure in life.
Happiness. Light. It was not so. Happiness was her work, her memories.
Joy, which came by so rarely, was mingled with pain.
With fear. When she had first seen Alain, she knew now that was a joy.
Marie was the supreme joy. Sandrine had vowed only to protect her.
She tucked the bedclothes closer around Marie now, inhaling deeply of her sleeping-baby scent of powder and warmth.
Marie was growing so fast. She asked so many questions about things she’d never been interested in before.
Sandrine knew she could not delay another day, could not let fear dictate what she must do.
She had to tell Alain. Her daughter deserved it.
And yes, Alain deserved it, too.
The Alain she had once known, when they were both so young—she couldn’t have imagined him a father, couldn’t imagine him standing still long enough, focusing long enough on something so precious.
She had tried to find him back then, to tell him she’d discovered she was pregnant, but in strictest truth she’d not tried quite as hard as she should have.
It was that fear that had stayed her hand.
The fear he would hurt her again. Much worse, that he might hurt their daughter.
Might reject her as he had rejected Sandrine.
The Alain she saw now, though…he was different. She saw the experience in his eyes, the solemnity, the calm core he’d found. This was a secret she could not keep now. Secret seemed too small a word for it all. She had to conquer her fear.
She closed her eyes and tipped back her head to let a hint of the day’s pale sunlight wash over her face, hoping that light might fortify her. If only it weren’t quite so early in the day for a large brandy…
‘Sandrine,’ she heard a voice say. A voice she would have known anywhere, even in those years they’d spent apart, Orpheus-like, calling her to him from the darkness.
She opened her eyes and blinked up at Alain. The light surrounded him like a halo, outlining the sharp angles of his face, the tentative smile on his lips. She studied those lips, remembering every instant of their kiss last night, every sensation of it.
‘Alain,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for meeting me here. You got my note?’
‘Of course. I was glad to see it,’ he said, and sat down beside her.
They did not touch, but he crossed one booted foot over his knee and rested his gloved hand there lightly, so close to her.
The chilly breeze caught his delicious scent, and wrapped it around her as tightly as any rope bonds.
‘I was rather worried it would mean…’ He broke off, and ran his hand through his curls in that adorable gesture she remembered too well.
‘Worried?’ she said. She dared not look at him directly, not let her guard down.
‘That I tried to push you too far last night, that I—well, pressured you too much?’ He seemed a bit ruffled, a bit unsure, and it made her heart ache even more.
‘Just being with you, feeling you. It had been so long, and I think you are…’ The hand through the hair again, leaving it ruffled.
‘I think you are amazing. Just as I remembered.’
He had thought of her in the years they were parted?
Remembered their brief union? She hoped that meant he cherished a bit of tenderness in his memories, and would forgive her once he knew.
She gathered up all her courage, more than it even took to love and still go into the world on her own, to open her shop, to do anything else at all, and said, ‘Alain. I must tell you something very important indeed.’
He studied her closely, making her twist her hands nervously in her lap. ‘So I did go too far. Maybe you are in love with Charlecote?’
Sandrine was shocked. Love was the furthest thing from her thoughts. ‘In love with—anyone? Certainly not. I have never thought myself in love at all.’ Except once, with Alain himself. And that had been a great mistake.
‘Then what? You can tell me anything at all. I know you may not believe it yet, but I will prove you can trust me again.’
She laughed nervously. ‘You are not making this easy, watching me so intently.’ It was as if he tried to read her thoughts again, read her inner heart, no matter how she tried to conceal it.
He looked away. ‘Sorry.’
A silence fell between them, delicate, ephemeral, like a shimmering soap bubble and as easy to break.
‘Sandrine,’ he said finally. ‘You really can trust me with anything. Let me prove that to you, to try and show you. I know it is hard for you to believe—perhaps impossible, after all we’ve been through—but I really have changed.’
She nodded. But could she, dared she, give him that chance? Look what had happened last time. She studied him from the corner of her eyes, found that he watched her, leaned towards her. She read nothing but sincerity on his face.
‘I know you may not, cannot believe me yet,’ he said quietly. ‘I behaved so badly. If what you wish now is to find a way to end our marriage…’
She was startled by him again. ‘End it?’
‘Is that not what you want to talk about today? I know it would be very difficult, but I want to see you happy…’
She had to laugh. ‘After our kiss? How could you think it?’
He frowned in puzzlement. ‘That kiss was—etonnante. But what else can I think, after so long? You deserve to have whatever you want in life, Sandrine. I owe you that, and so much more.’
And he, too, deserved happiness, deserved his dreams. Maybe he really did still love Danielle, or someone like her. But more than that, he deserved to know. ‘This is what I want to tell you, Alain. Let me say it fast, before I lose my courage.’
She reached quickly into her reticule, before she really did lose her courage and resolve, and drew out the pearl-edged case of the miniature portrait she’d tucked there.
She reached for his hand, and he gave it to her.
She longed to clutch at his strength, to hold on, even though it could easily shatter everything for her now.
She pressed the ivory into his palm and prayed he couldn’t hear the fearful hammering of her heart.
He turned it over, staring down at it with a thoughtful crease between his dark brows. The moment felt like an hour, like an eternity. She’d imagined it so often over the years, and her images had involved shouting, demands, even embraces. This was just silence.
Sandrine rather hoped that Marie’s dark curls, a wild halo around her little heart-shaped face, her grey-blue eyes and stubborn chin, would tell Alain all he needed to know and she wouldn’t have to find the words.
Her throat was too dry, her cheeks hot. But the silence grew longer, heavier, as if it would push her down into the earth.
At last he looked up at her, his beautiful face as smooth and unreadable as marble. ‘Qu’est-ce que c’est?’
Sandrine drew in a long, deep breath, wishing that one long sip of cold air could go on forever. ‘That is Marie. My daughter.’ Our daughter. Alain watched her, unblinking, unwavering. ‘She is nearly five.’
His study went back to the portrait. ‘She is beautiful,’ he said quietly. She could read nothing in his tone, the blank lines of his face.
A terrible thought landed on Sandrine, one she should have considered before but which she had not in her fear of his reaction.
Maybe he thought Marie was the child of another man.
‘Very beautiful. Her eyes…’ His eyes. Marie also had his spirit of adventure, his stubbornness, his way of leaping into something and thinking about it later. She had his tenderness.
‘And what you are saying, I assume, is that she is my child.’
Sandrine couldn’t talk at all; she choked on every word she thought of. So many moments over the years she’d been alone in the world washed over her. The fear when she’d first found out she was pregnant, the uncertainty of her next step. ‘Yes.’
His fingers curled tightly around the pearl edges of the frame. ‘Oh, Sandrine,’ was all he said.
What could she read into those two words? Was he angry, sad, regretful, scared? She took another breath, and plunged ahead. There could be no going back now.