The French Count's Mistress

  “Did you really think I would allow you to take advantage of me?”

  Guy demanded, delivering the rebuke in a fierce, teasing voice.

  He was so close she could see the tiny aquamarine flecks in his dazzling gray eyes…so close they seemed to share the same breath, the same air.

  “Take advantage of you!” Kate gasped, knowing she was pinned so securely he could do anything he liked with her. “Let me go…let me go!” she exclaimed, fighting to stop her gaze lingering on his mouth. But he had captured her wrists in one hand, while his other posed a delicious threat as it hovered over her, reducing her to writhing on the ground, to his obvious entertainment.

  “How can I let you go?” he said—as if there might have been the slightest chance he would. “Wildcats must be tamed.”

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  Susan Stephens

  THE FRENCH COUNT’S MISTRESS

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘BUT, mademoiselle… Monsieur le Comte is in a meeting. He is not receiving anyone.’

  ‘He will see me,’ Kate Foster said confidently, sweeping past the liveried servant into a vast room that seemed little changed over the years.

  But she had changed, Kate thought in the split second between taking in her surroundings and identifying her quarry. She was not intimidated, as she had been as a child, maybe because success allowed her to weigh material possessions on a very different set of scales. A group of men seated around an oval table in the centre of the room turned to stare as she approached, then they got to their feet, but only one held her interest.

  ‘Kate?’ he exclaimed softly.

  The commanding voice connected with something so deep she had to fight to keep her eye-line steady. She had forgotten how tall he was…how striking… Guy de Villeneuve wasn’t just handsome; he seemed to have been formed from exclusive constituents. His tanned skin appeared more luminous, his ebony hair lusher, his lashes longer, his sable brows more expressive and his lips—she looked away quickly, conscious that she too was being appraised, and those piercing steel-grey eyes were a vivid reminder of what awaited anyone foolish enough to be swept away by the Count de Villeneuve’s dazzling good looks. No, Kate reminded herself, the Count’s strongest suit had always been his iron will and fierce intelligence, gifts he cloaked behind the deceptive guise of inborn elegance, and… Her cheeks flamed when she recognised another, more elusive quality to be smouldering sensuality.

  Pretending interest in several seascapes hanging on the wall, she allowed her gaze to diffuse and seek multiple targets rather than the one devastating individual waiting across the room. Even if courtesy had forced him to accept her intrusion, Kate knew that very different emotions would be brewing behind his hawkish stare.

  ‘Count Guy de Villeneuve,’ she said as she reached him, keeping the greeting intentionally cool.

  His sardonic query at the formal style of address showed briefly in his eyes, but as far as Kate was concerned it was ten years since they had last met and this was not a social visit. She had followed Guy de Villeneuve’s career closely enough to know that charm and beauty were common currency in his world. Anyone foolish enough to imagine that feminine wiles could possibly influence him where business was concerned would soon discover their mistake. She could almost see the cogs flying round in his mind. Reading her mood had always been easy for him, she remembered, watching his steel-grey eyes narrow with conjecture. Now she was back in a familiar game—one in which he was used to taking the lead. A game where provoking the short-fused, Titian-haired visitor to his family’s vast estate had been an annual amusement for the young Count. But ten years had intervened since their last spat. Ten years in which she had built up and lost one career and was currently riding the crest of another. Ten years in which she had learned to deal with men like—

  ‘So, Kate,’ he said, cutting into her thoughts. ‘It’s been a long time. How can I help you?’

  Halting a safe distance away, Kate flicked back her glossy tumble of hair, thankful that she knew the rules of his game now. But today she was seeking a very different outcome from Guy, Count de Villeneuve. And she needed to move things along fast.

  ‘Kate?’

  The warmth had spilt from his eyes, leaving something hard to pin down but troubling, and for a split second she wondered if she had made a mistake coming to him direct. The deep, lightly accented voice was seductive and disarming and it was hard to ignore the fact that ten years had only honed his lean athletic frame into an even higher state of perfection. Dragging her gaze away, Kate inclined her head just a little to acknowledge the slight dip of his head. ‘I apologise for the intrusion, Monsieur le Comte, but I really must speak to you.’

  ‘About what, exactly?’

  He was a good head taller than the men around him, with a face that might have graced a movie screen had the expression in his eyes been more calculated to disarm, Kate thought, watching as he made a gesture to suggest that his colleagues should be seated. Lifting her chin, she took a few steps towards him. ‘It’s a matter I should like to discuss with you in private.’

  ‘As you can see, I am in a meeting. My secretary—’

  ‘This won’t wait.’ She was pleased to hear her voice so steady as she drew herself up to confront him. But it was impossible not to notice the speculation behind his faintly amused gaze and she was relieved when he turned away briefly to study some documents on the table in front of him.

  ‘An appointment would have made everything possible,’ he said evenly, but when he glanced up a flash of something hot in his eyes belied the reasonable tone of voice.

  The implied challenge only fanned Kate’s determination and the characteristic glow in her emerald eyes dwindled then froze into shards of green ice. ‘I telephoned your secretary before I left England, asking for an appointment, but she said your diary was full for the rest of this month.’

  The Count brought his head up slowly to confront her. ‘Did you leave your name, mademoiselle?’ His stress on the last word was intentional—calculated to provoke. It did its job.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Kate retorted in a clipped tone that suggested he should know her better than to imagine she was so inept. But how could he know anything about her? she realised with a jolt, stopping short of slipping into the combative argot of her youth. Guy de Villeneuve only knew the child she had been and not the woman she had become. ‘I asked your secretary most specifically to inform you that Kate Foster had called.’ She was pleased to hear the change in her voice—and to see a shadow briefly darken the Count’s face as he realised that a member of his staff was to blame for the oversight. But she also knew he was far too subtle to make his displeasure public.

  ‘Well, Kate Foster,’ he said, enunciating each syllable with sardonic precision. ‘Until I know what it is you want to talk to me about, I can hardly be expected to ask these gentlemen to leave.’

  Kate confined herself to a raised brow as their eyes clashed, but then her gaze was drawn to a muscle flexing in his jaw—a jaw that was already shaded with stubble so early in the day
. Her eyes flickered up to his lips and bounced away again fast—but not before she had seen the knowing smile tugging remorselessly at the corners of his mouth.

  It both troubled and excited her to know he hadn’t lost the art of reading her responses. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the other men beginning to relax. The confrontation promised some light relief for them. She blanked them out. ‘I am here to discuss La Petite Maison.’

  The Count responded to the hard edge in her voice with a stare of almost hypnotic intensity before swinging around to address his colleagues. ‘Gentlemen, forgive me. We will reconvene this meeting tomorrow morning at nine.’

  Round one to her, Kate thought, relaxing minutely. She waited in silence until the room cleared, lifting her chin in resolute defiance as the men walked past her, gazing with naked interest at the woman who presumed to interrupt the schedule of the Count de Villeneuve.

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ the Count invited as the door finally closed on the last of them.

  Kate glanced at the two easy chairs facing each other across a fireplace carved from a single block of Carrara marble and then back again to the confident individual standing in front of her. The Count’s suggestion would immediately put her at the receiving end of his legendary hospitality rather than on the opposing side of what might well turn into a legal dispute between them. ‘I prefer to stand, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  As if sensing her unease, the Count remained where he was…too far away to touch, but close enough for her to detect the scent of warm clean man overlaid with the aroma of citrus fruits and spice.

  ‘Kate, se passe? Have you forgotten me?’

  Kate’s face flared red as she met his amused gaze. How could she forget? Instinctively her gaze slipped to his lips.

  ‘Is it all coming back to you now?’ he murmured with what she suspected was more than a hint of satisfaction.

  The heat teasing her senses was proof enough…but that same delicious sensation served as a warning too. ‘I haven’t come here to reminisce,’ she said firmly. ‘My only concern is for the present—’

  ‘Mine, too,’ he assured her smoothly. Turning on his heel, he strode away from her across the peach-veined marble floor to where an intricately inlaid cherry wood desk stood in front of a tall arched window. ‘Won’t you come and sit down?’ he invited, holding out a chair opposite to his own comfortably padded leather swivel seat.

  His gaze was like a silken lasso drawing her across the room, Kate thought, fighting the urge to move.

  ‘Come,’ he urged gently, as if dealing with a highly bred mare. ‘Come and tell me what’s on your mind, Kate. Whatever your problem, I’m sure I can find a solution for you.’

  His containment was driving her crazy, she realised, consciously steadying her breathing. His inflexible control had always brought out the worst in her. But, even as she told herself that she had changed beyond recognition in the years since they had last met, she found herself thrusting one hand on to the swell of her hip and speaking to him in the same furious tone she had once adopted as a self-willed teenager.

  ‘Talking won’t solve this problem, I’m afraid.’

  ‘May I ask what would satisfy you?’ he enquired, the gleam in his eyes betraying not only his recognition, but his enjoyment of her lapse.

  The answer that sprang unbidden into Kate’s mind made her eyes widen with alarm. Guy de Villeneuve was in his late thirties and occupied the front cover of Time magazine with almost monotonous regularity. Kate, for all her commercial success, was just brushing twenty-six and had a life devoted to work, where there was no time for romance, let alone the type of relationship her over-active imagination had just conjured up.

  ‘Now you’re here it won’t hurt you to relax,’ he continued reasonably. ‘Can you come away from the door? I don’t bite.’

  It was impossible to read his face…but it had been more than ten years, Kate reminded herself. She was out of practice. But if he thought he could make her nervous…make her forget the reason for her visit… She started walking towards him with her head held high and her dancer’s carriage almost concealing the slight limp that was the legacy of the accident that had almost killed her.

  ‘It would be a start if you could explain why La Petite Maison has been so badly neglected,’ she agreed frostily.

  Now it was the Count’s turn to grow still as he watched her progress towards him. ‘Ah, that,’ he murmured distractedly.

  ‘Yes, that,’ Kate agreed. ‘Well?’ she pressed. ‘How do you explain it? I have been paying money into the Villeneuve estate office for almost six months now. Money I imagined would more than cover any necessary maintenance on the cottage until I was in a position to come over here and take charge for myself.’

  ‘Oh, par pitie, Kate!’ His elegant gesture silenced her. ‘It was understood by all the tenants that as soon as I had restored the estate to its original purpose the holiday cottages would have to go.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t informed,’ Kate said as she settled into the chair he was holding out for her. ‘Under the circumstances, don’t you think your behaviour has been a little high-handed?’

  As he took the seat facing her the Count’s powerful shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘I apologise for the oversight. When Madame Broadbent passed on I received no word regarding her intentions for La Petite Maison. I had no reason to believe that she left the cottage to you. Without the benefit of formal communication I drew the only assumption possible—’

  ‘Which was?’ Kate cut in. What was wrong with her pulse? She always remained calm when difficulties in business cropped up—that was her strength, she reminded herself forcefully. And La Petite Maison certainly represented a difficulty, if only because she had allowed her many other interests to take precedence.

  The letters from Aunt Alice’s solicitor had coincided with the closure of a deal that would see her Internet travel service open at several sites in Japan…she had barely scanned the documents from France.

  ‘I concluded that Madame Broadbent’s heirs merely wished to keep the cottage in good repair— Please, let me finish,’ the Count insisted quietly when Kate’s agitation threatened to become vocal. ‘As that was not in line with my own plans, I instructed my estate manager to return all monies paid. On top of that there would have been a generous capital payment in line with the sums I have released to regain full title to all the other properties. Some banking hiccup—’

  ‘You can stop right there,’ Kate insisted, pushing a slender hand through her barely contained hair and dragging the rest of it down from the clip in the process. ‘I don’t want your money, but I do want everything I paid into the Villeneuve estate office to be spent on the cottage.’

  ‘I can’t do that—’

  ‘Can’t, or won’t?’ she demanded tensely.

  The Count missed a beat, but his eyes had grown dangerously warm as he leaned over the desk to gaze at her. ‘Ah, Kate,’ he drawled. ‘You always were too impetuous—’

  ‘That isn’t an answer,’ she warned, trying not to notice the attractive way his eyes crinkled at the corners and the dense sweep of ebony lashes that framed the molten steel gaze. His scrutiny was bad enough when she wanted to talk business, but the effect it was having on her senses was nothing short of catastrophic. ‘If you refuse to do anything about the cottage,’ she said, ‘just return the money and I’ll sort it out myself.’

  ‘All right,’ he agreed, surprising her with his sudden capitulation. ‘I’ll have all the money repaid into your bank account tomorrow morning.’ But, just as Kate felt some of her tension seep away, he added starkly, ‘But the cottage reverts to me. You will accept my offer.’

  ‘Blackmail?’ she said as she got to her feet.

  The Count’s fist slammed down on his desk. ‘T’exagere!’ Gathering himself quickly, he stood up, his dark, brooding expression an unmistakable mark of reproof. ‘I prefer to call it an amicable arrangement,’ he said in a low
voice.

  ‘It’s a very one-sided arrangement,’ Kate observed, with remarkable composure considering she was confronting a gaze grown more dangerous than she could ever remember, ‘and hardly amicable since I don’t want any part of it.’

  ‘Perhaps when you hear what I have to say you might change your mind.’

  Kate’s heart was thundering out of control, but still she managed evenly, ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘So you won’t even listen to my offer?’

  As he stood towering over her, waiting for her reply, Kate drew herself up, but even when she was at full stretch he was still a good head taller…and there was a glint in his eyes that suggested he was actually entertained by her stand. Now she was mad. ‘Don’t patronise me, Guy. I’m a grown woman with my own business to run.’

  ‘And I thought you’d forgotten how to say my name,’ he growled softly.

  His voice was as dark and deliciously beguiling as bitter chocolate, Kate realised as she struggled to keep her mind focused on the purpose of her visit.

  Perhaps it was the timbre of his speech, or maybe the pitch, but something primitive was strumming her senses with a persistent and unmistakable beat. And if past experience had left her with the misleading notion that she was immune to machismo, Guy, Count de Villeneuve had just proved her wrong. And he knew it, she realised as their glances clashed.

  ‘Don’t change the subject,’ Kate warned, rallying fast. ‘You know what I’m here for and it isn’t a trip down memory lane.’

  In a few electric moments their eyes met and held. Then, raising his eyebrows the merest fraction, he said, ‘I think we should both calmly put our cards on the table.’

  ‘I won’t change my mind.’

  ‘As you please, Kate,’ the Count said as he dropped on to his chair. ‘But whatever you’ve got to say, make it brief. I’ve got a great many things to do.’ He tossed her a look that was suddenly a good deal less tolerant, and she noticed how one of his hands seemed to want to mash the end of a bone-handled paperknife. The unconscious gesture was so much at odds with his strong watchful face that Kate was forced to wonder if she was as disturbing to him as he was to her. One thing was clear: he would soon lose patience with her again. It seemed that even Guy de Villeneuve’s fabled courtesy had its limitations—