The Strength Of Desire

‘Perhaps,’ Jack conceded. ‘But a very beautiful child, isn’t she?’

Guy’s eyes slid back to her. From the expression on his face, he didn’t agree.

Hope didn’t care what he thought of her looks. She responded, ‘Je ne suis pas une enfante ni stupide.’

‘I am not a child or stupid,’ she informed Guy Delacroix, blue eyes narrowing in temper.

Jack looked surprised, then laughed again. He had not known she could speak French, but was unembarrassed by it.

If anything, his brother looked even further down his long French nose, his thin lips twisting. Hope’s first impression of a powerfully handsome man was rapidly forgotten, as she thought him mean-eyed and cold.

‘Do you wish me to apologise?’ he directed at her, not one degree warmer.

‘Not if it’s going to kill you,’ she retorted in a careless tone.

They exchanged looks again, registering their true feelings. Hate at first sight.

Jack seemed amused as he suggested, ‘Shall we start again? In English, this time, I think…Hope Gardener, meet Guy Delacroix. My fiancée. My brother.’ He nodded from one to the other.

After a moment’s hesitation, Guy Delacroix muttered a scrupulously polite, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ as he extended his hand towards her.

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, chérie?’ He smiled sexily at her, and she smiled back, the look in her eyes sharing secrets.

‘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, ‘My little brother is a cynic. He thinks you just love me for my money…Why don’t we convince him otherwise?’ he suggested silkily, and leaned across the table to kiss her.

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.

‘That old,’ he muttered, drily sarcastic. ‘I assume you’ve asked for the day off school—for the wedding, I mean,’ he added in the same vein.

‘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.