Alison Fraser – The Strength Of Desire (страница 2)
His personality seemed to change with his language. From Gallic temper to English dispassion in one easy move. At any rate, it was the first and last time he ever spoke French in front of her.
Hope wondered which was real as she reluctantly returned his brief handshake and he sat down. She recalled what Jack had told her about the Delacroix family. Their mother was English, from Cornwall. She had married a Frenchman and they had spent their early years in Paris. When their father, Armand Delacroix, had died, Jack had been twelve, Guy seven. A couple of years later they had returned to live in Cornwall.
On first impression, Guy had seemed the more French, but, as she listened to his ensuing conversation with Jack, she revised that opinion. He was a lawyer who talked in dry, lawyer terms. Jack allowed him to handle his business affairs. With Guy based in Cornwall, inconveniently far from London, Hope assumed Jack did this as a favour.
Not that Guy Delacroix appeared particularly grateful. If anything, his tone to Jack was one of reproof as they talked of contracts and percentages. Jack, in contrast, was his usual affable self, uninterested in money or the business matters behind his work as a performer.
Hope was on his side. Jack was an artist. He sang in a gravelly voice that was adored by millions of women, and wrote love-songs that wrenched the heart. Who could blame him if he didn’t want to discuss the boring mechanics behind the brilliant concert performances he gave?
‘Come on, Guy,’ he eventually said to his brother, ‘lighten up. Hope doesn’t want to listen to the niceties of contractual law. Do you,
‘She might, if it stops you ending up bankrupt,’ Guy Delacroix’s voice intruded gratingly.
Hope’s eyes switched to him, questioning. What was he implying? That she was just interested in Jack’s wealth?
That was the way Jack took it, laughing a little as he said,
Hope wasn’t really given a chance to respond. She gasped a little in surprise and Jack slid his tongue into her mouth with an intimacy that quite shocked her. Before she could sort out her feelings, he broke off the kiss and grinned at his brother.
Hope’s face suffused with colour. Because they were in a booth at the rear of the restaurant, only Guy Delacroix had witnessed the kiss, but that was enough. Though his face was rigid, there was disgust in his eyes.
Jack seemed unaware of it as he laughed, ‘I’m a lucky man,’ then started relaying plans for their wedding.
He explained that Hope didn’t want a big ceremony, and they had decided on a register office. Jack asked Guy to be a witness. Hope knew instantly that Guy would refuse, even before he went through the motions of asking the date and discovering he had court commitments he couldn’t break.
Jack was clearly disappointed. He had no suspicion that his brother might be lying. Hope caught Guy Delacroix’s eye again, and was certain of it. He had no intention of giving support to a marriage he considered disastrous from the outset.
No, Guy wasn’t a hypocrite. He never pretended to be anything but displeased. When Jack excused himself during the meal, his brother didn’t hang about. He went on the attack within seconds.
‘How old are you? Sixteen?’ he guessed, lips thinning.
‘Nearly eighteen,’ Hope snapped back, immediately on the defensive.
‘I left school last year,’ Hope relayed, quite unnecessarily, she was sure.
A black brow was raised in disapproval. ‘At sixteen.’ ‘Yes. Right.’ Hope gave up trying to win her future brother-in-law’s approval. Temper made her run on, ‘Uneducated as well as young and stupid. Why don’t I just give you a list of all my faults, then you won’t have to bother grubbing around for them yourself?’
He looked taken aback for a moment, having underestimated her ability to fight back, but it didn’t discourage him.
‘Why don’t you?’ he echoed, bland in the face of her temper.
‘Let’s see,’ Hope muttered tightly. ‘Well, I have no job or prospects of one. I have no money and, very soon, no home. I get hay fever in the summer, and chest complaints in the winter…Oh, and the women in my family tend to develop thick ankles by thirty,’ she added, the most ridiculous thing she could think of saying.
Just for a moment she glimpsed the merest hint of amusement on his mouth, but it quickly disappeared. Guy Delacroix had decided to disapprove of her on sight, and nothing was going to change his opinion.
‘Your family…’ He picked out another line of attack. ‘How do they feel about your marrying someone seventeen years older?’
“They feel nothing,’ she retorted, and told him bluntly, ‘My mother died when I was born, my father a couple of months ago.’
His eyes narrowed, as if he acknowledged the pain of the last, but he expressed no sympathy. Instead he asked, ‘Did you meet Jack before or after he died?’
‘I’ve known Jack for years,’ she could claim quite truthfully. ‘My father produced a couple of his early albums.’
‘Gardener…’ He mused over her name, then worked out, ‘Max Gardener was your father?’
She nodded, surprised that Jack hadn’t told him that.
He read her mind, saying, ‘Jack doesn’t believe in giving much detail. I heard you were young, blonde and beautiful…and, of course, the love of his life. That was all.’
But he hadn’t believed it, Hope realised from Guy’s tone. He thought she was just another of Jack’s conquests.
‘Have you slept with him yet?’ he added, almost offhandedly.
‘What?’ Hope stared at him incredulously.
‘Have you slept with him?’ he repeated, as if it were a quite normal question to ask a complete stranger.
‘I…We…It’s none of your business!’ she finally exploded.
He watched as colour suffused her face. ‘You haven’t,’ he concluded. ‘Well, perhaps you should. I can recommend it as one of the quickest ways of discovering incompatibility.’
‘How do you know we’re incompatible?’ Hope retorted angrily.
‘Apart from the seventeen-year age-gap, you mean?’ His tone was heavily ironic.
‘You’re just jealous!’ she accused in return.
He smiled thinly. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. You might be beautiful, but schoolgirls aren’t my thing.’
Hope glared, sure he’d deliberately misunderstood. ‘Jealous of Jack, I meant. His talent. His fame. His—-’
‘Money?’ he suggested wryly.
Hope went from glaring to fuming. Guy Delacroix obviously had her written off as a gold-digger and wasn’t about to change his mind.
He continued at her furious silence, ‘No, I can’t say I’ve ever been jealous of Jack. I have sufficient money for my own needs. Talent…Well, admittedly writing love-songs is hardly my forte.’ He made a slight face, dismissing such a skill as unimportant. ‘And fame, well, that’s a dubious privilege at the best of times…But I suppose it all seems very glamorous to you.’
‘I’m not that naive.’ Hope was well aware of the price of fame. Her father had once been famous as a record producer—and rich. But he’d paid for it. When the popularity of his music had waned he’d felt a failure, and sought solace in a whisky bottle.
‘No, I suppose not,’ Guy Delacroix conceded. ‘You must have met many famous people through your father.’
‘When I was little,’ Hope replied, ‘but not lately…People in show business don’t like to associate with failures. They think it’s catching,’ she commented cynically.
He raised a brow, surprised by her astuteness. ‘What did he die from?’ he asked bluntly.
‘Cancer—not catching either,’ she said on a bitter note, ‘but it still kept them away…Apart from his funeral-they returned in droves for that. It’s a pity he missed it. He would have appreciated seeing his ex-wives sobbing their little hearts out at the loss of their alimony.’
‘How many?’ he enquired.
‘Ex-wives? Three, but only two attended the funeral,’ Hope recounted.
He pulled a wry face at the number. ‘Does that total include your mother?’
‘No, she was never an ex,’ Hope declared stiffly, but didn’t expand on it.
She knew, for her father had told her often enough, that her mother had been the great love in his life. It had sounded sentimental, but it had also been true. It was a fact that each wife, in turn, had come to face.
‘Is that where you met Jack again? At the funeral?’ ‘No, he came before, in the last week or two when Dad became really ill. Then later he offered to help with the arrangements.’ Hope’s voice revealed how grateful she’d been to Jack. He’d been a true friend to them both, and her love for him had developed even as she’d struggled with the pain of grief.
“That was good of him.’ Guy’s tone was flat, but there was a look of scepticism in his eye.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Hope demanded in return.
‘Nothing, just…’ He hesitated for the first time, then switched to saying, ‘Look, we got off on the wrong foot. My fault, I admit. I misunderstood the situation.’