Chapter Six
The powerful note of the engine dropped to a smooth purr as Lycos steadied his speed along the highway. Arielle felt herself sink back into the deep, low-set passenger seat.
They were making for the old, walled, medieval town of Saint-Clément, popular with tourists in this part of Provence. Lycos said he wanted to get a feel for the area. He’d given her a cynical smile.
‘Show me the sights, Arielle. It will mean you don’t have to pack your bags and leave just yet,’ he’d told her.
She had no more idea of why he wanted to play tourist than she had about why, for the past week, he’d continued to stay at the mas, making himself at home. She couldn’t stop him, the mas was his. And even if she had to share the days with him, it meant she could have that much more time there too. And that was precious to her.
Yet it was so weird to have him there, day after day, apparently content to simply go along with her uneventful daily routine. His presence was getting easier to bear. Maybe she was just getting used to it. Getting used to having to accept that the mas was now his. That soon, all too soon, she would have to leave her home. Getting used to the anguish she felt over it.
Getting used to treating him civilly, without baleful hostility. As if he weren’t the man taking her home from her.
But there was something happening to her that was distracting her from that. She felt it again, now, as her eyes slipped from watching the road ahead, to covertly glancing at Lycos’s profile as he drove. She felt a little frisson go through her. It was becoming increasingly familiar and increasingly impossible to suppress.
She should suppress it, she knew. What did it matter that Lycos’s dark looks could make her pulse quicken, her breath catch? And why should she care that sometimes she saw him watching her with something in his eyes that made the colour flush in her cheeks?
Yet something was happening. She knew she could not deny it, or suppress it. It was something that had nothing to do with the malign reason for his presence in her life.
She felt a little ache inside her. It had been so long since there had been anything like that for her. Her only big romance had been at music college, a fellow music student, a cellist, Ben, who had been taken on after graduating by a prestigious youth orchestra. She had not been so fortunate and that had been the year her mother’s fatal illness had first made itself felt. So, they had gone their separate ways and she had come back to the mas to stay with her mother. To look after her, organise her treatment, then nurse her through her final months. It had not been a time for socialising, let alone romance. Then had come the turmoil of her father’s remarriage, his early death, his disastrous will and her futile contesting of it…
To retreat, defeated. To make the most, the very most, of her last chance to live at the mas. The home she was to lose, however isolated she was there. Where none but her nearest neighbours ever occasionally came. No one else.
Until Lycos Dimistrios.
The frisson went through her again and she dragged her gaze away. Her thoughts disturbed. Disturbing…
Surely of all men it should not be the one taking her home from her that could make her react in that way? Be so susceptible to? But then she would remind herself that, just as Lycos himself had said to her, it wasn’t him taking her home from her. It had never been hers at all.
It isn’t Lycos’s fault he owns it now.
So just as she could argue that she did not need to feel bitter and hostile towards him, maybe she didn’t have to deny or suppress the effect he was having on her? Why not just acknowledge it, accept it?
The question hovered in her head. The temptation…
Her eyes slipped back to his profile again, where they wanted to go. A sense of release went through her, as if she’d finally given herself permission to do what she wanted to do. To let her gaze rest on the sinewed strength of his bare, tanned forearms, the curve of his fingers around the steering wheel effortlessly guiding the powerful car with the lightest of touches, his face in profile, eyes shaded by sunglasses. She felt that frisson come again, and this time made no attempt to resist it…
Facing the truth about herself. That there was something about Lycos Dimistrios that was more than just the man taking possession of her beloved home.
He was taking possession of her senses.
Lycos eased the car into a convenient parking space in a side road off the main square in Saint-Clément and cut the engine.
‘Well, here we are,’ he said conversationally. ‘What is there to see first?’
‘Probably the castle,’ Arielle said.
They set off in that direction, Arielle leading the way. Half a step ahead of him, Lycos could rest his eyes on her at his leisure.
And his pleasure.
Because it really was very pleasurable to watch Arielle strolling lightly along. She’d abandoned her usual shorts and voluminous tee shirts and donned instead a flower-sprigged blue cotton dress. There was nothing special about it, it was obviously cheaply bought.
But it’s she who makes it special.
His eyes flickered over her, taking in her slenderness, her natural grace, her slim waist, from which the soft swirl of her skirt fell in gathers to calf length. It wasn’t low cut, but the sweetheart neckline and cap sleeves added to its appeal.
Added to her appeal, he mused.
She’d refrained from knotting her hair, catching it instead into a tendrilled switch with a length of blue ribbon. She still wore no make-up at all and he felt a sudden impulse to want to see her dressed to the nines, gowned in couture and with full maquillage and coiffeur. En grande tenue.
Then he banished it.
She does not need it.
Certainly not here, or now.
He went back to simply enjoying the vision she now was, the pleasure it gave him to behold it. To be with her.
Because that was strange in itself. He was used to women being either self-absorbed in their own appearance, or constantly making up to him and wanting to please him.
But Arielle is nothing like that. She pays no attention to herself and certainly makes no effort to please me.
Her initial baleful hostility towards him had eased off in the days since his arrival at the mas, but her attitude towards him was casual more than anything. So was his towards her. Just as he’d said that first evening, they were going with the flow.
This last week he’d done just that and wondered at it, even while he’d gone along with it. Day after peaceful unfolding day. Fitting, without effort or even decision, into the way Arielle lived her life, feeling the peace and quiet of the mas enfolding him. A way of life he’d never experienced before. Never even known existed.
Just as today was a novel experience for him too. A leisurely drive through the Provençal countryside dozing in the summer heat, to reach this old walled town and mingle with the tourists, with no purpose other than to pass the day pleasantly. A tour of the castle, with Arielle regaling him with tales of the interminable wars of the Middle Ages, was followed by lunch at a little creperie she took him to when he invited her to choose somewhere. The crepes, both savoury and sweet, had been humble, but tasty. Despite, or because of, them being nothing like his usual gourmet fare. Then they’d wandered along the narrow streets, mingling with tourists as Lycos never did, emerging into the picturesque central square that was dominated by a grand church. They’d toured the church, Arielle pausing to step aside and light a candle—for her mother, she’d told him.
Lycos had found himself strangely touched.
And envious.
To have a mother worth lighting a candle for…
He set the emotion aside. It had no place in his life.
They left the church and Lycos went back to doing what he was enjoying most in this surprisingly enjoyable day—looking at Arielle. She had become noticeably more at ease with him as the day progressed and he was glad of it. Glad of something else as well.
She is aware of me. As a woman is aware of a man. A man who is also aware of her in that way.
He was not laying it on strong. That would be crass and Arielle was not like that. And besides, the circumstances—his unwelcome presence at her home and the reason for it—meant that his first focus must be on lowering her guard against him. And that was happening. There were fewer barbed comments and less sadness in her eyes. This day out was proving a distraction for her. And that was welcome to him.
I want it gone. All that pain and stress and anger and anguish over the mas. I want her to see only me, as I am. Not as the man taking her home from her. I do not want her to feel that grief over it any longer.
Yet, as they made their easy-going way across the square and his gaze returned to her once again, he could also acknowledge, as the peace and the quiet, the restful beauty of the mas these past days had shown him, how much she would grieve at its loss.
Who would not feel it? To lose a place like that.
Thoughts rose in his mind, flickering like candles. He had assumed he would turn the mas over to the realtors the moment he arrived in Paris. But was there any rush to do so? Why not simple keep possession of it for a while and enjoy it?
Enjoy the woman—this beautiful, artless, beguiling woman—who came with it?
It would give her longer there. The place she loves so much.
And give me her.
It was a pleasing thought. For both reasons.
Arielle gazed at the display of beautifully arrayed pâtisserie in the glass-topped counter.
‘What will you choose?’ Lycos asked as he stood beside her.
‘So hard to decide,’ she murmured. ‘But I think the tarte des pommes.’
‘For me,’ he mused, ‘I can’t resist a slice of the Gâteau St Honoré.’
He relayed their choices and ordered coffee too. His French was fluent, she had come to realise during the course of the day, but it was distinctly accented. As was his English, in a way that, she had to acknowledge, added to the frisson that she kept experiencing in his company. It had not abated during the day. Just the opposite in fact.
What’s happening to me? Why am I being like this? Reacting like this?
The question was foolish. She knew perfectly well why. Had known since that moment she had first seen him as he’d got out of his monster car. Still in his tuxedo, raffish with his rough jaw, tie loose, gazing around him in the early morning light, surveying his latest possession. Come to take it from her.
Because whatever his malign purpose, his impact on her had been, and was still now, like nothing she had ever experienced in her life. Powerful, pulse-quickening, making her aware of his masculinity in a way that was both disturbing and something else entirely, for exactly the same reason. Ben, her long-ago fellow music student, had been blond and hazel-eyed, dreamy and sensitive. Nothing like the lean, lethal Lycos Dimistrios. With his sable hair, his night-dark eyes, the lithe, muscled body she had seen ploughing effortlessly through the azure pool water and wading out in a shower of diamonds. Drawing her rivetted gaze and making her catch her breath.
Her gaze returned to him again, now, as they sat themselves down at a little marble-topped table under a shading awning on the wide pavement, awaiting their coffee and cakes. The pâtisserie was an upmarket one, directly edging the gardens that bordered the town’s old ramparts, affording a vista out over the valley below, which was drenched in late afternoon sunshine. She let her gaze rest on him, indulging in the opportunity, as he surveyed the view.
His eyes returned to her. In the shade of the awning, he’d removed his dark glasses and his eyes met hers full on, knowing she’d been looking at him. She felt herself colour and saw his mouth quirk.
‘A female who blushes. Can it be?’ he murmured. There was a teasing note in his voice. Something more than teasing.
She swallowed. ‘It’s…it’s just the heat,’ she said.
‘Indeed, even in the shade,’ he murmured again. His eyes held hers still, washing over her. Heat rose in her cheeks again.
To her relief, the server was coming out, setting down what they had ordered. Arielle stirred her café au lait, willing her colour to subside. Lycos started on his gâteau and she likewise with her tarte.
‘So, have you enjoyed today?’ Lycos glanced at her.
She looked across at him. ‘I thought today was for your benefit,’ she said.
‘For us both,’ he said. ‘And I have indeed enjoyed it. I’ve never been a tourist before, seeing a place just for the pleasure of it.’ His tone was musing again.
She looked confused. ‘But you’ve come from the Côte d’Azur. People only go there for pleasure!’
‘I wasn’t there for pleasure. At least, not for the pleasure of the place. I spend time there, but I don’t sightsee. So today has been a novelty. A very pleasant one.’ He took another forkful of his gâteau. ‘This is very good,’ he said. ‘How about if I buy a whole one for us? For dessert tonight. Since we haven’t picked any strawberries, or raspberries either.’
‘If you like,’ Arielle said. ‘It’s your call. I’m just the tour guide.’
His eyes held hers, an expression in them that threatened to make her flush again.
‘You’re more than that, Arielle.’
His voice was soft and his accent seemed more pronounced. Husky.
She looked away, breathless suddenly. She heard him give a low laugh—a laugh that made her all the more breathless, that threatened to flush the colour back into her cheeks and the heat into her veins. Then he called the server over as she finished serving another customer nearby. Arielle heard him request an entire Gâteau St Honoré to take away with them. It gave her time to gather her composure again. As much of it as she could. In her head she heard his words.
‘You’re more than that, Arielle.’
The frisson that she had felt throughout the day came again and she knew why.
Her eyes returned to him, feeling again that sense of breathless bemusement and that flush of betraying heat. Whatever it was about him, this man who had come out of nowhere to take her home from her, she was drawn to him for reasons she could not deny.
Nor do I want to.
The truth held in her head. Impossible to dismiss.
Whatever was happening, whatever was going to happen, that truth held. She did not know why this man, who spelt only disaster to her, could affect her as he did. Only that he did.
Thoughts flickered through her mind. Difficult ones. Ones she must face.
Perhaps it’s helping me, this reaction to him. Perhaps it’s allowing me, enabling me, to start what I know I must do. What he himself has told me I have to do. To accept that the life I have known till now is ending. Perhaps he can help me accept that.
Perhaps, the thought came now and with it a kind of sweet, poignant sadness, he can be my swan song…
Let her say goodbye to her home with something other than bitterness and anguish.
Something sweeter than that.
Lycos glanced at his watch. It was a favourite possession, bought in the first flush of his wealth. One of the many signifiers of that wealth that he had purchased since he had transformed himself into what he was. Right now, though, it was telling him something that had nothing to do with his wealth.
‘We should probably make a move,’ he said. ‘The hens will be getting hungry for their supper. Speaking of which…’ he looked across at Arielle, ‘…what do you say to a picnic-style supper for ourselves? Save on cooking. Do you know a good delicatessen hereabouts?’
She did, it seemed, and they made their way there, his purchases lavish. Then, leaving Arielle to go into a nearby boulangerie, he spotted a shop opposite that interested him. He emerged before Arielle did and waited for her on the pavement. They headed to where he’d parked his car, then drove along the narrow streets to leave the town. As he returned to the open road, changed gear and sped up, he relaxed back. He was glad to be heading back to the mas. He glanced across at Arielle beside him. Her hands were folded in her lap and she was looking out of the windscreen.
She looked effortlessly lovely.
He drove on, musing as to what his feeling was. It was strange to him. Then he identified it.
It was contentment.
A novel feeling. Strange to him indeed. A welcome one. A pleasant one.
And one that came with another. His glance went to Arielle again.
Anticipation.
He felt the feeling merge and mingle, uniting in him. Different from anything he’d known before.
But it felt good.
Better than anything he’d known before.
‘Shut your eyes a moment. Et voilà!’
Arielle did as she was bid, then opened her eyes again. They widened even more as she saw what Lycos was holding out.
‘Oh, how beautiful!’ she exclaimed.
‘Isn’t it?’ he agreed smiling. ‘I saw it in the little shop across from the boulangerie and couldn’t resist it. Here, let me try it on you.’
He stepped forward, the beautiful gossamer shawl, in myriad hues of blue and threaded with silver, was swirled around her shoulders. He stepped away again.
‘Perfect,’ he announced with satisfaction. ‘I knew it would be. It matches your eyes. Do you like it?’
‘Who could not?’ Arielle replied. ‘But I can’t possibly keep it.’ She started to undrape it, but he stopped her.
‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘It’s a present.’
She looked at him. ‘Why?’
‘I am your guest,’ he said. ‘A guest should always give their hostess a present.’
Her lips pressed together. ‘I’m not your hostess and you are not my guest. If anything, I am yours.’
‘Don’t be argumentative. And don’t take off the shawl. The evening is a little chilly. Besides, I like to see you in it.’
His eyes rested on her and Arielle found she could not meet them. Found, too, that her pulse had quickened. There was no reason, none, for Lycos to give her anything at all. Let alone what was clearly a pricey gift, for she knew that little shop he’d got it from and it only stocked expensive items.
‘Now…’ he was continuing, drawing back her chair at the table as the dusk gathered, ‘…we shall toast our highly enjoyable outing today and plan what to do tomorrow.’
‘Surely it’s time for you to resume your journey to Paris?’ Arielle said, taking her place, as he did likewise opposite her. The soft folds of the beautiful shawl nestled against her shoulders and upper arms. She knew it flattered her. For reasons she wasn’t about to examine she’d made more of an effort this evening. She still wore the sun dress she’d worn during the day, but had added a simple necklace of blue beads and scooped her hair into an up style. Nothing formal, but graceful for all that. Her lips had felt a little dry, so she’d glossed them with a slightly tinted gel and spritzed a light floral scent over her throat. She hadn’t let herself think about the reasons, she’d just done it.
Her eyes went to him now, hearing her own question to him. Feeling, suddenly, a little dart of fear go through her.
I should want him to clear off to Paris and leave me here on my own for just a little bit longer.
But I don’t.
Her expression changed. No, she did not want Lycos Dimistrios to go. To leave her.
So when he gave his answer, as he poured their wine handing one glass to her, she knew from her reaction that he had given the answer she should not want to hear and yet did want to hear at the same time.
‘There’s no rush,’ he said easily. ‘Paris can wait. This is far more pleasant.’ He lifted his glass to her. ‘Santé! To a very enjoyable day. Thank you for being my tour guide.’
She gave a flickering smile, conscious of conflicting thoughts. Confusing thoughts. She dropped her eyes to the plates on the table, laded with the purchases from the delicatessen. Charcuterie and olives, a jar of caviar with blinis, poached chicken breasts and smoked trout, artichoke hearts and tiny stuffed peppers, remoulade and finely sliced tomatoes in a piquant vinaigrette, and assorted cheeses, together with the bread she’d bought.
Her gaze returned to him across the table, as she picked up her own glass. The dusky early evening, the soft glow from the table lamp, the light thrown from the parlour behind where they were sitting out on the terrace, all threw his features into chiaroscuro, highlighting them for her. She wanted to gaze and gaze, drink him in, but that would be far too obvious. So, she dropped her eyes instead, taking a delicate mouthful of her wine and setting back her glass on the table.
‘What do we start with?’ she asked, indicating the spread before them.
‘Caviar,’ Lycos pronounced, helping them both to generous portions. ‘Do you like caviar?’ he asked, making a start on his.
‘It’s not part of my everyday diet,’ Arielle said wryly. ‘I assume it is for you, though?’
He glanced across at her. ‘Not always. I remember my first taste vividly. It was in my early days of making wins and I was flushed with success. I cashed in my chips and went to the bar to celebrate. Someone further down was having caviar and champagne, so I ordered the same.’
Arielle heard something change in his voice as he continued.
‘I was on my way to a new life and I wanted to mark the occasion. That first taste of caviar put my old life behind me.’
There was an edge in his voice, she could hear that too. Then, abruptly, it was gone again. ‘This should be such a moment for you too, Arielle. Putting your old life behind you. Walk away from the mas, head held high. Don’t look back. I didn’t. Nor should you.’
She felt her finger tighten around the knife she was using to lift caviar on to her blini.
‘You don’t understand—’ she started. Her voice was as tight as her grip on the knife.
He cut across her. ‘Arielle, move on! I did. I had to or I’d have gone the same way as my father—’
He broke off, swallowed his caviar and blini, reached for his wine, set the glass down with a click. Looked across the table at her.
‘My father was not a stupid man,’ he said. ‘But he was weak and self-indulgent and self-pitying. He felt hard done by, so he drowned his sorrows. When his sense of frustration mounted, he took it out on me.’
She stared across at him. ‘He…he hit you?’
‘Until I got big enough to hit back. Then he stopped.’
‘But…but what about your mother?’
‘My mother?’ Lycos’s voice was harsh now. ‘She’d walked out, fed up with his self-pity.’
‘She left you with a father who hit you?’ Arielle’s voice was hollow.
‘She went off with a man who didn’t want any baggage.’
‘But that’s awful! How could she?’
‘Very easily, apparently. But she’d never been much of a mother anyway. My memories are of her complaining vociferously to my father all the time. They only married because I was on the way. She left just after the economic crash in Greece came. My father lost his job—not that it was much of a job, but it brought in a wage at least—and then there were no more jobs to be had. But there was liquor to be had, so he took to that instead. Stayed with it to the end. He was a full-blown alcoholic by then. I took what care I could of him. Not that he noticed.’
He took a breath, looked right at her. ‘Arielle, that’s what I meant when I talked about responsibility and the freedom you have when you accept that you can’t be responsible. I tried to stop my father drinking, felt responsible for him. But it wasn’t my responsibility, it was his. And when I finally realised that, accepted it, I knew I was free. Free to walk away. So I did. He’s dead now, long ago. As for my mother? I have no idea and don’t care. Because she never cared about me either, so we’re quits.’
He fell silent, helping himself to more caviar and another blini. Arielle looked across the table at him. Her emotions were mixed. It was hard to see Lycos Dimistrios—a man who’d turned up in evening dress and an uber-flash car, who clearly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, who could win her family home on the casual turn of a card—as that bruised, bodily and emotionally, young boy. Abandoned by his mother. Growing into his teens to look after a violent, alcoholic father. Emotions plucked at her, but she did not know what they were, other than a natural pity for such an upbringing. The pain that must have caused him, even if he hid it now.
He looked across at her again. His face seemed closed now. Harder.
‘So you see, Arielle, why I have limited sympathy for your plight. You may not have the inheritance you’d expected, but you’re not penniless. You’re young. You’re healthy. You’re beautiful. You’re not going to have the life you thought you were going to have, but you can make a new one for yourself. That is, if you stop feeling sorry for yourself!’
‘I’m not—’ she started heatedly, ripped away from Lycos’s sorry childhood to what consumed her.
‘Yes, you are,’ Lycos contradicted her. He took a breath. ‘Arielle, self-pity gets you nowhere. I should know. But neither does anger and resentment. I know that too. Looking back doesn’t help, only looking forward. Like I’ve already said to you, if this place means that much to you go off and do what I did. Make a fortune somehow, anyhow, and buy it back. It will be for sale for the right price. Everything…’ his voice turned cynical ‘…is for sale at the right price.’
He reached for his wine, took a deliberate mouthful and set back the glass. He looked across the table at her again.
‘OK, subject closed. Let’s move on and enjoy the present. So, do you like caviar?’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow.
Under his scrutiny she took a mouthful of caviar and blini. Testing it out.
She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said.
He smiled. It relaxed all his features. Made him less forbidding, less censorious.
‘Eat up then or I’ll polish it all off! Now, as I was saying, how shall we spend tomorrow? After a day out, my vote is for a lazy day here. Join Maurice and Mathilde in their pool,’ he said good-humouredly.
He reached for more caviar, glancing across at Arielle again as he did. He gave a nod of approval.
‘Yes, I chose well,’ he said satisfied. ‘That shawl becomes you perfectly! How beautiful you are, Arielle. So incredibly beautiful.’
He had not changed his voice as he paid her the compliment, but Arielle could not stop the flush running out into her cheeks. He gave a low laugh. The laugh that told her things she should not want to hear, yet knew she did.
She dropped her head, confused and self-conscious. Her pulse had quickened and the colour in her cheeks was not subsiding. She reached for her wine, looking up as she did. His eyes were resting on her and in the uncertain light there was a glint in them that only made her pulse quicken even more.
The glint of a wolf—
Lycos saw her react to him. It was what he wanted. He wanted her to move on from her endless obsession with her lost inheritance.
Move on to me, to what I want of her. And to what she wants too, if she only admits it.
She was on the way, he knew. Calling her out, as he had just then, seemed to have worked. She had visibly relaxed again and they went on enjoying the delicacies procured in Saint-Clément. For a moment he frowned inwardly. What he had told her about himself he had never told a living soul.
So why tell her?
He brushed the question aside, letting his eyes rest on her instead, feeling a reaction go through him that was becoming increasingly familiar. Increasingly welcome. She really was so very lovely, so very beautiful, so very appealing to him.
He got to his feet, starting to clear the table. Arielle made a move to help, but he stopped her.
‘No. Let me,’ he said.
She acquiesced and he made short work of carrying out the used plates and leftovers to the kitchen, putting the former in the sink and the latter in the fridge. Minutes later he came back outdoors. The night had gathered in earnest now and Arielle was sitting with her back to him, her hair limned with gold from the light of the wall lamp and the glass-sheltered candle on the table. She was relaxed back in her chair, the colourful shawl he’d bought for her gathered around her shoulders, exposing the delicate nape of her neck. He could not resist. He paused behind her and, before she could turn her head, he’d dropped the lightest of kisses on her nape.
He felt her still, heard her breath catch.
He straightened again.
‘I come bearing sweet delight,’ he informed her as he placed on the table a large, square cardboard box, secured with ribbons and bearing the ornate name of the pâtisserie where they’d had coffee. He opened it with a flourish.
‘Gâteau St Honoré!’ he announced portentously. Then he frowned. ‘I have no idea how to slice it without making a complete hash of it!’
Somehow, he managed it, to Arielle’s smiling applause, giving them both generous, if slightly messy, portions. He watched as Arielle lifted a full forkful of the gâteau to her lips and took a mouthful. A low moan of bliss came from her and her eyelids fluttered shut as she relished the experience, her expression transfigured.
Out of nowhere, a dart of arousal possessed Lycos.
She will look like that when her moment comes in my arms…
‘Oh, that is so good!’ sighed Arielle, taking another forkful. ‘This was an inspired purchase! Thank you!’
‘You are most welcome.’ Lycos smiled, getting stuck into his own luscious portion, indulging a more immediate appetite.
Slices demolished, they both went for seconds, and it was a sadly depleted gâteau that remained by the end of the meal. Arielle sat back with an air of repletion about her.
‘I’ll go and make some coffee,’ she announced.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Lycos offered companionably. ‘And why don’t we move to the comfy chairs?’ he nodded at the two padded cane armchairs with footstools just by the French window to the parlour. ‘If we turn off all the lights, we can look at the stars.’
That was exactly what they did and Lycos found it pleasingly relaxing. In the soft night there was no sound beyond the incessant cicadas, the occasional call of a night bird and the distant faint sound of a church clock striking from the village several kilometres away. He’d moved the two chairs next to each other. Once Arielle had placed her empty coffee cup on the stone paving, she’d rested her hands on the chair arms and relaxed back against the head rest.
Lycos did likewise. Except that his hand, adjacent to Arielle’s, did not rest on his own chair arm. He let it fold, lightly and casually, over Arielle’s. For a second he felt her tense, then it was gone. He did not move his hand. Her hand was warm beneath his covering palm. Deliberately he did not look at her. Instead, he lifted up his other hand to gesture towards the night sky, ablaze with stars.
‘Another van Gogh night,’ he said.
He let his hand go on resting over hers. Let her get used to the sensation of his innocuous touch.
‘Poor Vincent,’ she replied. ‘He had such a sad life, but I think he was happy here in Provence.’
‘It’s an easy place to be happy,’ Lycos said.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘It is.’
And then, quite distinctly, Lycos felt her hand turn beneath his, and her fingers mesh with his, easing into holding his hand. Slowly, very slowly, he let his thumb softly stroke hers. Not making a big thing of it, just letting it happen…
Peace filled him. It was good, so very good, just to lounge here holding Arielle’s soft hand, relaxed and replete, quietly and easily. Gazing up at the starry, starry night. Listening to the cicadas, wrapped in the warmth of the summer’s soft darkness.
