Of course he had wanted revenge. Hadn’t she felt exactly the same? And forcing the ‘woman’ in her to respond to him was all part of that revenge. She knew enough about rejection to appreciate the bitterness and thirst for revenge which were its hydra-headed offspring. She should have talked to him, she thought drearily, explained that she had never had his letters, never known what had happened to him. But would it do any good? Wasn’t his bitterness too deeply ingrained? If he had had the slightest shred of feeling left for her, surely tonight must have overcome the barriers.
A terrible weariness swept over her. She could go on no more. Tonight had drained every last drop of her courage. How could she even face Kieron again knowing how she had betrayed herself to him? No lovemaking without love, he had claimed, and yet he must have known how she felt, she had betrayed it so blatantly, wantonly encouraging him to make love to her. She groaned, turning over in the huge empty bed, beyond tears. Beyond anything but a need for total and absolute oblivion.
CHAPTER TEN
‘I SEE you and Kieron were on the beach last night,’ Louise announced acidly over breakfast.
Briony flushed but resolutely refused to look up from her croissants. Let Kieron answer her. Where had he been all night? To the best of her knowledge he had not returned to their room.
‘You were on the beach, weren’t you?’ Louise pressed Kieron.
‘Briony felt like a swim,’ was all Kieron would say, but Briony’s face flamed to think that Louise might have observed their lovemaking—or what had happened after.
During the morning Louise had a phone call from Paris, and returned to the patio with more animation in her face than Briony had previously observed.
‘An old friend of mine from Paris,’ she announced, flopping on to a sunlounger. ‘Jean-Paul wants me to return home. What do you think, chéri?’ she asked Kieron provocatively. ‘Ought I to go?’
‘That decision must surely rest only with you,’ Marian said firmly. ‘Jean-Paul has been very patient with you, Louise, but no man waits for ever, and from what your mother tells me he’s a very successful and personable young man.’
Her words had obviously hit the right note, for after several minutes Louise excused herself and hurried into the salon, returning several minutes later to explain that she had booked herself on to the next Paris flight from Nice airport.
‘Will you take me to the airport, chéri?’ she pleaded to Kieron.
Briony excused herself, unwilling to witness the sight of the French girl openly attempting to seduce her husband. The pleasant breeze of the previous evening had turned into a spiteful wind, and her claim to have a headache was no lie. Even Nicky seemed querulous, and the temperature had dropped several degrees.
It was Héloise who explained what had happened when she brought Briony a soothing tisane.
‘It is the mistral,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders. ‘It is the snake in what would otherwise be paradise,’ she added fatalistically.
The tisane made Briony feel sleepy, her mind floating free of her body. She had no idea whether Kieron had taken Louise to the airport and neither did she care, or so she told herself. Had she learned nothing from the past? she asked herself resentfully. Once before she had hoped for love from Kieron Blake and not received it, so why had she thought it might be different a second time?
Her thoughts were too confusing and painful to be borne. She closed her eyes and let sleep take her in its protective embrace.
The silence awoke her, something in its empty quality alerting her to danger. Where was Nicky? It was long past the time for his rest, and surely Héloise would have woken her if she had put him to bed? Shivering with sudden inexplicable fear, Briony hurried into the small dressing room. One of Nicky’s baby shoes lay discarded on the floor, his much beloved and chewed teddy-bear lying on the bed.
Telling herself that she was over-reacting, Briony hurried into the kitchen. There was no sign of Héloise, and biting her lip she remembered Marian telling her that she usually gave Héloise and François the same afternoon off.
‘It means that François can take Héloise to see her family and collect her again,’ she explained to Briony. ‘He has some friends who run a bar and he goes to see them.’
The empty kitchen sent her panic flaring again. Where was everyone? Where was Nicky?
She went to Marian’s room, expecting to find her hostess resting, but the bed was smooth and untouched. ‘Nicky!’ She whimpered his name beneath her breath, logic giving way to mindless fear as she ran out of the house to the swimming pool, dreading with every second discovering the lifeless body of her child floating in its aquamarine waters.
The pool was empty and still.
Feverish and distraught, she searched the villa and the gardens from top to bottom, calling Nicky’s name until she was hoarse. The others must all have gone out, thinking Nicky was with his mother, where he would have been if she hadn’t been so selfishly wrapped up in her own concerns. Tears burned her eyes, but she refused to allow herself the luxury of letting them fall.
The wicket gate leading down to the beach caught her eye and fresh dread seized her. Those steps so narrow and dangerous were a sure lure for an adventurous two-year-old.
She ran down them, ignoring the sharp grazes inflicted on her tender flesh, searching frantically along the narrow shelving breach where the rocks met the treacherous waters of the sea, sobbing Nicky’s name under her breath. Where was he? Alone and frightened somewhere crying for her, or was he already beyond that? ‘Please God, no!’ The words were wrenched from white lips, her eyes huge with pain and terror, her breath coming in jerky uneven sobs as she stared out to sea.
There was no trace of the little boy.
She ran back to the villa, staring at the phone. Where was Kieron when she needed him? If only someone would appear! She could speak very little French and even if she managed to get in touch with the police how could she make herself properly understand? Where could Nicky have gone? He was such a little boy, barely able to walk for more than ten minutes without complaining that his legs ached. He was so infinitely precious; the most precious thing in her life, and yet through careless neglect she had lost him.
She heard the sound of a car and ran outside, her eyes widening in relief as she saw that it was Kieron’s. He had started to turn the car round in a circle and hadn’t seen her, and frantic with fear that he was going to leave, Briony flung herself despairingly in front of him, shuddering with pain as the bumper caught her slender body, and then through the scream of brakes and her own cry of pain she heard a car door swing open and Kieron’s voice demanding harshly, ‘You little fool, what are you trying to do? Kill yourself?’
She started to tell him about Nicky, but the words were lost, smothered in the thick stifling blanket which fell over her, her lips too numb and swollen for coherent speech.