Since the three of them had to return to their teaching assignments for the upcoming fall semester, they planned to take advantage of this time together and sightsee to their hearts’ content.
As they had another month before going back to the US, Abby was also hoping to find evidence of a poem that Lord Byron had been rumored to write called Labyrinths, or some such title, while he’d been in Switzerland. But it was a work that had never seen the light of day and many experts dismissed it as sheer fiction. But Abby hadn’t given up on the possibility of finding out the truth, if it existed.
Recently a fragment of a memoir by Claire Clairmont, who’d traveled in Switzerland with Byron, had been found in a branch of New York public library. It had shed new light on Lord Byron and Shelley. What Abby would give to unearth a find equally sensational, but no amount of digging had been successful so far.
While Abby sat there beneath a sunny sky, wondering where else she and the girls might look while they were here for the month, she noticed a vintage black Renault drive up and park.
Out stepped a tall man, maybe early thirties, who stood fit and lean. With his overly long black wavy hair, he epitomized her idea of the quintessential drop-dead sensational male. She didn’t know such a person existed.
Only a Frenchman had that appeal, the kind she’d conjured in her mind and fantasized about from time to time growing up. He had an expression much like the one she’d seen on the French actor Charles Boyer who had played the lead in a famous old film classic The Garden of Allah.
Abby had been a teenager when she’d first watched it and had fallen in love with the actor. He played the part of a monk who ran away from a monastery in North Africa and fell in love with an Englishwoman. They went out in the desert together, but he carried a terrible secret.
At times his sadness combined with his male beauty was almost painful to watch. Abby had watched it over and over again. His performance had seemed so real that she always been haunted by him and had decided there was no Frenchman alive more captivating.
Until now.
Abby couldn’t take her eyes off the stranger, something that had never happened to her before, not with Nigel or the boyfriend she’d loved earlier in her life. There was a brooding aura about him that caught at her emotions though she fought not to be attracted.
Who was he? Where had such a man come from?
Abby felt as if he was burdened by a great weight. It was there in the way he carried himself. The lines radiating from his eyes and around his mouth spelled pain. His work clothes, a white shirt with the sleeves shoved up to the elbows and dark trousers, told her he’d stopped whatever he’d been doing to get in his car and drive here.
This was the magnificent someone who’d come for her?
His bronzed complexion, close to a teak color, overlay chiseled features. The man worked in the sun. Beneath black brows his midnight-black eyes met hers and roved over her with an intensity that sent a ripple of sensation through her. She trembled for no good reason, something she couldn’t prevent.
There was an unrehearsed sensuality about the way his hard mouth smiled almost derisively, as if he knew she’d shivered slightly and found it amusing. Even though he’d caught her staring, she refused to avert her eyes. Her pulse raced as he approached her.
“Mademoiselle Grant?”
Those two words, spoken in a deep seductive voice, curled their way through to her insides. She heard no trace of the singsong French spoken in this part of Switzerland. He was a Frenchman down to every atom of his hard-muscled body.
“Yes. You must be from La Floraison.”
He nodded. “I was told to look for a woman with golden hair.” His excellent, heavily accented English came as a shock.
“You have the advantage. They didn’t tell me your name.”
“Raoul Decorvet.”
“I thought Magda’s friend was a great deal older.”
“He was. Sadly, Auguste died a month ago at the age of eighty.”
“Oh, no—” she cried. “We didn’t know. Magda didn’t tell us.”
“You weren’t supposed to know.”
Abby shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m here negotiating the sale of this property business for the former owner. Auguste had a bad heart so he never knew how long he had to live. The vineyard managers, Louis and Gabrielle, have said that you and your friends are welcome to stay here for the month. I was on hand when Gabrielle received a distress call from your friends. She was busy so I offered my help.”
“Thank you, but this isn’t right. We don’t want to put anyone out.”
Again, she felt his penetrating gaze wander over her, missing nothing before it rested on her hair. “It’s no imposition. If you’ll get in the car, I’ll explain while I drive you to the château.”
His potent male charisma made her so aware of him, it was hard to act natural. She felt nervous. After her experience with Nigel, Abby was almost frightened by her visceral response to this total stranger who blew away every man she’d ever known. He reached for her suitcase and helped her into the front passenger seat before putting it in the back.
After he’d started the car, she said, “I’m sorry you had to come for me. I could have waited until my friends showed up. Providing taxi service is hardly the work of a busy Realtor.”
“Pas de problème.”
Abby was sure that wasn’t true, but Raoul Decorvet had a certain air of authority. She didn’t want to argue with him since he’d put himself out on her behalf, so she kept quiet while he started
