ridiculous. Why will women take these little things so
personally? Good night, Jean-Paul. By the way, are you
free tomorrow afternoon? My mother is in Paris for
shopping and would like you to take tea with her and
Pallas.”
Jean-Paul looked at him incredulously, eyes alight.
“Take tea? Why, yes, I should be delighted ... What hour?”
“Three o’clock? Good. Afterwards you might take Pallas
for a drive to Versailles. She needs some fresh air.”
Jean-Paul clasped his hands behind his back and
swallowed. “I ... yes ... I ...” he stuttered, visibly shaken.
Marc looked down at Kate, his grey eyes mocking her.
He marched her to the door and pushed her out in front of
him. She maintained a frozen silence while they were in
the shuddering, droning lift, but when they were out in
the street again, she shook his arm away.
“I’ll walk,” she announced, turning on her heel.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” snapped Marc, grabbing at her.
He pushed her into his car and slammed the door.
Rigid with fury, she stared straight ahead as he started
the car. But within minutes she realised that he was not
driving her to the Murray apartment, which was only two
streets away from Jean-Paul’s, but was heading out of
Paris altogether.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked him
angrily.
He did not answer, his face cool and remote in the dim
interior of the car, but some minutes later he pulled up at
the kerbside, near a small tree-lined square. The wind
gently moved the branches of the lime trees, and their