One Night with His Wife by Lynne Graham Page B

approach road to Chateau Fontaine, Mars finally fell asleep again.
    Star could have wept at her son’s sense of timing. Marshad cried from the minute he was rudely removed from his cosy cot on board the Sarrazin jet. He had wailed like a howl alarm all the way through Nantes Atlantique airport. Working himself up into a state of inconsolable misery, he had kept his mother far too busy to worry about anything else.
    But now, when she finally had the peace to consider the timing of the trip which she and the twins had been forced to make, her resentment overflowed. ‘Mars will probably be crying half the night.’
    Luc elevated a winged brow, a perceptible air of self-satisfaction in his level dark gaze. ‘I doubt it. I have an extremely competent nanny awaiting the children at the chateau.’
    Star’s jaw dropped.
    ‘I should have asked Bertille to meet us at the airport—then we might all have enjoyed a more relaxing trip.’
    Star’s jaw would have hit the floor had it had not been securely attached to other bones. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this.
You—
’
    Luc frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘What’s
wrong
?’ Star gasped incredulously. ‘You organise a nanny, over the top of my head…then you suggest that
she
could’ve managed my son better than I have!’
    Registering his error as the limo filtered to a halt in front of the chateau, Luc shifted a fluid hand, intended to soothe Star. ‘You misunderstood me—’
    ‘Did I heck!’ Star shot back at him fiercely.
‘You’re
the one responsible for my son’s distress—’
    ‘If you don’t keep your voice down, you’re likely to wake him up again,’ Luc countered in icy warning just as the passenger door beside Star swung open with a thick, expensive clunk.
    ‘Who was it who
insisted
on travelling with two babies until this hour of the night?’ Star demanded. ‘Of course Mars has been upset. All he wants is to be home in his
own
snug little cot—’
    ‘In a building which should be condemned, “snug” is scarcely the most apt word! Your so-called
home
is unfit for human habitation!’
    Pained condemnation filled her disconcerted gaze. ‘I didn’t notice you being half so fussy last night!’
    As she spoke, Luc noticed the passenger door standing wide. He frowned like a male emerging from a dream, his lean, dark devastating features setting into unyielding lines. The chauffeur was nowhere to be seen, presumably having decided that desertion of his duties was more tactful than hovering to listen to the happily reunited couple having a thunderous row.
    His brilliant eyes glimmered like a banked-up fire ready to flame. ‘I suggest we drop the subject. There’s no reason for this dispute. It is irrational—’
    ‘Irrational? You insulted me. You, who can’t even hold a baby for five seconds without panicking,
dared
to deride my maternal abilities,’ Star enumerated shakily as she tugged Venus out of her car seat. ‘You insulted me, my home, my hospitality. Yet it was your arrogant refusal to rearrange your schedule, your stupendous ignorance of childcare, your absolute conviction that everybody has to jump to do exactly what you want when you want which was at fault.’
    ‘If you don’t keep quiet, I will treat you like a child having a temper tantrum, because that is how you are behaving,’ Luc condemned with freezing restraint.
    ‘How difficult it must be to deal with someone who has no respect for you, no fear of you and no dependence on your good will. Yes, I can see it must be a real challenge when someone like me dares to fight back. What are you doing with Mars?’
    Emerging from the limo in a state of frozen fury, Luc pressed a shielding hand to the baby’s back, where he was now carefully draped over Luc’s shoulder still fast asleep. ‘He’s a sensitive child. He doesn’t need to be swung about like a little sack of potatoes.’
    Star’s frown of surprise that he had lifted Mars faded at that point. Her attention