French Leave. Penny Jordan

Livvy acknowledged as she saw the kettle standing on it and went to pick it up.

      The water which spurted from the tap was icily cold and slightly brownish in colour. The farmhouse had neither mains water nor electricity, the former being supplied via its own well and the latter from a generator installed in one of the outbuildings.

      While she was waiting for the kettle to boil, she might as well bring in her things, Livvy decided.

      She had brought one small case with her; the rest of the space in her car had been filled with the boxes of bedding, towels, kitchen utensils, food and other items which Gale had insisted she bring with her.

      Gale and George had bought the farmhouse complete with its furniture. Rubbish in the main, Gale had snorted, but the beds, heavy, old-fashioned affairs with wooden head-and foot-boards, had been worth keeping, although she had of course had to replace the mattresses.

      The sturdy, worn stairs led up from a room adjacent to the kitchen, the British equivalent of a comfortable family breakfast-room.

      Wearily, Livvy climbed them.

      ‘You can use any bedroom you like,’ Gale had told her. ‘Although the double ones at the front have the best views.’

      Livvy opened the first door she came to and switched on the light.

      She would sleep well tonight, she acknowledged half an hour later when she had drunk her tea and finished making up the bed. She was almost too tired for even the briefest of sluices under the feeble trickle of the antiquated shower, only habit compelling her to go through the motions of getting ready for bed.

      Ten minutes later, her body still glowing from the rough towelling she had given it, she curled up gratefully under her duvet.

      Tomorrow her holiday could begin properly. Her mouth watered as she contemplated the pleasure of eating croissants fresh from the boulangerie, washed down with rich, fragrant coffee.

      Mmm…it would make a delicious and welcome change from her normal rushed breakfast of a few mouthfuls of muesli eaten hurriedly between checking her diary, reading her post and generally getting ready for work.

      Livvy could hear a noise. A car door slamming. She sat up groggily in bed frowning as she glanced at her watch. It was just gone nine. She had slept for longer than she had intended.

      As she climbed out of bed and reach for her cotton wrap, she wondered who her unexpected visitor was.

      She guessed that it would probably be the farmer from whom Gale and George had bought the house. Gale had described him to her, fifty-odd, short and gnarled, very good at playing dumb when he chose and even, ridiculously, trying to pretend at times that he could not understand Gale’s excellently fluent French, and with the financial acumen that many a finance director would envy.

      Livvy smiled to herself now, remembering how she had guessed from the acid note of chagrin in Gale’s voice that for once her cousin had met her match.

      It was a pity she had overslept; if the Dordogne was anything like the other parts of rural France she had previously visited its inhabitants would operate a code of behaviour almost Victorian in its formality. Appearing to greet a neighbour a nine o’clock in the morning not dressed, her hair tousled and still half asleep, would doubtless reinforce the French belief in their superiority as a race.

      She was halfway across the kitchen when she heard someone turning a key in the door lock.

      Frowning, she stood still. It made sense that the farmer should have a key so that he could keep a check on the property while it was empty, but Gale had told her that she was going to warn him to expect her, and, even though she had parked her car out of sight in one of the outbuildings, surely he might at least have knocked first.

      The door opened and Livvy froze in shocked disbelief.

      It couldn’t be, but it was: the man who had just let himself into the farmhouse was the same man she had seen at the auberge last night, the same man who had been so rude to her in the car park, the same man who had so contemptuously ignored her plight later.

      As she stared into his cold, arrogantly handsome face and felt the shock of the invisible force-field which seemed to surround him, she was temporarily completely lost for words.

      Distantly her mind registered the fact that, for some odd reason, her body was reacting to his presence in the most alarming and dangerous way.

      Beneath her terry robe and the thin cotton T-shirt she had slept in, her nipples were peaking with unfamiliar and confusing intensity, a shock-wave of sensation exploding inside her.

      Quickly, she pulled her robe protectively closer to her body. Her heart was beating fast and heavily; she felt confused and powerless, plunged into a situation which both alarmed and excited her.

      What was he doing here? How had he found her? Why had he followed her?

      Giddily her thoughts swirled dizzily through her brain, temporarily robbing her of her normal, calm control, and then chillingly she realised how dangerous the situation was, how vulnerable she was.

      She was alone here, vulnerable and unprotected, and for all his apparent wealth and respectability he could…he might…

      Firmly she swallowed back the fear and confronted him.

      ‘Never allow yourself to be intimidated or to show fear. Never let anyone else take control from you,’ she and her fellow students had been told before they went into teaching, and that advice applied just as much to this situation as it did to facing a class of pupils.

      Forcing her tense throat muscles to relax, she demanded huskily, ‘What are you doing here…why have you followed me? If you don’t leave immediately, I shall call the police.’