His Perfect Partner. Laura Martin

Everything. The fluttering sensations of desire and excitement had been old friends ever since that day almost two months ago when he had first come to work in the gardens for her aunt.

      ‘Ready?’ He turned, holding out a hand, leading her towards the window. ‘We are taking an alternative route.’ His lips curved at Rachel’s expression. ‘Don’t look so shocked. It will be perfectly safe. See? We step out onto the flat roof, then a careful negotiation of the drainpipes and a small leap down to freedom.’

      Rachel smiled. ‘Maybe you should have rung the front doorbell,’ she said, stretching up on tiptoe and kissing him tenderly. ‘I think it would have been a lot simpler.’

      ‘Ah, but not so much fun. And, besides,’ he continued, with more than a hint of bitterness, ‘I would have had to wait until much later in the day, and then I would have had to endure the disapproving looks of your aunt—it really isn’t the done thing for the gardener’s boy to court the mistress’s niece, is it?’

      ‘Don’t, Jean-Luc, please, not now!’ Rachel placed a fingertip to the suddenly angry mouth, hating the old argument coming between them once again. ‘Aunt Clara’s just being protective. I’m just eighteen. I’m the only family she’s got. She only wants to look after me—’

      ‘To stifle you.’ Angry brown eyes held Rachel’s gaze. ‘She imagines I would hurt you?’ The incredulity in Jean-Luc’s tone was hard to miss. He shook his head in disgust. ‘I swear, this house, it is still living in the Victorian times. Your aunt would look very convincing in a black gown with a white lace cap on her head!’ His mouth curved, but beneath the humour the anger was still evident.

      ‘She doesn’t trust me because I’m a foreigner…or a gardener…’ He lifted his hands in a typically Gallic gesture. ‘What does she think I’m going to do—whisk you off and sell you to the white slave trade?’

      ‘Jean-Luc!’ Rachel shook her head. ‘Please! Don’t be cross.’ Rachel glanced anxiously towards her bedroom door again.

      ‘Although, I think,’ he added, pulling her close against his rugged body, his smouldering eyes lingering over Rachel’s feminine curves, ‘it might not be such a bad idea. I think you would fetch a very good price.’

      Rachel giggled. ‘Jean-Luc, you are not only incorrigible, you are irreverent, too!’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed his mouth. ‘Do you think that’s why I like you so very much?’

      ‘Like?’ He pulled her closer still so that she felt the full power of his body against hers, and tipped her face back so that her long golden hair fell free behind her like a waterfall of pure gossamer. ‘What is “like”?’ he growled in mock anger….

      Rachel negotiated the climb down over the rooftops, laughing because she had never felt so carefree, so incredibly happy. In a few short weeks Jean-Luc had become everything to her—the sun, the moon, the stars. She would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked her, walk on a bed of hot coals if it meant spending the rest of her life with him.

      In comparison to all of that, a short trip over the rooftops was nothing.

      They ran like the wind, hand in hand, around the side of the huge manor house, across the crunching gravel drive and out through the wooden door in the walled kitchen garden into the fields beyond…

      Rachel hardly noticed the outside world. Her only thoughts were for Jean-Luc. Uncaring of her aunt’s disapproval, every spare moment was spent with him. Early morning rendezvous became the norm. Beautiful hours spent walking and talking, passionate encounters in orchard or barn—anywhere. It didn’t matter, as long as they could be together.

      Rachel had never imagined that such happiness as she felt could exist. During the beauty of those few precious weeks together the whole world was transformed into a glorious place. She loved Jean-Luc with all her innocent heart and told him so a thousand times, never imagining that his declarations of love in their most passionate of moments meant as much as his promise that he would stay with her for ever.

      In the days that followed Jean-Luc’s departure Rachel tried hard to keep faith, to hope that he would be missing her as much as she was missing him and that he would come back simply because he loved her.

      The doubts crept in, of course. Once so sure of what they had together, Rachel began to look at aspects of their time together and understood that what had been for her the most important relationship of her life had been for Jean-Luc simply a passionate holiday romance.

      The shock of discovering he was gone, after returning from a weekend visit to a friend, had been profound, to say the least. On that Friday afternoon she had kissed him goodbye without a care in the world, confident that he would be at the Grange, working still and waiting for her on Monday morning. So sure of what they had together—too sure.

      At first she refused to believe he’d gone. His letter had clinched it, of course, propped up on her cluttered dressing-table when she had returned…Rachel inhaled a ragged breath. Even now, she could scarcely bring herself to think of it. The letter had been so kind—too kind almost, stilted and strange. The agonies of having to tell her that he didn’t want to see her again, she supposed. Whatever, it had given out little hope.

      In some ways it was the kindness, the altered, distant tone of Jean-Luc’s missive, that had hurt Rachel the most. She hadn’t wanted to read about how much their romance had meant to him, how intensely he valued the time they had shared together, that he would remember it always, think of her often. Platitudes, that’s all they had been—empty platitudes.

      She wanted him to be there with her—for always.

      She thought hard about trying to contact him and was dismayed when she realised that, apart from the region, she knew little about where he came from and who he really was. She had been so wrapped up in each moment, in the precious time they had shared together. When she thought back, Rachel realised that he had been peculiarly reticent about discussing his family, his life in France. Sure, he had talked about the beauty and his love of his country, but very little of it had been detailed or precise. Only when Jean-Luc had gone did she understand why.

      It was difficult, coping with her heartbreak alone—impossible, in fact. Aunt Clara was surprisingly sympathetic when a sobbing Rachel confessed why she was in such an appalling state.

      ‘My dear, I don’t want to say I told you so, but you know I really wasn’t happy about the amount of time you were spending with each other. Did you really believe,’ she added gently, ‘that there could be a future with a man like that?’

      ‘A man like that?’ Rachel pulled away from her embrace, still keen to defend Jean-Luc, despite everything. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Silly, silly girl! He’s young—only a couple of years older than yourself—virile, full of his own ambitions. You didn’t honestly think that there was a future for the two of you?’

      ‘Yes!’ Rachel’s expression revealed her anguish. ‘Yes!’ she repeated, the word strangled by a sob. ‘I did.’

      Her aunt suggested getting away, and offered to pay for a long-wanted trip to America to visit distant relations. Rachel, although reluctant in the first few days following Jean-Luc’s departure, soon saw the advantages of such a decision. She wouldn’t be reminded at every turn of what she had lost. Every flower, every blade of grass—Jean-Luc, the gardener, her lover, had tended them all.

      She didn’t want to dwell on those weeks and months that had followed. Even now, six years later, she could still remember the twisting pain that had accompanied her every waking moment. And there had been dreams—such dreams! Taunting her with their familiarity so that it had felt as if he were still with her, still loving her…

      Rachel smoothed the finely knitted dress over her hips. She glanced in the hall mirror and wondered if she had overdone the lipstick. Was it too red? Too bright? Too much an indication that she was trying to impress? Rachel opened her clutch bag and pulled out a tissue, wiping the colour from her lips. That was better. She looked paler now, more fragile, more like