Alexandra didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry. She was shocked, delighted, dismayed and confused, all at the same time.
‘Will you forgive me for my stupidity?’ Antoine went on. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing for you, letting you go, but now I know I was very wrong.’ He set off across the room to where she was sitting. ‘You are my guiding star, my world, my very precious love.’ He drew her to her feet and suddenly she was in his arms, and his mouth was on hers. She felt faint from the force of his passion and her own.
She was breathless when she said, ‘Am I not too young for you?’
‘You’re perfect for me. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure I’m perfect for you.’
‘You’re quite perfect enough already,’ she murmured, hanging on to his lapel and pulling him down so she could reach up to kiss him again.
When Donna tapped on the door and came in a little while later, she found them both on the sofa. Alexandra’s hair was no longer in an elegant chignon but was now down over her shoulders.
‘Antoine?’ she said quietly. ‘Your driver is downstairs. What shall I tell him?’
‘Your driver?’ said Alexandra. ‘Last time I was with you, you were in a Deux Chevaux, bumping over the fields.’
‘But I had a driver!’ he said indignantly.
Alexandra laughed, remembering the farmer who’d been so kind and, to her, incomprehensible.
‘The office sent this one. I had to sign some papers and so they collected me from where I was staying this morning.’
‘You were in Paris last night?’ she said, thinking of the pleasant but, for her, desolate evening she had spent with Donna and Bob, who had gone to such lengths to make her happy. To think that Antoine, who had filled her thoughts so completely, had been in the same city and she hadn’t known!
‘I couldn’t come to you last night, however much I wanted to,’ said Antoine. ‘I couldn’t rush off immediately after arriving at my godmother’s house, which was already late in the evening. She would have been deeply offended and shocked at such rackety behaviour. And everyone – all the family – said I had to propose to you properly.’
‘Oh!’ said Donna, excited, looking at Alexandra. ‘And did he?’
Alexandra considered. ‘No, I don’t think he did.’
Antoine instantly went down on one knee. ‘My darling Alexandra, will you do me the great honour of becoming my wife?’
She laughed and took hold of his hands. ‘I think I will,’ she said, pretending to think about it. ‘I might like being a countess.’
Antoine got up and hugged Alexandra, and then Donna hugged them both. ‘So, is it time for more champagne?’ she said.
Bob, who hadn’t yet set off for the office, came in. ‘My wife has become addicted to champagne since we’ve lived in Paris but there was never a better reason for it.’
‘Do you have to carry her back to the country immediately?’ said Donna wistfully. ‘Could we keep her in Paris for a little longer?’
‘We probably should get back,’ said Alexandra. ‘I was organising a wedding, after all.’ She was suddenly filled with longing for the chateau and everyone who lived there; it was her home and the people in it were her family.
‘I think the wedding will manage quite well without us,’ said Antoine. ‘I want to show you Paris. We must buy an engagement ring and there is a fairly elderly lady I must introduce you to. No marriage without her consent will be quite legal, I’m afraid. We’ll go home when we’ve done all those things and the wedding is safely over.’
‘But Stéphie—’ Alexandra protested.
‘Stéphie will understand completely. It was she who gave me very strict instructions that I wasn’t to come home without you.’
‘Are you only marrying me to please your daughter?’ asked Alexandra.
‘Pas du tout. But if I don’t marry you, my daughter – in fact none of my children – will ever forgive me.’
Donna sighed. ‘I am very, very happy for you.’ She paused for a second. ‘Bob, will you take me to that restaurant that all our American friends rave about? I was going with Alexandra, but she won’t want to come now.’
‘Why wouldn’t we want to come?’ said Alexandra. ‘It sounds delightful.’ In spite of everything, of her and his feelings at last being acknowledged publicly, she suddenly felt a little shy of being on her own with Antoine.
‘We can celebrate in company,’ said Antoine, ‘and perhaps postpone the champagne?’
‘Oh,’ said Donna, clapping her hands. ‘Think how cool it will be if we arrive with a real French comte and his beautiful fiancée! I just hope all my ex-pat friends are there!’
‘We’d love to join you, if you don’t mind?’ said Antoine. ‘But before that, I must make some arrangements.’
‘So must I!’ said Alexandra. ‘I must tell my relations I’m going to be married!’ She suddenly felt wildly happy; the man she’d fallen in love with the moment she saw him loved her back. ‘Do I have to write a whole new postcard, do you think? Or can I just say “Forget all that, I’m getting married”?’
Donna tutted and shook her head, apparently disapproving of Alexandra’s flippancy. ‘I think you should add that he’s a comte. They need to know that.’
Alexandra gave her a delighted hug.
When they were alone again, Antoine said, ‘Will it take you long to write your postcard? I want to take you to buy an engagement ring. If I don’t, when I take you to meet my godmother, who is formidable, she’ll make you have a family piece which will be very old-fashioned.’
‘I like old things. It’s probably why I fell in love with you …’ She bit her lip, not sure if he’d find this amusing.
He raised an eyebrow but the corner of his mouth twitched. ‘I must get used to the fact that I’m not marrying a woman who worships her husband.’
‘I do worship you,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think I should tell you too often in case you become bossy.’
He laughed. ‘You are the bossy one, I think. Luckily, I like that. Now, about an engagement ring—’
‘I would like an antique. There’s something extra romantic about jewellery that comes with a story of its own, one we’ll never know. That’s partly why I love antiques markets.’
‘Then we will go to an antiques market and find you the ring of your dreams.’
‘I’ve got the man of my dreams; I don’t need a ring as well. I mean, it doesn’t have to be expensive.’
He kissed her for a long time. ‘Stéphie would never speak to me again if you didn’t have a very large diamond on your finger when we come home. That said, if you want it from a market, we must wait until tomorrow. What shall we do this morning?’
‘When shall I meet your godmother?’
‘She will need notice.’ He took a breath. ‘Because of the way we met I haven’t had a chance to woo you properly, or even take you out to dinner. Now is my opportunity to put all that right. And this morning, we can be tourists. Do you want to go up the Eiffel Tower?’
She shook her head. ‘I want to do what I planned to when I met Donna and my life changed.’
‘Which is?’
‘I want to climb up the steps of Montmartre and see the Sacré-Cœur.’
‘But, darling, your ankle!’
‘I’d forgotten about my ankle.’ Alexandra considered. ‘Well, it was at the bottom of the steps where my life changed. There was Donna, with her shopping bag broken, surrounded by onions and potatoes.’
He hugged her to him. ‘Your kind heart made you help her and so we met.’
Alexandra gave a little sigh of happiness. ‘On the other hand, I really want to see the view from the top. Fancy helping me get up there?’
‘I will carry you up as a proof of my love!’
Alexandra giggled. ‘Just give me your arm; you can prove you love me in other ways.’
When they’d climbed to the top and got their breath back for a few moments, they turned and looked at Paris all laid out before them.
‘I’ve dreamt of looking at this view for ages. I didn’t realise you could see the Eiffel Tower from here.’ What Alexandra didn’t say was how she’d dreamt of seeing Paris with a man she loved. Tears caught in her throat; all her dreams had come true.
‘Darling, I hate to say this, but I don’t think we’ve got time to actually look round the basilica today if we’re having lunch with Donna and Bob.’
‘Do you mind doing that?’ asked Alexandra. ‘They’ve been so kind …’
‘I feel I owe them my happiness,’ said Antoine simply. ‘There is nothing I would not do for them.’
Alexandra wondered if there was a limit to how much you could love someone and decided there wasn’t. She kept on loving Antoine more and more.
After a very jolly and champagne-filled lunch Antoine got Alexandra on her own for a few moments. ‘There is nothing I would like to do more than to take you to a lovely hotel and make love to you. But I am very old-fashioned, very traditional and I think we should wait until we are married.’ He paused to let her absorb this. ‘More to the point, I am staying with my godmother who will be noting exactly how long I am out of the house with you and if she even suspects we’ve done more than kiss our lives will not be worth living.’
Alexandra laughed.
‘I do hope you’re not going to insist on a long engagement,’ he added.
‘Not at all!’
‘I am relieved. Now I will let you go home with Donna and Bob. Sadly I can’t join you for dinner but can I collect you early in the morning so I can buy you an engagement ring?’
‘What time is early?’
‘Seven o’clock?’
‘Seven o’clock! That’s late by David’s standards.’
Paris could not have looked more beautiful in the early-morning mist that promised a beautiful day. There was no official car; they walked to the Métro which took them to the flea market.
‘How is your ankle?’ he said as he took her arm.
‘It’ll be fine. Isn’t this fun? And Paris is so lovely at this time of day.’
He kissed her cheek and they set off.
Although there were several stalls selling jewellery it took a while before Alexandra’s eye was caught by a ring that looked different from the others. It was a single diamond, quite large, surrounded by gold and dark blue enamel. She reached out for it and then noticed the price and turned her attention to a smoky topaz set in silver. ‘What about this one?’
‘Try it on. Do you like it?’ said Antoine.
‘Yes I do.’ She did like it. It was quite a large stone and looked nice on her hand. ‘And it fits!’
‘We’ll have it then!’ said Antoine. ‘Darling? I can see a crêpe stall over there? I knew something was making me hungry. Could you get me one with cheese? Breakfast? I didn’t have any.’
‘Nor did I,’ said Alexandra. ‘You won’t forget to haggle for the ring, will you?’ she said quietly. ‘You should never pay the asking price.’ She felt guilty leaving him. Buying antiques at a stall was not for a novice.
Antoine took his wooing seriously. He took her everywhere: to the tourist spots, to the spots only Parisians knew about and everywhere else they could think of. They went up the Seine on a bateau-mouche, they stood on bridges and they drank coffee in little cafés and they ate baguettes jambon-beurre in the street.
They also took Bob and Donna out to dinner the next evening but still Antoine wouldn’t give her her engagement ring. He said it was being cleaned and wasn’t ready.
Alexandra was enjoying life very much but her conscience was pricked by the knowledge that the wedding that she had been organising, had been asked to organise, was happening far away in Provence and she wasn’t there to make sure every detail was perfect.
She had said as much to David on the telephone, after she had given him her news. David was very clear in his advice. ‘Penelope and Jack can get married without you. You’ve got everything ready. There are lots of local people who can help if necessary and I’ll be there. You enjoy the time of your life.’
Eventually, David convinced her, up to a point. Then she found herself telling Donna how guilty she felt about it, too.
She was equally certain. ‘Honey! Just leave it all to them. They’ll be fine. You’ll never have time like this again. You’ll get married, you’ll have babies and you’ll work hard! This is like your honeymoon, without the sex.’
Alexandra laughed, slightly doubtfully. ‘I’m a bit worried about that part now.’
‘No need,’ said Donna. ‘It’ll be fine. Trust me. You fancy each other like mad and he’ll make it work for you.’
‘I’ll take your word for it. I know from the outside I seem very sophisticated, as if I know what I’m doing in life, but sometimes I’m just a girl who hasn’t got a mother.’
Donna rubbed her arm. ‘You’re great. Brave, kind and funny as well as beautiful. And Antoine is a good man. I got Bob to check him out a bit and he is truly honourable.’
‘I know that. Adopting his friend’s daughter and bringing her up as his own was a great thing to do. Although having Stéphie is no hardship.’ She paused. ‘And what about you? Is it rude to ask? Are you thinking of having a family?’
‘Thinking of it, certainly,’ said Donna, suddenly looking secretive. ‘In fact … it’s too early to say really but …’
‘Oh, Donna! That’s lovely! So exciting!’
‘We’re cautiously thrilled,’ she said.
Alexandra hugged her, unexpectedly tearful.
‘So, why are you so nervous about this lunch?’ asked Donna. ‘You know which knife and fork to use.’ Donna was doing Alexandra’s hair into the neatest chignon it had ever experienced.
‘It’s the table manners thing! In England we put our hands in our laps every time we put down our knife and fork, which is while we’re chewing. I know it’s the opposite way in France, and you have to keep your hands visible at all times. I’m convinced nerves will make me forget and that’ll make the godmother stop Antoine from marrying me and I’ll have to go and live in Switzerland after all.’
Donna laughed. ‘That is not going to happen! Even if it does, and the godmother does forbid it, Antoine won’t accept her decision. He loves you! He wants to marry you! And you’ – she paused to examine her handiwork in detail – ‘are the most elegant young woman in Paris!’ Then she sprayed Alexandra’s hair so thoroughly it couldn’t move.
She was in the salon, looking out of the long windows at Paris and the Eiffel Tower when she heard a noise.
It was Antoine.
‘Oh, you startled me! Have you been there long?’
‘No. I was trying to decide if you are more beautiful when you look like a woman on the cover of Vogue or when your hair is all over the place and you are covered in mud.’
‘And what conclusion did you come to?’ asked Alexandra, going to him.
Antoine shrugged. ‘I could only think that I love you more every time I look at you. Are you ready for your ordeal by elderly Frenchwoman? You look le dernier cri du chic.’
She was wearing her new dress and matching coat, new patent leather court shoes with kitten heels and a discreet bow on the toe. Donna had not only made sure her hair was perfect but had manicured and painted her nails. (There had still been traces of mud under them which Donna had picked out with an orange stick and a lot of tutting.)
‘Merci du compliment, M. le Comte.’ She wished she could mention her engagement ring but somehow she couldn’t. He was looking at her in such a way, she didn’t want to risk spoiling the moment.
‘Shall we go?’ he said. ‘I have the office car downstairs.’
Alexandra had the impression that he was a little bit nervous too.
