A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress (21 page)

‘Do ordinary French people get to drink any at all?’

Henri paused, considering her question. Or was he inspecting the sky, where thick clouds raced past, obscuring then revealing the curve of a waxing moon? He’d told her earlier that there hadn’t been a drop of rain in the two weeks since she’d arrived, but by the look of it, the drought would end tonight or tomorrow. At last, he said, ‘If anything persuades my fellow countrymen and women to rise in revolt, it will be the murderous reprisals in every
commune
and forced labour. It will be the recruitment of our own thugs into the
Milice
and the imposition of a forty percent tax on wine. Even I am not allowed to keep stocks for my own drinking.’

‘Not a drop?’

‘Well, not a great deal. There might be a few bottles hidden here and there.’

‘A few?’

‘Mm… A lot. Come.’

H
e took
her into a stone outbuilding that he called the
chai
, where cobwebs hung like grisly bunting from every crossbeam. Along a wall stood racks of bottles, also thickly laced with cobwebs. Taking a bottle out, Henri showed her an impressive-looking label, drawing her attention to the date. 1934. ‘Thirty-four was a spectacular year, the only really good year in the whole of that decade. We call this our ‘rare vintage Clos de Chemignac’ but actually, it is a nothing-sort of wine from the year thirty-nine. Ha, what does the enemy know when he gets drunk on it over his fried pork and cabbage? He would drink water from a puddle if it was the right colour and came with a good label.’

‘The label is false?’

‘A work of fiction. Raymond and I plaster the bottles with cobwebs which we grow specially,’ Henri pointed to the roof, ‘and the German merchants nod when we tell them what they are buying has been stored in a cellar for almost a decade.’ Henri took her to the far wall, flattening his hand against it. ‘Feel this.’

Yvonne didn’t want to, so spider-spun were the stones. Eventually, she conquered her squeamishness. It felt like an ordinary wall and she told him so.

‘Ah, but it’s brand new, though built from old blocks. It is an art, getting the colour and texture of mortar correct so it looks as old as the rest.’ He whispered to the stones: ‘
Bonjour
, my darlings. Sleep well.’ He grinned at Yvonne. ‘Walled up are my remaining stocks of that thirty-four vintage. Whoever gets to sell it or drink it will be very lucky. Now, come see. This is what you have been quaffing since you came here.’ He showed her a row of stout oak barrels labelled ‘
Vin Ordinaire
’. ‘It’s very good stuff, as you can testify, but we roll the bottles in dirty sand, and the labels are hand-written by me, with my left hand. It looks like the work of an idiot.’

‘Yet it is the work of a genius.’

‘Why should we give the sweat of our brows, our wealth, to others because they demand it? Defiance is the spice of life.’ That irresistible smile was rimmed by a moustache in need of a little trim. Yvonne traced Henri’s upper lip with her finger. She felt his breath against her knuckle, felt the flinch of his muscles as she stroked the sensitive flesh.

‘Shall we go back outside, Henri?’ Her body knew that the time had come.

‘If you are sure.’

After locking the wine store, he led her across an irregularly-shaped courtyard she’d not seen before, where she noticed a twisted tree, encircled by a low wall.

‘This is the Chemignac thorn,’ Henri told her. ‘I have planted cabbages beneath it but they won’t thrive. It doesn’t matter. Below the soil lie sixty bottles of our finest wine from last year. A gift to the future. To celebrate a wedding, or a christening perhaps. Whoever digs up that trove will be happy.’

‘It had better be you, Henri.’ A treacherous tear edged over the rim of her eye. ‘Who else should it be?’

‘I hope so. Would you like to take a turn in the meadow?’

‘I can think of nothing better.’

They walked in silence, the fabric of their trousers sweeping herby scents from the dry grass. After a while, they stopped and looked back towards the great house, a bank of buildings silhouetted against a sky a shade or two lighter. Yvonne unbuttoned the jacket Henri had made her wear and let it fall to the ground. She pulled the beret from her head and felt her hair tumble around her ears.

Henri was taut as wire. As for her, she’d spent so many days thinking about their first kiss, she didn’t know how to start it.

He did. He stepped forward, hands circling her waist, finding its curve through her overalls. His touch was confident, yet she discerned a faint tremble in his fingers. When their lips met, it was tentative. Without greed or even hunger. She’d wondered on first meeting him what it might be like to be kissed by a man with a shadowy moustache. She could say now that it was exquisite, a blend of soft lips and harsh bristle. The perfect reminder of the differences they would soon explore more deeply. As he kissed the sides of her mouth, the lobes of her ears, his hands moved upwards, learning her shape. A hum of pleasure escaped him as he encircled her breasts. He broke away to say, ‘You are a magnificent woman, Yvonne. I fear I am not worthy of you.’

‘You are! Every inch.’ True, he was no bear of a man. Rather, he was tall and wiry, and undoubtedly leaner than he had been before the privations of war cut down his nourishment. But the small imperfections in his body only made her love him more. The smouldering physicality that she had ignited, which was now trained upon her, sent her into a spiral. ‘I want you, Henri. But, sorry, I want you right now.’

He helped her out of her overalls, and she sank down and stretched herself on the grass, using his jacket as padding, joking that he’d made her wear it with this in mind. He had done no such thing, he insisted. But that laugh… That smile.

He shrugged off his waistcoat, his belt and the trousers that were made of the same cloth as her overalls. They kissed again, and she helped him draw off his shirt, and he did the same for her. His body, raised over hers, borrowed a faint outline of moonlight. The heat of his skin radiated onto hers. When her fingers roamed they found chest hair, nipples, the undulation of ribs and stomach, hips and thighs, and she felt his readiness. Emphatic and proud. But even so, he would not hurry.

He trailed a kiss along her throat, to her breasts, between and down. Naked and with every nerve-ending receiving the touch, she learned how an unshaven upper lip, jaw and chin feels against yearning, tormented flesh. When she curled her legs around him, abandoning herself to him, he balanced passion with restraint. He knew when to thrust deep and when to slow down until she was almost out of her mind.

They climaxed and rested, and began again with inexhaustible fire, until streaks of pink announced that the dawn of July 10th was breaking.

‘“It is the east and you, my sweet, are the sun.”’ His words, soft against her ear, made her wish she could command the rising sun to go back to sleep.

‘I love you, Henri.’

‘I know,’ he said confidently. ‘I too am in love, because I have drunk the Gods’ nectar. I am in love!’ He pronounced it as a revelation, and had he added ‘Eureka!’ she wouldn’t have been surprised. ‘I am in love. It has happened. My God.’ Then, his tone sinking into gravity, he said, ‘We must return inside. My darling, I have to leave you for a few days – I did not want to say it earlier. I will be travelling this evening.’

She sat up, cold suddenly. ‘Where are you going?’

Henri reached for clothes, sorting them out, handing her shirt to her. ‘I can’t say, it wouldn’t be fair or safe. It is work.’

‘Does it involve guns?’

‘Yes.’

‘And danger?’

‘Well… Guns, you know?’

‘What are you doing, precisely?’

‘You know that “precisely” is out of the question.
Imprecisely
, I will tell you that I and others are going to spring a member of our organisation from a police station, some distance from here.’

‘Going to spring’, she noted as she pushed her feet into her overalls and pulled the straps over her shoulders. Not ‘
trying
to spring.’ She adored his confidence, but feared it too because it was such fallible armour.

He made her put on the jacket again because he felt her shivering. ‘This prisoner is to be taken by truck to a railway station, to be put on a train going east. We will intercept the truck.’

It was on her lips to say, ‘Henri, don’t!’ But why was she thinking like a clingy woman? He was a fighter, as was she. Their methods and weapons were a little different but they were battling the same enemy, and the risks they were prepared to take were pretty much the same. Hadn’t they just baptised this rustic meadow with the passion of their bodies –
because
they were liberated from the narrow constraints of conventionality? So instead of speaking, she kissed him, drawing hearts on the roof of his mouth with her tongue until he groaned and almost rolled her into the grass again. Almost…

‘People will be about soon. Listen, do you hear? The doves are flying away from the tower. They tell the time for us and are better than any clock. Work starts early here at Chemignac and there is always Albert… Get your shoes on, Yvonne. Button up that jacket and please, put your beret back on so I don’t see your hair touched by the morning light.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to take that image away with you?’ she teased.

‘Are you mad? I want to come home. I do not want to get shot because when my friends launch their assault, I am staring into space like a drunken rabbit.’

L
ater
, and before he left, he knocked at the tower room door. He had depressing news. ‘You must stay incarcerated here for a while,
chérie
. That damnable industrialist who has requisitioned the other side of the courtyard? He’s back. Albert saw his car pulling into the avenue. Don’t put so much as the tip of your nose outside the door, nor open the window. I’ve warned Jean-Claude too. He can come and see you up here, if you want company, but under no circumstances must either of you go outside. You understand?’

‘At night, surely—’

‘Not even at night. Be patient,
ma flamme
. The bastard only stays a couple of days at a time. And I will be back very soon. Do you want to keep my jacket?’ He’d spotted it hanging over the bottom of the bed.

‘Do you have another one?’

‘I do, an older one that I don’t mind getting damaged. I’ll take that.’

‘Oh, Henri, no heroics. Oh, goodness, what about Cyprien?’ Her colleague’s suffering had gone clean out of her mind. What love can do… ‘If I mustn’t cross the courtyard, I can’t very well sit with him.’

‘Raymond will take care of him, and Albert will take a turn. I’ve given orders. Other than that, Cyprien will have to take his chances. We all have to do that in the end, no?’

T
hat night
, confined in the high room whose air felt deeper,
stickier
, than in any other part of the château, Yvonne slept fitfully. Anxiety wound around her throat like a ligature. If only she knew how Henri’s mission was progressing, but she could only wait, perhaps many hours. Potential outcomes crossed her mind. Not least that he would fail and die. Or perhaps worse, be taken alive. Taken to prison, where the false name and papers he carried on such occasions would be inspected and challenged, the truth eventually extracted from him, or from another of his band.

Falling into unconsciousness only after hours of mental strife, she was woken by a knock.

She was out of bed, crying ‘Henri!’ even before she was properly awake. As her fingers touched the key in the lock, as she was about to turn it, sleepiness fell away. Survival training asserted itself. Her hand dropped. ‘Identify yourself!’

‘Let me in, Madame. I want to talk. I’ve brought a bottle of cognac.’

She recognised the nasal whine. Or maybe . . . ‘Henri, are you having me on again? Is it you?’

‘It’s Albert. Why should you suppose I’m my brother? He cannot be everywhere, you know.’

The sour, hard-done-by tone left her in no doubt. ‘Scoot, Albert. I need my sleep.’

‘Not when my brother is around,
hein
? I’ve seen the way you look at each other. I know you were together in the hay meadow this morning. I saw you as I came back from town. But he’s not here and I am. And I am younger than him.’

‘That is no recommendation, believe me. Go away, Albert. Good night.’

She jumped as a fist thudded against the other side of the door, inches from her face.

‘I order you to open up! I am also part-owner of this estate. You think it is all my brother’s property? It is not! I can give orders too. I command you to let me in!’

‘Go away.’

Silence fell, broken only by Albert’s patchy breathing.

After a moment, in a changed voice, he said, ‘Your English friend is burning hot. Cyprien’s fever has reached its crisis and Raymond is a useless nurse. Just a peasant, after all. You’d better come down or your friend will die.’

Her fingers strayed to the key, the challenge reaching the most persuadable part of her. But again, caution won. ‘Albert, are there any bottoms of any barrels you are not prepared to scrape in your desire to be a pest? I’m going back to bed. If you want to stand outside my door all night, feel free.’

She got back under the covers, pulling them up over her head. At some point – she wasn’t sure quite how long he held out – the defeated scuffle of boots signalled Albert’s withdrawal.

Her face scrunched, and silently she wailed,
Come back, Henri. Please, please come back.

O
n July 11th
, the skies opened. Yvonne stayed in her room listening to the rain drumming on the courtyard flags. She started a new book, but spent more time alternately doing floor exercises and sleeping. On July 12
^th
, it was still raining and no news had come from outside the château.

Worried about Cyprien, desperate for word of Henri, she went downstairs and waited until she saw Albert leaving his apartment. He was wrapped in oilskins against the weather. Knocking on the grimy window, she waved and shouted until she caught his attention. He stared at her, then walked away.

‘Damn you,’ she muttered. Ignoring Henri’s warnings, she ran out into the downpour, eventually catching Albert on the path that led to the winery buildings. ‘Give me any news you have,’ she demanded.

He folded his arms. ‘About what?’

‘Take your pick. Cyprien?’

‘Still alive.’

‘Your brother?’

‘Heard nothing.’

‘Is that… Is that good or bad?’

Albert laughed. The hood of his cape half-covered his eyes. Rain dripped down his cheeks. His chin had soft, fluffy beard-hairs on it, she noticed. He really was immature in everything, except in his skills at triggering her temper. ‘So? Good or bad?’

‘Depends how you look at it, Madame. Depends whose side you’re on.’

‘And whose side are you on, Albert?’ Her hair was drenched, her clothes waterlogged, though it was such warm rain it felt unexpectedly refreshing. Albert gave another little laugh, and his gaze swept her body, lingering at her breasts, their contours revealed by her sodden blouse.