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He watched lazily as she applied the coconut-scented crea on an exhibition purely for his benefit—which she was, she admitted ruefully to herself, conscious of the forbidden pleasure of touching herself under his gaze
Elizabeth allowed her fingers to linger caressingly over their task and instead of sunning herself in a pose that enerous proportions she arched out contentedly, like a cat in the sun, and when she swam she didn’t come out as she had previously, with arms crossed protectively under her chest, but strolled up the beach with her hands swinging naturally at her sides and stood and patted herself dry with a brazen insouciance that esture more explicit than words
Elizabeth knew that she was flirting with disaster by letting her guard down, but the shock in the lighthouse, followed by the woozy alcoholic counter-punch of the floral cocktail and the sensuously enervating effect of the blazing sun, warm sand and silky sea coic unreality that she gratefully accepted Ti Jack Haho seemed as content as she to maintain a tacit truce
He showed her how to snorkel and rescued her when she dived down to where the fish schooled so thickly that she got frighteningly lost in their abundance He sat with her during the updated Ana'—a feast of fish with taro and yams bathed in coconut milk and wrapped in banana leaves to cook on hot stones—and laughingly urged her on when she and soed up to perfor demonstration which followed
Later, they drank coffee on the beach and watched while one of the attractive young dancers showed the many ways in which a pareau could be worn over a swi her when it fell off at her first atte to her aid with a deftness that ly jealous
By the end of the day, ht overdose of sun, Elizabeth didn’t turn a hair at the suggestion that she sail back with Jack rather than travel with the rest on the hydrofoil She wanted to wring the last drop of pleasure from their unspoken truce
A breeze had sprung up and with it a choppy sea, and the ride ho one, Elizabeth content, silently enjoying the sight of Jack exercising his ainst the deck, his shirtless torso glistening with spray as hisof the wheel
The voyage ended all too soon, accompanied by an unpleasant shock that sobered Elizabeth suddenly and completely
As he was handing her from the boat to the pier in front of the hotel, Jack casually let slip that he was lunching with his grandfather the next afternoon
'Your grandfather?' Elizabeth's curiosity had ely sour His absence ive her the chance to make another assault on the fortress of St Clair! 'Does he live on the mainland?'
'My mother's father—and no, he l
ives right here on the Ile des Faucons He's not in the best of health and I take my duty to him very seriously'
‘Is your grandmother still alive?' Jack had already mentioned that his edwith her new family in Switzerland
Jack crouched to check the knot on thethe war and Grandpère was badly wounded The fa and most of their personal possessions were looted or destroyed Fortunately the family's bankers were Swiss, so when Grandpère decided to abandon Europe along with his bad e his whim to recreate the beauty that the Germans had ransacked and destroyed' He rose to his feet and turned to face Elizabeth, as suddenly experiencing an awful presentiment of disaster
'So actually the St Clair estate here is an almost perfect replica of the St Clair chateau near Lille as it was in its heyday—even down to its furnishings,' he finished