Except tonight, almost naked, sitting here, he couldn’t block out the past any more than he could block out the sound of the wind howling outside or the waves crashing against the rocks.
She felt his rough chin rest on her shoulder as his arms pulled her closer to him. Whatever she’d been about to say fledher mind.
Minutes ticked by as water dripped from the ceiling into the various pots, and the fire burnt lower, but the man holding her in the curve of his body was still. If it wasn’t for his arms tight around her, he might be asleep. When he started talking, his voice was very quiet, his cheek moving againsther neck.
“I wanted to be a fisherman when I was a boy. My grandfather was a fisherman. He ran a fish and chip shop with his wife anddaughter.”
“I thought—wasn’t he—” She softened her voice. “I mean your father told me he died in the Great War.”
“No,” he said. “That was my great-grandfather Du Montfort. I was talking about my maternal grandfather. His name was George Cotentin. I am named after him.”
She started to turn around to look at him, but his arms tightened, holding herin place.
“Stay where you are,” he said.“Please.”
Millie sank back against his chest. His warmth, his scent, enveloped her as much as his arms. Her own arms rested on his thighs and knees. She resisted the urge to stroke his skin. She knew what would happen tonight; they were heading that way, but for now she lethim talk.
“You see, when my great-grandfather Du Montfort was killed in Passchendaele in 1917, the line of succession went to his brother instead,” he continued, and now there was no mistaking the confidential tone. “So, our side of the family wasn’t supposed to inherit. Dad grew up expecting a normal life. He travelled around, and when he came back to La Canette, he invested his modest legacy into a fishing business. That’s how he met my grandfather Cotentin and eventually met hisdaughter.”
Millie wanted to ask if that was his mother, but she sensed this was a difficult conversation for George, one for the night and thefire only.
“She was seventeen, and Dad fell in love with her silver-grey eyes and dark hair, and he chased her until she agreed tomarry him.
“Her father wasn’t happy because he knew the Du Montforts came from a different class and weren’t suitable for his little girl. But my dad was handsome, exciting, and he was crazy about her.” George exhaled; the breath seemed to come from the depth of a heavy heart. “You can imagine the power of young love. There was no arguing with them.”
Millie understood only too well. She’d been nineteen once and determined to marry her love despite everything.
“They rented a small cottage in the village,” George said, after a short pause. “That’s where I was born a few years later. I can still see them, my parents, young, happy lovers. Dad worked hard, and I spent my childhood barefoot on my grandfather’s boat. It was the happiest time of my life.” He paused.
“Until I was nine.” He fell silent again.
Millie waited until he was ready to continue, but she put her hands over his to communicate her support.
“My cousin, who was the seigneur at that time, died of acute leukaemia. So, the estate and title passed to his only male relative. My father.”
Millie listened as much to the words as to the raw emotion inhis voice.
Again, George took a deep breath and continued. “Everything changed. Forever.” We moved from our cottage to the big house and acquired a new lifestyle and new friends.
“Mum hated it. She was—” George now spoke in a different voice, heavier, almost raw. “She was a little person. The new life dwarfed her.”
He squeezed Millie for a second as if needing comfort. “It crushed her.”
He sighed, then went on. “Not my father, though. Within a few short months, he became the man you see now. Except, he was still young, charming and reckless. He embraced the new life and embraced all that came with it. Travel, society parties, attention and, of course, women.”
George pressed his face tight into the crook of her neck, his stubbly cheek rough against her skin. His breathing was difficult, and he shifted his arms until they were wrapped around her stomach, just below her breasts.
“You asked me just now if I ever cheated,” he said into her shoulder. “The answer is, no. Never. I remember all too well my mother’s pain when village gossip brought her news of my father’s... activities. Every woman he met, flirty employee, society hostess, married, single, he couldn’t say no. The village was alive with gossip, and the national press was full of rumours about the dashing new Lord Du Montfort. Every painful detail reachedmy mother.
“She pretended not to mind. After all, we were aristocrats now, and infidelity was supposed to be borne with discretion and nonchalance. She smiled and pretended not to see, not to hear, but she beganto wilt.”
Millie felt for that poor woman. She herself had been a victim of a cheating husband and could still remember the stab of pain. The realization that she wasn’t enough.
“My grandfather died when I was twelve,” George said. “He left what little he owned to my mother. A small house and shop. He gave it to her so she might have a refuge, somewhere to go when she left herhusband.”
George’s took on a bitterness. “She never did. That was her tragedy. She loved my father. I didn’t realize how much until two years later. Easter holiday. I came home from boarding school, and for the first time, she wasn’t at the ferry to meet me. When I got home, I found her in bed. Her eyes and nose red, the pillow wet and a pile of scrunched-up tissues all around her.
“News had come that father had a flat in Jersey for one of his mistresses. I thought, so what’s new? Another mistress. Nothing different there.
