A Vow to Secure His Legacy

She chewed her lip. Thinking about that only made everything more difficult. Instead, she should focus on politely declining any make-over attempt. It wasn’t as if she’d be here long term, so there was no question of her becoming the perfect wife for Thierry.

The knowledge stabbed, the pain sharper than before. But Imogen kept her expression neutral. She wasn’t ready to share that with Thierry’s grandmother. She already felt like she’d been stripped bare.

Curiosity got the better of her. ‘You don’t mind that Thierry married so quickly, or that I’m pregnant?’

‘I might have, until I saw the way you looked at him.’ There was a glimmer of a smile in those eyes so like Thierry’s.

‘The way I looked at him?’

‘Absolutely. The way a woman looks when she’s in love.’

* * *

Imogen gave up trying to sleep. Instead, she perched on the window seat in her bedroom.

It was twilight and in the distance she saw the haze of indigo mountains. Closer to the château were verdant fields and she could smell that sweet scent on the evening air again. Meadow flowers or perhaps something growing in the formal gardens. To the right was a sprinkle of lights from the nearest town.

She lifted her feet, wrapping her arms around her knees, drinking in the view.

But Madame Girard’s words stole her peace.

The way a woman looks when she’s in love.

Had she really looked at Thierry that way?

Imogen told herself Madame Girard indulged in wishful thinking because she wanted to see her grandson happy.

The bond between the pair had been evident through the evening they’d all spent in madame’s apartments—in a wing of the château Imogen hadn’t visited before. The old lady was shrewd, with a dry sense of humour that had grown on Imogen. But sentimental? Not enough to skew her judgement.

In love.

Imogen had never been truly in love. At the time she’d thought perhaps with Scott... But, though she’d been hurt by the callous way he’d dumped her, her heart hadn’t broken.

She admired Thierry. She liked him and was grateful for all he was doing for her and their child. After Scott, who’d resented the increasing time she spent with her mother as she’d faded, Imogen knew how remarkable it was to find a man who didn’t run from harsh reality, but helped shoulder her burdens.

How many men would have done as Thierry had?

He wasn’t content simply to put his name on the marriage contract. He was meticulous about seeing to her comfort. He never missed a meal with her and his careful attentiveness should have put her at ease.

Instead, it made her restless.

Physically she felt better than she had in weeks. But emotionally? The unwanted truth hammered at her. It wasn’t her luxurious surrounds that made her edgy, or meeting Thierry’s grandmother. As for her illness—she hadn’t precisely become accustomed to it, but she’d learned to live in the moment as much as possible.

It was Thierry who tied her stomach in knots.

She raked her hand through her hair, pulling it back from her face.

She didn’t want Thierry’s hospitality. Each time he solicitously held her chair at the table or opened a door for her, impatience gnawed. He was caring and charming but there was an indefinable distance between them now.

What she wanted, what she craved, was his touch, his passion. Not love, she assured herself, but intimacy.

When she’d had that in Paris she’d felt able to cope with the future. In some inexplicable way it had given her the strength to face what was to come. Even after all this time she still reached for him in the night, waking to a loneliness even more desolate for his absence.

Had his attraction for her been so short-lived? Or did her illness turn him off? Or her pregnancy?

Or did he hold back from her for some other reason?

A breeze wafted through the window, stirring her nightdress against her breasts and teasing her bare arms. Her eyelids flickered as she thought of Thierry and how sensitive she’d been to his lightest touch. He’d made her body come alive as never before. He’d awakened something in her that refused to go back into hibernation.

A sound drew her attention to the door connecting her room to Thierry’s.

Imogen’s lips firmed. She wasn’t dead yet.

* * *

Thierry paused in the act of hauling off his shirt when he heard a tap on his door. Not the door to his private sitting room but the one connecting to Imogen’s room. The one he’d tried to ignore since they’d arrived, knowing she slept just metres away.