A Vow to Secure His Legacy Read online

  ‘And the third?’

  ‘Baking. Well, cooking generally, but baking specifically.’

  ‘What do you bake?’ Thierry was intrigued. He didn’t know anyone who cooked for pleasure.

  He thought of Jeanne, who’d been his grandparents’ cook as long as he could remember. She was fiercely protective of her domain, a dumpy little woman with arms as strong as any farm labourer, and fingers that could pinch a boy’s ears painfully if he wasn’t quick enough stealing fresh-baked pastries. As far as he could tell, she had nothing in common with Imogen.

  ‘Anything. Kneading bread dough is therapeutic but I love making sweet things, like baklava or Danishes. I always get requests at work for my honey-chocolate sponge cake.’

  How apt that she tasted like one of her pastries—of vanilla and sugar. Except Imogen was more delectable than any cake he’d ever eaten.

  It had been days since he’d tasted her. Yet, despite his determination not to press her when she was unwell, Thierry’s craving for her sweet lips had grown, not eased, with abstinence.

  ‘So, I’m pretty boring, really.’

  He flicked on the car’s indicator and changed lanes, accelerating as they left the city behind.

  ‘You’re anything but boring.’ Thierry paused, mulling over what she’d told him. ‘You like being at home.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Tell me about it. What’s your home like?’

  Imogen shifted in her seat. ‘I was saving up for a place of my own when this... When I decided to come to France. I’d been renting, sharing a flat, but I moved back in with my mother while she was ill.’

  In other words she’d nursed her mother through her decline. What must it be like, after watching her mother’s fatal deterioration, to know in intimate detail what she herself could expect?

  Thierry put his foot to the floor and for a short time focused on the satisfying distraction of speed. But it didn’t work. His thoughts kept circling back to Imogen.

  ‘Your family home, then. What was it like?’

  Again that short laugh, a little ragged around the edges. ‘We didn’t have one. We moved too often.’

  He shot her a questioning look.

  ‘My mother worked hard to qualify as a teacher when Isabelle and I were little, but she had trouble getting a permanent position. She never said so but it might have been because of the demands of raising twins. Anyway, she worked as a casual teacher, filling in where needed, sometimes for a term at a time if we were lucky.’

  ‘In Sydney?’

  ‘All around the state, though in later years she worked in Sydney. By then she’d come to enjoy the challenge of dealing with new pupils and new surroundings all the time. She chose to keep working on short-term placements.’

  ‘Maybe that explains the bond between you all.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When you speak of your mother or sister I hear affection in your voice. I get the impression you were close.’

  She was silent for a few moments. ‘I suppose it did draw us closer together in some ways.’

  ‘But not all?’ Thierry passed a slow-moving truck then rolled his shoulders. Already he felt a familiar sense of release at leaving Paris.

  ‘Isabelle thrived on new places, making new friends, starting afresh. She was the outgoing one.’

  ‘You’re not outgoing?’ He thought of her laughter the night they’d met in Paris, the confident way she’d bantered with him. Plus there was the enthusiastic way she embraced every new experience.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw her rub her palm down her jeans. He jerked his attention back to the road, before his mind wandered to places it shouldn’t.

  ‘I’m the reserved one, the cautious twin. Izzy would walk into a new classroom and by the end of the day she’d have five new best friends. It would take me weeks or months, and by that stage we’d usually be on the move again. My sister thought it a grand adventure but I...suppose I just wanted more stability and certainty.’

  Hence the affinity for creating order out of chaos with numbers. Thierry tried to imagine what it must have been like for such a child, averse to change, being carted around the countryside. It didn’t escape him that her other interests—reading and baking—were home-based. It was a wonder she’d crossed the globe in search of adventure.

  As if she’d read his thoughts, she spoke. ‘My sister followed her dream and took the gamble of coming to France, hoping to work in fashion, though everyone said her chances were slim. I was the one who stayed where I was.’

  ‘I was always looking for adventure,’ he said then paused, surprised he’d shared that.

  ‘What sort of adventure?’

  ‘Anything to break the monotony of home.’ He sensed her surprise and shot her an amused glance. ‘My childhood was the opposite of yours. Everything in my world was so stable it was almost petrified. Things were done the same way they’d always been done.’

  If it had been good enough for the Girards to dine in the blue salon a hundred and fifty years ago, the Girards would continue to do so, even if it was a cold room that missed the evening sun in summer. Male Girards entered the diplomatic corps or the military before taking their place managing one of the family enterprises and there was an end to it. Rules covered everything, from his choice of friends to his behaviour in public and in private.

  His parents had died when he was a baby so he’d been brought up by his strict grandparents. A psychologist might say he’d rebelled against their outmoded rules and restrictions. But Thierry was pretty sure he’d simply been born with a thirst for adventure.

  ‘We weren’t big on family traditions.’ Imogen’s voice was soft. ‘Except spending Christmas Day together, and Easter. Even in the last couple of years the three of us would have an Easter egg hunt in the garden.’

  ‘Your mother too?’

  ‘Of course. She loved chocolate.’

  Thierry tried and failed to imagine his grand-mère hunting for eggs in their exquisitely kept grounds.

  ‘That sounds like fun. I’ve never been on an Easter egg hunt.’

  ‘You haven’t?’ Her face swung towards him again. ‘It’s not a French tradition?’

  ‘For some. But not in the Girard family.’ Easter had meant his best behaviour and, of course, formal clothes. He couldn’t recall a time when he hadn’t been expected to wear a tie to dinner. No wonder yanking his top button undone was always the first thing he did on leaving the office.

  He saw her hand swipe the leg of her jeans again. ‘You make your family sound a little daunting.’ She paused. ‘Are they?’ Was that concern in her voice?

  Daunting? He supposed his grandparents were, with their formality and strict adherence to old ways, but for all that he loved them.

  ‘They’ll welcome you with open arms. They’ve all but given up on the idea of me bringing home a bride. But you needn’t worry for now. My grandparents spend the summer at their villa on the south coast. And my cousins, aunts and uncles live elsewhere.’

  ‘You share a house with your grandparents?’ Surprise tinged her tone. Who could blame her? Until four years ago he’d lived his own life, visiting the Girard estate only occasionally. But it was easier to manage the estate and the family’s diverse commercial interests from there since that was where the main offices were located.

  ‘You think it unusual for a thirty-four-year-old?’ His smile was tight as he remembered how reluctant that move back home had been. ‘My grandfather had a stroke a few years ago and they needed me. But don’t worry; we’ll be quite private. There’s plenty of space.’ Even when his grandparents were in residence the place was so big he could go for weeks without seeing them.

  Thierry considered explaining to Imogen just what to expect. But she’d been pale today, admitting to a litt
le nausea, which to his astonishment had evoked a visceral pang of possessiveness in him. As if it made the idea of their child suddenly more concrete. She’d been nervous too. Better not to overload her with details. He couldn’t guess whether she’d be excited or retreat mentally, as she’d done a few times when unsure of herself.

  ‘Why don’t you close your eyes and rest? We’ll be travelling for a while.’

  * * *

  The sun still shone brightly when Imogen woke. Her head lolled against the backrest. She hadn’t slept well lately but the rhythm of the car had lulled her into relaxation.

  She blinked. The rhythm had changed, as if the road surface was different. When she looked through the windscreen she realised they’d left the main autoroute. They were in what looked like a park. Great swathes of grass with tall, mature trees dotted the scene. They clustered close to the road.

  She frowned. Though paved, it was a narrow road with no lines marked.

  ‘Are we almost there?’

  ‘Almost. You’ll see it soon.’

  It? Imogen felt befuddled, shreds of sleep still clinging. Presumably he meant the town where he...

  She gasped as the car topped a rise and the vista opened up. Her eyes popped.

  ‘You live in a castle?’ It couldn’t be...but the road they were on—a private road, she realised belatedly—headed straight for the next rise where the sun shone off massive walls of darkest honey gold.

  She swung around to Thierry but he looked unmoved, as if driving home to a medieval fortification was an everyday occurrence.

  She sat back in her seat, her brain buzzing.

  ‘I don’t suppose your place is off to the side somewhere? An estate manager’s house or something?’

  His mouth quirked up in a smile, and he slanted an amused look at her. She felt its impact deep inside as her internal organs began to liquefy.

  He only has to smile and you lose it.

  No wonder you let him convince you to go along with this absurd idea.

  Even now, hours after the short civil ceremony, she had trouble believing she’d actually married Thierry.

  ‘Are you disappointed? Would you rather live in a cottage?’

  Slowly, she shook her head, drinking in his profile as he turned back to the road. A castle. Maybe that explained that air of assurance she’d noticed in him from the first. It was more than just the insouciance that came from looking staggeringly handsome in bespoke formal wear, or the comfortable-in-his-skin athleticism of his magnificent body. It was something bred in the bone. And then there were his strongly sculpted features. Were they the result of generations of aristocratic breeding?

  ‘Imogen? You don’t like it?’

  She turned her head. The walls rose several stories and were punctuated, not with tiny arrow slits, but with large windows that must let in a lot of light. Yet at the corners of the building were sturdy round towers topped with conical roofs, like an illustration of Rapunzel’s story.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t imagine actually living in a castle.’

  ‘We call it a château.’

  ‘Okay, then. I can’t imagine living in a château.’ Imogen half expected to wake up and find she’d dreamt it. A château! The word conjured images of royal courts and lavish indulgence. Could anything be more different from the two-bedroom flat she’d shared in suburban Sydney?

  ‘It’s like living anywhere else except it costs a lot more to heat and the maintenance bills are a nightmare. But don’t worry.’ Imogen heard the current of amusement in Thierry’s voice. ‘It’s been modernised through the years. It’s even got hot-and cold-running water.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect anything less.’ She recalled Thierry’s Paris apartment where her bathroom had been expensively modern bordering on sybaritic decadence. He might have restless energy and a hard body sculpted into muscle, but he was a man with a strongly sensuous streak.

  Imogen gave a little shiver and clasped her hands together, trying to evict memories of his sensuality and how he’d uncovered a purely hedonistic side to her she’d never known.

  ‘Has your family owned it long?’ Her gaze drifted from the fairy-tale towers across the impressive façade.

  ‘A couple of hundred years.’

  Tension clamped her shoulders. She’d realised she was marrying into money, but the aristocracy as well? She was going to be totally out of her depth.

  Not for long, reminded that persistent inner voice. The reminder dampened her momentary sense of rising panic.

  The car slowed and pulled to a halt in front of the imposing building, gravel crunching under the wheels. ‘Welcome to your new home, Imogen.’

  Her throat clenched. He really was a man in a million. He’d taken her news with something close to equanimity, only the occasional flicker of emotion in his dark eyes betraying his shock. More, he’d not only agreed to take care of their child, he’d taken it upon himself to provide for her too.

  ‘You didn’t need to do all this.’ She waved futilely. She could have been back in Sydney by now, alone. Instead, he’d brought her to his family home. That meant so much.

  ‘Of course I do. You’re carrying my child.’

  Of course. His child. She had to keep remembering this was about their baby. She was just along for the ride.

  Imogen bit her lip, swallowing a laugh that held no humour.

  ‘Are you okay?’ His touch on her arm was light, but she felt the imprint of his fingers in each riotously sensitive nerve ending.

  ‘Perfect.’ She turned and gave him her best smile. The one she’d practised so often before heading out to some large social event. She must be slipping, for Thierry didn’t look convinced, just sat, watching, as if he read the unease and dismay she tried to hide.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Those espresso-dark eyes saw too much.

  A litany of worries ran through her head. Her baby’s health, her own illness, staying in France for these final months instead of Australia, where at least she spoke the language. Being a burden to Thierry and an unwelcome surprise to his family. If she wasn’t careful all those concerns would submerge her just when she needed her strength.

  ‘Neither of us really wants this marriage.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not what you’d planned for yourself.’

  Thierry’s scrutiny sharpened and his eyes narrowed. She couldn’t read his expression.

  ‘Things don’t always work out the way we expect but I’m a firm believer in making the best of any situation.’ His hand closed on hers, long fingers threading through hers. ‘This is the right thing, Imogen. Trust me.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IMOGEN PUT THE wicker basket down and sank onto the garden seat. Typically, it wasn’t a bare stone seat. Someone had placed cushions on all the outdoor seats, in case she or Thierry or some unexpected visitor chose to stop.

  Everything at the château was like that—not just elegant and expensive but beautifully cared for. No detail was too small, no comfort overlooked, from the scented bath oils made from herbs grown at the château, to crisp white sheets that smelled of sunshine and lavender from the purpose-grown drying hedge. Even the discreetly efficient lift to the top floors was hidden behind ancient panelling so as not to interfere with the ambience.

  Imogen closed her eyes, soaking up the late-afternoon sunshine, enjoying the sense of utter peace. There was no sound but the drowse of bees and in the distance a motor. A car maybe, or a tractor. She inhaled, drinking in the heady scent of roses, and felt herself relax.

  She’d done the right thing.

  Of course she had!

  It didn’t matter that she felt like she’d forced Thierry into a corner so he’d been obliged to take responsibility for their child. She’d had no other option.

  Nor did it matter that she was an outside
r here. What mattered was doing right by her baby. If that meant spending her last months in France rather than her own country, so be it.

  As if it was hard, living here at the château!

  For days she’d rested, sleeping more than she could remember ever having done. Jeanne, the Girard’s formidable cook-housekeeper, seemed to have made it her mission to tempt Imogen’s appetite with one delicious treat after another. And when, with a knowing look, she’d seen Imogen turn pale at the pungent scent of fresh coffee, she’d begun providing herbal teas and delicate, light-as-air crackers that had helped settle Imogen’s stomach.

  Her thoughts eddied as she drifted towards sleep. It was so easy to relax here. So very peaceful.

  The crunch of footsteps woke her. And the murmur of voices. Thierry’s voice, a low, liquid blur of sound that flowed through her like luscious caramel pooling deep inside. Imogen kept her eyes closed just a little longer, reluctant to move. Listening to his voice was one of her greatest pleasures. Thierry could read weather forecasts or even tax law aloud and she’d melt into a puddle of pure bliss.

  ‘Imogen?’

  She opened her eyes to find him standing before her. He looked every bit as delicious as he sounded. His clothes were plain, tailored trousers and a pale shirt undone at the throat, but there was nothing ordinary about the man wearing them. He looked the epitome of hard athleticism from his solid thighs to his straight shoulders and every hard inch between.

  Imogen gave a little quiver of pleasure. Every time she saw him it happened, even now. He made her silly heart stutter.

  ‘I’d like you to meet my grandmother.’ He gestured to his side, and her gaze swung to the tiny, grey-haired lady she hadn’t even noticed before. A lady with a capital L, Imogen realised in the split second it took to register her immaculate hair and make-up, the sophisticated dark suit that screamed couture and the lustre of elegant pearls at her throat. She wore stockings despite the heat and gorgeous black patent shoes that Imogen wouldn’t dare wear on gravel for fear of scuffing them.