Marriage Without Love & More Than a Convenient Marriage(38)

Briony even felt too tired to study the menu, and simply passed it over to Kieron with a listless shake of her head. ‘You choose.’

He frowned and for a moment she thought she saw concern in his eyes. No doubt he was wondering how on earth he was going to cope with Nicky if she became ill, she thought sardonically. The little boy had been very good, but inevitably the long drive had bored and irritated him.

As she drank the cold soup Kieron had ordered she wondered what his godmother would be like. Kieron had said very little about her except that he always tried to spend some time each year with her, and that she was now a widow, and lived permanently in the South of France. Briony had visions of a lilac-coiffured dowager, immaculately made up and dressed in chic French clothes, and already she was dreading meeting her.

‘Finish your soup,’ Kieron instructed, breaking into her thoughts. She stared uncomprehendingly at him, unaware that she had pushed the bowl away barely touched. ‘You’re too thin,’ he added. ‘Héloise will have forty fits when she sees you.’

‘Héloise?’

‘My godmother’s cook, maid, confidante, and friend,’ he told her. ‘They’ve been together since Tante Marian was first married.’

‘I hope we’re not going to be too much trouble.’ Her forehead puckered as she thought of Nicky’s noisy and demanding intrusion into the organised, restful world of two middle-aged ladies.

‘We won’t, unless Héloise accuses me of starving you,’ he said dryly. ‘And a little less of the martyred air might help, if you could possibly manage it.’

Briony finished her meal in silence. Kieron had the knack of making her feel like a sulky child, deliberately playing up to gain adult attention and sympathy. Even in the shadowed patio the sun was hot and she glanced automatically at Nicky’s bare head. He had Kieron’s skin colouring and took the sun well, but she had taken the precaution of buying him a couple of sun-hats, plus some thin long-sleeved tee-shirts just in case he was in danger of getting burned. Her own skin was more of a problem. Her long days in the cottage garden had given it a faint hint of colour, but it was liable to burn badly if she wasn’t careful.

As though he had read her thoughts, Kieron said abruptly, ‘Come and sit over here in the shade. You look pale, and I don’t want you getting sunstroke.’

‘I’m not a child,’ she protested, but his eyes were scathing, the dark brows drawn upwards in disbelief as he glanced at her barely touched food.

‘No? You deliberately drive yourself almost to the point of exhaustion; you refuse to eat properly, and then you sit outside in the full heat of the midday sun.’

‘I shan’t be ill,’ she told him. ‘I can’t be. Who would look after Nicky?’

‘Finish your lunch,’ he told her abruptly. He looked angry, and Briony wondered if it was finally coming home to him exactly how taxing the responsibility of a child could be.

They drove all through the afternoon, stopping eventually in Avignon, where they were to spend the night.

Briony was too tired to appreciate the bustling town. Why was it, she wondered hazily, that simply sitting still all day doing nothing could be exhausting? She stole a look at Kieron, who was lifting Nicky out of the car. Although he had done all the driving it barely seemed to have affected him. His thin shirt clung to the powerful muscles of his back, the short sleeves revealing the bronzed forearms, the lean, male length of his legs moulded by close-fitting jeans. Briony was dressed very similarly, but whereas Kieron’s shirt and jeans were moulded to a body undeniably male, Briony’s snug-fitting cotton top and denims revealed softly feminine curves which drew more than one admiring pair of male eyes as they crossed the street in front of some boules players and entered the hotel.

Kieron had booked two rooms, at Briony’s insistence. ‘What are you afraid of?’ he had taunted, and she dared not tell him it was herself. If they were to share a bed, no matter how platonically, she had no safeguard against herself turning unconsciously to Kieron during the night, and perhaps betraying herself completely.

Both rooms had double beds, and bathrooms, and she took Nicky into one of them, leaving Kieron in possession of the other. She had undressed Nicky before she realised that the overnight case she had packed for them was in Kieron’s room, and having knocked on his door and received no answer, she assumed that he must have gone downstairs for something and pushed open the door.

The case was by the bed and she was just bending to pick it up when the bathroom door suddenly opened and Kieron emerged. His hair was damp and tousled, droplets of moisture clinging to his skin, and Briony felt herself flush darkly as she stared at his naked body. It seemed a lifetime before she could drag her eyes away. Her whole body felt weak and shaky, her mouth dry with tension, and it didn’t help her composure one jot to hear Kieron laugh mockingly, his voice taunting as he drawled softly, ‘Okay, you can look now without seeing anything that might shock your frigid little mind.’