Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

‘I was only kidding.’ Christien hugged her so tight that breathing was an impossibility. For a sickening second he had been jarred by the thought of how he would have felt had she been in that car with her father and his friends that night almost four years earlier, and it was as if he had been punched in the gut by a iron fist.

‘But stuff like that happens—’

‘We’ve already come through a lifetime of bad luck and we’re together again,’ Christien drawled forcefully, but he was wondering uneasily what was the matter with him.

Why was he talking and thinking the way he was? It was weird. He felt decidedly queasy about the amount of unfamiliar emotion assailing him, never mind his own imaginative flight of folly that had caused her to burst into tears in the first instance. Of course, he was fond of her. Naturally. There was nothing wrong with affection, was there? She lapped up stuff like that too, he reminded himself, relaxing again. The hugs, the hand holding, the cards, the flowers, all the stupid, meaningless mush. He hugged her, held her hand and resolved to have flowers sent to her in the morning. He was really only catering to her needs and only a miserable, selfish bastard would withhold the little touches that made her content.

He carried Tabby into a big walk-in shower. ‘By day you can be as proper as a Victorian virgin but at night, you’re mine,’ he told her.

Her body had a sweet, lingering ache of satisfaction that filled her with languor. A towel wrapped round her in a sarong, he took her back up to his room. There he unwrapped her again with the care of a male performing a symbolic act and slid her beneath the sheet. Shedding his jeans, he climbed in beside her and hauled her close. Love spread through Tabby in a warm wave of security. Nestling into him, charmed by the fact that he was holding her hand even though it was not really comfortable, she went straight to sleep.

Christien woke to find his three-year-old son staring at him from the foot of the bed.

‘What are you doing in Mummy’s bed?’ Jake asked, wide-eyed.

‘She had a nightmare,’ Christien responded glibly.

‘What happened to her nightie?’ Jake demanded.

‘It fell off…when she was having the nightmare,’ Christien told him boldly, but a faint flush of colour underscored his superb cheekbones.

Tabby, who had woken up too, started to laugh.

‘You’re supposed to be supporting me here,’ Christien breathed in a meaningful undertone out of the corner of his handsome mouth.

‘You’ll have to do better than that to get support!’ Tabby spluttered, for she was in the grip of helpless giggles.

Christien held her until she subsided: Tabby under one arm, their son, who seemed to find giggles highly contagious, beneath the other. Should he call his own mother to tell her that he was marrying Gerry Burnside’s daughter? He was no coward, but he felt more like sending a note and keeping his distance until the hysterics were over and the tears had dried. Phoning, he decided, would be the safest and kindest first line of approach. Did he then risk taking Tabby for a brief visit? For perhaps ten minutes? He refused to contemplate the possibility of Tabby being slighted or hurt. Ought he to say something to that effect to his mother beforehand? Above Tabby’s vulnerable head, he grimaced and his possessive embrace became even more pronounced.

That afternoon, Christien shepherded Tabby and Jake into his mother’s apartment. It seemed less gloomy than it had been on his last visit. The curtains were no longer half shut and some of the blinds that blocked the sunlight had been raised. He could only stare when his parent walked to greet them, looking quite unrecognisable, not only because she had a tentative smile on her face, but also because she was wearing something other than black for the first time in almost four years: a dark blue dress.

‘Madame…’ Tabby murmured cheerfully, offering her cheek French-fashion for his elegant mother’s salutation.

‘Tabby…’ Christien’s parent murmured in warm welcome, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘Please call me Matilde.’

Jake opened his arms for a hug. Matilde knelt down to oblige and informed the little boy that the French word for grandmother was mamie.

Christien could not credit what he was seeing. It was picture perfect. It seemed too good to be true that the very first time his parent laid eyes on Tabby, she should greet the younger woman like a cherished family member. But there it was: his mother was enthusing over Tabby’s engagement ring and listening to Jake’s chatter while their son hung onto the older woman’s hand.

Christien cleared his throat. Both women gave him an innocent look of enquiry.

‘Non…the show is over,’ Christien pronounced drily. ‘I’m not fooled. I’m not that stupid. The two of you have met before!’

‘How did you know?’ Tabby demanded in exasperation.

A rerun of Veronique’s first meeting with his parent after their engag

ement had replayed in Christien’s memory. Although she’d known the brunette since childhood, his mother’s polite reception of her future daughter-in-law had had little warmth. A belated deduction that came as a sincere shock to Christien led him into a rare indiscretion.

Christien studied Matilde in surprise. ‘You didn’t like Veronique…’

The older woman was taken aback by his lack of tact in referring to his former fiancée on such an occasion and then she sighed in answer. ‘Even when that young woman was a little girl, I thought she was sly.’

‘So how did you meet Tabby?’ Christien asked, only casually wondering why Veronique had such a very bad track record when it came to befriending her own sex. Sly?

‘Ask us no questions and we will tell you no lies,’ Tabby interposed at an instant when, ironically, she was gasping to ask a curious question on her own account. Veronique? Had Christien and his parent been referring to the same woman whom she had met in the Dordogne?

Matilde announced that she wanted to throw a party to celebrate their engagement. As a distraction it was very successful, particularly as Christien was also caught up in silencing his son’s innocent attempt to tell Matilde that Tabby had had such a bad nightmare that her nightie had fallen off.