French Leave

‘Just as she didn’t tell George that she had arranged for you to come here,’ he interrupted her, adding tauntingly, ‘Besides, what makes you so sure that I do want to buy the property; perhaps, like you, I’ve simply come here for a holiday…a rest and some relaxation…a couple of weeks away?’

‘No!’ Livvy couldn’t keep the appalled denial back.

He couldn’t possibly mean what he was saying; he couldn’t possibly be intending to stay here, not after all the things he had said about her. He was simply doing it to torment her…to bully her. Well, she wasn’t going to be bullied. She had learned enough as a teacher to be able to stand her ground.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she told him flatly.

‘Don’t you?’ he shrugged dismissively. ‘Well, that’s your choice. You aren’t exactly someone I’d choose to share a house with, but…’ He turned towards the door.

‘You can’t stay here,’ Livvy protested.

He turned round, looking at her speculatively before telling her softly, ‘Oh, but I think I can. After all, unlike you, I have the owner’s permission to do so. Besides, I think I owe it to George to do so. To protect his interests, so to speak. Just as you are here to protect Gale’s.’

‘That’s not true…I’m just here on holiday.’

He smiled at her, a cold, challenging, triumphant smile. ‘Of course, you could always leave. In fact…’

‘I’m not leaving.’

What on earth had she done? she wondered sickly, suddenly feeling oddly light-headed. She couldn’t back down now, even though staying here with him was the last thing she wanted to do.

‘You’re not helping your cousin’s marriage by doing this, you know. But then perhaps that isn’t why you’re here. Perhaps you’re here because Gale knows that George can’t sell the property while you’re living in it, ostensibly a sitting tenant…’

Livvy gasped in outrage. ‘That’s not true! I’m simply on holiday; and besides, Gale would never do anything like that, even if…’ She bit her lip. What was she doing, allowing herself to be drawn into this kind of argument with him?

She had guessed from what Gale had told her that she and George were at loggerheads over the farmhouse and that Gale was upset because George was spending so much time away from home, but she had not thought that their problems were serious enough to actually threaten their marriage.

‘All Gale wants is a chance to talk to George, but that seems to be impossible while Robert Forrest…What kind of man is he, anyway?’ she exploded, her emotions suddenly breaking her self-control. ‘If George and Gale are having problems, then he’s the one to blame. No wonder his own wife left him. I’m only surprised that he found anyone idiotic enough to marry him in the first place.’