Peach (56 page)

And as the blue dusk fell over the steely lake they made
love on the vast sofa in front of the log fire, consumed by their own heat and warmed by the flames.

Afterwards they showered together in his huge bathroom and Peach soaped his hair and licked the drops of water from his lashes and Noel lathered her body until she was dressed in white suds and slippery as an eel in his arms. And they kissed endlessly, as if they were making up for all the months of not kissing.

Warmed by the roaring fire and his love, Peach sipped chilly champagne, gazing out of the windows at the fairytale landscape, watching the first flutter of snow settle on the wooden deck while Noel cooked supper. He emerged briskly from the kitchen bearing sizzling melted cheese sandwiches and they drank more champagne and ate enormous hothouse strawberries from California.

“Five bites,” said Peach licking her lips and finishing the last strawberry. “I counted.”

Noel laughed. “Why count? Why not just enjoy it?”

“I always count things like that. I counted the first time a boy kissed me. I still remember it was thirty-two seconds. And do you know who he was? Harry’s brother—Tom.”

“You mean I should be jealous of all the Launceton brothers?”

“Only two. Archie was too young.”

Noel groaned. “Let’s not talk of the Launcetons.”

“And what about you? Who am I to be jealous of? You haven’t told me a single thing about any women in your life. For all I know there could be a sweet little wife tucked away somewhere.”

“I promise you there isn’t.”

Peach lay back on the sofa staring up at the soaring beamed ceiling with Noel sitting on the floor beside her.

“What’s the matter?” asked Noel, taking her hand.

“I’m just feeling jealous of all those unknown women, thinking about them in your arms.”

“Foolish girl,” murmured Noel, kissing her fingers. “There have been no women in my life until you.”

“Really, Noel?” she sat up looking at him seriously. “Has there been no one in your life you loved?”

“There have been women I cared about—but none more important to me than my work.”

“Or your ambition,” Peach guessed shrewdly.

“As you wish,” replied Noel. “But that was before you. I want to ask you to marry me but I’m too afraid you’ll say no.”

Peach lay back on the sofa with a sigh, waves of pure happiness washing over her. “I warn you if you do ask, I’ll say yes.”

Noel knelt at her side, leaning over her as she lay there, “Will you?” he asked.

“I will,” replied Peach.

Leonie sat at the head of her table wearing black lace and heavy diamond drop earrings, her silvery hair piled up Edwardian-style, and the ebony walking-stick—hated symbol of old age—resting against her chair. The headaches that had been troubling her for months and which Dr Mercer in Nice, who was himself almost as aged as she, told her were due to high blood pressure, had disappeared and she felt
better than she had in a long time. Having all her family here at the villa for Peach’s wedding made her happy and that seemed a better cure for what ailed her than all Dr Mercer’s little white pills.

Her gaze rested on Peach sitting beside Noel, happiness blazing from her every glance, so in love with him she could hardly bear to let go his hand in order to eat. But the cool, tense Mr Maddox was still an enigma, only allowing them to see the part of him that was public domain. Who knew what lay beneath that calm, assured surface? When he looked at Peach as he did now, his eyes had a naked, hungry look as though he were afraid of losing her—even though he was marrying her tomorrow. Studying Noel, Leonie thought there was a vulnerability about him when he looked at Peach—it was only then that his façade slipped. But why did he need a façade? It bothered Leonie that she couldn’t read Noel’s character, that she couldn’t get beneath his surface. And when she thought about their marriage the question that always came to mind was, did Noel truly love Peach? Or was it the de Courmont company he wanted? Remembering Noel’s meeting here with Jim and the events since, she doubted his motives.

Leonie took a sip of her champagne, smiling across at Lais and Ferdi. Just look how content they were with each other, and how solicitously Ferdi looked after her without ever making it obvious! It seemed only yesterday Lais was the headstrong beautiful young girl, juggling with life and always ending up empty-handed. Still, despite everything, in the end Lais had found what she wanted.

Now Leonore was quite different. Who would have thought shy, retiring Leonore would emerge as this elegant self-possessed beauty and one of the world’s best hoteliers? It was a pity, though, that she didn’t seem as successful in love as in business. But Leonore had chosen her own direction
and it was her very singlemindedness that made her so successful.

And then, of course, there was Amelie—fine-boned, beautiful and as strong-willed as herself. Looking at her daughter, lovely in her favourite yellow silk, Leonie saw herself as she had been years ago. Amelie’s resemblance to her was strong, but her daughter’s temperament was resilient and optimistic. Amelie was always the one who saw the patch of blue sky even as the rain fell. Leonie was justly proud of this fine forceful daughter who had brought her the happiness of a true family. It was sad but true that Gerard had never fully recovered from those harsh experiences of the war and his disillusionment with humanity showed in a weariness in his eyes behind the warm smile. All Gerard really cared about now was Amelie and his girls. Their happiness was his.

How different life might have been, thought Leonie, if Gilles de Courmont had been more like his gentle son! No one, not even Jim, would ever know how desperately she had loved Monsieur, and how she had longed for his love and wanted his child. Now Monsieur’s great-grandson—and hers—was sitting beside her at this table. But nine-year-old Wil did not possess the de Courmont name and, though Wil looked like Monsieur, he was as open and uncomplicated as his grandfather had been devious and complex, manipulating lives to gain his own ends—even going so far as … murder. The memory lurked in the back of her mind, waiting with the old ghosts to come forward and remind her, again and again and again … forcing her to face the truth. And it was true also that even afterwards, when she’d known, she’d still been attracted by him, still felt the powerful pull of his presence.

Leonie reached out to stroke Wil’s thick dark hair and he smiled up at her. She knew now there would be no more
sons or daughters bearing the de Courmont name. Peach was the last. And Gilles de Courmont, founder of his great company, would become just a part of history, as she herself would, quite soon.

“You’re very quiet,” remarked Jim.

“I’m just watching my family, remembering when they were small and I was young.” Leonie pushed back her chair. “Let’s have our coffee on the terrace.” Disdaining the silver-topped stick that waited to remind her she was old, Leonie walked slowly into the warm night, tall and straight, as though she were a young girl again. Wil rushed after her, anxiously offering her his youthful arm and the walking stick.

“Thank you, Wil,” Leonie said with a smile. “I don’t know what I’d do without my great-grandson.”

“Well maybe you’ll get more great-grandsons now that Mum’s marrying Noel,” replied Wil. “I wouldn’t mind a brother or a sister.”

“Did you hear that, Peach?” called Lais, laughing, “your son is planning on having brothers and sisters.”

“And why not?” Clutching Noel’s arm Peach smiled up at him, but Noel’s face was impassive—a look she was beginning to know. They walked to the end of the terrace to look at the view of the headland under the white glare of the full moon. “Are you upset by Wil’s talk of brothers and sisters?”

Noel’s eyes were hooded as he glanced at her, guarding some part of himself that she had yet to see. “Our children won’t be de Courmonts, you know. Nor even Launcetons. They’ll be Maddox kids—sons of a man who doesn’t even know who his father was. When I see your family, the traditions, the sharing of lives and experiences—
your past
, Peach, I think that I have very little to offer you—or a child.”

Looking into his bleak dark face Peach was shocked by how deep Noel’s wounds went. “Did they never tell you who your parents were?” she asked gently.

“The Maddox never volunteered any information to their inmates. To them you were just another of the world’s dispossessed—to be fed just enough and to be clothed in others’ cast-offs, to be polite and clean and scrubbed and put on display for the governors or the local civic groups, so they could feel the warm glow of their own goodness as they bestowed their second-hand gifts on us. It’s easy to drop a penny in a beggar’s cup—it’s not so easy to love him.”

“It’s a long time ago, Noel,” said Peach urgently. “Look at you now! Look what you’ve made of yourself! You should be proud!”

“It’s just that sometimes,” replied Noel wearily, “I think to myself how much easier it would all have been if I didn’t have to fight every step of the way.”

“The fighting’s over,” whispered Peach, resting her head against his shoulder, “and you’re not alone now.
Our
children will be proud to be called Maddox.”

Noel smiled wryly. “Then I can promise you one thing, Peach, they’ll be the first.”

Despite Leonie’s protests that it was still early, the family were dispersing, kissing goodnight and hoping for a fine day to bless the bride tomorrow. Jim walked with them back to the hotel and Peach, who was staying at the villa, went to say goodnight to Wil.

Leonie studied Noel as he leaned against the rail, gazing at the silver swell of the Mediterranean under the moonlight. “It’s a view I never tire of,” she said finally, “even though I must have looked at it every day for more than sixty years.”

“I can see why,” replied Noel. “There’s a fascination about the sea; perhaps it’s because it’s different every time
you look at it. When I was a kid the only waves I saw were waves of wheat rippling in the wind across the Iowa plains. You could go for mile upon mile and see nothing but wheat, never changing, never ending—into infinity.”

At last, thought Leonie, the man had revealed a chink in his armour.

“It frightened me,” said Noel quietly. “I used to think that there was nothing beyond it, that no matter how hard I’d try or how fast I’d run there would be just another endless expanse of wheatfield in front of me.”

“You don’t strike me as a young man afraid of what’s in front of him. And there’s nothing any of us can do about our past.” Leonie pulled herself to her feet with the ebony cane. Old as she was, she was straight-backed and taller than he, and she’d always felt better facing an adversary standing. “Noel,” she said, “I was here the day you came to offer Jim a deal for the de Courmont company, the same day that Peach telephoned from Spain to say she was in trouble. She told me how you found her in Barcelona and helped her. Am I right in thinking that wasn’t just a coincidence?”

Noel leaned against the rail, folding his arms. “I went there to find her. To help her.”

“But why Noel? Why should you have wanted to help Peach?
Unless it was so that you could gain control of de Courmont through her?”

“I first met Peach when I was thirteen. Our paths crossed several times since. I knew her and I wanted to help her.”

Leonie sighed. “I wish I could feel sure you were marrying her because she is Peach and not because she’s de Courmont,” she said bluntly.

Noel stared at her in silence. In the moonlight Leonie looked half her age and she had the strength of will to match. And she was determined no fortune-hunter was going to grab her granddaughter without a warning. “You are
a wise woman, Leonie,” he replied abruptly. “You see more than most. You must judge for yourself.”

Peach hurried towards them along the terrace. “There you both are,” she cried. “Now what have you been talking about, you both look so solemn? And how can anyone be serious on a night like this when there’s moonlight and the sound of the sea—and tomorrow is my wedding day?” She smiled radiantly at Leonie. “Aren’t you pleased, Grand-mère, that at last one of your granddaughters is having a proper wedding for you to remember?”

“I’m pleased, child,” said Leonie, looking at Noel, “if that’s what makes you happy.”

Linking her arm in Noel’s Peach beamed at them both. “I’m so very happy,” she said, “I can’t wait to be Mrs Noel Maddox.”

Leonie went in to kiss Peach goodnight as she always had done, only this time Leonie knew it was different.

Peach’s old room at the villa was still filled with the memorabilia of her girlhood—family pictures and long school photographs with a hundred tiny smiling faces, most of them now only names from the past. There was a bulletin-board pinned with layers of ageing holiday snapshots and long-ago party invitations, fading postcards of sunny resorts and white-capped ski slopes and once-important letters curling at the edges, their writing blurred. There was a pressed flower still in its silvery wrapper and a solitary pretty earring, one of a long-lost pair. Well-worn stuffed animals ranged the dresser and the window seat and stacks of books tumbled across two walls of wooden shelves. The narrow white bed and tiny red-enamelled table with the silver framed mirror that had been Peach’s since she was nine years old seemed too small for the rangy young woman who
sat brushing her long chestnut-bronze hair and staring contemplatively into its depths.