A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress (17 page)

Mike didn’t particularly want to speak to a man who sounded like a character from a glossy, early eighties soap opera, but he would very much like to punch the fellow on the nose. His interest in Shauna was entirely paternal, and she had no father to do the nose-punching for her. If only –

His desk phone rang. He stared at it, trying to guess who was on the other end. Term had not yet started and the campus was populated by admin staff and lonely, divorced academics like himself. ‘Ladriss,’ he answered, prepared to find the caller had pressed the wrong extension number.

Five minutes later, as he replaced the receiver, he was smiling.
Speak of the devil and he doth appear
… Mike had just been offered an all-expenses trip to the University of Bordeaux, to deliver a lecture to their biology faculty. They wanted him immediately; an international expert on the use of plant isoflavones had pulled out of a conference. Could Professor Ladriss please step in and deliver the keynote lecture?

He could indeed, since that was his specialist area, though he had perhaps better warn them that although he could deliver the opening lines in French, he’d be switching to English for the difficult bits. But here was the extraordinary part. Bordeaux, if his geography was correct, was next door to the Dordogne. ‘Comte Laurent de Chemignac,’ he murmured, ‘Watch out. I’m on my way.’

T
he first day
of harvest seemed endless. Shauna took a shower at five that evening while her fellow labourers took a two-hour break. After supper, picking would start again. With clear skies expected, the moon two days past full, it would be light enough until nine or even ten o’clock. She wasn’t sure her body could take another stint, but she’d give it her best shot. To be valued as a worker and honorary local had become a driving need. She’d filled bucket after bucket with grapes. Nobody could accuse her of playing at it.

Dropping her sticky, bloodstained clothes into the laundry bin, Shauna wound a clean bandage round her cut. It hurt still, but there was no sign of infection. But it was time to rethink her picker’s uniform. Wrapped in a towel, she went into Isabelle’s room to find
bleus de travail.
She knew her hostess had a pair dating from the time she’d been fit enough to help with the harvest.

Laurent’s things were scattered about and Shauna took a moment to tidy up, folding his clothes, picking up coins and receipts that had fallen out of his pockets. It was interesting, discovering a person layer by layer. Methodical in his
chai
and lab, at home he was quite untidy. She rather liked that. In the same way that he listened to loud rock music to block the circular thoughts that pursued him when he was stressed, his domestic clutter marked the boundary between home and work life. She had different flaws, which he would no doubt discover. Namely, a tendency to index everything from music CDs to the contents of her spice rack. Oh, and jealousy and insecurity. Talking of which…

Opening Isabelle’s wardrobe, hoping the overalls would be there, she pictured Rachel swanning about the vineyard in vestal white, squeezing the
hutte
-carrier’s bicep. ‘Ooh, Adão, you’re all beefcake. I could spread you with mustard and– You!’ Shauna’s mouth dropped. ‘You’re meant to be dead!’

The Gown of Thorns hung at one end of the wardrobe, while shirts and tops of Laurent’s were shoved to the other side as if they were shying away from contact. Shauna reached for the dress, then withdrew her hand. How could it be here?
Ah
. Hadn’t Rachel watched Louette put it into a steamer trunk, then very obligingly taken the trunk to Louette’s car? Being Rachel, she’d probably had a little delve through the contents. The Gown of Thorns had never left Chemignac at all.

Finding Isabelle’s blue overalls in a corner of the wardrobe, Shauna left the bedroom. In her own room, she belted the garment around her waist with a silk scarf. The legs were way too long, so she fastened them up with safety pins from the first aid box. She did it all on automatic, her mind constantly returning to the stow-away in the wardrobe. Should she tell Laurent that his ‘hellish rag’ was back?

No. Laurent had enough on his plate. With a lingering sense of crossing a line, she went back to Isabelle’s room. ‘You are coming with me,’ she told the Gown of Thorns, and folded it with all the care and respect given to a silk flag to be laid on a military coffin. Covering it with one of Laurent’s discarded sweatshirts, she walked through the kitchen, greeting Audrey, who was making lettuce soup and some kind of hearty rice dish for the children’s dinner. Shauna stood on a chair and felt along the ceiling beam for keys.

Audrey broke off from her stirring to enquire if Shauna was dusting or doing her exercises.

Shauna jumped down, showing Audrey a pair of keys. ‘Just taking something upstairs.’

‘Up the tower?’ Audrey shuddered. ‘I went up once. Never again.’

‘All right, you two?’ Shauna glanced at the children, who were at the kitchen table playing
Morpion
, which she called ‘noughts and crosses’ and which Laurent, with his part-American education, called ‘tic-tac-toe’. They looked depleted and must have been ravenous, as was she. ‘Have you had plenty of water today? I don’t want you dehydrating.’

‘About forty litres,’ Nico said, his eyes on the game. He was working out his next move. Olive looked up and laughed. ‘Those overalls belong to my grandmother.’

‘Think she’ll mind?’

Olive gave her a critical once-over. ‘You look like a girl mechanic. She’d say, “
Avance
, and pick more grapes!” Why are you going into the tower? What are you carrying?’

It was tempting to lie, but Olive couldn’t be fobbed off, she was too fly. ‘I found the Gown of Thorns in your grandmother’s room and I’m hanging it back where it belongs.’

‘OK.’ Olive waited for her brother to make his mark, then inscribed a cross on the grid, winning the game. Nico immediately accused her of cheating, to which Olive replied, ‘You can’t cheat at
Morpion
, idiot.’

‘You just did.’

‘For goodness’ sake, you two, nobody would think you’re descended from diplomats!’ Shauna unlocked the tower door and escaped upstairs. The tower bedroom felt peaceful, lighter and fresher thanks to Louette’s cleaning. The only disturbance, a fly buzzing at the window. Shauna let it out, then did what she’d come to do. ‘And not another peep out of you,’ she told the dress. Giving the wardrobe doors a solid shove, checking they were firmly shut, she reflected –
Olive’s absolutely right. ‘OK’ sums this room up. There’s nothing unnatural here. It’s our imaginations fleshing out fact, and we need to stop it.
Halfway down the stairs, she felt the keys in her hand and remembered she hadn’t re-locked the door. Reluctantly, she went back up. As she pushed the key into the lock, she heard a whine from inside the room. She knew it was the wardrobe door falling open. The frame was warped, she told herself. The door catch needed replacing, but damned if she was going inside to check!

S
hauna helped
herself to a bowl of Audrey’s soup. How could something made from lettuce be so delicious? Mopping up the last of it with a chunk of bread, she thought,
I could happily crash into bed now.
But, mindful that the men in the
chai
had been working almost without a break for eight hours, she laid a tray for three. She’d take them their supper then join the grape pickers for one last shift. Audrey filled Thermos flasks with the last of the soup and a basket with bread, goat’s cheese and a jar of Isabelle’s onion confit. Shauna added a flask of black coffee and they walked together down the cypress avenue.

She craved being with Laurent. Not to talk – if he felt as she did, anything more than vague grunts would be beyond him now. Just to see him and share a hug would be enough. This had been a life-changing day because, for the first time, she’d felt she truly belonged here. Grapes that she’d picked along, regrettably, with drops of blood from her finger, had gone into the press and were now indivisibly part of Chemignac’s 2003 vintage. She wanted to sit beside him, and – all right – display her bandaged finger and be commended for her stoicism. Her blisters were pretty impressive, too. Badges of honour.

She’d poked her head into the
chai
earlier, but the grinding of the press had deterred her from going further. Laurent had seen her and waved, and she’d waved back. He’d been manhandling a length of blue pipe, gesticulating at Raymond to turn something on or off, and she hadn’t wanted to intrude. This basket of food was her excuse, and all sounded quiet now. The young temporary worker who’d been helping Armand drive the tractor all day was sweeping a glutinous mix of water, vine leaves and grape stalks out of the
chai
. A cloud of vinegar flies hung over the pile he was making on the yard.

‘
Salut
,
Mesdames
.’ Noticing their baskets, confusion touched his expression. Following Audrey inside, Shauna was struck first by the coolness. Hewn stone always protected the
chai
from extremes of heat, but there must be air conditioning going on too. She knew the juice in the vats had to be kept between five and ten degrees Celsius or there was a danger of rogue fermentation. The air smelled of honey and fruit and something more pungent… She sniffed. Sulphur dioxide. Laurent would have added that to kill the wild yeasts that came in on the grape skins.

Audrey greeted her husband, then said, ‘Oh. I see.’ From the tone of her voice, she did not like what she saw.

Laurent, Raymond and Armand, their work clothes a testament to the day’s pressing frenzy, sat around a table laid with a cloth, white crockery, glasses and silver cutlery. Shaving slices of dry-cured ham was Rachel, wearing a short, pink dress that glowed like cotton-candy in this masculine environment. A barbecue apron tied tight around her waist lent her an hour-glass shape. She flashed Audrey and Shauna an unapologetic smile.

‘You left your men hungry. Put the baskets down if you like, though I doubt they’ll have room for any leftovers.’ She shared the slices of ham around three plates, spooning on rice salad mixed with glazed root vegetables and red pepper. As a final touch, she added slivers of black truffle using a little hand grater. Shauna watched, feeling powerless and foolish. Even given the fact that they were in the heart of truffle country, how much had that little black nugget cost Rachel? And
why
? ‘Showing off’ might have been Isabelle Duval’s opinion, had she been here to ask. It was clear Audrey wasn’t impressed either, and her husband Raymond was picking up on it. Looking sheepish, he waved away the plate Rachel tried to hand him.

‘
Merci, merci.
I prefer a bowl of soup.’

Armand, who had no wife to placate, happily took what Rachel offered. Shauna waited to see what Laurent would do. She wished she had the knack for raising a single eyebrow, a restrained and dignified response to an excruciating moment, but she probably only managed to look hurt and cross.

‘Laurent?’ Rachel invited. Laurent took the plate, looking straight at Shauna.

She flinched. Such pain in his eyes, and anger – of the implacable kind. Where had her teasing lover gone? Shauna grabbed her basket, clenching her teeth when its handle tore the film of new skin off her blisters, and walked out. Tears started halfway along the cypress walk.

H
er picking partner
for the night shift was an Australian in his early sixties who claimed to have picked grapes in every European country except Albania. Good humoured, full of stories, he hauled Shauna along in the slipstream of his enthusiasm, even when her muscles were screaming and her blisters bled. Laurent was driving the tractor this time. A monochrome shape in the moonlight, if he looked her way she didn’t see it. At ten, he called a halt. Too dark now to work safely. Shauna returned her scissors to the table, added her bucket to the pile and went straight to the château. Albert was meant to be keeping the children company, but she found them watching TV alone. ‘Bed time,’ she said – in English, because their fluency had slipped without their regular sessions. ‘Another day lashed to the galley tomorrow.’

‘Pardon?’ Nico demanded.

‘What’s wrong?’ Olive asked in French.

‘I’m exhausted.’

‘That’s all?’ The child’s face was stern with anxiety. An expression startlingly similar to Laurent’s.

‘Yes, all, I promise.’ Shauna hustled them to bed, then washed, brushed her teeth and crawled under her own covers, where sleep wrapped her in a fist.

She woke, the moon stark through undrawn curtains. It didn’t take an extended hand to tell her that she was alone. She cried like a child until, disgusted with herself, she threw back the covers and put on the cotton print maxi-dress she’d thrown off earlier that day.

She’d let Justin, her first love, move on without a fight. Robbed of her job, she’d wallowed in bitterness when in fact she should have staged a one-woman picket outside the university chancellor’s office. She’d run away, to a place with no phone signal and its own strife. Here, like the lotus flower blossoming in still waters, she’d found somebody new. Someone she dearly loved. Now
that
seemed to be over. Reasoned thinking and civilised manners were no damn use. The time had come for passion, for unreason.

The night would be chilly, so she grabbed one of Laurent’s hoodies from the end of her bed. At the kitchen door, she jammed on Olive’s sunflower-print wellies. Letting herself out, she stood in the courtyard and gave herself a pep talk. ‘All or nothing, go down fighting. Laurent de Chemignac is going to look you in the eye and explain what has happened to change his feelings. He’ll do it tonight, even if you have to drag him out of Rachel’s bed.’

S
he knew
where Rachel’s quarters were. Following an unproven hunch that nobody locked their doors around here, Shauna tried the one next to the stable office. Hunch correct. It opened with a turn of the handle and she climbed the stairs. At the top, the murmur of voices and the soft insult of two-tone laughter dulled any qualms she might have had about invading Rachel’s privacy. The bedroom door banged open at her push. A scream greeted her entry, then angry swearing. A man and a woman lay together, a bedside lamp gilding his almond-brown skin and dark hair, turning the girl’s body bronze.

‘What the fuck?’ Rachel Moorcroft demanded. She displayed no physical embarrassment. In fact, she wore her nudity like a medal. Her fury was at the timing. Her partner was not so relaxed. He grabbed a sheet, covering himself up frantically.

Rosy relief melted Shauna’s tension and her laughter filled the room, curdling with the outrage emanating from the bed. ‘I’m sorry, Adão,’ she said to the man. ‘Rachel and I need to talk.’

‘It can’t wait till morning?’ Rachel demanded.

‘No.’ Shauna switched to English, wanting to keep the next words private from Rachel’s bed partner. ‘I want to know what you’re up to with Laurent. Serving him food like a handmaiden… Truffles for God’s sake!’

‘The black gold – it’s the way to a Frenchman’s heart. I’ve done quite a lot of freelance cookery in my time. Watch out on the night of the fête, I might just stage a competing event.’ Rachel chuckled, ignoring Adão’s demand to be told what was going on. Her hair fanned out as she lay back against the pillows. ‘What am I up to? Well, you know how Laurent puts aside a few hundred bottles of wine each year to mature? That’s what I’m doing. My good friend here’ – she patted Adão’s muscular forearm – ‘is for drinking now. Laurent, I’m laying down for later.’

‘Does he know that?’

‘At some level. A base level, I grant you.’

‘Don’t you care about anybody?’

‘Yes. Me. Oh… Did you think you were going to find him here?’ Rachel sat up. ‘How cute, you’re wearing Laurent’s top. Over your nightie!’

‘It’s a dress.’

‘Sorry, course it is. And rubber boots, so I suppose your next port-of-call is the vineyard or the
chai
. I have a theory, by the way, why you got passed over for that pharmaceuticals job.’

‘You – what? What d’you know about that?’ Shauna had moved to the door, intending to leave, but Rachel’s comment stalled her. ‘You were up for a job, and “Allegra” pinched it off you. Word of advice. Never go up against girls called Allegra. Take it from one who knows, they’re the ones who get bought cellos for their ninth birthday, and dressage horses when they turn twelve.’

‘What are you trying to tell me, Rachel?’

‘The reason you bombed in your career has nothing to do with Allegra’s daddy being rich, though I’m sure you’d like to think so. After all, you practically have squatter’s rights on the moral high ground. No, it’s because of the way you dress. Little girl frocks and cutesy boots don’t cut it in business. I’m not saying your rival was as clever as you but I bet Allegra knows a thing or two about capsule dressing. I mean,
please
. No normal woman would try to win back a straying lover in rubber boots and Old Mother Hubbard’s nightgown.’

Shauna waited until the desire to pull Rachel’s hair receded. ‘I suppose there’s a deeply mundane explanation for how you know about Allegra and my job with Cademus.’ It wasn’t hard to imagine Rachel slipping into Laurent’s office, snooping on private emails or faxes. But it raised the possibility that Rachel had intercepted more than this one message.

Rachel’s chuckle bolstered the suspicion. ‘Didn’t Laurent mention, I’m a witch?’

‘He didn’t, but I know you’re a thief. You took the Gown of Thorns out of Louette’s trunk, didn’t you?’

‘I… What?’ The infinitesimal pause suggested that even Rachel’s arrogance had a reachable limit.

‘The Fortuny gown, the amethyst one. You watched Louette pack it, then filched it before she drove away.’

‘What would I want a stinky old dress for?’

‘Did you try it on?’

‘I just said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Rachel’s eyes held Shauna’s too fixedly. Lying eyes.

Shauna went out then, closing the bedroom door behind her. That’s when she noticed a key in the lock. She turned it and called through the crack between door and frame, ‘The day you locked me in the tower room, I warned you I’d repay the compliment. Goodnight!’

Rachel swore furiously, then called, ‘Oh, do as you please. Go and find Laurent, make the most of him. You won’t stay. They re-offered you that job at what’s-its-name? Caduceus… Whatever. Your Professor faxed, summoning you home. You should go. Women never stick around here long. Either they hightail it to the big city or they die. Unless they’re Louette Barends, and have a go at doing both at once.’

S
ick
, angry, Shauna searched the vineyards that were due for picking the next day, in case Laurent was making a late-night inspection. Calling his name was out of the question – too intrusive, too desperate. If their emotions boiled over and they quarrelled, she’d have no excuse to stay. Not now she knew she had a job to go to. The owls were as vocal as ever, shrill as school recorder music, their silhouettes swooping above the vines. After a while, she thought,
I am a woman walking alone in the dark. Where is Laurent?
And
why the hell did Rachel have to tell me about that bloody fax?
Life had been much simpler an hour ago.

Laurent’s apartment was empty, all the lights off. He could be in her bed by now, of course. But after the way he’d looked at her earlier, she doubted it.

And indeed, her bed was just as she had left it. Tempting to crawl back under the covers, but something told her that whatever energy had brought them together was in flux. Grasp it, use it or lose it. She had a precious interval in which to reach Laurent, and to learn if she had a future with him, or if she should book a ticket home. Where the hell was he?

In the courtyard, she stumbled upon the answer. Albert’s downstairs lights were on, his shutters wide open. When she peered in, she saw deep into his lair. Saw Albert gesticulating, his body slanted forward as he made some vital point to somebody.
So here we are
, she thought.
Right back where we began.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled hard on the bell beside Albert’s door.