A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress (9 page)

Louette babied the children until the end of the first week of her stay, then informed them that the drama was over. If
Grandmère
was well enough now to get out of her wheelchair and sit outside, it was business as usual – which meant a renewal of English lessons and sports for Olive and Nico, and chauffeur duties for Shauna. For Louette, it meant six hours a day in the winery office, catching up on the work her mother’s accident had interrupted.

‘Thank God I have a flexible contract,’ Louette told Shauna when she came in one evening after a long stint at the computer. Reaching into the fridge for a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, she added, ‘Thank God too that this is still a vineyard. Can I pour you a glass?’

‘A small one, thanks. What is it you do, Madame?’

‘Oh, call me Louette. I work for the European Parliament, translating French documents into German and English. No shortage of work’ – Louette raised her glass, giving a wry laugh – ‘but there’s a queue of eager new graduates offering to do what I do for less money, so I can’t afford to miss a deadline, not even for an injured mother. What a stroke of luck you’re here.
Maman
says it’s destiny – her way of saying she adores you.’

After that, how could Shauna ask to break her contract? It was simply assumed she’d stay on at Chemignac. Louette agreed to remain to the end of August, five weeks away, after which she had to be back in Brussels. ‘As you know, our home is in Paris but we often get co-opted to the European Parliament for the summer. My husband is currently on loan to one of the European commissioners and he dislikes being in rented accommodation. He detests even more going home to an empty flat. He is not a “new man”, my Hubert.’

‘Your children must miss you,’ Shauna suggested cautiously, remembering Laurent’s veiled comment that the children’s hyper-competitive personalities sprang from a lack of parental attention. ‘Wouldn’t they like to go to Brussels too?’

Louette Barends seemed to give the idea genuine thought. ‘They’ve never said so and you can see, surely, how they love it here? Besides, cities are horrible in the heat – have you ever done summer in a European capital? Thick with tourists and you can’t escape the car fumes. No,’ Louette said decisively, ‘they’re happier here.’ They would all return to Paris in early September in time for the new school term. ‘But you must stay for the harvest,
petite
, because my mother isn’t going to mend quickly. I think we can presume that she won’t be in any condition to cook for the workers and organise the
fête de vendange
.’

‘Won’t she go back with you?’ Shauna had somehow assumed that Isabelle would return to her flat by the Seine once the holidays were over. ‘I thought she only ever spent the summer here.’

But it seemed there was no chance of it, not before October at any rate, because Isabelle had let out her apartment on a four-month contract. Louette explained, ‘Renting it to wealthy foreign visitors doubles her annual income. And she won’t come to stay with us because we live out in Neuilly-sur-Seine. The suburbs, you see? For
Maman
, only the city or the countryside is worth bothering with. The middling places, where most people end up, don’t exist for her. But this is good, no? For you, I mean. You must experience a wine harvest at least once in your life, Shauna. I believe you have no job to go home for? So – stay for the
vendange
and get a sun tan. You are very pale.’

Though Louette’s father, the late Monsieur Duval, had been a diplomat it was clear that Louette didn’t take after him. She must know that most redheads did not tan. They either burned, or, by keeping their sun exposure to a minimum, achieved what could best be described as ‘a healthy glow’. Usually because their freckles joined together.

As a teenager, Shauna had tried everything to get the California beach look – creams, oils, bronzing spray. The results had usually been somewhere between gravy browning and marmalade. Once, she’d turned herself bright mango, and had spent a whole weekend rubbing herself with cut lemons in a desperate bid to bleach herself back to normal. She’d gradually come to terms with her DNA and these days celebrated her pigmentation. The implication of ‘pale’ was that she was unwell or even anaemic.

She bit her tongue, however, and observed Louette, who had put down her wine and was leafing through her mother’s telephone contacts book. Louette presumably favoured her father’s side of the family in looks, being sandy-haired and large-framed. To be fair, she made the most of herself with chic, Parisian clothes. And though she shared none of Isabelle’s panache, she had a can-do attitude that made things happen. She proved it by saying, ‘I need to find a local woman to come in each day and clean. It doesn’t make any sense for me to do it and lose paid work, and it’s not your responsibility,
petite
. You’re doing a fantastic job with the children.’

‘Will your mother accept a cleaner?’

Louette gave a throaty chuckle. ‘She’ll hate it, but face it, it’ll be months before
Maman
can lug a Hoover upstairs or stand on a chair to polish the window glass. I think I know who to call but don’t say anything to anybody just yet.’

Shauna’s feelings towards Louette softened. Undiplomatic and bossy she might be, but who else could chivvy Isabelle into eating properly and doing painful physiotherapy every day? And the alteration in the children was astounding, too. Their relentless pursuit of sporting excellence was downgraded to mere enthusiasm. They gave up their riding to spend more time with their mother, and Nico was heard to say, when he and Olive crashed out of the mixed tennis doubles, ‘It’s only a game.’

T
he next morning
, as she walked to the car ahead of the children, Albert de Chemignac stepped out of one of the winery buildings and called roughly, ‘You, this is yours.’

He thrust a large, brown envelope at her, letting go of it too soon so she had to lunge for it. ‘In future, collect your letters yourself. I’m not your postman. Why should I,
hein
?’

Caught off guard, she gave a nod that was neither acquiescence nor intended as a thank you, and walked on. Damn it, she wished she could stop being intimidated by that man, but the sheer force of his hostility got through her defences every time. Getting into the car, she examined the envelope, suspicious that it might be booby-trapped. She doubted Albert would run to an explosive device, but she could quite credit him with hiding a loop of barbed wire or a bag of razor blades inside an innocent package.

Seeing her mother’s handwriting on the front, she ripped it open. Inside was a copy of the quarterly journal produced by her university faculty. Shauna’s post was being forwarded to her mother’s house, and Elisabeth Vincent had sent it on, thinking her daughter would like to read it. Shauna wasn’t certain that she did. She’d written several articles for this journal in the past, and had been its assistant editor, a coveted post for science graduates. Its glossy-paper smell and her mother’s cheery note brought a lump to her throat. Had she not been in full view of the
chai
and expecting Olive and Nico to arrive any moment she’d have given way and sobbed. Instead, she breathed down her home-sickness, and put the journal on the passenger seat to read later. ‘What am I doing here still?’ she murmured, though she knew the answer. She was showing loyalty to people she’d grown to care about. And, she was hoping for a reprise of a certain kiss… Perhaps the better question was, ‘Why did I ever come here in the first place?’

Seeing the children loping towards her with their sports kit swinging from their shoulders, she fired the engine. As the stereo burst to life, the car filled with Céline Dion singing ‘Destin’.

Destiny? No way. Shauna believed in self-determination, not fate or celestial alignments. If she was to enjoy her enforced stay at Chemignac, then she’d better persuade Albert to be less beastly and engage in some plain talking with Laurent. Simple, ha?

A
few days later
, an opportunity arose for the latter. Shauna offered to wash up after supper so Louette could help her mother to bed then spend some time with her children. Laurent had eaten with them and he offered to help dry the dishes. Standing next to him at the sink, her stomach knotted as if she was about to go on stage to deliver a keynote speech to a difficult audience. Just say something.
Anything
. But what? Whenever their elbows bumped, Shauna jumped as if an electric current had passed between them. On the final occasion, she gulped, ‘Sorry!’ and he answered with exaggerated politeness, ‘That’s perfectly all right. I don’t mind you touching me.’

And then he took a pace to the left, so they wouldn’t bump again.

Did she mind touching him? Was he crazy? She’d thought of little else since their kiss in the stable yard under that wondrous full moon. But its erotic potency had become strangely sullied. Rachel’s interference and Isabelle’s accident had removed its innocence. She couldn’t lose the thought that, had they not lingered, Isabelle would have been helped sooner. The children would have been spared a long spell of distress in the company of Albert. Albert, Laurent had said after the event, was no use in an emergency. ‘Like a hare in the headlights, he freezes. It’s as though he cannot assume responsibility for anything.’

Shauna would have liked to put it more strongly than that. It hadn’t been panic on Albert’s face when she walked into the kitchen. He’d been feasting himself on Isabelle’s crisis. That old man was dangerous to be around. The last thing she needed was to grow any more vulnerable. Caring for Laurent, wanting his touch, his kiss, made her just that. Vulnerable.

The clink of crockery as she and Laurent washed and dried their way through the mound of dishes made the silence between them almost unbearable. Shauna’s teeth clenched. Laurent kept clearing his throat. They finally let go what was on their minds at the same moment.

‘Laurent, I have to know—’

‘Shauna, this can’t go on—’

‘You first,’ Laurent said.

‘Why does your uncle hate me so much? And don’t say, “He doesn’t like women.” That doesn’t go halfway near it.’

‘He hates the English.’

‘Because we buy property in the Dordogne? Or because he thinks we left you high and dry during the war?’

‘Because in 1943 an Englishwoman came here to Chemignac. An SOE agent.’

‘SOE…’

‘Special Operations Executive, Churchill’s agents of sabotage. She was called Yvonne and parachuted in to be a courier. That means a go-between for the Resistance fighters and other British agents – couriers carried messages, handed out money, arranged drops of ammunition. Women were used that way because they could move around the countryside without attracting suspicion. Men were more likely to be searched, or arrested for evading forced labour. It was very dangerous, whoever you were. If you were caught—’

‘You were shot.’

‘The lucky ones were shot. Spies were interrogated, tortured, sent to prison camps. Female agents were often sexually abused as well. Few survived.’

‘Yvonne?’

He shrugged. ‘Nobody knows. Her British colleagues, Barnsley and Sturridge, were shot by the Germans. Their bodies were found in the forest.’

Shauna faced Laurent, her inner eye homing in on a glade bathed in light the colour of corn syrup, a rock at its centre like the kernel of a peach. ‘I tried to tell you before, I found a memorial with your grandfather’s name carved on it, along with Maurice Barnsley and George Sturridge… And two others, I think.’

Laurent nodded. ‘Local men, Michel Paulin and Luc Roland.’

‘All from the Resistance?’

‘The French were. The Englishmen were Yvonne’s colleagues. They were dropped in together.’

‘So, isn’t it likely that she died too?’

‘All that’s known is that she disappeared. Certainly, her story is buried pretty deep. But Albert believes she turned traitor and betrayed the Resistance cell she was sent to help.’

‘Including Henri de Chemignac.’

‘Yes, including his brother. And Albert does not forget.’

Never forget, never forgive.

‘It’s more than just hating Englishwomen,’ she said. ‘It’s about hating an entire race and a whole gender. Albert sees something in me that he can hardly bear. I suppose I can take comfort from the fact that it’s not personal.’

Laurent touched her hair. ‘Actually, it is. Yvonne was a redhead. Albert refers to her as “that perfidious
rouquine
”. Don’t look so unhappy. None of this is your fault. It’s
our
family’s history,
our
grief.’

And I’m sharing it
, she thought. From not knowing what to say a few minutes ago, she now wanted to tell Laurent everything. ‘As I walked to the woods the evening of the thunderstorm – must have been about five o’clock – I glanced back at the tower and saw somebody looking out at me.’

‘Who? Olive?’

‘Not Olive. She spent the whole day in the village. She didn’t get home till nearly dark. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Rachel.’

‘No, it couldn’t have been. She was escorting a group ride. They got caught in the downpour, had to turn back, and she spent most of the evening refunding customers’ money and hosing mud off horses’ legs. Besides, I told her not to come into the château again, unless invited.’

‘She could have slipped inside, I suppose.’ This was playing devil’s advocate, but Shauna wanted to test all possibilities.

‘But she wouldn’t have found the key,’ Laurent insisted. ‘I showed Isabelle a new place to hide it.’ Throwing down his dish cloth, he walked to the middle of the room and reached up, finding a split in the beam from which he pulled a short, black key. Shauna recognised it as the one for the tower bedroom.

‘Could Isabelle have gone up there?’ she suggested.

‘Be serious. Isabelle couldn’t climb those steps, even before her fall.’

‘Somebody was up there, staring across. At me, or past me, I’m not sure. I felt… Miserable. And frightened. I ran.’

‘You weren’t seeing a person, Shauna.’

‘It was no mirage. You won’t convince me otherwise.’