Tower of Shadows (5 page)

injured.'

He swore violently under his breath, and Sabine found herself

being propelled without gentleness into her own passenger-seat.

He slotted himself in behind the steering-wheel, and started the car

first time. Bastard, she thought. Know-all.

'Show me.'

'It was just before the fork.' In spite of the heat of the day, her teeth

had begun to chatter. 'I was standing on the grass—just standing

there. She —saw me, and — and —ran into a tree. I —I didn't

believe it.'

'No?' There was a kind of savage irony in his voice, and the dark

eyes seared her. 'I do.'

The damage to the Peugeot looked even worse as they approached,

and Sabine groaned under her breath. The driver was sitting up,

holding a hand groggily to her head.

'How did she get there?' Sabine was asked with a curtness that

threatened to remove a layer of skin.

'I put her there. I suppose I shouldn't have moved her, but I was

worried about the petrol tank —the car exploding.'

But he was already out of the car, ignoring her faltering

explanation. He went down on one knee beside the older woman.

'Tante Heloise.' His voice had gentled quite magically. 'Keep still,

and try to be calm. Jacques has gone to call an ambulance.'

'No.' A thin hand gestured in agitation. 'It isn't necessary. I bumped

my head, that's all. I don't wish to go to the hospital. Just take me

to the house.'

'You should have treatment. There may be some concussion.'

'No, Gaston must not be worried.' Her voice was stronger, more

forceful, and she was struggling to get up. 'Take me home, and

send for Dr Arnaud if you must.'

As he helped her up, her gaze went past to him to Sabine, who was

just getting out of the car to offer her assistance. The returning

colour drained out of her face again, and she looked on the point of

collapse.

'
Mon Dieu!'
she said, her voice hoarse and strained. 'Isabelle.'

Sabine flinched, but she kept her tone low, controlled. 'You are

mistaken,
madame.
My mother is dead.'

The woman cried out, and sagged against the man holding her,

pressing her face against his arm. He turned his head and glared at

Sabine. It was a look she recognised instantly, although it was the

first time she'd seen it in the flesh. He was the young boy in the

photograph, but over six feet now, with broad shoulders and lean

hips. The scowl too had gained at least another twenty years of

maturity. It had a lethal edge now which cut her to the bone. She

knew she didn't deserve such scorn, but she felt herself shrink

back, just the same.

'Get in the car,
mademoiselle.'
Contempt scored every word.

'Haven't you done enough harm today? You're not wanted here.

Go, and don't come back.'

She was trembling all over, holding on to the car door for support,

despising herself for her own weakness. Dry-mouthed, she said, 'I

would —only I don't think I can drive just yet.' She lifted her chin,

glaring back, refusing to allow herself to be bested completely.
'
Or

do you want to sacrifice another tree?'

For a long moment their glances clashed like swords, then there

was a shout behind her, and she turned to see the two men he'd

been talking to and a short stout woman in a dark overall running

towards them.

'Jacques.' One of the men was singled out with an imperative

finger, which was then stabbed at Sabine. 'Take her wherever she

wants to go. Only get her off this estate now, you understand?

Before more damage is done,' he added in an undertone.

It was unjust and degrading to be hustled away like this, Sabine

thought. She'd had a shock herself. She'd rescued this woman —

his aunt presumably — from her crashed car, and gone for help. So

much for gratitude — and the much vaunted French hospitality,

she thought almost hysterically as Jacques, his face expressionless,

indicated that she should resume her seat in the car.

She looked back, and saw that Tante Heloise was being led away

on the arm of the stout woman.

He was examining the damage to the Peugeot, and didn't even

glance in the direction of the departing car.

She sank back into her seat, still trembling. She hadn't expected to

be greeted with open arms, but the reception she'd actually

received had shaken her to the core. Isabelle must have left a

legacy of frightening bitterness behind her in this place in order to

set off a reaction like that.

She found it totally incomprehensible. She tried to remember

Isabelle objectively — wondering how she would have regarded

her if they had simply met as strangers, but all she could call
to

mind was her mother's warmth, and gentleness and capacity for

love, and a slow anger began to build in her. She could excuse

Ruth Russell to a certain extent. She was a jealous and overly

possessive woman who would have loathed anyone her brother

had married.

But there was no defence to be made out for the people she'd met

today. The small voice inside her, urging her to cut her losses and

go back to England, leaving the residents at the Chateau La Tour

Monchauzet to stew in their own rancour, was being overwhelmed

by a furious determination to vindicate her mother's memory at all

costs.

I'm not going to hang my head and run, she told herself. Nor will I

be treated like —a pariah. They may have driven my mother away,

but they won't get rid of me so easily.

Jacques slowed the car for the bridge. 'Where do you wish to be

taken,
mademoiselle?'
he asked with chill formality. 'You have

arranged accommodation?'

She'd noticed an attractive country hotel on her way through

Issigeac, and thought she might as well return there. Her lips

parted to tell him so, and then she heard herself say, to her own

amazement, 'Take me to Les Hiboux, please.'

His head jerked round to look at her, and he missed a gear change.

'Les Hiboux?' he repeated. 'But that is an empty house.'

She said coolly, 'Which I believe belonged to my mother, Isabelle

Riquard.'

'Why, yes, but —'

'I intend to use it,' she cut across him flatly. 'Is it far from here?'

Jacques would normally, she guessed, have an open, cheerful face,

on the borderline of good-looking, but now he looked distinctly

glum.

'No, not far. But M'sieur Rohan would not wish. . .' He hesitated in

turn. 'It would be better,
mademoiselle,
for me to take you to the

nearest
syndicat d'initiative.
Someone there will be able to arrange

a room for you. It would be wiser, believe me.'

She could guess the identity of M'sieur Rohan only too well, and

steel entered her voice. 'And I prefer to stay at Les Hiboux. If you

won't take me, then stop the car here, and I'll find my own way.'

His mouth tightened. 'The
patron, mademoiselle,
instructed me to

drive you wherever you wished to go. And that is what I shall do.'

Jacques called this Monsieur Rohan 'the boss', but surely that

didn't mean he was the Baron de Rochefort? The girl at the Maison

du Vin had said the
Baron
was in poor health, and this —Rohan

looked capable of strangling tigers with his bare hands.

The thought of him —the way he'd looked at her, and spoken —

made her start to shake again, but this time with temper. She

looked out of the car window, struggling to regain her composure.

In other circumstances, this would have been a pleasant drive.

Freed from the necessity to concentrate on the road, she could

have admired the sweep of the rolling scenery of broad fields

dotted with cattle, and tree-crowned hills. There were a few houses

here and there, some clearly centuries old, their stones weathered

to a cream, and pale sand, dark shutters closed against the power

of the south-western sun. Others were distinctly modern, looking

sharp and raw against the soft colours of their rural backdrop, but

all were built with the steeply sloping roofs and heavy timbering

that she'd already come to recognise as typical of the region. She

remembered reading that all kinds of property, as well as building

land in the Dordogne area, was being snapped up by the British

and the Dutch.

But the only real sign of activity she could see were the tractors, at

work in some of the fields, cutting hay. Certainly, they'd passed no

other vehicles.

It was totally tranquil, utterly serene, stamped with an ageless

certainty and stability, and, for the first time, Sabine realised what

poets had meant when they sang of
'La Douce France'.

I belong here, she thought fiercely. They won't send me away.

They had turned on to a side-road now. In the fields on both sides,

the grass grew high, interspersed with the crimson splash of

poppies. They passed a grey stone workshop selling agricultural

machines, a small garage with two petrol pumps, and a war

memorial surmounted by a statue of Christ on the cross.

They turned again on to an even narrower track, its tarmac pitted

and holed, with grass growing down the centre of it. Far ahead of

her, Sabine could see a cluster of buildings, obviously a farm, but

on her left, set back from the road across an expanse of roughly

cropped grass and stones, was a smaller property, whitewashed

walls, and earth-red tiles, standing alone.

She did not need Jacques's laconic, 'We have arrived,

mademoiselle,'
to tell her that this was Les Hiboux. Somehow, she

already knew.

The house presented a defensive, almost secretive face to the

world, she thought, as they approached. Fronting the road was a

long wall bisected by a low archway, and terminated by a structure

like a squat tower, surmounted by the usual pointed roof. As far as

she could see, the rest of the house seemed to be single-storeyed.

She reached for her bag, her hand closing on the bunch of keys, as

Jacques brought the car to a halt.

They both got out, and he looked at her, his pleasant face serious,

even concerned. 'You wish me to come with you — to make sure

all is well?'

'Thank you, but no.' She needed to be alone for this. 'How — how

are you going to get back to the chateau? Do you want to borrow

the car and return it later?'

'There is no problem,' he assured her. 'By the road, it seems a long

way, but I need only to walk a kilometre across the fields beyond

the farm. It is nothing.'

Following his indication, Sabine realised with a hollow feeling that

all they'd done was skirt the hill where the chateau stood; that Les

Hiboux in fact stood beneath La Tour Monchauzet, but on its other

side — and still in its shadow.

I could have done without that, she thought, and the short-cut past

the farm.

'M'sieur Rohan will wish to know where I have brought you,

mademoiselle,''
Jacques said uncomfortably. 'He will not be

pleased to know you are here, but I cannot lie to him.'

'Then tell him the truth,' Sabine said with bravado.

Jacques's brow became increasingly furrowed. 'He is a good man,

mademoiselle
— all the world would tell you so —but he has had

to be strong —to bear everything on his shoulders. It has not been

easy—and he does not like to be crossed.'

She thought, I knew that before I met him.

She shrugged, forcing a faint smile. 'I'll take my chance.' And

paused. 'Before you go, can you tell me where I can get supplies?

Without being disloyal to M'sieur Rohan, of course.'

There was a palpable hesitation, then he sighed. 'There is an

Intermarche in Villereal,
mademoiselle.
Now goodbye — and

good luck.'

He sounded convinced she would need it, Sabine thought as he

trudged off. She looked up at the hill, but the chateau was invisible

from this angle behind its enshrouding of trees. But it was there,

just the same, like prying eyes peering round the corner of a thick

curtain.

And he was there too. She was starkly aware of it. A man it was

not wise to cross, whose angry scorn had already bruised her. And

a man to whom she had just thrown down a deliberate challenge.

She said again, 'I'll take my chance,' and walked towards the

archway.

SABINE didn't know what to expect. This had been her mother's