Seen and Not Heard by Anne Stuart Read Free Book Online Page A

of that face.
    Claire was still shaking inside. She didn’t want to kiss him, didn’t want to taste her desperation on his smiling mouth. So she merely smiled. “I love you, Marc,” she murmured, trying to believe it.
    “I know you do,
chérie
.” He lay back, keeping possessive arms around her. His body was a furnace, hot and dry and perfectly relaxed. “I have a wonderful idea,” he said, his hand trailing through Claire’s flowing hair. “Tomorrow let’s take the day for ourselves. We’ll send Nicole to see her grandmother and you and I will just spend the time together. I have to leave Monday, and I’m going to miss you terribly. I want to go with the memory of a perfect day between us.”
    Slowly the trembling had stopped, slowly the sweat had begun to dry on her body as she relaxed beneath hissoothing hand. She was still too hot, but these moments, the gentle, comforting, loving minutes after they made love, were the most important to her. It made the darkness and the pleasure that was uncomfortably akin to pain worth it. “That would be wonderful, Marc,” she said, pressing her face against his smooth chest, rubbing like a cat.
    “I’ll take Nicole to Harriette’s,” he murmured, “and then I’ll come back and join you in bed. Then we’ll find a wonderful café for lunch, and go for a long walk in the afternoon. I know how you love long walks.”
    “That would be heavenly.” She was very drowsy, and her doubts and distaste had vanished into a haze of satisfaction.
    “I’ll take you someplace you’ve never been before.” His voice was a soporific litany, lulling her to sleep. “A wonderful park where the old people go, and they sell the best coffee ice cream in Paris.”
    It took every ounce of strength and determination she possessed to keep from panicking. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach stayed there, and the sweat on her body turned chilly. “That would be heavenly, darling,” she whispered in the darkness, keeping her muscles relaxed, feigning a sleepiness that had now vanished.
    And Marc Bonnard, his hand still possessively smoothing Claire’s red gold hair, smiled into the dark, rainy night.
    Yvon Alpert lay awake, listening to the rain. He’d been awake since three, since the rain started. Jeanne had left sometime after five, oblivious to his dark mood. She’d chattered on and on about how nice things would be next month, when they were married and she didn’t have to rush home to change her clothes before work. He’d suggested more than once that she could bring things over, but Jeanne was a good Catholic, with a strict sense of propriety. Each time she spent the night she had to allow herself to be persuaded, had to convince herself that she was swept away by passion and emotion and it wasn’t her fault. If she’d done anything as calculated as bring a toothbrush she could no longer believe in her own essential purity.
    Yvon had been patient, understanding, but just beforedawn on a rainy night it took all his willpower to keep from screaming at her. She left, with a saucy bounce of her narrow hips and a cheerful wave, unaware of the torments her fiance was suffering.
    He didn’t get out of bed to watch her walk down the street, as he did on other nights. He should get up, make some coffee, ignore the rain, and act like it was any other day. He stayed where he was.
    The sheets smelled like sex. They smelled of Jeanne’s middle-class perfume, and sweat, and that faint, ammonia-like odor of semen. He should get up, wash, and face the day. He didn’t move.
    He had no reason to be tormented. His job at the ministry was a good one, with ample money to support him. Jeanne was a good woman, affectionate, sexually inventive, and if she was a bit too Catholic he could overlook it, as long as she didn’t try to drag him to mass. He hadn’t been to church since he was nine years old and the orphanage had burnt down, and he knew he could never go again.
    There were times