Glancing up again, he asked: 'So you've known Brandon most of your life?'
Lissa nodded. She felt his eyes probing into hers, the razor-sharp edge of his face tilted as he leaned back.
'What gave you the idea you could sing?' he asked, and she didn't like the way he phrased that, flushing.
'Chris thought…'
'Ah,' he said. 'It was his idea, was it?'
'I know I'm not the greatest singer in the world!' she flared in defensive annoyance.
'You're not even in the third league,' he drawled.
Her colour deepened. 'Thank you.'
He grinned at her stiff voice and angry face. 'But you're worth listening to,' he soothed. 'That little girl voice is rather fetching. You're such a contrast to the sort of singers you usually find in places like that.' He watched her push her own plate away, only half-touched, and asked: 'Would you like a dessert?'
She shook her head, her eyes down. Although she knew she wasn't a very exciting singer she did not much like being frankly informed of it.
'Coffee?' He didn't wait for her to answer that, but clicked his fingers. The waiter appeared and Luc ordered coffee. When their plates had been removed he asked if she would mind if he smoked and, when she shook her head, he lit a cigar.
'The song you sang the other night,' he began, studying the end of his cigar thoughtfully. 'Whose idea was that?'
' Pierre 's,' she said. 'He runs the band. He arranged the song and did the modern words.'
The dark blue eyes shot to her face. 'You weren't happy singing it, were you? You got through it okay, but you looked like someone who was in acute discomfort.'
Lissa did not answer that. The waiter arrived with their coffee and left the tall pot of coffee on the table when he vanished again to get the brandy Luc had demanded for himself.
Lissa watched the pale spirals of cream sink into her coffee. Luc watched her, but he wasn't saying anything. The brandy arrived and when the waiter had gone again Luc picked up his glass and sipped the drink in silence for a moment.
'Girls of your type have gone out of style in England,' he told her as he put his glass down on the table.
Lissa ventured a look at him and flushed at the wicked amusement in his eyes.
'What do you mean, girls of my type?' she asked crossly. 'What type am I?'
'I haven't got long enough to tell you,' he said softly, and her colour flared.
She picked up her coffee and drank it to cover her disturbed sense of threat. The way the blue eyes caressed and teased made her want to get up and bolt like a frightened rabbit.
She was very relieved when they had finished their coffee and could leave. It would be less intimate and more bearable for her when they were viewing the old fort, she decided, but when they strolled down the road and went in through the open gate they found the place empty. The young man selling tickets waved them through cheerfully. 'You know the way round, Liss,' he beamed.
The walls were broken in places, the jagged masonry worn by wind and sea mists, the ground littered with tumbled stone. Lissa showed Luc the guardrooms with their deepset chimneys, the cells beneath the fort which had once held chained prisoners, the narrow winding corridors running darkly off the steep flights of stairs. A colony of bats lived in the ruined tower at one end of the fort. Luc insisted on climbing the stairs to stare down over the town from the wide parapet. Long ago French soldiers had stood here, watching for trouble either from land or sea, but the fort had not been in use for many years.
The wind blew faintly today. In summer the town sweltered in the heat. It was only when the occasional hurricane roared over the ocean that the fort crumbled even further.
Going down the stairs with Luc in front of her in case she fell, Lissa skidded on a sharply polished stone. She tried to grab the wall, but it gave her hand no purchase. Instead she found, herself grasping Luc's shoulders while he held her by the waist, half turned towards her in a reflex movement as he heard her cry of alarm.
'Sorry,' she whispered, drawing back as she recovered her balance.
He still held her waist, his hands almost meeting around it, and as she looked into his eyes a strange, drowning excitement engulfed her. Her mind blanked out. When Luc lifted her down to the same step as himself she felt she was floating, light as air, dreamlike and somehow free of anything resembling volition.
Luc's head bent and he brushed his lips over hers. It was the lightest of caresses and it affected her like the touch of fire. She jerked back involuntarily. The cold stone of the wall, the rough edge of flint, dug into her back. She stared into his intent blue eyes and her mouth shook-
He placed both hands on the wall, leaning over her, and his mouth came down again, but now the coolness had gone, along with the gentleness. His lips were hard and hot, forcing hers to open, the pressure of them filled with a demand she helplessly obeyed. His hands suddenly gripped her wrists and raised her arms; placing them round his neck. She woke briefly then, wrenching her head away, pushing at his shoulders with flattened hands.
His palm against her check pushed her head round and before she could cry out in protest his mouth had her own captive again. Lissa tensed for a few seconds, twisting to escape. Luc shifted and she felt the whole weight of his body crushing her against the wall. She couldn't stop the moan which escaped her under his demanding mouth. Her hands slid along his shoulders and grasped his thick black hair, running through it in a trembling movement.
Luc broke off the kiss to lift his head. Her lids flicked back and her green eyes stared, glazed and incredulous.
She felt the piercing probe of those eyes with heated embarrassment and self-disgust.
Luc stepped away, smiling. 'Be more careful as we go down the rest of these stairs,' he drawled. 'You never know what may happen if you slip.'
Lissa couldn't move for a moment. Her legs were shaking under her and she was so hot she felt as though she had a fever. After a pause to drag herself back from that disturbed state of consciousness, she followed him slowly.
CHAPTER FOUR
Chris was in the foyer when they got back to the hotel. He was talking to the desk clerk with his back towards them, but at the sound of Luc Ferrier's cool voice he swung and looked across the empty foyer at them, a spot of red burning in each cheek. Chris was angry. Lissa saw the fury in him and stiffened in alarm. Luc sauntered away, a smile on his hard mouth, and she slowly walked towards Chris.
He didn't say a word. He took her elbow and marched her into his office, slamming the door in Rebecca's face as she watched them.
Swinging on Lissa, Chris asked tightly: 'Okay, why did you go off with him, and where the hell have you been? You've been gone most of the afternoon.'
'He asked me to show him the fort,' Lissa began.
'He what?' Chris reacted with outright fury, his flush deepening. 'He wasn't interested in any forts!'
Meeting his blue eyes, she swallowed, and Chris watched the movement of her throat, his face hard.
'What happened?' he demanded, keeping his eyes fixed on her. 'And I want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Liss!'
'He said if I went with him he wouldn't play with you,' she confessed, and Chris looked at her in fierce stupefaction.
'I was quite safe in daylight,' she began, but Chris wasn't even, listening.
'You actually bargained with him about it?'
'I was worried____________________' she began, and he cut her short with a loud, harsh expletive.
'You talked to him about it? You discussed me with him? Told him you were worried in case I played with him?' He used words he had never used before in her presence and the charm and warmth was stripped from his face as though it had never been present. She did not know him. The hoarse tone of his voice frightened her.
He grabbed her shoulders, his fingers digging into her, and shook her. 'You stupid little bitch,' he hissed. 'Do you know what you've done? Have you any idea? My God, I could slap your damned face for you!'