Vacation with a Commanding Stranger

While their guide was explaining the geological make-up of the cave system, another tour group arrived in the cavern; schoolchildren, noisy and excited as they discovered the possibilities of the cavern’s echo effect. They were younger than her own class. Livvy sympathised with the slightly tense-looking young woman who was obviously their teacher.

One of the boys, his face turned upwards to stare at the ceiling, backed accidentally into Livvy.

When the teacher hurried across to remonstrate with him and apologise, Livvy smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she told her. ‘I’ve been there myself…’

‘You’re a teacher?’ the other girl queried.

She was about Livvy’s own age, small and very French-looking, with her immaculate bobbed shiny dark hair, pristine shirt and jeans and soft Gucci loafers.

The same clothes worn by her would never have managed to look quite as chic as they did on this girl, Livvy reflected, and then acknowledged wryly to herself that a British schoolteacher’s salary was hardly likely to stretch to what looked like a genuine pair of Gucci shoes.

‘Yes, although my class is slightly older.’

They chatted for several seconds, but it wasn’t until the other girl introduced herself and asked what subject Livvy specialised in that she realised that Livvy herself was not actually French.

Her astonishment when she discovered her nationality was rather flattering, Livvy acknowledged, although she was quick to explain that one of the reasons her French was so good was due to the holidays she had spent with her French relatives.

‘Oui, that is the very best way to become fluent in another language,’ the other girl agreed.

Her name was Marie-Louise Fernier and she had returned to teaching part-time following the birth of her son, she explained to Livvy as they chatted. When she learned that Livvy was staying locally, she immediately suggested that Livvy might like to look round the school.

‘Perhaps we could have lunch together,’ Marie-Louise added, ‘I should enjoy that.’

‘Lunch would be lovely,’ Livvy agreed. It would also be interesting to get an informal look at close hand at a French school.

‘Would tomorrow be too soon?’ Marie-Louise asked her. ‘Only, after tomorrow I do not work again until next week.’

‘Tomorrow will be fine,’ Livvy assured her. ‘Where shall I meet you?’

‘If you would like to come direct to the school,’ Marie-Louise suggested. ‘It is quite easy to find, a kilometre outside Beaulieu. If you could be there for twelve, we could have lunch and then in the afternoon I could show you over the school.’

After she had made a note of Marie-Louise’s directions, Livvy realised that the rest of her tour had moved on. Excusing herself, she hurried to join them.

She would enjoy having lunch with the Frenchwoman, she acknowledged; it would be interesting to talk to her as a colleague and to compare the methods they used. Despite the fact that she had come to the Dordogne for solitude, she was already looking forward to seeing Marie-Louise again.

It would do her good to have something else to think about, something to take her mind off Richard Field and all the confusing and dangerous emotions he managed to arouse in her.

‘You are here alone?’ Marie-Louise had asked her, and she had been very quick to confirm that this was the case.

But it was the truth, after all. All right, so technically Richard Field was sharing the house with her, and the farmer seemed to have leapt to the conclusion because of that fact that they were together, a pair…lovers.

Lovers… A fine frisson of sensation, which had nothing to do with the fact that she had just emerged into the warm sunlight from the coldness of the caves, ran tauntingly over her skin.

* * *

‘Had a good day?’

Livvy couldn’t conceal her astonishment. She paused in the act of pouring herself a cup of coffee and turned to look at Richard Field.

He had walked into the kitchen a few minutes ago and, although she had pretended not to notice him, irritatingly, physically and mentally as well, she seemed to be extra-sensitive to his presence, her nerves on edge, her muscles tight and tense, and even her skin extraordinarily sensitive…so sensitive in fact that she could almost feel the eddies in the air made by his movements.

If he’d actually physically touched her, she couldn’t have reacted more, she recognised edgily. It was ridiculous that he should have this effect on her, especially in view of what she knew about him and his opinions of her.

‘Yes, fine. Have you?’ she responded tersely without looking at him.

‘Mmm…I went fishing…’

Livvy could feel her skin starting to burn. Fishing. It was hardly the most erotic of words and yet, as she heard him say it, a most extraordinary feeling o