Bride of Desire Read Free

appalled. What on earth could be wrong with her? Tante Madelon had always given the impression that she was in the most robust of health. But then she hadn’t seen her for almost two years—and that was indeed a long time.
     
      She realised, of course, that her great-aunt must be in her late seventies, although her looks and vigour had always belied her age. In fact, to Allie she’d always seemed immortal, only the silvering of her hair marking the inevitable passage of time.
     
      Soberly, she thought of Tante as she’d seen her last. The older woman’s pointed face had been drawn and anxious, but the dark, vivid eyes had still been full of life. Full of love for this girl, her only living relative.
     
      ‘Don’t go back, ma chérie,’ she’d urged. ‘There is nothing for you there. Stay here with me…’ Her voice had died away, leaving other things unsaid.
     
      And Allie had replied, stumbling over the words, her head reeling, her emotions in shreds, ‘I—can’t.’
     
      Now, she took a deep breath to calm herself, then slowly re-read the postscript at the end, the words running down the page as if the writer had been almost too weary to hold the pen.
     
      Alys, I promise there is nothing that should keep you away, and that you have no reason to fear such a visit.
     
      In plain words, Tante was offering her assurance—the essential guarantee that she thought Allie would want. Telling her, in effect, that Remy de Brizat would not be there. That he was still working abroad with his medical charity.
     
      Only it wasn’t as simple as that. It wasn’t enough. He might not be physically present, but Allie knew that her memory—her senses—would find him everywhere.
     
      That she’d see him waiting on the shore, or find his face carved into one of the tall stone megaliths that dotted the headland. That she’d feel him in every grain of sand or blade of grass. That she’d hear his laughter on the wind, and his voice in the murmur of the sea.
     
      And, in the fury of the storm, she would relive the anger and bitterness of their parting, she thought, as she’d done last night. And she shivered in spite of the warmth of the morning.
     
      Besides, she had too many memories already.
     
      Her breathing quickened suddenly to pain. Words danced off the page at her. Please, my dear Alys, come to me…
     
      She closed her eyes to block them out, and heard herself repeat aloud—‘I can’t.’
     
      Then she crushed the letter in her hand, and pushed it into the pocket of her skirt.
     
      She got to her feet and began to wander restlessly down the gravelled walk, forcing herself to think about other things—other people. To build a wall against those other memories.
     
      Turning her thoughts determinedly to the Vaillac sisters, Celine and Madelon. During the Second World War, their family had sheltered her grandfather, Guy Colville, an airman forced to bail out on his way home. He’d broken his leg during his parachute descent, but had managed to crawl to a nearby barn, where Celine Vaillac had found him.
     
      The Vaillacs had nursed him back to health, and risked their lives to keep him hidden and fed, eventually enabling him to be smuggled north to the Channel coast and back to England in a fishing boat. It was part of family folklore, and a story she’d never tired of hearing when she was a child.
     
      She thought how romantic it was that Guy had never forgotten the pretty, shyly smiling Celine, and how, as soon as the war ended, he’d returned to their rambling farmhouse with his younger brother Rupert, to make sure that she and her family had all survived relatively unscathed, and discover whether Celine shared similar memories of their time together.
     
      That first visit had been followed by others, and, to Guy’s surprise, Rupert had insisted on going with him each time. When eventually Guy had proposed to Celine, and been accepted, his brother had