A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress (8 page)

‘I’d like to help. My walking might live up to your hopes too.’

After a slight recoil, Laurent’s gaze warmed. ‘I have a feeling it will, but I have to keep my eyes on the job or I might drive over the vines. So no distracting me.’

‘Can I have a go on the tractor too, if I’m good?’ She saw the change in his stance, his throat moving above the neckline of his work-worn T-shirt. Why was she flirting? Opening a door marked ‘Danger’? ‘What I mean is, I’m competent with machinery. I’ve ridden quadbikes and driven Land Rovers on rough terrain.’

‘The tractor responds only to brute force. I believe your touch would be too light.’ He was flirting back, and belatedly cautious, she stepped back. ‘What I really mean is, I’m getting used to the heat and I’m smothered in factor forty. I can help, if you want me to.’

‘All right, but you’ll need insect repellent too. Go to the house and spray, and bring back bottles of water, enough for all – oh,
Dieu
!’ Nico was running off. Laurent muttered, ‘I’d better get to the tractor before he does. He probably knows where I hide the key.’

R
eturning
fifteen minutes later with a rucksack bulging with bottled water and slices of melon in cling film, Shauna found Nico seated on a small tractor. It was a basic machine without a cab, and antiquated, to judge from its dented panels. The contraption whose drive-shaft Laurent was attaching to the rear looked virtually space-age in comparison. Laurent shooed Nico off the seat and fired the ignition. He let it run for a minute or so, then turned it off.

‘So, this is a mulching cutter,’ he said. ‘The blades reach right under the vines, but they won’t cut everything because the rows are not equally wide. Where I miss a weed or a clump of grass, you two cut by hand. All right?’

‘Sounds easy enough.’

‘It’s tiring.’ He handed Shauna a pair of short-bladed shears, an identical pair to Nico. ‘The mower shoots out stones and twigs, so walk with a row of vines between us. Don’t ever come behind me. If you need me, run to the top of the row and approach me from the front. Got it?’

It was easy enough to start with, the stroll in the sunshine she’d hoped for, though the mower and tractor at full throttle were a deafening combination. The vines were level with her eyebrows and all Shauna could see of Laurent were flashes of fabric and bare arm. The foliage canopy, supported on tight lengths of wire, was busy with flies, bees and butterflies. Not a wild landscape, she thought, but nurtured and perfect in its way. Most of the grape clusters hung below waist level, giving her an intimation of the work ahead in picking them. She saw the virtue of Laurent’s labour-saving monster, whose rubber bumpers caressed the feet of the vines while its blades reduced grass and weeds to fine cuttings, leaving a diesel vapour trail.

‘Missed a bit!’ Shauna yelled, then said, ‘Oh, hang on, that’s me.’ Kneeling, she used her shears on a straggle of grass, then ran to catch up with Laurent. Some twenty rows later, they stopped for water and melon. Shauna lay back with her head on her rucksack.

‘You can retire if you like.’ Laurent flung his melon peel over his shoulder. He’d taken off his top and his nut-brown torso gleamed wet – using bottled water, he’d sluiced off the copper sulphate residue that the machine had stirred up. When he leaned forward to smack a horsefly on his ankle, Shauna saw that his shoulder blades were flecked with grass cuttings.

‘What about you?’ Her voice made an involuntary key-change. ‘Will you take a break?’

‘No chance. Look up.’

She did, at a sky dappled with greyish clouds. ‘Altocumulus,’ she said. ‘Isabelle said there was thunder in the air. She’s gone to bed with a pressure headache.’

‘I doubt that’s the only reason.’ Laurent squinted upward. ‘She’s right though. Storm later, though probably not till after dark. Nico will get his ride.’

‘I’ll help you finish off here.’

‘I appreciate it, Shauna. Nico, are you fit to go on?’

‘When may I go on the tractor?’

‘For the last ten rows. Shauna, do you want to try driving?’

Her leg muscles felt like sponge, but having talked up her rough terrain skills, she answered, ‘Definitely.’

Three times she stalled the tractor. ‘Hard down on the clutch,’ Laurent instructed. ‘Go off in first gear, never mind the noise it makes, then into second gear, but don’t come too fast off the clutch.’

On the fourth attempt she got it. ‘Slowly, keep a consistent speed and whatever else you do, drive straight!’ Laurent bawled at her. He kept alongside for a while, then dropped back and she was on her own. Her hat disappeared over the back of the tractor. She made it to the top of the row of vines with all the concentration of a child riding her first bicycle. She swung around the headland at the top of the avenue and headed down the one beside it, laughing with the joy of mastering a new art. Laurent let her complete four rows before waving her to a stop. ‘Bravo!’ he congratulated as she put the tractor in neutral and turned off the engine. Her whole body was shaking with the effort of controlling pedals and steering, and her ears were booming. He held out his hand to help her as she stepped unsteadily onto the grass. For a second or two, he held her and lightly kissed the top of her head.

‘Go find your hat. I’ll finish off because I go faster and I want to take my labourers to lunch. With luck, we can eat and go for a ride before the storm breaks.’

H
alf an hour later
, they crammed in to the red 2CV. Laurent drove them to a pizzeria in Garzenac whose wood-fired oven produced the biggest, most loaded pizzas Shauna had ever seen. They shared two, and a generous salad. Laurent ordered Coke for Nico and two glasses of red wine for them, saying, ‘This is a neighbour’s Cabernet Franc. It only just missed being given its
appellation d’origine contrôlée.
They can’t export it, so we get to drink it here.’

‘Do you export yours?’

‘Last year, I sent thirty thousand litres of red and nearly as much white overseas, mostly to Britain, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong. For many years, before I took over, our whole
vendange
would go to a local cooperative to make blended Pays de Bergerac wine.’

‘Now you press it at the château?’

‘Yes. Vinify it, bottle it and market it too. It’s hard work and so much can go wrong. But I wanted to take Chemignac back to its time of greatest pride, back to the nineteen-twenties when we had a run of superb vintages. Before the war changed our family’s fortunes. Not everyone approved of my ambitions.’

‘But you’re stubborn.’

‘I prefer “focussed”. The best way around obstacles is to look beyond them.’

Albert is an obstacle
, she conjectured.
Bitter over the mistakes that lost him his birthright.

Laurent’s expression turned serious, suggesting he was about to confide something close to his heart. ‘I want to move towards producing wine sustainably. It is the future, I think.’

‘You’re going organic?’

‘
Écolo!
’ Nico crowed derisively, helping himself to more pizza. ‘Granola.’

‘He’s calling me a granola cruncher,’ Laurent said in English. Shauna had not really noticed before, but he spoke English with an American inflection. ‘A muesli eater. In England, is that what you call people like me?’

She laughed. ‘Not these days. Muesli’s gone mainstream. “Tree-hugger” is a good translation, though I’ve never understood why it should be an insult. I’ve wanted to hug more trees than people.’

He held her gaze. ‘Then it would be frustrating to meet you in the forest.’ Raising his glass, he gave her a silent toast, then turned to Nico, asking in French, ‘Did you understand any of that?’

‘Most of it,’ Nico answered. ‘You fancy her. I’ve already told her.’

B
ack at Chemignac
, after parking in the stable yard, Laurent invited Shauna to ride out with them.

When she told him she hadn’t been on horseback in ten years, he said, ‘I’ve a good-natured mare trained to take all levels of rider. We’ll take it steady.’

She was tempted, but Nico’s face told her that he, at least, hoped for a fast ride and that her presence was not in his plan. ‘I’d love to another time, Laurent. I’m going to rest, then maybe take a walk in your woods. Not to hug trees,’ she said, spoiling the effect by blushing. ‘To explore. Turn over a few stones.’

‘Wear proper shoes,’ he told her. ‘And socks, because we have snakes, though you’re unlikely to see one. Follow the paths and keep the château in sight at all times. As you discovered before, it’s easy to wander off at a tangent.’ He looked up, frowning. ‘Better get on with it. The weather’s thickening up.’

A
fter a shower
, Shauna changed into a short, sleeveless dress of printed cotton, tied a shirt round her waist, then dug out the trainers she’d brought with her as a last-minute addition. As she was rooting out a pair of Olive’s tennis socks from the laundry room, she heard the muttering of radio commentary and followed the sound to the kitchen. Isabelle must have risen and she might be wondering where her grandson was. The kitchen was empty, but the table was piled with linen napkins, all of the same deep violet shade. There was a bundle on the ironing board. She smoothed one out and saw the embroidered initials, ‘H & M-L de C’.

Henri and Marie-Louise de Chemignac, Isabelle’s parents. The same initials were carved over the gatehouse, with the date of 1931, marking their marriage. ‘My mother came from church in a carriage drawn by white horses,’ Isabelle had told her. ‘My grandmother paid a mason to entwine their names in stone, because she had arranged the marriage. Liked to remind them of it, I suppose!’

These napkins were probably part of a trousseau, the table linen and sheets a bride brought to her new home. Painstakingly fashioned, stored lovingly, to be fished out every now and again and doused in insect-repellent… The air smelled of lavender and that familiar patchouli. Embroidered beneath the napkin’s cypher was a thorn twig, identical to Laurent’s tattoo, which really was no surprise. He was Laurent de Chemignac, after all. But what about
this
coincidence? She tugged at her dress, contorting to examine her own tattoo. A sprig of blackthorn,
Prunus Spinosa
, three spines each side. Or, if you wished to be mystical, it was the
straif
of Irish legend, symbol of war, strife and – so her mother had assured her – eventual victory. She’d had it inked below her shoulder on her twenty-first birthday, in memory of her dad. He’d worn the same symbol on the back of his hand. His had been blue-black like the sloe berry, the fruit of the blackthorn.

‘Isabelle?’ Shauna called. The ironing board was fixed at a low height, suggesting Isabelle had done her ironing seated. On the floor, the kitchen calendar lay discarded. Today’s date, July 13th, was ringed in black, an aggressive ‘X’ striking it out. Disturbed, Shauna went up to Isabelle’s room and put her ear to the door. She wasn’t sure if she could hear breathing or not, but felt she didn’t know her hostess well enough to poke her head inside and check.

Instead, Shauna dashed off a note.

N
ico with Laurent
, I’m out for a short walk, will be back in an hour or so. Hope you’re feeling better. Happy to prepare supper – let me know.

F
or a change
, she went out by the front door, threading through rose bushes to the moat. There, a narrow footbridge led to the meadows. Shauna crossed them, making for the woods. A saffron sky was streaked with violet-grey. Beautiful but ominous – as was a distant rumble of thunder.

She’d gone a little distance when something made her look back at the château. The doves were on the wing again and she wondered if they sensed the oncoming storm. Interesting… The window on this side of the tower glowed yellow but she couldn’t tell whether there was electric light behind it or the glass was reflecting the sinking sun.

She became aware of a figure in the window, a slight, dark shape, seeming to stare down at her. Whoever it was must have taken down the oil painting that hung over that window, otherwise they wouldn’t be visible. It certainly wasn’t Albert. Nor Isabelle, who had several times insisted that she never went up into the tower these days. The figure was too insubstantial to be Rachel, and Olive wasn’t due back from her friend’s house until nightfall. Nico was riding with Laurent. So who was it? Forgetting everything she’d ever said about superstition and apparitions being the failure of logic, Shauna turned her back on the tower and ran towards the woods.

O
n the 13th July 1943
, on this spot, these men of Chemignac fell, murdered by German Gestapo agents. Michel Paulin, Luc Roland, Henri de Chemignac. Murdered alongside them were men of the British SOE, Maurice Barnsley and George Sturridge. Their resistance furthered the cause of liberty and freedom.

A
mason had inscribed
these words on a boulder the colour of the nearby crags. It was a primitive-looking memorial, one face cut smooth. At its base lay a bunch of roses and vine leaves.

Ignoring Laurent’s advice, Shauna had left the main track, enticed by a splash of colour shining through the greens of walnut trees and holm oaks. She’d emerged into a broad clearing and discovered maize growing tall among patches of blue-flowered chicory. It was the silken tassels of the maize bathed in quirky, evening light that had caught her eye. That was when she’d seen the boulder at the clearing’s heart. She re-read the inscription, her heart picking up speed. Isabelle’s father, Henri, had died during the last war, but Isabelle hadn’t explained how. Shauna had simply assumed that he’d been killed at sea or fighting in a regiment.

Executed for fighting with the Resistance
. Here, on this spot, five men. Five clean shots or a bloody massacre?
Oh my God…
The date sunk in. Today was July 13
^th
, exactly sixty years since the atrocity.
Now
she understood the mark on Isabelle’s calendar. And maybe Isabelle’s migraine? Shauna crouched, reading the card attached to the rose bouquet. It read simply, ‘
Jamais oublier, jamais pardoner
’:

A
head broke off a rose
. She put it back with the others but it rolled free, so rather than leave it she buried it in the neck of her dress.

Then she cried. Not gentle tears, but tearing sobs. She then sat down on the ground, against the stone, losing sense of time until, roused by a blue flash overhead, she realised that the storm had struck.

I
n her hospital
bed in Dakenfield, a patient plucked at the cannula taped to her left hand. A nurse tried to calm her.

‘You must keep your drip in, Miss Thorne.’

‘No – I have to go and find him or it’ll be too late to tell him I’m sorry.’

They upped her morphine.

T
he first crash
of thunder split open the sky, releasing a violent downpour. Within seconds, Shauna was drenched. It was dark; nature was in turmoil. The wind in the branches sounded like an express train blasting through a tunnel full of dried peas. She struggled to find the path home. Perhaps wouldn’t have seen it at all had it not been for periodic flashes of lightning.

Thankfully, the storm was brief. By the time Shauna was walking towards a chink of twilight that promised a way out of the trees, a lull had descended. She felt clammy and miserable. Her dress was sticking to her. At some point, she’d lost the shirt she’d tied round her middle. Her trainers and Olive’s socks were mustard-brown because the paths had turned into alleys of mud. She trod on one of her laces, tripping and falling as a pale shape filled the void between the trees. It was an outline stolen from myth. A woodcut of a knight, broad-shouldered and with a tapering waist, astride a horse that seemed to be made of moon-mist. It was coming closer, the picking of heavy hooves and the rhythmic percussion of breath proving it to be no vision.

‘Shauna, is that you?’ The voice was gravelly with exasperation, and she quailed, ashamed of being so easily overwrought, of getting lost
again
.

‘Laurent! I found something…’ She scrambled to her feet as he rode up alongside her. His face, glistening with rain, doused her desire to share her discovery. To avoid his eye and hold off whatever rebuke was coming her way, she leaned against the horse’s shoulder. The muscular flanks were heated and heaving. Laurent must have pushed quite hard to get here. As for Laurent, though he held the reins slackly, there was tension in his hands. His fingers opened and closed on the leather. She wondered if the storm had rattled him – or was it the sight of her in a bedraggled dress? ‘I would have found my way back eventually.’

‘You went off the path, yes? You ignored my warning?’

‘Not really.’
Yes, really.
‘It got dark on me, and then the rain came down and I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.’ It struck her then that he was alone. ‘Where’s Nico?’

‘Home, ages ago. I called on Isabelle to check you were all right, and found her in a bad state. Linen napkins all over the floor, as though the storm had blown through the house—’

‘Why were they on the floor?’

He didn’t answer that. ‘She was convinced you’d been struck by lightning. In your note, you told her you were going for a short walk, that you’d be back to help with supper. When you didn’t arrive, she was terrified some harm had come to you. It wasn’t fair to put her through that.’

He was right. ‘I’m sorry. Time got away from me, but it was thoughtless. Laurent, I saw something—’

‘Today is a difficult enough day for her.’

‘I know. I found a stone—’

But he wasn’t going to let her say it. ‘I went back to the stables and got Héron and told Isabelle I’d find you even if it took all night.’ His voice cracked, betraying something more human than plain anger. ‘You climbed the tower without permission, you stray into the woods – I can’t look after you all of the time. If you won’t take care of yourself, you should leave Chemignac before it’s too late.’

‘Too late for what?’

He put a hand on her shoulder. Not a gentle touch. A constraining grip, as if he feared she might walk off. ‘Can you get up behind me?’

‘Not really.’ The horse towered over her, easily sixteen hands.

He made the horse sidestep, and swung off its back. ‘Hitch your dress up.’ When she made no move, he put his hands on her waist. ‘Let me lift you. Don’t be afraid. Héron won’t go anywhere.’

In the end, she bunched her dress around her waist, wishing she’d at least worn shorts and not cotton briefs, and let him lift her onto the broad back. There was no saddle, for which she was glad.

Laurent led Héron to a tree stump suitable as a mounting block and clambered up behind her. They rode out of the woods together at a trot, water splashing up as far as Shauna’s waist. She gripped Héron’s thick mane, glad of the honed body behind her. At the same time, trying not to merge with it. Once in open meadow, when the horse broke into a canter, she was glad of Laurent’s arms around her. Years hunched over books and computer screens had weakened her core muscles.

‘Don’t tense, Shauna.’

‘Doing my best.’ For such a sturdy creature, Héron was surprisingly smooth-gaited and she soon got the rhythm, letting go of the shocks of the day. Later, she’d make Laurent tell her about the memorial stone and the circumstances of his grandfather’s death. But she wouldn’t mention the wraith at the tower window. It would be humiliating to be told she was nuts and even more terrifying to be taken seriously.

Security lights came on as they trotted into the stable yard. The tabby cat padded out from one of the barns while horses neighed and called to them from some distance away.

‘Are they out in the paddocks? The other horses, I mean?’ Shauna was gabbling to divert Laurent’s attention from her legs, which looked luminous under their spattering of mud.

‘Yes, now the storm’s passed. Anyway, they don’t mind weather, they’re hardy Camargues and Boulonnais.’ He dismounted and Shauna slithered into his arms, apologising for her filthy state, for leaving streaks on Héron’s flanks.

‘Did you roll down a slope?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘The paths were like soggy cake.’ She wriggled her dress down.

‘Our summer storms are violent. Tomorrow, I’ll worry about mildew.’ A gruff note in his voice suggested he was conscious of speaking roughly to her before. He kept Héron’s reins in one hand, his free arm around Shauna. She went completely still, wondering what was coming next. Another telling-off, more warnings? Or the same polite withdrawal that she’d experienced from him before? She wasn’t sure she could take another confrontation. When he was angry, he was irresistible.

‘What is this?’ He took the broken rose from the front of her dress. She’d forgotten about it – it must have worked its way out of her cleavage as she rode home. ‘Stealing from my garden?’

‘I… No… I mean…’ She
hated
anyone thinking she was underhand.

‘Shauna, you can gather them all, if you wish. You may have anything of mine that you want.’

‘I thought you were angry with me.’

‘I was afraid that I’d lost you. Afraid that I had been careless with you. Driven you away. That Chemignac had done its worst. I could not bear it.’

She stared up at him then, defeated in her desire to appear unmoved. When he bent and kissed her, she opened her lips, offering no resistance or argument. The perfect first kiss. Explorative, respectful, tender. The growth of beard Laurent always ended the day with stirred something powerful inside her. Had the horse not pushed his nose between them, impatient at being kept standing, she’d have wound her arms around Laurent’s shoulders and left him in no doubt how she wanted this to continue. He gave a regretful laugh. ‘Héron wants his grass.’ He led the way to the night-shrouded paddocks whose occupants were discernible only from the snorting welcome they gave their friend. Hanging back, Shauna heard Laurent speaking softly as he led the horse into the field, and then the jangle of metal as he took off the bridle, a clank as he shut the gate behind him and, finally, the thunder of hooves as the horses merged into their private, night-time world. Laurent found Shauna’s hand. ‘It’s selfish of me to want to keep you here but—’ he broke off. ‘What is the matter?’

She was gazing up at the brilliant full moon. Sadness knifed through her, and in a voice she hardly recognised, she said, ‘I shall never see the moon over Chemignac again. It is over.’

‘Shauna?’ Laurent put his hands on her arms, digging in when she failed to respond. ‘What do you mean? Talk to me.’

She ripped away from him. ‘I can’t stay. I have to go home.’

‘Of course, Isabelle is so worried. It’s selfish of me to keep you.’

‘I mean, to England. I should never have come. I’m not suited to this – I can’t help them.’

‘Them?’ His grip tightened. His breath shuddered. ‘You sense them too? Shauna, do you see or hear them, or—?’

They were interrupted by a window opening above one of the stable buildings. A spectral figure loomed out and it took Shauna a moment to recognise Rachel Moorcroft, wearing a bathrobe, hair wrapped in a towel-turban. Rachel called out, ‘Time was you’d lurk in the stable yard with me, Laurent.’

Seizing Laurent’s momentary confusion, Shauna tore away towards the château, working out what she could say to Isabelle to release her from this contract. From this place, without delay.

A
s she entered the kitchen
, the sight that greeted Shauna banished any such ideas. Albert de Chemignac was leaning against the worktop, his face disturbingly elated. Nico sat sobbing uncontrollably on the floor in a sea of violet napkins. Isabelle lay on the cold tiles, her stick across her body. She was breathing short and fast. Olive had the landline receiver shoved against her ear and was wailing, ‘
Elle est gravement blessée! Tu devrais venir!
’ Shauna gathered that Olive was entreating one or other of her parents to come to Chemignac, without delay.

She knelt beside Nico, asking gently, ‘What happened?’

‘
Grandmère
was making supper. She went into the pantry to fetch something and fell. We helped her up and she got this far and collapsed.’

‘Has anybody rung for an ambulance?’

Nico looked blank, so Shauna tried Albert. ‘Monsieur? Has anybody called the emergency services?’

The old man’s eyes found hers. Never before had she sustained such focussed hatred. ‘You took Laurent away from us this evening. This is your doing.’

Shaking her head in frustration, Shauna said, ‘Nico, Laurent is back now, probably hanging Héron’s bridle up in the harness-room. Go fetch him.’ She hauled the boy to his feet, shooed him out, then detached Olive from the telephone. A moment later she was speaking with Madame Barends who was not in Paris, as Shauna had imagined, but even further away in Brussels. Isabelle’s daughter was clearly distraught at being unable to respond immediately, and Shauna sought to reassure her. ‘I’m calling an ambulance for your mother, but I think you should prepare to come here. I’ll stay with the children until you arrive.’

As Shauna hung up, Laurent came striding in, just ahead of Nico. She watched Olive move towards him like a moth to a lamp.
They need him so badly
, she thought
. He is Chemignac. I am not, and never can be. Something about this place petrifies me and, as soon as I can, I will leave.

But ‘soon’ did not come, and she did not leave.

I
sabelle had not re
-broken her femur, but in falling she’d sustained a second-degree sprain to her left knee. It was the fact that she’d gone into shock that caused the hospital to keep her in for three days’ observation. By the time she came home in a wheelchair, her daughter had arrived. Daily activities were suspended as Madame Louette Barends drew up a routine of feeding and bed exercise, interrogating her mother repeatedly on the exact circumstances of her accident.

‘One answer is never enough for my daughter,’ Isabelle croaked pitifully to Shauna. ‘Only when she hears the same thing three times does she accept that it might, just possibly, be true.’

Once Louette was satisfied that her mother’s recovery was under control, she fell to cleaning the house. Shauna did what she could to help, reading to Isabelle and otherwise keeping her company while Louette emptied cupboards, ran brooms along the beams and cooked immense meals which, even with the addition of Albert and Laurent at the table, were rarely consumed in one sitting. The children clung to their mother like baby primates. They’d thought their grandmother was going to die that stormy evening, and Shauna empathised with them. She knew how devastating it was, that first encounter with human mortality.