by Sara Craven
She had just hung away her coat, when there was a sharp rap on the door, and Andre came in, his face set and unsmiling.
He said, ‘Have you spoken yet to your mother?’
‘There’s still no answer. I’ll try again later.’
‘You will be wasting your time,’ he said. ‘Monsieur Hargreaves is also trying to find her. He wishes to arrange for Barrowdean to be cleared for the new tenants. Yet he has learned that she has flown out to the Seychelles to take a holiday with your sister, and cannot be contacted.’
He paused. ‘You knew of this plan?’
Ginny bit her lip. ‘Well, yes, but I had no idea she meant to leave so soon.’ Or, more worryingly, leave no details of her trip.
He frowned. ‘I find her decision curious. Does she fully understand the terms of my father’s will—its financial implications for her?’
‘I think so.’ Ginny flushed. ‘But you also have to understand how stressful everything has been for her—losing Andrew and—all that’s followed.’ Including my decision to come here...
‘She was probably too desperate for an interlude away from it all to consider the cost.’
‘Then she must learn to do so,’ he said drily.
He paused again, his eyes studying her, travelling from the startled, vulnerable curve of her mouth down to the thrust of her breasts under the thick sweater. Reminding her silently that layers of clothing were no protection at all.
He said, ‘But you chose not to accompany them.’
She looked away. ‘It was never really an option. I—I needed to find permanent work. And, of course, I still do.’
‘So this time at Terauze is your own—interlude, peut-être?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘More like being caught between a rock and a hard place. But I came here to work, so if you’ll explain the routine, I can get started.’
‘There is no hurry,’ he said with a shrug. ‘First become accustomed to a new country and a new life.’
‘But I want to do my share,’ she said vehemently. ‘I’ve no intention of being just a—a kept woman, however temporary. I need to know you’re getting your money’s worth.’
His face suddenly relaxed into a wicked grin. ‘Vraiment?’ he drawled.
‘Then it is only necessary to have my clothes brought here to this room, and everything arranges itself.’
‘Like hell it does.’ It was difficult to sound positive when she was blushing again, her body burning up. ‘I haven’t the slightest intention of sleeping with you.’
‘Believe me, ma belle, sleeping was not my purpose either.’ Andre was laughing openly now. ‘But, if you insist, I can wait until you are my wife.’
‘Something else that is never going to happen,’ she said defiantly.
‘Alors, if you wish a task to perform,’ Andre went on as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘then you can come down and make me some coffee and we can drink it while we talk.’
She said quickly, ‘I don’t want any coffee—and I need to tidy my room.’
The firm mouth twisted. ‘Even though we both know that there are things to be said? Questions still to be answered?’
She forced a smile. ‘Even so. I—I don’t want to make more work for Madame Rameau.’
There was a silence, then he said quietly, ‘As you wish. Then we shall meet again at lunch, a midi et demi.’
As soon as he’d gone, Ginny got out her mobile phone and keyed in the Welburns’ number. To her surprise, the call was taken not by the housekeeper but Jonathan, who seemed equally astonished to be hearing from her.
‘Where on earth are you?’ he demanded.
‘In France,’ she said over-brightly. ‘Visiting Andrew’s other family.’ Which, she hoped would confer a kind of respectability on the trip. She paused. ‘But there’s rather a snag. I need to speak to Mother and Cilla fairly urgently and I can’t remember the name of their hotel. Can you remind me?’
‘Your solicitor has already asked me, and I have no idea.’ There was a chill in his voice. ‘Your sister left me a message as brief as it was uninformative. And Mrs Pelham says that neither Cilla nor your mother took their phones. So we’re all in the dark.’
Ginny said uncomfortably, ‘I think it was all last minute and very rushed.’
He said bluntly, ‘I’m afraid I don’t find that much of a consolation. Not when Cilla and I are due to be married in a few months. But it seems on a par with everything else that’s been going on. Now you must excuse me. I’m on my way out.’
Ginny sank down on the edge of the bed, staring at her phone as if it might grow teeth and bite her. Because this was certainly not the response she’d expected.
What on earth had possessed her sister to put herself out of touch and out of reach on the other side of the world? And from her fiancé of all people?
Everything else that’s been going on...
The words had an ominous ring about them, she thought, recalling Jon’s open discontent at the dinner party.
Of course Andre had never actually admitted having an intimate liaison with Cilla. But nor had he denied that their mutual and very public attraction over dinner had continued in private, she thought, sinking her teeth into her lower lip.
But how could Cilla—when she loved Jonathan?
Maybe she couldn’t help herself, said a small annoying voice in her head. Just like you.
She sighed and put her phone back in her bag. If there were to be many more calls to England, she would need to top it up with money as well as recharge the battery.
But maybe that wouldn’t be necessary if, as she hoped and prayed, she would soon be on her way back to a new life and a worthwhile career. If Andre kept his part of their bargain.
And as long as she didn’t have to keep hers...
She looked down at herself. Pressed a hand against the flatness of her abdomen, telling herself that everything would be all right and she had nothing to worry about. That Fate wouldn’t play her such a dirty trick.
Telling herself, too, that she needed to stop brooding and find something else to occupy her mind.
She’d offered an obvious fib about her room, which was already immaculate, so she retrieved the thriller she’d bought at the airport, stretched out on the bed and began to read, keeping an eye on her little clock as she did so.
When she presented herself punctually in the kitchen, she found the meal more than lived up to its promise, the chicken falling off the bone and the vegetables perfectly cooked in the rich and subtly flavoured sauce.
To her own astonishment, Ginny ate every scrap of the generous portion she was given and still found room for a large slice of tarte tatin under Madame Rameau’s indulgent gaze.
In faulty but robust English, she informed Ginny that she was too thin. That a breeze of the most small would carry her away, enfin, and a man liked a woman that he knew he was holding in his arms.
And no prizes for guessing what man she was referring to, thought Ginny, avoiding Andre’s sardonic glance across the table, and furious to find herself blushing again, as if she was going for some all-time record in embarrassment.
When the meal was over, Andre said, ‘I have to go back to Dijon this afternoon, Virginie, so there is no need for you to hide away in your room again. Clothilde, who believes you need rest, has lit the fire for you in le petit salon, which you will find more comfortable.’ He paused. ‘Also some of my mother’s books are there. Please choose anything you want.’
‘Thank you,’ she returned stiffly.
‘That is, of course, unless you wish to come with me. You might enjoy seeing Dijon in daylight.’ He added softly, ‘And it could appeal in other ways.’
‘That’s kind of you.’ She tried to ignore the swift unwelcome shiver of her senses at the thought of what they might be. ‘
However, I’d prefer to wait until I take the flight home.’
‘As you wish.’ His shrug was unperturbed. ‘Although you may wait a long time. But the choice is naturally yours.’
As if I’m here of my own free will, Ginny thought rebelliously as she returned his ‘Au revoir.’
Once he’d departed, Madame Rameau decisively rejected any help with clearing away, and conducted Ginny through another door into what she realised was the main entrance hall.
Baronial, Ginny thought as she looked around her, doesn’t get near it. There was an enormous fireplace, easily able to accommodate an average ox at the far end, while the centre was occupied by the biggest table she’d ever seen, its length measured by a series of elaborate silver candelabra. If that was where dinner would be held, any conversation would need to be shouted.
Nor was the petit salon particularly small. And although the furnishings were definitely more shabby than chic, the room looked inviting, with the pale sun coming through the long windows and logs crackling in the grate.
In the centre of the marble mantelpiece was a charming ormolu clock, clearly dating from a different century, flanked by two exquisitely pretty porcelain candlesticks, and a photograph in a silver frame.
A family group, she realised, with a slender dark-haired, brown-eyed woman at the centre, her tranquil features lit by a glowing smile, her hand resting on the shoulder of an adolescent boy, while a broad-shouldered man stood protectively behind them.
Even at half his age, Andre was unmistakable, she thought. And now that she’d had her first look at his mother, she could see what Mrs Pel had meant. No beauty, certainly, but with a sweetness about her that shone through.
While Bertrand Duchard, whom she would meet that evening, had a tough, uncompromising face which seemed to warn ‘Don’t mess with me’.
And I was hoping for twinkly-eyed benevolence, she mocked herself as she turned away, deciding that before she left Terauze for ever, she would offer Andre the photo of his father she’d brought with her to fill the space on the other side of the clock.
This, after all, was where Andrew had really wanted to be, in exchange for his beautiful, luxurious home and his standing in the community. His marriage...
He might never have persuaded Rosina to get this far, she mused wryly. But she’d been his wife, for better, for worse, and surely she’d deserved, at least, to be given the option.
Yet, for some unfathomable reason, she thought restively, he believed I’d fit right in. In heaven’s name why?
She’d intended to continue with her thriller but it was upstairs, so she wandered over to the tall glass-fronted bookcase to see if she could find something more engaging. She discovered a mixture from Dickens, Hardy and Tolkien to modern detective stories mingling with some interesting literary fiction.
In addition she found Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and several novels by Honoré de Balzac and Dumas both in the original and in English translations, plus a well-thumbed French grammar, suggesting that the late Madame Duchard had been working to improve her knowledge of her adopted language.
A worthy ambition which I’ve no wish to emulate, she told herself with determination. It smacks too much of making myself at home—which I’m not and never will be.
In the end, out of sheer nostalgia, she picked The Hobbit and retired with it to the elderly but still comfortable sofa facing the fire.
But perhaps she knew the story too well because, after a while, she found her mind drifting.
The result, she thought, pulling a cushion under her cheek, of the warmth of the room and the large lunch which had preceded it. Whatever, it would do no harm to close her eyes for a minute.
When she opened them again with a start, the room was in darkness and the logs in the fireplace had burned away to ashes.
My God, she thought, struggling upright and pushing her hair back from her face. I must have slept for hours.
And she’d dreamed. Dreamed she was back at Barrowdean, walking through a series of empty unfamiliar rooms, searching desperately for—something. Eventually hearing in the echoing distance the deep-throated bark of a dog, and calling ‘Barney’ begun to run.
I must have said it aloud, she told herself, and that’s what woke me.
Only there it was again, the sound of a bark, gruff, excited and close at hand. She turned to stare towards the door. It opened and light flooded the room at the press of a switch. Then, with a scrabble of paws, Barney was there hurling himself across the room at her, paws up against her chest and licking every inch he could reach. No dream, but solid golden reality.
‘Barney. Oh, darling boy.’ She was off the sofa, kneeling on the rug with her arms round him, her face wet with sudden uncontrollable tears.
She looked over his head at Andre lounging in the doorway, his face inscrutable. ‘Oh—how did you find him?’
‘He was never lost.’ He paused. ‘Or did you believe I would leave him in England?’
‘But surely there are rules and regulations about taking dogs abroad. Vaccinations—paperwork—stuff like that.’
‘Already completed by my father. I had only to change the dates of Barney’s collection and flight.’
‘He flew?’
‘Bien sûr. There are companies that specialise in such arrangements.’
‘I didn’t know.’ She bent and put her cheek against the golden head. ‘I—I thought I’d never see him again. You could have told me.’
He shrugged. ‘Or you could have asked. Alors, it was Marguerite who told me of your distress at your mother’s ultimatum. Not you.’
She flushed. ‘My mother has never liked dogs. And I didn’t think you’d care.’
‘You have much to learn,’ he said flatly. His gaze travelled from the sofa to the dead fire. ‘You have been asleep?’
‘Well, yes.’ She got to her feet. ‘Perhaps Madame was right and I did need a rest after all.’
There was an odd silence, then he said quietly, ‘She is rarely wrong.’ He clicked his fingers and Barney went to him, tail like a metronome, pushing his head against the long jeans-clad legs just as he’d always done with Andrew, forcing Ginny to bite her lip hard.
She said, ‘I don’t know how to thank you for this.’
He said softly, ‘Vraiment? Yet I can think of many ways, each more pleasurable than the last.’
Her flush deepened. She said unevenly, ‘You don’t make being here any easier for me with remarks like that.’
‘And when you are my wife,’ he said, ‘will you expect me still to guard my tongue, or shall I be allowed to tell you that I want you and how I intend to please you in bed?’
There was a note in his voice that made her breath catch in her throat and sent an unwelcome trembling sensation rippling across her nerve endings.
Hastily, she pulled herself together. ‘You may be certain this marriage will happen,’ she said curtly, ‘but I’m not.’
‘C’est ce que nous verrons,’ he said, and smiled at her. ‘That, ma mie, remains to be seen.’ He turned and went out, Barney padding beside him.
She followed them both to the kitchen. Barney’s feeding bowl and water dish were in the scullery area, but his basket was by the hearth and he went straight to it and sat looking round him.
She said, ‘He’s had quite a traumatic time. A plane trip and now finding himself in strange surroundings.’
‘But not with strangers.’ Andre bent to fondle Barney’s ears—a gesture she remembered. ‘And the girl who accompanied him said he was a born traveller.’
‘All the same,’ Ginny went on quickly, ‘I think I’d better stay quietly here this evening. Help him settle down.’
He said blandly, ‘There is no need for that, ma mie. He too is one of the family now and will dine with us.’
Damn, t
hought Ginny, who hadn’t seen that coming. I can’t say I’m tired, having slept most of the afternoon, and if I complain of a headache, he’ll probably have a whole cupboard full of painkillers.
So it looks as if I’ll just have to make the best of this dinner en famille, even though I’d rather be a hundred miles away and still travelling. Not stopping until I reach some place where life will be simple again.
And knew with a pang that achieving her ambition would not be as easy as it sounded.
* * *
Ginny rarely bothered with cosmetics but, she told herself, on this occasion she needed all the help she could get, especially as the most respectable garment she possessed was the grey skirt she’d worn for Andrew’s funeral, teamed this time with a paler grey scoop-necked sweater.
Not exactly gala gear, but better than the taupe dress, she thought ruefully, as she applied a touch of blusher to her face and emphasised her eyes with silvery shadow and a soft grey pencil. Her only lipstick was a neutral shade between pink and beige, but it would have to do.
After a swift spray of scent, she gave herself a last, critical glance in the mirror and went downstairs.
Jules was sitting at the kitchen table and he looked across at her with open surprise, then across at Andre, his lips forming into a silent whistle. Andre merely grinned back at him.
One of those male bonding moments that women love so much, thought Ginny, biting her lip and wondering if her neckline wasn’t a little too scooped.
‘Papa is waiting for us in the grand salon,’ Andre informed her. ‘Tonight the Château Terauze is en fête in your honour, ma belle.’
He snapped his fingers and Barney uncurled himself from his basket and came to join them, padding sedately between them as they crossed the great hall.
Suddenly nervous, Ginny cast about for something to say and came up with, ‘Does Jules have a girlfriend?’
‘A new one every week,’ he responded. ‘Why do you ask? Are you thinking of adding to their number?’
She wondered how he’d react if she said, Actually, I fancy him rotten, but decided not to take the risk.