‘Of course it was a prank. Mike?’
But Mike Ladriss was looking around for somebody. ‘The fellow who owns this place, the Comte de Chemignac. Is he here?’
Shauna pointed to the pony cart. Laurent and Rachel hadn’t moved. Two waxworks, melting into one another.
‘Right.’ Mike strode towards the cart, then walked right past. Shauna opened her mouth to say something, but in the end, just followed. Her mother came after her. Mike had positioned himself in front of the straw bale throne. He’d obviously misread her pointing finger.
‘Um, Mike, that’s not the Comte, that’s Albert —’ but he’d evidently sealed his ears to her now.
She heard him say, ‘Monsieur de Chemignac, what you did was utterly and absolutely unforgiveable.’ Soft-spoken, given to wry observation and quiet irony, Mike Ladriss exercised his anger-muscle only rarely. It was obvious to Shauna that he exercised his French even less. His syntax and grammar were all over the place. But the emotion was real. Shauna caught the giveaway tremor.
‘Utterly unforgiveable,’ Mike repeated. ‘A mean-spirited act that could have ruined a young woman’s life and destroyed her hopes.’
Shauna thought – he’s about to accuse Albert of falsely accusing Yvonne of treachery ... But how does Mike know?
People were shuffling forward, curious. Mike noticed them, and addressed them haltingly. ‘I don’t suppose this gentleman imagined I’d come all the way from England, stand in front of him and demand explanation of a nasty piece of slander. Well I’m here, and I’m not moving until I have his explanation.’ From his pocket, Mike pulled a sheet of paper which he waved at Albert. ‘Do you have the guts to apologise to the lady in question, Monsieur le Comte?’
Albert de Chemignac stared up at Mike Ladriss in absolute horror.
Mike turned to Shauna and asked in English. ‘Why isn’t he answering?’
‘Because he’s not the Comte de Chemignac.’ She took the paper. It was a fax with an August date. Sent by Mike to her, here. On university letterhead, it was informing her that the Cademus job was unexpectedly up for grabs, Allegra Boncasson having got a better offer. It urged Shauna to come home and it wasn’t one of the guarded, depersonalised missives a man of Mike’s status was supposed to send to a student. No, he’d let rip with some fruity comments about Allegra’s father and the financial chicanery that had secured Ms Boncasson the job in the first place. Had Shauna received it, she’d have laughed, and would probably have burnt it. But of course, she hadn’t seen it. Shauna read the handwritten lines at the bottom, and finally understood her mother’s reference to “Place Pigalle”.
Loitering … What she lacks in erotic technique, she makes up for in va-va-voom.
Blanching, she searched for the signature. Laurent? No!
No. ‘Laurent de Chemignac did not write this, Mike. I can prove it. Look at the hand-writing.’
Mike took off his glasses to see better close-up. ‘I’m not sure… What are you saying?’
‘It’s not French cursive, which Laurent writes. It’s English handwriting. You can tell from the letter “r” in “erotic”. The French form their “Rs” completely differently to the way we do. An English person wrote this.’
Mike put his glasses back on and held the page further away. ‘I see what you’re saying.’
‘Besides,’ Shauna felt herself blush, ‘Laurent doesn’t use crass sexual metaphors like “va-va-voom”. He isn’t sexist.’ He was sexy, but that wasn’t for Mike to know. ‘And he wouldn’t sign himself that way. He doesn’t even have “Comte de Chemignac” on his cheque book.’
‘So who is he, this Comte de Chemignac?’ Mike demanded.
Shauna pointed to Laurent, but all Mike saw was an unshaven young man in Bermudas and T-shirt that could have come from a charity shop’s remainder bin. A young man standing with a girl in a stunning dress. They were locked as close as lovers in a telephone booth. He returned the fax to his pocket. ‘Is it possible that the lady in mauve wrote it?’ he said quietly. ‘Something about her strikes me as singularly obsessive.’
‘She loves a joke, so long as it’s at someone else’s expense.’ Unable to bear the sight of Rachel with Laurent, Shauna turned and saw Albert regarding her with loathing. She addressed him in French, ‘A good move, Monsieur, don’t you think? Punish your rivals, set them up. Whatever it takes.’
Albert de Chemignac twisted his lips. ‘Casse-toi, rouquine.’
Isabelle had hobbled up to them, and hearing that remark, she flashed anger at her uncle. ‘Don’t you dare! This girl has saved our skin this summer. A little more gratitude for the sacrifice of others might have made you a better man, Albert.’
Albert muttered something oblique in reply. Shauna felt certain that he was bitterly regretting stealing Madame Guilhem’s throne and would like to make his escape, but hadn’t the physical strength.
Audrey was urging everyone to the table. ‘Quick, come along, or the food will spoil.’ When she clapped her hands, the crowd responded, people heading to the tables. But not everybody. Laurent and Rachel were still lost in their bubble. Impatiently, Audrey chivvied the dawdlers. ‘We can’t start without you all. Monsieur Albert, Madame Duval? To table, please.’ She touched Elisabeth’s hand. ‘Welcome back, Madame.’
‘You recognise me?’ Elisabeth asked in astonishment.
‘The redheaded English girl who found true love at Chemignac? More silver now than red, but you are still a legend. Please, take your friend to the table.’
‘We’re not really friends,’ Elisabeth said, giving Mike Ladriss a long look. ‘More “things that go bump at the station”.’
‘Ah, pardon,’ Audrey said, frowning because she didn’t understand at all. ‘But take him to the table anyway.’
Shauna offered Isabelle her arm, though food was the last thing she wanted. Isabelle didn’t move, just stared at Albert. And he stared back, his pupils shifting. Mike’s impassioned reproach had badly frightened him, Shauna realised. Albert had really believed his transgressions were about to be recounted to his family and neighbours. He looked like a man finally facing his direst nightmare.
Laurent and Rachel emerged from their trance. They approached, like dancers, their footfall oddly weightless. Shauna rubbed her eyes. Then went cold as Isabelle uttered a mewling cry. It was not Laurent and Rachel coming towards them. It was Henri and Yvonne.
‘It’s Papa,’ Isabelle grasped Shauna’s hand, her grip transferring her disbelief and shock. Shauna put her arm round her and blinked, convinced she’d open her eyes and discover it was a trick of a sun low on the horizon. But she couldn’t deny it, the womanly shape under the Gown of Thorns was not Rachel’s. It was lithe, but not gym-sculpted. The arms and neck were pale, with a redhead’s freckling. The lips were smiling, the eyes deep green under a crown of copper hair. As for him – it was Laurent, with a hint of a rakish, thin moustache. Laurent, an older version. He caught her eye, reminding her wordlessly that she’d held both versions in her arms.
They stopped in front of Albert. ‘Tell her,’ Laurent–Henri commanded the old man. ‘Tell Isabelle the truth.’
‘I don’t…’ Albert started to cough. Softly, persistently, behind his hand. He flapped feebly at Rachel–Yvonne. ‘Why is she wearing that dress? Nobody is allowed to. It’s cursed.’
‘Tell Isabelle who betrayed the men of Chemignac and the English agents!’
‘She did!’ Albert pointed at the guilty one. He pointed at his niece. At Isabelle. ‘She revealed the English spy in the window. They were all in the tower room. My brother and the English whore were fornicating, but Isabelle de Chemignac gave them away. She pulled the blackout down from the window.’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ Isabelle said in a piteous voice. ‘It was a big, old picture. I held it and its wire broke.’
‘Ah, but there were Germans in the grounds, watching.’ Albert’s smile was pure malice. ‘They were crouched at the edge of the wood. They saw into that room, and saw the face
of a wanted woman.’
Shauna felt a tremor passing down Isabelle’s spine.
‘It’s true,’ Isabelle quavered. ‘I betrayed my papa because I could see he was falling in love and I wanted her gone. I would have thrown Yvonne out of the window if I could! But never would I have hurt my papa.’
‘You did not betray anybody, chérie,’ Laurent said, though it was decisively Henri who spoke. ‘We were already sold to the enemy.’
‘Then she did it!’ Albert blazed at the figure in the Gown of Thorns. At Yvonne, because it was she he was seeing. Even as he accused, he strained away from her, as much as his straw throne would allow. When the Gown of Thorns threatened to touch him, he writhed as if his flesh were burning.
‘I was not the informant.’ Yvonne’s voice rippled with long-suppressed rage. ‘I was a fool, for sure. I fell in love when I should have been doing my job. When I finally got home to London, SOE wiped the floor with me. Thoroughly deserved. But you evaded judgement all your life, Albert, letting poor little Isabelle believe she killed her father. How cruel! And you traduced my name. I should have come back and got you by the neck…’ Her hand flashed out and Albert gave a strangled shout. ‘Now tell the truth. You were betraying us even before we arrived. You gave the co-ordinates of the landing field and the parachute drop to the Milice, didn’t you?’
‘Why would I?’
Henri took over. ‘You’d overheard me discussing the arrival of foreign agents with Luc. Always lurking outside windows and doors! You cycled into Garzenac on the pretence of an evening’s drinking, and passed the details on to your contact at the police prefecture.’
Albert said nothing.
‘The Milice did badly in that battle, losing more of their own than they shot of ours. The Germans liked to let the Milice take the casualties on those occasions. They were in no hurry to arrest me. Why risk a gun-fight within the château? Had you not warned them that it was full of dark corners and ambush points? They waited like cats at a hole in the skirting board, knowing sooner or later I must come out into the open. You decided to make their job easier.’
Albert shook his head.
‘When did you go first to the Gestapo at Bordeaux? Spring of ’43, or earlier? Maybe it was when the forced labour laws came in, and you wanted to be spared the call-up. You were in touch with Nazi informants in Garzenac. You practised signalling with lights. You showed your contacts where our secret tunnel lay. Do you deny it?’
Albert made no answer. But when a figure walked stiffly up to his throne and hurled a bouquet of faded roses at his feet, he made a sound of pure panic.
‘Never forget, never forgive.’
It was Raymond, struggling with emotions and the agony of a herniated back. Raymond Chaumier, who never strayed nearer the château than the yard outside the chai, nor ever walked onto the meadows because he would not breathe the same air as Albert de Chemignac. ‘I know what you did,’ he said in a purring voice, his eyes like olive stones. ‘I could write the book about you, Albert. If I choose not to, it is only for Isabelle’s sake.’
Albert managed a sneer. ‘I’d be surprised to hear that you can write anything at all, Raymond.’
Raymond left, as if the few moments’ proximity were too much.
Henri put his hand on one of his brother’s knees, and its sudden trembling showed how terrified Albert was. ‘I wanted my life, brother. I wanted to love and marry a fine woman. I wanted to see my children grow and to harvest my grapes. I would have retrieved my buried bottles and used the money to replant my vineyard. You stole everything, and you dare to sit enthroned?’
‘Not true! Any of it!’
‘Perhaps this will draw a confession from him, Henri.’
Shauna became aware of Yvonne reaching into the neck of her gown. She was extracting a leather thong with a cigarette lighter hanging from the end. The one Rachel wore. Surely she didn’t intend to take revenge as brutally as that?
As Yvonne flicked up a flame and held it towards the nearest bale, Shauna surged forward and grasped her arm. Hers and Yvonne’s torsos meshed and it was like looking into her own soul. We’re family. She knew it beyond doubt. Our irises are the exact same mix of green and hazel. ‘I won’t let you do it. One more atrocity won’t change what’s happened.’
Yvonne’s pupils expanded with humour. ‘They didn’t train us to be nice, you know. He’ll tell us the truth when it’s him feeling the pain, and I don’t have much time.’
‘The war’s over.’ Shauna snatched the lighter, breaking the leather cord against Yvonne’s neck. ‘That dress has corrupted you!’ She reached for its fluid neck, wanting to tear it to shreds, until Yvonne’s shrill protest broke the spell. The dream-state fled and Shauna was looking at Rachel, who was rubbing her throat and regarding her with furious disdain.
‘What the hell did you break my pendant for? That really hurt.’
‘You’ll live.’ Shauna threw the lighter far into the long grass. Albert was slumped in shock. Isabelle was leaning heavily on her stick, breathing erratically, but her expression was full of wonderment. Shauna turned to the man she loved. Laurent was back – just.
She said, ‘At least Isabelle now knows it wasn’t her fault that her father was killed. That’s something. Laurent?’
He was staring beyond her, at Rachel. Shauna promised, If he touches her, smiles at her, I will leave and never come back.
He didn’t smile. He was frowning, as if he’d just noticed something out of place. ‘Rachel, go and take that dress off. You’ve no right to wear it.’
Rachel flicked her hair and pushed out her lips. ‘You’re going to say it brings bad luck, I suppose. You believe that crap?’
He said slowly, ‘This dress is a magnet for powerful emotions, and it’s dangerous. Please take it off.’
‘Seriously?’ Rachel waited for him to add something, and when he didn’t, fetched up her mocking smile. ‘Fine, if that’s what you want.’ She untied the waist cord. Ignoring Shauna’s gasp, she pulled the Gown of Thorns over her head and dropped it at Laurent’s feet. Then walked away.
Later, Rachel Moorcroft was to say, ‘I left Chemignac without a backward glance, and every eye in the place on me.’
Shauna reached for Laurent. His hands were marble cold. She shook him to snap him back from wherever he was drifting. ‘Shall I go too?’ she demanded harshly. ‘Is it over? Was I just a harvest fling? The way you were gazing at Rachel, wrapped in her arms—’
‘It wasn’t about her.’
‘Um, hello?’ Shauna mimicked a lovelorn stare.
‘I wasn’t seeing her. I saw the Gown of Thorns and understood. That dress embodies our fears. Our dreams and our bitter failings. My father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather – they all fell in love with the Gown of Thorns. Each in turn was ripped apart by misfortune, war, betrayal. The dress isn’t cursed, but the century that made it most certainly was.’ He tipped back his head, inviting sunlight to strike his face. ‘I feel as if I drank a bucket of bad brandy. And look at those clouds… Rain tonight and the harvest in. We’ve been blessed.’
When he stood tall again, he was smiling. ‘You,’ he said.
‘Me?’ Shauna yelped as he picked her up in his arms and held her level with him, then kissed her with unselfconscious desire. Clapping showered them as their friends at the table expressed their delight. The diners began banging their cutlery in rhythm, urging Laurent and Shauna to join them for the feast. Laurent put Shauna back on her feet and moved away, still holding her hand. Stretching their clasp as far as it would go. ‘Madame?’ he invited. ‘Shall we go to our table?’
‘Ours?’
‘Of course. You are one of us now. You are part of me. I exist in you.’
Before going to join them, Isabelle spared a glance for Albert. Reluctantly, she too held out her hand. ‘You are an evil old man, and in time you will go to your judgement. But for the wrong you did me, I forgive you. Come and join your family.’
Chapter Twenty-Ei
ght
Shauna had never encountered such a variety or such a quantity of food as that prepared by the women of Chemignac village. Tarts, cold pies, vibrant salads, rice moulds, Spanish paellas, game pâtés, meat, fish and vegetarian terrines. Laurent presided at the head of the table, Shauna on his right. Everyone was tucking into the food – everyone but Laurent and Shauna. Her stomach felt expanded – as if someone had exploded a firework behind her a short while ago and the shockwaves were locked inside. She had to keep checking that Laurent was really Laurent, his soul once more his own.
Actually, he still looked a shade absent. But Audrey did not intend for her culinary efforts to be ignored. ‘Fill your plates,’ she chided, ‘or everyone will imagine there’s something wrong with my cooking! Laurent, how would you like it if nobody drank your wine?’
Laurent nodded and cut himself a large slice of duck and apricot pie. Filling Shauna’s glass, leaning forward to top up Isabelle’s, Elisabeth’s and Mike Ladriss’s, he proposed a private toast. ‘To family, new friends and enduring friendship.’ Turning to Shauna, he raised his glass again. ‘To love.’
He spoke louder than he meant. Quickly, the toast spread down the tables until soon, everybody was noisily raising their glasses to l’amour. Shauna tried to line up something intelligent to say, in case this good-natured company expected some kind of speech from her. She caught Mike’s eye and he returned a half-smile, and later, passed a note to her on paper torn from his pocket diary.
Love, one. Science, zero? he’d written.
Her answer was to make an origami lily from the page, place a red grape in its centre and push it across the table to him. She watched him trying to work out the hidden meaning. There was no hidden meaning. She didn’t know the answer because actually, the question was wrong. She wanted both her career and Laurent’s love and didn’t really see why they should be mutually exclusive. Laurent had as good as invited her to take a wine master’s course and study viticulture, and to help him grow his business. Did he still want that from her, and could she combine it with the medical research for which she’d trained all her adult life?
A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress Page 26