Dawn Song Read Online Free PDF Page B

move
    away completely, in fact.'
    'Was he never tempted to return?'
    Jerome shrugged. 'My grandmother was a Parisienne,' he said tonelessly.
    'She had no taste for the country.'
    'But you've come back.'
    'Yes,' he said. 'To the country of my heart. The place where I belong.'
    It must be good to have such certainty, Meg thought rather wistfully. She
    wasn't sure where she stood in the scheme of things. She still lived at her late
    father's house, but it had been totally transformed to Iris Langtry's taste, and
    Meg felt like an outsider there most of the time. And she no longer had a job
    to hold her. So, she supposed, the world was her oyster now. Maybe it was
    time she found where she belonged. Put down some roots of her own.
    In the meantime, she was beginning to wonder where they were going. She'd
    presumed he was taking her to some local restaurant where the electricity
    was still functioning, but they were still travelling purposefully, the Citroen

    eating up the kilometres. She wished she'd been watching the signposts, so
    that she could have followed their route on the map she had in her bag.
    'You would like some music?' He seemed to have noticed her slight
    restiveness.
    'No,' she denied quickly. 'I like to watch the scenery, and talk. But you must
    stop me if I ask too many questions.'
    'You're unlikely to ask anything I won't wish to answer.' The dark eyes
    flickered towards her, then returned to the road. 'Can you say the same,
    Marguerite?'
    'Of course,' she said stoutly, crossing her fingers metaphorically. 'I've
    nothing to hide.'
    'A woman without secrets,' he said musingly. 'Unbelievable.'
    She laughed. 'No, I just lead an uncomplicated and rather boring life.' Or I
    did, she thought.
    'Yet you travel alone through choice, and have a deeper interest in this
    region than the average tourist. That is hardly dull. I think you have hidden
    depths, Marguerite.'
    There was a note in his voice which made her heart leap in sudden ridiculous
    excitement. She said rather breathlessly, 'But then they say that everyone's
    more interesting on holiday.' There was a brief silence.
    'Tell me,' he said softly, 'why you were so reluctant to answer when I asked
    you to dine with me? There is a man in England, perhaps, who might
    cause—complications?'
    Meg stared ahead of her. Tim Hansby? she thought with a kind of desperate
    amusement. She said shortly, 'There's no one.'
    'Vraiment?' Jerome Moncourt sounded sceptical. 'I cannot believe there is
    no one you care about.'

    She shrugged, pride making her reluctant to admit that up to now she'd
    occupied a fairly undistinguished place on the shelf—that there were only
    two people she really cared about, she realised with a pang. A retired
    second-hand bookseller, and the elderly woman who'd taken the place of her
    mother, and given her the affection and comfort that her father, dazed with
    grief at the loss of his young wife, had been unable to bestow. For whose
    sake she was here in the first place. She swallowed. Not a lot to show for her
    twenty years, she thought. Although this was not the time to start feeling
    sorry for herself.
    And what the hell? she argued inwardly. It's nothing to do with him if I
    prevaricate a little. Although why she should wish to appear marginally
    more interesting than actual reality was something she didn't want to
    examine too closely, she thought, biting her lip.
    'Does it make any difference?' she challenged. 'An invitation to dinner
    hardly constitutes a major breach of faith.'
    She took a breath. 'For all I know, you could be married.'
    'Would it matter if I was?' he tossed back at her.
    That sounded like hedging. Her heart plummeted in a dismay as acute as it
    was absurd.
    'I think it might matter a hell of a lot to your wife,' she said curtly.
    'Then it is fortunate she does not yet exist.' There was a note of mockery in
    his voice, mingled with something else less easy to decipher.
    'Fortunate for her, anyway,' she muttered, self-