Accidental Heiress (9 page)

Above her, he claimed her mouth again, capturing her tongue, teasing her, pulling away to smile down at her. His lips were swollen and red, and she desperately wanted to taste them again.

A warm, calloused palm splayed over one of her breasts. His fingers moved from one nipple to the other then trailed down her belly where they lingered and played, tracing small circles that made her stomach muscles tighten and spasm in agonizing pleasure. Then his hand dipped farther still, teasing its way down her body, edging toward a hidden place that begged for his touch.

His fingers slid inside her, stroking, coaxing one moan after another until one shock after another vibrated thorough her and she couldn't be without him any longer

She ached for him, needed more.

So much more.

As if he heard her unspoken plea, he reached over and grabbed his pants, pulled a condom from his wallet and rolled it on. He covered
her body with his, and she marveled at how perfectly they'd always fit together.

His first thrust stole her breath, drove her deliriously mad. As his own moan escaped his lips, his gaze was locked on hers, and he slid his hands beneath her, helping her match his moves in and out of her body.

Each strong, bold, shameless thrust took greedily, but gave back so much more, until they both exploded together in an ecstasy the likes of which she'd never known.

As they lay there, sweaty and spent, Henri collapsed protectively on top of her. For the first time since she could remember, she knew what it felt like to be loved.

M
argeaux could finally breathe, and her tension had floated away like a piece of paper on a gust of wind. Never before had she had so much to be thankful for. Despite losing her father, she felt as if she knew him better than she ever had in her life.

And then there was Henri. Things had never been better. They still connected on a level like no other. She was in love. She'd never stopped loving him. Now she could safely admit that to herself.

The next morning at St. Mary's, she and
Henri sat in Père Steven's office and presented the idea for the traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

“It's a lovely thought,” he smiled sadly. “However, we cannot afford to stray from our current menu. We've already spent the week's budget on food.”

“Will the food keep?” Henri asked.

Père Steven weighed the question. “Much of it is canned or frozen. So, yes, the majority of it will.”

“We are prepared to buy the turkeys and the other ingredients needed to give the children a treat,” Margeaux said. “We're prepared to roll up our sleeves and help, too. In honor of my father, a boy who lived here and went on to build a good life for himself. Think of it as a way for me to celebrate his life.”

Père Steven said he would have to check with the kitchen staff to make sure the cafeteria manager was on board with the idea.

Soon, the school was abuzz with word of the special meal that the visitors were providing.

That day, Henri had some conference calls to attend to, so after their meeting with Père Steven, he went back to the house to get some
work done. Margeaux stayed to help in the library. She'd also talked to Père Steven about taking photographs around the school and the common areas of the orphanage later that day when the light was right. But first, she would assist the librarian as she'd promised.

She was reshelving a stack of books when she saw Matieu sitting at a table by himself drawing in a notebook. He looked up from his work and caught her watching him.

He got up and walked over to her.

“Why did you take a picture of me yesterday in Père Steven's office?” he asked her in French.

Margeaux shrugged as she formed her answer in French. “Because I'm a photographer. That's what I do. Would you like to see it? I have my camera right here.”

She pulled out her camera, which she'd stashed on the bottom shelf of the cart. Matieu scowled at the camera, then at her, his expression wary as if he didn't know if he should trust her. For some strange reason, she understood his hesitancy.

She found the shot and held out the camera to him. “Here,” she said. “Look.”

He wrinkled his nose when he saw it but stared at it for a while.

“What are you going to do with it?”

Margeaux took a book from the cart, looked at the title, then the Dewey decimal number, because it was painful to look at this boy and not think about the child she and Henri might have had. “Nothing. Would you like to have a copy of it?”

Her offer seemed to catch the boy off guard. “Well, I don't have any money to buy it off you, if that's what you mean.”

He was a tall boy, all feet and big hands with long, awkward limbs he hadn't yet grown into. Just like Henri had been at that age.

“Oh, no, that's not what I meant at all. I'm happy to give you a print. Have you ever had a photograph of yourself?”

She stole a glance at him in time to see him shake his head.

“Well, Père Steven has given me permission to take photographs around the school. If you'd like, maybe I can shoot some more one afternoon after school this week?”

He leaned on the shelf, propping his arm up and resting his chin on his fist, as he sized
her up. He seemed to be getting a little more comfortable with her now.

“Do you work here now or something?”

She considered the question and how to best answer it. She didn't need to bog him down with the hows and whys of what she was doing there. “I'm only here for a week helping out.”

“So then if you're going to take my picture it has to be, like, tomorrow or something, right?”

She nodded. “Yes. Would you like that?”

“Yeah, that sounds cool.”

 

Tuesday night, Henri and Margeaux went on a scavenger hunt for turkeys, buying up every bird they could find.

A.J. had said to allow for about one pound per person.

Finding fifteen twenty-pound birds might have been a challenge had the school's cook not been on board with the plan and directed them to a poultry farm about ten miles outside of town.

So by Wednesday, they had all the components they needed for their traditional turkey dinner. Armed with A.J.'s recipes, some of
Which had been adapted by the school cook to utilize ingredients on hand and to expand the recipes to feed an army of hungry kids, Henri and Margeaux helped with the prep work until they'd helped the cook and her staff get everything under control.

The next day's menu would include turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and pumpkin pie.

After they were finished Margeaux managed to spend some time photographing Matieu, as she'd promised.

Of course Henri had no idea why Margeaux was so smitten with the kid, but she came home that evening full of stories and talking about how sad it must be for these teenage kids who never would have a chance to be adopted by a loving family.

“If circumstances were different,” she said as they relaxed on the couch, enjoying a bottle of wine he'd picked up in the market. “I'd consider adopting him.”

She had so much love to give and it was touching, but sitting there, just the two of them, he couldn't imagine anyone intruding on their lives.

He put his arm around her and she snuggled into him.

Henri knew this wasn't real life; he understood it was what he considered a “snow globe” moment: a snapshot in time, a perfect moment in the perfect setting, insulated from the rest of the world.

Their “snow globe” time was speeding by. The day after tomorrow would be their last day at St. Mary's before they moved on to the Saint James convent so that Margeaux could learn the next piece of untold family history or whatever it was that Colbert had in store for her.

He nuzzled her hair. It smelled clean, like fresh flowers.

Learning about her father's past had been meaty stuff, and, thank God, it seemed to be helping Margeaux get through losing him. Henri hoped whatever came next would be as beneficial. That it would be something Margeaux could take with her—even if it was only in her heart.

They hadn't talked about what would happen after they returned from Avignon. Whether she would go back to Texas or stay in St. Michel.

But as he kissed her neck, working his way around to her mouth, all he wanted to do was make love to her.

 

The Thanksgiving feast was a success, and with great regret, Margeaux bid farewell to Père Steven, Matieu and the rest of the people she'd met at St. Mary's.

She'd been so busy at the orphanage helping and taking photographs, she hadn't had time to see much of Avignon. Therefore, when Henri suggested they spend one last day to play sightseers, she jumped at the chance.

She hadn't been to the city since she was a kid. One summer, on one of the rare vacations her family had taken, they'd come to Avignon.

It was one of those memories that seemed as if it had been ripped out of a photo album: her mother and she at a café table; a mental image of herself on the steps of the Pope's Palace; a dreamscape of her mother sniffing a bouquet of lavender.

Her father must have been the photographer, because there were no pictures of him, and Margeaux couldn't remember any accounts
of him being there—except for his ghostlike presence. He was there, he had to have been because they wouldn't have gone on vacation without him—which was why they rarely went—but unlike the vivid recollections of her mother, she really had no accounting of her father in Avignon.

She had snapshots of memories, but she wasn't sure she actually remembered, or if she'd conjured the recollections after seeing photographs.

That's why on this day that she and Henri had set aside to play tourists, armed with her camera, she wanted to see if any of the sights jogged memories. They went on foot and spent the entire day exploring every inch of the city: they saw the Pope's Palace, which, as the guidebook promised, dwarfed the cathedral; they shopped on Rue des Teinturiers, the famed artisan street, and in the open-air markets where Henri had been purchasing the fruits and vegetables they'd been enjoying; she had Henri snap a photo of her sniffing dried lavender—a recreation of the one of her mother, and she purchased some pure lavender oil, because it was good for relaxation.

She photographed the opera house, and they visited the various museums. Finally, after a full day, they hauled their tired bodies down to the river and had a picnic by the Avignon Bridge. The bridge was actually named Pont Saint-Bénézet Sur, but was immortalized in the famous nursery rhyme as Le Pont d'Avignon.

Unfortunately, by the time they got down there, the afternoon had turned cold and gray. Sullen clouds in the moody afternoon sky seemed to be as fed up with the wind's battering as the rest of the locals. Instead of settling themselves on a patch of grass near the Avignon Bridge, Henri and Margeaux headed upstream a bit.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“It's a surprise,” Henri said.

Just around the bend, the tree-lined street opened into an expansive field where several colorful hot-air balloons brightened up the landscape.

“How about a balloon ride?” he asked. “We saw the city at ground-level. It'll be fun seeing it from the sky looking down.”

It was one of the most romantic suggestions ever.

“How did you arrange this?” she asked.

“I saw a flier at one of the markets and I thought it would make a nice surprise…so
voilà.
”

They took their picnic in the balloon with them, opting to toast each other as the balloon pilot took them up, up, up over the city until the ramparts and the village looked like a tiny toy town.

The balloon pilot must have been good at romantic flights, because he rendered himself all but invisible, turning his attention toward the horizon opposite Margeaux and Henri as they sailed over the top of Avignon.

At the altitude at which they were traveling, it was significantly colder than it was on the ground. Henri put his arms around Margeaux.

“Body heat,” he said.

Despite all that had happened between them, their sharing a house and bed in Avignon, the rekindling of their physical relationship, they hadn't talked about the future. Up there, from that vantage point—or maybe it was the sheer romanticism of sipping champagne as Henri held her close so far above the
earth—Margeaux was suddenly at a loss for words.

She could get used to this.

And that worried her.

They hadn't talked about the future but the burning question looming in the back of her mind was,
What's next for us? Where do we go from here?

The question was building but was blown away by the wind before she could form the delicate foreign sentence.

It was interesting how, when she kept busy with projects and deadlines, she could block out the little voices that meandered through the back of her mind. But when she let down her guard, stopped the idle chatter, the voices tended to seep into the crevices of her heart.

Voices that warned her not to let Henri break through the brambles that had grown around her broken heart, holding together the pieces. Because if she did, one of two things would happen: she might make the mistake of believing that her broken heart had been put back together and was whole again; or her heart might simply fall apart and she might not be able to feel again.

What is next for us?

She didn't know.

Because the wind was kicking up again, and the cold was chilling her to the bone.

Henri leaned closer and wrapped his arms around her tighter, trying to shield her from the biting cold with his big body. He was so warm and smelled vaguely of cedar and leather, and something clean and green.

She could so easily get lost here in his arms. She could forget herself. And she did, for a while, as he ducked his head and found the sensitive spot at the base of her neck, before he finally claimed her mouth. His lips were hot and sensuous, and they warmed her up from the inside out, despite the way the wind was blowing and demanding to know:
What's next for us?

And the question—or maybe the possible answers—made Margeaux shiver.

“What's wrong?” Henri asked.

How did she tell him? How did she explain that she had no idea what she was doing? That she wanted him, that she wanted
this,
but she had no idea what
this
was—if
this
was real, because it had certainly never lasted before.
In fact, every time in the past
this
had ended so badly.

He gazed down at her with such intensity, his brown eyes squinting against the wind. He looked so open. Yet, for all his patience, how could she expect a man like him to want to make a life with a broken woman like her?

He pressed her fingers to his lips. Kissed her fingertips, slowly, one by one. And the biting wind swirled around them, as if tying them together.

“It's okay,” he said, as if reading her mind. “They say the Provençal wind does strange things to people. It can turn them inside out, seduce them, make them do things they'd never dream of doing.”

“As if that's ever been a problem for me,” she retorted.

His eyes gleamed with mischief as he pulled her into him, kissing her. In that moment with the wind in their hair, she could pick out the amber and umber in his deep brown eyes. Right then, more than ever, he looked like the boy she used to know.