The Villa on the Riviera: A captivating story of mystery and secrets - the perfect summer escape

‘If my family ever knew …’ said Bertram. He took out a silk handkerchief and passed it across his brow. He was a good-looking man, with light brown wavy hair and deep, dark blue eyes. He smiled at her, his face relaxing for the first time, and she smiled back.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have had this happen for the world, but your secret’s perfectly safe with me. Truly it is.’

She rose, wanting to get away.

There had been a time, when she first met Oliver, when she might well have fallen in love with him. She had never felt such a rapport with a man; she felt utterly at ease in his company, even when she barely knew him.

And now Oliver had lost Bertram? ‘That’s dreadful, Oliver.’

His mouth trembled, and he bit his lip to control it. ‘It is, rather. When you love someone as much as I do Bertram, one can’t imagine life without him.’

‘But why? Has he found someone else?’

‘He’s getting married,’ Oliver said flatly. ‘He’s decided to put what he calls “all this” behind him, and he’s marrying a nice girl. A friend of his family. Suitable in every way. His family are thrilled. He wants me to be best man.’

‘He wants you — oh, Oliver, no! He can’t ask that of you.’

‘It seems he can. However, since he’s getting married next month, and I plan to be in France for the whole of January, he will have to look elsewhere for a best man.’

‘You sound bitter. I’m not surprised.’

‘No, I’m not bitter. In a way, I always knew it would end like this. Bertram has never liked the cloak and dagger side of such a friendship, the secrecy, the effort to keep it all hidden. Some of us thrive on it, he doesn’t. He yearns to be respectable, like everyone else. Sad to say, he has an essentially bourgeois nature.’

‘But if — if he’s the way he is, how can he marry? The poor girl, she doesn’t know about you and him?’

‘Good heavens, no. I don’t suppose she even knows that such relationships exist. No, she doesn’t know, and Bertram is definitely not going to tell her. He’s going to walk down the aisle with his radiant bride on his arm, and from then on, he’ll be a normal man. He wants children, of course. That’s a strong pull. That’s one thing we can’t give each other. Oh, hell, Polly, why is love so beastly? You’re so fortunate, with your staid Roger and the whole world beaming approval, you don’t know how lucky you are.’

‘I thought so, but I’m not so sure.’

‘Lovers’ tiff?’

Polly pulled a face. ‘Can you imagine having a lovers’ tiff with Roger? Arguing with him is like disagreeing with a brick. No, it’s just that I saw a side of him today that I didn’t know about, and I didn’t care for it much. He’s going to America, sailing at the weekend. To spend time with American doctors in Boston.’

‘Is he? How long for? I thought you were all lined up for a wedding in the new year.’

‘Not any more. It has to be postponed until he gets back, sometime in February.’

‘And you aren’t upset?’

‘No, not at all. I don’t mind being engaged, there’s a comfort in it, and I’m happy enough when I’m with Roger. But marriage is a bit of a step.’ Polly twisted her glass round in her hands. ‘He maintains I can’t go on working once we’re married. In fact, I think he expects me to give up my painting altogether. Which is all a bit of a wrench, I like what I do at the workshop.’

‘I saw that coming, even if you didn’t,’ said Oliver. ‘You do sound dreary, ducks. All this and the art not going too well.’

‘Don’t say that!’ said Polly, roused out of her glumness by his unexpected attack.

‘My dear Polly, your paintings are getting smaller and dingier by the week. Whoever is going to buy them? They’re technically very good, but if you go on the way you are, you’ll end up painting miniatures.’

‘Canvases of a decent size cost money.’

‘Come on, that’s not the reason, and you know it. Life’s boxing you in, that’s what’s happening to you. Time to burst out, Polly my dear.’

‘Do you think one can do that? Change one’s life? Leave the old one behind like a snake shedding its skin? I don’t. I think however hard you tried, you’d still be the same old snake, hissing and coiling in the same old way. Even if you did have a shiny new shape, all green and gold and glistening …’ The snake was there, in her mind’s eye, or perhaps green and gold was more appropriate for a dragon. The creature morphed instantly into a beast with snorting, fiery breath and huge wings, and Polly laughed.

‘That’s better,’ Oliver said. ‘I’ve an idea. Come and spend a few weeks at my father’s house in Cap Rodoard, in the south of France, where the light will dazzle your eyes, even in the depths of winter. It’s a strange place, my father’s house, but there’s quite a community of artists in the village, plenty of kindred spirits for you. I think the dim dreariness of a bad London winter is seeping into your soul. Over there you can throw open the shutters in the morning, and there’s the sun pouring in to lighten your life. Palm trees outside the window, colour everywhere to lighten your darkness.’

His father’s house. Oliver never spoke about his family, he might have been an orphan or one of ten children for all Polly knew. ‘Does your father spend much time in France?’

‘He lives there.’

‘Why? Doesn’t he like England? Or is he French?’

Oliver looked amused. ‘Good Lord, no. As English as they come, bad barons going back through the centuries.’

‘So why France?’

Oliver went quiet, then lifted his glass and finished his whisky. ‘He prefers it,’ he said.

‘Do you have other family over there? Is your mother …?’

‘My sister might be out there for the winter, with or without her husband, but she needn’t bother you.’

Polly sighed. ‘It’s kind of you to ask, Oliver, and I should love to go to France, but it’s impossible.’

Polly had suggested to Roger that they go to France for their honeymoon, Paris, she said, thinking of that city so redolent of artists, of galleries crammed with wonderful paintings, of la vie bohème. Then they could go down to the south for a few days, perhaps …

Roger had shaken his head. ‘I don’t care for France, and you wouldn’t like the south of France, it’s a frivolous place, if you mean the Riviera. No, mountains are better. Lots of clean, good air, and I might get some climbing in. Switzerland might be best, or Austria.’

‘Why impossible?’ said Oliver.

‘Oh, too expensive, and no, before you offer, I won’t let you fund me, and no, you don’t want to buy one of my pictures. Come on, Oliver, you and I have always been honest with one another.’

‘Have we?’ said Oliver. ‘I suppose so.’

One says these things, Polly told herself. But it isn’t true. Oliver keeps most of his life to himself, I only ever get a glimpse here and there, when he comes out of his own world to come visiting in mine. And what about me? I haven’t told him about Polyhymnia, and I don’t know why not.

‘Besides, Roger wouldn’t care for my going. I’ve got to consider his feelings.’

‘Surely he isn’t jealous of me?’

‘No, but …’ Polly didn’t want to tell Oliver that Roger disapproved of her friendship with him. He probably knew it already. Was that something else that would be cut out of her life, once she was Mrs Harrington? No, it wasn’t. Her days would be her own, Roger couldn’t keep tabs on her for every hour of the day, she wasn’t entering a harem, for heaven’s sake.

‘Live a little, before you get shackled for the rest of your life, I can’t see a woman like you ever leaving her husband. Shake the savings out of the piggy bank, and splurge it all on a ticket. Away with the gloom of an English winter, a month in the sun, what could be better for you? Bring some colour back into your cheeks.’

His words echoed those of Dr Parker, was she really so pallid? ‘I don’t believe it’s sunny anywhere in January. I bet it rains there too.’

‘Oh, it does, and snow has even been known to fall, every twenty years or so, but mostly it’s far warmer, and always brighter. It’s the light, Polly, that’s why artists love the south of France. Now, finish your lemonade, and I’ll take you to Bertorelli’s for supper.’

‘I had a huge lunch.’