Page 83 of The Paris Trip

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Then let them say it about our marriage. Because it will be nobody’s business but our own.’

‘You father might have something to say about you marrying an Englishwoman.’

‘He can hardly talk, given his recent choice of bride.’ Leo paused, frowning. ‘Though you’re right about one thing.’

Maeve blinked. ‘Good to know.’

‘I haven’t properly asked you to marry me. Not in the traditional manner. An omission I intend to remedy at once,’ he insisted, then sank down on one knee in the dust of the vineyard, a bunch of purple-dark grapes nestling against his shoulder.

Oh my, she thought dizzily.

Gently taking both her hands in his, Leo gazed up at her through the gloom, though she wasn't sure he could possibly distinguish her features. Why, in this darkness she could be anyone…

But she was wonderfully glad that she wasn’t.

Because her heart was flooding with love too. Love for this man, this complex, talented artist. For this gorgeous country. Even for the night thickening around them, the scent of vines and dust, a slight breeze blowing warmly from the south and lifting her hair…

She just found it hard to express in words what she was feeling.

‘Will you marry me, Maeve Eden?’ Leo asked deeply, and when she tried to protest, shook his head. ‘No, hear me out before rejecting me, please… I’ve spent my whole adult life wishing I could find a woman who would be my muse but also my friend. Someone to give me good advice but also excite me. I’d given up ever finding such a woman. In fact, I thought she didn’t exist. Until I met you.’ He drew a long, unsteady breath, going on earnestly, ‘I knew almost as soon as we spoke to each other that first day that this would be something miraculous in my life. I wanted to paint you at once, which is very unusual for me. But I pushed those feelings away, because I was afraid what it would mean. I was afraid of how my world would change if I let you in. And it has changed. I’ve changed. But I realise now, that had to happen. This is a good thing. I’m embracing the changes… And I’d like to embrace you with it,' he added with a sheepish smile that rapidly faded. 'As my wife, not just someone I’ve known for a few days and may never see again.’ His grip on her hands tightened, his voice hoarse. ‘Will you give me a chance, Maeve? A chance to love you and maybe, just maybe, if you help me get this right, to make your life miraculous too?’

There were tears in her eyes. She was weeping with happiness. Either that, or she was allergic to their Bordeaux vines. Which would be awkward, to say the least, given what she was about to say.

‘Yes,’ she choked out breathlessly, ‘yes, I will marry you, Leo Rémy. And maybe I’m a bit crazy too for saying that. Because everything I told you was true. This is a huge bloody gamble. But I don’t care anymore. I want to take a risk for the first time in my life. I want to be the one who does the eccentric thing, the crazy thing, the wild thing, so that everyone tuts at me and wags a finger.’ She gasped. ‘I don’t want to be sensible Maeve anymore.’

‘Then you won’t be,’ he promised her. ‘And I’ll show you how that might work.’

He rose and took her in his arms. They kissed under the soft purple haze of nightfall among the dusty vines, the rhythmic chi-chi-chi of cicadas accompanying their love.

‘Do those insects ever shut up?’ she muttered between kisses.

‘Never.’

She swore under her breath.

‘You get used to them. After a while, you don’t even hear them.’

‘Like nagging wives?’

He laughed, and kissed her again. ‘I can’t wait for you to nag me, Maeve, ma cherie, mon amour.’

Maeve shivered in delight. ‘Ooh, French love words.’

‘You like?’

‘J'adore.’

‘There’s plenty more what they came from,’ he said easily, and began to make love to her with his tongue, so to speak, using all the French love words she knew and dozens more she didn’t…

‘I’m going to be so happy with you,’ she whispered after another hot searching kiss, clinging onto him so she didn’t fall over, because her head was spinning and her knees were frankly weak.

‘We still have to tell Liselle,’ he whispered back.

‘Oh… Damn.’

Leo held her close for a while in the warm night air, his arms a comfortable support, his mouth nuzzling through her messed-up hair.

She knew they ought to return to the house. That would be the sensible thing to do. Henri and Beatrice would be wanting to lock up soon. Besides, with her delicate skin, she was probably being eaten alive by unseen mosquitos and would be covered in itchy red bitemarks by the morning.

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