Paihia wasn’t as pretty and quaint as Russell. It sprawled along the shore, perhaps because there was enough space to build houses further apart. Yet the knowledge that no one knew them here was an attraction in itself.
Etienne went into the post office to inquire if they knew of a cottage he could rent for a few days. He told Belle to stay outside because he said when he told lies he didn’t want an audience.
He came out smiling with a scrap of paper in his hand. ‘It looks as if we’re in luck. This Mrs Arkwright takes care of two or three places which are used for holidays. I can go and see her now, she’s just around the corner from here.’
Again he didn’t want Belle to go with him and suggested she looked in the shops while he was gone.
He was gone well over an hour and Belle became quite worried. Then suddenly he came haring along the road by the shore.
‘What took so long?’ she asked. ‘I was getting anxious.’
‘Mrs Arkwright took me to see the cottage, and once there she fussed about making up the bed, putting out towels, I couldn’t hurry her up. But I’ve got the key and we can go there now. All we need to do is buy some provisions.’
‘What’s the place like?’ Belle asked as they went back towards the grocery shop.
‘You’ll see when we get there,’ he said.
‘Did it cost a lot?’
He put his finger to his nose to signify it was none of her business.
After buying a bag of groceries, Etienne led her to the end of the road along the shore where a wooded hill rose. They took a narrow path up through the trees.
‘Voilà!’ he said as they came to a clearing. He indicated a tiny white-painted wooden house built with its back into the hill, a few steps leading up to a veranda which overlooked the sea.
‘What a beautiful spot!’ Belle exclaimed. It was entirely private as it was surrounded by trees. When they walked up on to the veranda to open the front door, Belle couldn’t even see the roof of another house.
Etienne put the bag of groceries down to unlock the door, but before she even thought of moving, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her in. Then he put her down and kissed her.
All reason, modesty and even concern that the door was still open left her. Last night’s kiss had awoken feelings that she’d almost forgotten she’d ever experienced, and now she was hungry for him. As he kissed her she was feeling under his jacket, frustrated that she couldn’t reach under his trousers to touch his skin because a waistcoat and braces were in the way. She pressed against him shamelessly as his tongue darted into her mouth and inflamed her still more.
He threw off her hat and shawl, his fingers fumbling with the buttons at the back of her dress. He pushed it down low enough over her shoulders to release her breasts and bent to take her nipple between her lips.
She groaned with delight, and tried to remove his jacket, but she was so overcome with the waves of red-hot pleasure washing over her that she couldn’t manage it. He pulled up the skirt of her dress and found his way beneath her petticoat, pushing her drawers aside, and as his fingers found their way inside her already hot and wet sex, she held his head tight against her breast and cried out that she wanted him now.
She hadn’t even seen the bed or noted anything about the interior of the place they were in, and when he pressed her up against a wall, stopping caressing her only long enough to unbutton his trousers, she wouldn’t have cared if they were in a pig sty.
His hands were on her buttocks and he lifted her up and on to his erect penis, and held her there by the wall, pushing his way into her as he kissed her. It was frenzied for both of them, rough and crude sex, the kind Belle had seen in back alleys in New Orleans and at the time felt sympathy for the girls subjected to it.
But she needed no sympathy, she wanted him every bit as badly, and her whole body seemed to be melting into him.
She came in what seemed like seconds, before he did, and she heard herself cry out his name.
He was close behind, his fingers digging into her buttocks, his breath like fire on her bare shoulder, and with a roar he came too, and his grip on her loosened so she slithered down till her feet were on the floor.
‘It wasn’t meant to be like that,’ he murmured, his head sinking to her shoulder. ‘I meant it to be slow and beautiful.’
Belle could feel perspiration running down her face and between her breasts. Her legs had gone to jelly and if she hadn’t been leaning back against the wall she might have fallen.
‘We can do slow and beautiful later,’ she panted out. ‘For now hot and fast was just right.’
He lifted his head and looked at her, kissing her lips, her nose and her forehead. ‘Your cheeks are all rosy now, you’ve never looked more beautiful.’
‘Can I sit down before I fall down?’ she said, caressing his face with both her hands. He had never looked more beautiful to her either. She could feel the scar on his cheek, she loved his full lips, his proud nose and his fair eyebrows. But most of all she loved his eyes; they were like the sea, so cold sometimes, darker when he was angry, but right now, even though the room was gloomy because the curtains were still closed, there was enough light from the open door to see they were as blue as a summer sky, and soft with love.
They adjusted their clothing and Belle went to put the groceries away. Etienne drew back the curtains, and it was only then that Belle took in that the cottage was a perfect hideaway. It was simply furnished, with just a sink, a table and chairs, a small stove with a rug before it, a couple of easy chairs and the china and cooking pots on shelves. But it was spotlessly clean and bright, and the other room was the bedroom, with just the bed and a chest of drawers.
‘The water is rain from a tank,’ Etienne said, turning on the tap to demonstrate. ‘The privy is outside. I saw a tin bath hanging on the side of it too. And there’s a shed with logs for the stove.’
‘I’ve got everything I need right here,’ she said, putting her arms around him.
Etienne lit the stove while Belle went outside on to the veranda to look at the view of the sea over the treetops. She could see Russell in the distance, but it could have been a million miles away. She had never in her life been this happy. There was no guilt now, no remorse, or even anxiety about the future. As Mog had said, being with Etienne was her destiny, and perhaps she had needed to go through all those bad things in the past year to know how right this was now.
Later, after a cup of tea and a sandwich, they went to bed. This time their clothes came off first – Etienne even hung up her dress so it wouldn’t get creased – and the lovemaking was slow and beautiful.
Belle ran her hand gently over his scars; the one on his shoulder that she’d seen in France was fading now, but the newer one on his right thigh was still very livid. ‘I was lucky that it missed my knee and I didn’t get gangrene,’ he said. ‘Knee wounds usually leave you with a bad limp.’
‘Did it hurt?’
‘Not when it happened. I staggered back towards the line for a bit, using my rifle like a walking stick. But I must have passed out through loss of blood. I can just about remember the stretcher bearer picking me up. It was only when they cut my uniform off at the dressing station that it began to hurt, and it was hell then.’
‘Did you know that you’d got the flu?’
‘Not really. Only that I felt really bad, very hot and shivery at the same time. I don’t remember much more, except I thought you were there.’
‘Me?’ Belle giggled.
‘Yes, but like you were when I was seasick on the ship going to America. When I started to get a bit better one of the nurses asked me who Belle was. It seemed I’d been calling your name.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it was me you were thinking of,’ she said, kissing his scars.
‘They said that all the other men who had been on the ward when I was taken there died of it. I don’t know why I survived; there didn’t seem to be any reason for it.’
‘Because you had to come and find me,’ she said.
It rained later, but the rattling on the roof and the wind in the trees only made it feel cosier inside. The stove made it beautifully warm, Belle lit an oil lamp, and together they made an impromptu supper of bread and cheese and a tin of soup.
Etienne wore only his trousers, Belle just her camisole, and as he opened a bottle of wine he’d bought he made a toast.
‘To our long and happy future together,’ he said, clinking her glass with his. He took a sip of the wine and winced. ‘I may have to start a vineyard myself if this is the best wine you can buy here.’
‘Could you?’ she asked.
‘Maybe, with the right land. The climate is right for it.’
‘What about your farm in France? What have you done with that?’
‘Noah bought it,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t got around to telling you, but he came down to Marseille to find me.’
‘He did that? What a wonderful man he is,’ Belle said. ‘And not a word to me!’
Etienne smiled. ‘Yes, a true friend. You see, by then he’d discovered that I’d been sent home just before the war ended. But when he got no reply to a letter he wrote to the farm he decided to come and search for me. He tracked me down to the friends I was staying with, and then we went out to the farm together.’
‘And he said he’d buy it?’
‘He fell in love with it right away, I tried to talk him out of it, but he said Lisette wanted their children to have holidays in France and for Rose to speak fluent French like Jean-Philippe does. He argued that if I was coming out to find you it would just become more overgrown. He said he could afford to build a better house on the land. But I’d always be welcome there with you or without you.’
‘So what now?’ Belle asked. ‘What will you do here?’
‘For now I will make love to you until you beg for mercy,’ he grinned. ‘Then we must get married to save your reputation.’
‘Isn’t it customary to propose first?’ she laughed.
‘Will you marry me, my beautiful Belle?’ he asked, reaching out for her hand.
‘As soon as it can be arranged,’ she said. ‘I love you, Etienne, there’s nothing I want more.’
He got up from the table and came round and pulled her up into his arms. ‘We have both come a long way from that day in Brest when I had to take you on the ship to America. Did you know I began to love you when you took care of me while I was seasick?’
‘No, surely not!’
‘Not in a physical way! You were too young and vulnerable, yet you had so much spirit. Leaving you in New Orleans made me so ashamed; you were always on my mind afterwards.’
‘You had to take me there, I knew that, I used to think about you all the time too. But you had a happy marriage?’
‘Yes, I did love Elena, but I think our marriage was much like yours. We grew up together, and I thought what we had was all that could be expected. But it was never the way it is with you.’
‘Tell me truthfully, did you have feelings for me after you rescued me in Paris? I know we talked about this a little at the hospital, but I need to know more.’
He put his hands on both sides of her face and looked into her eyes. ‘Yes, I knew I loved you, and I sensed you felt the same, but it was the wrong time to speak out. You had been hurt by men so badly, I thought you needed time to heal. But it was more than that. I had done so many bad things, I thought I was bad for you.’
‘How can you think that? You saved my life!’ Tears were welling up in her eyes because of his low opinion of himself. ‘If you’d only told me how you felt! Just a hint might have made all the difference.’
‘I did, but like a coward I said it in French at the station and hoped you understood enough. But what was I to do? You were going home to Jimmy, I knew from Noah how he felt about you. Even if I had been good at writing my true thoughts in a letter, I would have been afraid Jimmy might read it. So I wrote as a friend would and hoped you could read my true feelings between the lines.’
Belle sighed, remembering how her heart sang when she saw a letter from him in the post, only to be disappointed that it was stilted and cool.
‘Then you wrote to say you were marrying Jimmy and I knew my chance was lost. I told myself you’d be happier with him,’ he said sadly. ‘Even that didn’t stop me thinking about you. That was why I came to your shop, I needed to see for myself that you were happy. I never expected to ever hear from you or see you again, but then came the chance meeting with Jimmy in France.’
‘That was very strange,’ she said.
‘I think now it was fate colliding. I saw he was a good man, strong and principled. I really liked him and the way he spoke about you.’
‘What did he say?’ Jimmy had told her his version and she wanted to know if it matched with Etienne’s.
‘He told me about you being attacked in your shop and that you’d lost your baby. He said too that he regretted enlisting when he should have been home with you. I was both jealous of him and yet glad that you were with such a decent, caring man.’
‘But you still came to the hospital to see me?’
‘Yes. I couldn’t help myself when I heard of your friend’s death. It was just to see you, I had no hope of anything more. But once I saw you and kissed you, it was like being caught in a whirlwind.’
‘Yes, it was for me too,’ she agreed. ‘A kind of madness that drove out all reason or even sense of duty and morality.’
Etienne sat down and pulled her on to his lap and wiped away a tear on her cheek. ‘Would you have left him for me if he hadn’t been wounded?’ he asked.
‘I really don’t know. Maybe eventually the guilt, and wanting you so much, would have driven me to it, though back then I felt I couldn’t. But what made you save him, Etienne? Tell me the truth.’
He sighed deeply. ‘I have to admit that for a second I was tempted to leave him. But although letting him die would have meant the way would have been clear to have you, deep down I knew I would never be able to live with it. Of course I didn’t have time to really think why I was doing it at the time. But afterwards I was glad, because for once I had done the right thing.
‘But it didn’t end there, Belle. When you wrote and told me how bad he was, and that was the end for us, I really wished I had left him there. Not just because I could have had you, but because of what your life would be like taking care of him. I’ve seen so many wives and mothers dealing with their wounded men, the poverty and hardships, and all too often their men take out their frustrations on them. Did this happen to you?’