His Mistress Proposal?: Public Scandal, Private Mistress / His Mistress, His Terms / The Secret Mistress Arrangement

There was evidently no escaping her initiation, and Veronica was the cynosure of all eyes as she took up a toothpick and dutifully paid her tribute to Fred, chewing her way through the small, chilled delicacy, relieved to discover that all she could taste was the spicy marinade, the boiled snail having a texture similar to squid. Out of sheer bravado, because she sensed Lucien thought she wouldn’t, she even ate a second, but hastily waved away his sly offer to fetch her a plate.

‘Now you’re one of us,’ said Sophie, with satisfaction. ‘I bet Karen wouldn’t have done it. She’d have squealed and claimed it was too yucky.’ She obviously remembered how fastidious her former nanny had been about food.

‘Or complained about the number of calories,’ smiled Veronica.

That brought the conversation around to Karen’s foray into modelling and from Melanie’s comments it was obvious that, far from giving her sister a choice, Karen had freely offered Veronica’s services before she had ever arrived in England. It was Melanie who had been dubious about encroaching on Veronica’s holiday and Karen who had earnestly assured her that it was no problem, for Veronica considered it in the nature of a working vacation anyway, and the free accommodation ample compensation for her time.

Veronica saw little point in revealing how Karen had twisted the facts to suit herself. Even if she wanted to turn tail and run at the daunting prospect of seeing Lucien each day, she knew she was well and truly trapped by her own sense of responsibility.

It was the same strong sense of duty that had kept her hostage on her parents’ farm when she had envisaged a very different future for herself.

‘How convenient for Karen,’ Lucien was commenting. ‘You know, you’ll probably have to look for a new assistant soon anyway, if she’s really been bitten by the modelling bug and not just doing it for a bit of fun.’

‘I know, but I don’t even want to have to think about it just yet,’ said Melanie. ‘Karen’s always fitted in so well … but I knew there’d come a time when she’d get restless and want to move on, and the job is changing, too. There’s less personal and more office work involved now, which I know isn’t really her thing …’

But a certain inflection in Lucien’s voice along with the aptness of his observation had brought Veronica’s head around. ‘Do you know Karen?’

His eyelids drooped, thick black lashes veiling his gaze. ‘We’ve met a few times when she’s been in London with Melanie.’ And before another question could form in her mind, let alone her tongue, he added, ‘If you’re here on a working holiday, what is it exactly that you do, Veronica?’

‘I thought you were some kind of accountant for your parents,’ said Ashley languidly, making it sound like a sinecure. ‘Except—didn’t Karen say you weren’t actually qualified?’

‘I’m not a chartered accountant, if that’s what you mean,’ said Veronica evenly. ‘I left school to help Mum and Dad sell fresh produce from their organic farm, and took accounting courses by correspondence so I could handle their bookkeeping. Gradually I started doing the books for other friends and neighbours with rural small businesses as well.’ Because her parents hadn’t been able to afford to pay her, she had had to invent ways to earn herself some money and contribute to the household expenses, inadvertently providing herself with the means and incentive to finally assert her independence.

She had loved school and longed to go on to university, but at the time her parents had been struggling, so she had quietly put her dreams of an independent career on hold and stayed home on the farm. As their first-born it was taken for granted that she would be a pillar of strength. Her sister and brother were years younger and had still had to finish their schooling. Her hard-working parents hadn’t quite known how they had managed to produce such an ethereal beauty as Karen between sensible, brainy Veronica and brawny, down-to-earth John—who was a farmer from the day he could first stick his chubby toddler’s foot in a gumboot. So when the organic food trade had begun to take off and their money problems had eased a little, it was effervescent Karen, scraping through with minimum marks, who had been allowed to go straight from school to university in Auckland, even though she had no real ambition to study, and had dropped out the instant the Reeds had offered her a full-time job looking after Sophie.

‘Now that organically grown food is in such big demand globally, your parents must be glad that they were in the vanguard of the revolution,’ said Melanie knowledgeably, picking up a paper fan to direct a cooling breeze through her gauze sling. ‘Bell Farm has got itself a solid reputation for quality goods.’

‘Karen showed me the website for the farm that you designed. It’s very impressive,’ said Miles, pulling the cork out of another bottle of wine. ‘She said you took all the photographs for it yourself.’

‘It’s a hobby of mine.’ She shrugged, flushing with pleasure at his praise. ‘Bell Farm gets a lot of online orders now, especially for our Christmas gift packs. In fact, that’s what gave me the idea for my new business. Now that my parents have hired a new business manager and my brother has left school to work full-time on the farm, I’m moving up to Auckland to concentrate on a mail-order gift-buying service that I’ve been building up online over the past couple of years.’ Her enthusiasm made her temporarily forget her self-consciousness, her freckled face losing its preoccupied reserve and coming alive with eagerness as Miles urged her on with an interested question while Ashley giggled something in Ross’s ear.

‘It’s for corporate and PR purposes as well as people looking for the individual touch, something small but exclusive, handcrafted and distinctive—the kind of curio you don’t usually find in shops outside the local area of production. It started off New Zealand-themed, but now I have a few friends who live abroad sourcing items for me, and I’ve had enough overseas orders to enable me to look at buying from other markets and launching an international online service.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly done the right thing coming here. You’ll find plenty of ideas at the local markets around the Vaucluse,’ Melanie said, selecting a plump green olive glistening with herb-flecked dressing to pop in her mouth. ‘Of course a great deal of what’s on offer is far too touristy for your purposes, but there’s some really good, genuine craft-work to be had if you strike the right time and place, or go off the beaten track a bit. I’m sure Mum can help you there and, actually, it’ll really fit in with much of what I was going to ask you to do, because my new book is going to be a tour of some of the food markets of France and I had planned to dash thither and yon in the car to pick up information and samples from markets and specialty food producers so that I can decide where I want to focus my research.’

It didn’t sound too onerous, and Veronica’s fears of spending the greater part of the beginning of her holiday in Provence cooped up inside were gratefully dispelled. And besides, Karen would soon be arriving to take back her rightful duties.

‘So you’re going global,’ teased Miles. ‘Are you aiming to be New Zealand’s next dot.com millionaire?’

‘I don’t think that’s really likely,’ smiled Veronica. ‘But I’ve already had some important orders from Kiwi multinational companies.’

‘Guts and money, I suppose you must need equal amounts of both to do what you’re doing,’ Zoe guessed shrewdly.

‘Well, it is a bit scary, but in a good way,’ Veronica admitted. ‘I’ve been planning it for years so I’m fairly confident I’m not over-extending myself. If things work out I’ll probably take on a partner at some point, to free myself up to travel on more buying trips.’

‘If you want expert advice you should talk to Luc,’ said Melanie. ‘He’s in a perfect position to know. He made his first fortune in currency speculation and doubled it backing Internet start-ups.’

Veronica immediately felt her skin prickle with renewed tension. For a few minutes she had forgotten the major complication at her side. He had been talking to Sophie, but his swift answer showed that he was perfectly able to multitask.

‘You forget that I also lost it all the same way,’ said Luc drily.

‘Yes, but you were only twenty. You soon made it all back again, and more,’ said Melanie proudly. ‘Honestly, Veronica, he’s invested in new Internet companies all over the world, so he knows what he’s talking about. And he’s right here, so why not take shameless advantage of his prime area of expertise?’

Veronica thought she already had! Half turned away from him, she heard a smothered laugh that feathered hot breath over her bare shoulder, and was mortified to know that he was thinking the same thing.

‘No, really,’ she choked. ‘Enough people have had their holidays disrupted. I don’t want to disturb him on his break—’

‘I’m already disrupted and disturbed,’ he growled.

‘Oh, go on, Luc, it might help stop you brooding about that—about what’s happened,’ Melanie said, adding in an unfortunate choice of words, ‘and give you a chance to sink your teeth back into something that excites you …’

‘Mmm, that’s very true …’ he mused wickedly, and Veronica didn’t dare look at him for fear her head would explode with the heat of her blushes, her breasts tingling at the memory of the luscious bites he had used to arouse and appease their mutual hunger. She suddenly felt his hand on her upper arm, his knuckles skimming the tender side of her breast as his fingers curled into her warm skin, tugging her inexorably around to meet his dark, taunting gaze. ‘What do you think, Veronica? Do you think you might benefit from a personal demonstration of my … exciting expertise?’

‘You see, Veronica?’ Melanie said happily. ‘Isn’t it lucky that you and Luc are down here at the same time? He’s usually a very difficult man to pin down. It couldn’t have been better if you planned for it to happen this way.’

At her words, Luc’s fingers tightened on Veronica’s soft flesh, his face hardening, throwing his bold nose into sharp relief as his eyebrows lowered over eyes that swarmed with sudden suspicion.

She could read him like a book, she realised in furious exasperation. Now he was actually wondering if it had all been some giant conspiracy on her part.

‘Oh, dear—now I’m found out I suppose I should confess that it’s not your expertise I’m after, just your money,’ she oozed, pouring fuel onto the smouldering fire.

His eyes narrowed and she smiled with lots of teeth.

‘I was going to ask for a few million, but now that I know you’re not the fabulous billionaire I thought you were, I suppose I’ll have to settle for a measly few hundred thousand. If you could make the cheque out to cash,’ she suggested sweetly, ‘I’ll bank it straight into my numbered Swiss account.’

‘Very amusing,’ he grunted as the rest of the table responded to the joke.

She rounded her widely spaced grey eyes and made a show of nibbling on her lower lip. ‘But … don’t you believe me?’

His fingers trailed down to rest in the sensitive crease of her inner elbow, lightly teasing at the nerve endings. ‘I believe you’re playing a dangerous game … and wonder if you’ve considered all the consequences …’

Of course she hadn’t, she had got carried away by the sheer exhilaration of paying him back for his unworthy suspicions. His suggestive threat made her realise that she had just done the equivalent of putting her head in the lion’s mouth and Veronica quickly withdrew it, throwing out a question to Zoe about the St Romain, which turned the conversation general and allowed her to sink back into polite silence.

A little while later she excused herself with the plea of being tired, and agreed to join Melanie for coffee late in the morning to discuss her plans for the next few days.

As she was leaving Zoe pressed on her a jar of fresh apricot jam, which she had made to an old Provence recipe with fruit harvested from the trees in the garden, to have with her breakfast.

‘Oh, are you allowed to pick the fruit?’ said Veronica, thinking of the laden branches of the greengage tree beside the cottage.

Zoe’s sun-creased face split in a rapturous smile. ‘The owners always let me do a bit in the gardens while I was here and take what little I wanted to use for myself, but now I don’t have to even think about it. Luc bought Mas de Bonnard a few months ago and is insisting on signing it over to me as a birthday present, extravagant lad that he is—not that I’ve agreed to accept it, yet …’

‘Liar.’ The extravagant boy grinned, getting lazily to his feet. ‘You’ve already got Miles doing renovations and Melanie planning to set a book here. You’re going to love being able to come and go as you please—you can spend the whole of the New Zealand winter here, if you like—and I’ll bet there’ll never be any shortage of family and friends to keep you company.’

Veronica had thought he was only standing up to be polite, or to stretch his long limbs, but instead he started to turn when she did.

‘I’ll walk down with you. I need to get something from my car,’ he said casually as she opened her mouth to reject the need for an escort.

‘Could you go round by way of the pool?’ said Melanie.