The dress was boxed and they were on their way out of the boutique before Briony thought about the price.
Marian told her, chuckling at her stricken expression. ‘My dear, it’s a model and I’m sure it will be worth every penny in Kieron’s eyes. Surely you’re not frightened he’ll be angry?’
It wasn’t his anger that made her heart lodge uncomfortably in her throat, Briony admitted worriedly, but the thought of what conclusions he might draw when he saw her wearing the dress, that whispered seduction with every teasing rustle.
‘I think I’ll keep it as a surprise until we go out,’ she said nervously to Marian, suspecting that the older woman might suggest a fashion show of their purchases when they returned to the villa. To judge from her disappointed expression Briony’s suppositions had been correct, and her guilt at disappointing her kind hostess of this little treat was intensified when Marian insisted on buying Nicky a delightful lemon and white playsuit, which she told Briony defiantly was her present to him and was not going to be paid for by Kieron.
‘You can’t know how much seeing Nicky means to me,’ she confided to Briony as they drove back to the villa. ‘You see, Kieron is like the son I never had, and Nicky…well, he’s Kieron all over again and seeing him has revived many happy memories.’
‘And unhappy ones, I’m afraid,’ Briony said softly remembering what Kieron had told her about the death of his parents. ‘Don’t think me inquisitive, but have you never considered marrying again? You must only have been young when.…’ She bit her lip, fearing that she might be treading on sensitive ground, but Marian patted her hand and smiled.
‘Don’t worry, my dear, you aren’t upsetting me. I was thirty-two when Gérard was drowned. We’d been married eight years and although we hadn’t had the child we’d both longed for, our time together was so full of love and happiness that I could never bear the thought of another marriage. You see, Briony, when you’ve known true love, true happiness, you never want to replace it with counterfeit coin. The happiness I shared with Gérard has sustained me through the years of my widowhood. I have many pleasant friends, I have Kieron, and Héloise, and now I have you and Nicky, so I still have happiness—it’s just that it’s a mellower version than that one shares with a lover.’
The first thing Briony saw when she climbed out of the car was Kieron’s lean frame, sprawled out on a sun lounger by the side of the pool. The second was the curvaceous brunette bending over him and stroking suntan lotion into the smooth muscles of his back. Jealousy stabbed through her with white-hot knives, and she stood transfixed while Marian hurried past her, exclaiming in surprise, ‘Louise, I thought you were in Paris?’
The brunette poured more oil on to Kieron’s back, smoothing it in seductively.
‘As you can see, Tante Marian, I’m not.’ She shrugged petulantly. ‘It was hot and I grew bored. Where, I thought, will be entertaining?—and then I remembered my Tante Marian.’
‘And I thought I was the attraction,’ Kieron mocked lazily, rolling over to shade his eyes from the sun and stare unblinkingly at Briony. Compared with the French girl in her minuscule scarlet bikini Briony felt overdressed and pallid. Her blouse was sticking uncomfortable to her back, her thin cotton skirt suddenly schoolgirlish and old-fashioned.
‘Louise, come and meet Briony, Kieron’s wife,’ Marian instructed, and beneath the pleasant tones, Briony thought she caught a note of warning. Did Marian think that Louise might prove to be a tempting proposition which Kieron, man-like, might not be able to refuse, and that she, Briony, would be upset?
Even without Louise’s proprietorial attitude towards Kieron, they could never have been friends, Briony decided. The French girl was one of those women who plainly despised her own sex, although her eyes did narrow fractionally when Kieron raised himself up on his elbows to study Briony’s flushed face and enquire softly, ‘I hope you carried out my instructions.’
‘What is this, chéri?’ Louise pounced acidly. ‘What instructions did you give your wife?’
‘That she buy herself a sexy bikini,’ Kieron drawled, making Briony flush deeper.
Louise raised her eyebrows.
‘The English are so stuffy about these things, unlike us French, although if I were married to such a man as you, I think I should dispense with the bikini altogether,’ she finished provocatively.
Briony stiffened in outrage. Louise was flirting with Kieron right under her nose, and he, male that he was, was lapping it up. She glared at him with unguarded resentment, gasping when he turned to look at her his eyes narrowing with comprehension.