To Be the Best (Emma Harte) Read online

  Shane began to stroke her lovingly, languorously, in slow motion, and with such tenderness he seemed hardly to be touching her at all. But he could feel the velvet softness of her increasing and he continued to stroke, to explore, until his fingertips came to nestle against that precious core of her that was the fountainhead of her womanhood.

  Instantly, Paula twisted herself into him, bringing her body closer to his, her slender hand reaching out for him, and she began to caress him as delicately as he was her. Shane felt his hardness growing as she unexpectedly moved her hand with greater rapidity and he had to bite back a cry as he began to throb under her touch. He grasped her wrist, stilled her hand, and then he intensified the pressure of his fingertips and she tensed, and held her body rigid. He explored further, slipped deeper into the velvet folds of her, and as he did he heard a strangled cry in her throat.

  He leaned over her satin-smooth breasts, very taut and upright, and savoured the hard, erect nipples with his mouth, first one and then the other. She started to gently undulate under his expert fingers, his loving mouth, and she sighed and murmured his name softly, over and over. Now her hands went out to him again, were strong and hard on the nape of his neck and in his thick hair, and they suddenly moved on to grasp his wide shoulders as her excitement accelerated.

  Paula stiffened and gasped. She was filling with an exquisite warmth. His touch quickened, became ever more nimble and deft, and she cried out in her excitement, ‘Shane, oh Shane, my darling husband, I love you so much!’ And he said against her throat, in a voice thickened by desire, ‘You’re my true love, Paula, my own true love. Come to me, my darling, so that I can take you to me.’ And she gasped again and said, ‘Yes, oh yes,’ and gripped his shoulders more tenaciously than ever.

  Shane thought he was going to explode as she opened up to him like an exotic flower unfolding soft lush petals, moaning his name and shuddering. He was unable to contain himself, and he moved onto her, took possession of her swiftly, raging with the same kind of molten heat that was suffusing her.

  She held him to her, as he pushed his hands under her body and lifted her to him and they cleaved together, were joined, became one.

  As Shane thrust deeper, lost himself completely in her and in the joy of her, he suddenly thought: I want to make her pregnant tonight. I want another child.

  This idea, unexpected as it was, sent such thrills surging through him he moved against her violently and she responded with unbridled ardour, matching his passion equally, and they quickly found their own rhythm as they had all through the years of their marriage. But for Shane, tonight was suddenly like the first time they had ever made love and in an instant the years fell away. He was back in Connecticut, in the barn he had once owned, taking her to him as he had yearned to take her during the years of her marriage to another man, loving her as he had never loved any other woman, as only he and she were meant to love.

  And then he was reaching up…reaching into the light…the light was surrounding him…she was at the centre of the light…waiting for him…his dreamlike child of his childhood dreams. And she was his now. Nothing, no one, could ever separate them again. They belonged together for all time, into eternity. He felt weightless…he was soaring higher and higher…rising up into that timeless light…floating into infinity. And he was carrying her with him, holding the world in his arms, calling her name, just as she called his.

  And together they crested on waves of ecstasy in the golden shimmering light…were blinded by it and then could see…and oh the blessed peace of it…

  Shane woke up abruptly.

  He moved his head to the right and looked at the bedside clock. In the dim light he could see that it was almost five.

  Paula slept soundlessly by his side.

  He braced himself on one elbow, bent over her, touched her face lovingly, but very lightly, so as not to awaken her from her exhausted sleep, and lifted a strand of hair away from her eyes. Then he settled down again, stretched out on his back and closed his eyes, but before many minutes had passed he decided he was not going to fall off again quite so easily, or as quickly as he had just imagined he would. He was suddenly wide awake. Still, he had slept very deeply for the past few hours, as he always did when he was with Paula, as if he were more content and at peace when she was in his bed. Well, of course he was.

  He turned over onto his side, made an arc of his body around hers. She was his whole life, and now, lying next to her in the darkness, adoring her in the silence of his heart, he wondered if he had made her pregnant? Weeks ago they had agreed she should stop taking the pill.

  Tonight he had planted his seed in her and he prayed that the seed had taken hold and would come to flower as a child…a true love child conceived at the height of passion and spiritual joining. He stifled a sigh, thinking of Patrick. He loved his little boy with a deeply tender and protective love, but he could not help being sad that their first born was not normal. He dare not let Paula perceive his feelings, for fear of underscoring her own pain, but they were never far from the surface and yet, somehow, he always managed to conceal his sorrow from her.

  Instinctively, Shane lifted his right arm, put it around her, drew closer, burrowed his face in her fragrant hair, overflowing with his love for her. He closed his eyes again, let himself drift into sleep. Yes, he thought, now is the time for our next child. And he wondered, as he finally dozed off, if that was the real reason he had side-tracked her to Paris.

  Chapter 5

  The Villa Faviola was situated in the town of Roquebrune-Cap Martin, approximately halfway between Monte Carlo and Menton.

  It stood in its own small park at the end of the little peninsula of Cap Martin, sheltered by pines at its back, with its many tall windows facing out towards the sea.

  Built in the 1920s, it was a lovely old house, sprawling, airy and gracious, with a curving driveway bordered by pines, spacious green lawns that swept down from the terrace past the swimming pool, up to the edge of the rocky promontory and the glittering Mediterranean Sea beyond.

  Its exterior walls were painted a soft melon, but in a tone so pale it was almost sand, and the canvas awnings shading the windows were of a deeper melon, were partnered with shutters of pristine white.

  A wide terrace stretched along the side of the house facing the sea and was made of white stone and marble, and it appeared to float gracefully above the verdant gardens where flowers grew in riotous colour and fountains sparkled in the shimmering sunlight. Scattered along the terrace were several round white-metal tables topped by melon-coloured parasols; matching white chairs, swing-sofas with sun-awnings, and chaises all had cushions of cream, and because only these soft integrated tones had been used nothing jarred the harmonious flow of pale colour across the lovely front façade.

  The Villa Faviola had been purchased by Emma Harte in the late 1940s, just after the end of the Second World War, and it was she who had originally created the gardens surrounding the house and intersecting the lawns. But in recent years, Paula had enlarged the flower beds and borders and had planted a wide variety of small flowering trees and shrubs and exotic plants, cultivating the entire park to its present beauty – and a magnificence that was renowned along the Côte d’Azur.

  Inside Faviola its cool, lofty rooms were filled with lovely filtered sunlight and furnished with a simple yet distinctive elegance. Charming old French Provincial pieces made of dark woods or bleached oak were mingled with vast sofas and comfortable chairs and there were chaises and ottomans, and occasional tables held small pots of African violets and pink and white cyclamen and the latest magazines and books.

  Floors of highly polished parquet and rose-veined cream marble were either bare or were covered here and there by old Aubussons and plain rugs of cream wool, and throughout the house colours were pale and cool. Cream, vanilla and white predominated, flowed over the walls, were repeated in the fabrics that fell at the windows and covered sofas and chairs, and accent colours were variations of melon
and peach and sand, and there were touches of caféau-lait, that lovely milky brown that was so typically French.

  Spilling vivid colour into these monochromatic-toned rooms were romantic, lyrical paintings by such noted contemporary French artists as Epko, Taurelle and Bouy-ssou and huge Baccarat crystal urns overflowing with a great abundance of flowers and foliage from the gardens.

  But none of the rooms were so imposing or so grand that guests and children were intimidated and felt they were in a museum and therefore hardly dare breathe. On the contrary, Emma had designed the house as a vacation home, one to be lived in and enjoyed to the fullest, and it had a great deal of comfort and an easy grace that was all its own. It also happened to be one of those houses that had always had a warm, welcoming and happy atmosphere, and there was a lovely serenity about its calm, sun-drenched rooms and the inviting pine-shaded park with its glorious gardens.

  Alexander Barkstone owned Faviola, having inherited it from Emma along with its contents – with the exception of the Impressionist art, which his grandmother had bequeathed to Philip in Australia. But Sandy rarely came to the villa, preferring his country estate in Yorkshire, and it was mostly used by his sister Emily and her family, his cousins Paula O’Neill and Anthony Dunvale and their respective spouses and children, and occasionally his mother, Elizabeth, and her French husband, Marc Deboyne, who came down from Paris for long weekends, usually when the season was over.

  But of all of them, it was Emily who loved Faviola the most – and with an enduring passion.

  As a little girl some of the happiest times of her childhood had been spent at the villa with her beloved Gran, and she had always believed it to be an enchanted and magical place. She knew every cranny and every corner of every room on every floor, and every inch of the park and the garden and the beach below the rocky promontory. After she had married her cousin, Winston Harte, in June of 1970, they had flown down to the Riviera for their honeymoon and the first two weeks of their life as man and wife had been spent at the villa. The lovely carefree days and romantic evenings were so blissful, Emily’s deep feelings for Faviola were only intensified, and ever since then the villa had been her haven which she could escape to at odd times during the spring and winter, either alone or with Winston, and always in the summer months with their children, Toby, Gideon and Natalie. And she had never grown tired of it and she knew she never would, and she thought of the villa as the most perfect place in the world to be.

  But in contrast, Sandy’s visits to the house had grown fewer and fewer after his wife’s death; in 1973, recognizing how much Emily loved the place, he had asked her to take over from him, to supervise its general management. He had been relieved and happy when she had promptly and enthusiastically agreed.

  Inevitably, Emily had put her individual stamp on Faviola over the years, but she had not tried to turn it into a replica of an English country house. Instead she had retained its Gallic flavour in every possible way, and if anything she had even enhanced the predominantly Provençal feeling with her inimitable touches. But as involved with it as she had become in the last eight years, Emily never considered the villa to be her own, never once forgot that it was the property of her brother. And yet it was hers in a certain sense, because of the time and the care and the great love she constantly lavished on it, and certainly everyone thought of Emily as la grande châatelaine of the Villa Faviola.

  When Emma Harte was living, the day-to-day running of the villa had been in the capable hands of a local woman from Roquebrune, one Madame Paulette Renard. Engaged by Emma in 1950, she had moved into the pleasant and roomy caretaker’s house in the private park – known as la petite maison – and had looked after the Harte family with unfailing care for the next twenty years.

  But with Emma’s death in 1970, Madame Paulette had decided the time had come for her to retire and she had handed over her responsibilities and her keys to her daughter, Solange Brivet, who wished to leave her job as the housekeeper at a hotel in Beaulieu. Madame Paulette was a widow, and the Brivets and their children had been living with her in la petite maison for a number of years, and so there had been no great upheavals or sad goodbyes. And since it was only a short walk across the vegetable garden to the villa, Madame Paulette was always on hand to give her expert advice or air her considerable knowledge, and she was delighted she was still able to participate in life at the villa.

  Over the past eleven years, the management and running of Faviola had become something of a Brivet family affair. Solange’s husband, Marcel, was the chef, two of their three daughters, Sylvie and Marie, were the maids, and their son, Henri, was the butler and, as Emily put it, ‘our general factotum par excellence’, while Marcel’s nephews, Pierre and Maurice, were the gardeners. These two drove over from Roquebrune in their little Renault every morning, bringing with them another Brivet, Cousin Odile, who worked in the kitchen as assistant to Marcel, and it was Odile who carried with her the huge basket of breads from her mother’s boulangerie…fresh croissants and brioche, which Marcel served warm for the family’s breakfast, and baguettes, those long French loaves with a hard crust which the children especially loved.

  Madame Solange, as she was called by everyone, had been trained at the Hôtel de Paris in nearby Monte Carlo, and she ran the villa in the grand Riviera style, rather in the manner of a great hotel, with efficiency, meticulous attention to detail, and with the same kind of loving devotion her mother had expended before her. And in all the years she had been employed, she and Emily had worked together in harmony, with rarely, if ever, a cross word; to Emily the brisk, bustling, but very motherly Frenchwoman was indispensable.

  The phrase, ‘Thank God for Solange,’ was forever on Emily’s lips, and she was muttering it under her breath on this August Monday morning as she hurried into the kitchen, stood in the centre of the floor, glanced around, and nodded to herself, looking pleased.

  They had had their annual, end-of-the-summer dinner party last night, but no one would have known it from the look of the large, old-fashioned kitchen. As usual, the hanging pots and pans sparkled, the wood counter tops were scrubbed to gleaming white, the terracotta tile floor shone and everything else was spotless and back in its given place.

  Solange must have really cracked the whip to get everything so ship-shape for this morning, Emily thought, recalling the mess in the kitchen the night before, after the last of their guests had finally departed. Smiling to herself, she took a glass from the cupboard, went to the refrigerator, poured herself some Vichy water, and carrying the glass she walked back through the pantry, across the dining room and out of the French doors onto the terrace, the clicking of her sandals the only sound on the warm, still air.

  Emily was always the first one to be up and about every morning, sometimes as early as dawn.

  She treasured this private time before the family awakened and the staff started to arrive. She liked being entirely alone to enjoy the gentle quiescence of the silent slumbering house, to savour the early morning smells and colours of the Mediterranean landscape.

  It was also her hour for reviewing the paperwork she invariably brought with her, making notes for her secretary in London, whom she phoned several times a week, working out the day’s menus and planning activities for the children. But frequently she just sat quietly on the terrace, glad to have a few moments of solitude and introspection before the excitement of the day began and a horde of children descended on her, dragging a kind of chaos in their wake.

  It was not so bad when she had only her own three to cope with, but when Paula’s four and Anthony’s three children were at Faviola, often bringing with them a number of young guests, it was rather like having an unruly juvenile football team underfoot. But Emily had her own system and she managed to control them far better than anyone else. It was not for nothing the children called her ‘The Sergeant Major’ behind her back.

  Now, taking sips of Vichy as she walked, Emily went up to the edge of the terrace and leaned agains
t the balustrade, looked out across the gardens to the sea. It was a dark metallic blue and choppy, and the sky that surged above it was a curdled cloudy grey that seemed ominous.

  She hoped the weather was not going to change again, as it had last week when the mistral, that dry north wind that blew down out of the Rhône Valley, had brought several days of mean weather with it. Without exception, all of the children had been restive and moody and difficult, and Solange had immediately blamed the mistral, reminding Emily that this wind usually disturbed everyone’s equilibrium, and Emily had agreed, and they had both been relieved when it had finally blown out to sea. The weather had changed for the better – and so had the children. They were much calmer, almost their normal selves again, and even Emily felt more at ease. She had been edgy and irritable during those dull and incredibly windy days, and she now had to admit there was probably a lot of truth in what Solange – and the locals – said about the mistral and its peculiar effect on people. She glanced at her watch. It was only twenty minutes past six and by nine o’clock the sky would be a perfect cerulean blue, the sun would be out and the sea would be as still as a pond, she decided, as always the eternal optimist, as her grandmother had been before her.