by Lynne Graham
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GINNY AWOKE WITH a start, and lay for a moment wondering what had disturbed her.
She had not expected to sleep at all, yet it seemed she had done so, and deeply, because her supper tray, delivered with chilling disapproval by an unsmiling Madame Rameau, had been removed at some point without her being aware of it.
It was still early, but a persistent sense of restless unease drove her out of bed and across to the window to open the shutters on another cloudless blue sky lit by a misty sun.
She had not believed, that first morning, that she would ever find the view of the vines so appealing, or how quick she would be to see how they changed with the passing weeks. Or how much she would miss them. Miss everything, she thought. And everyone.
At present, the sap was rising, making the branches look as if they were weeping. Not that she’d seen it for herself, of course. It was one of the pieces of information that Cilla had acquired and eagerly passed on.
When she came to dress, after her shower, she found she was wrestling with the zip on her jeans, a discovery adding to her woes but spurring her into action at the same time.
I need to go online, she told herself. Now, while I have the house to myself. Find out about flights back to the UK. Jump before I’m pushed.
As she made her way up to the office, she became aware of an unfamiliar noise. A vague but persistent whine of machinery in swift bursts, getting louder as she mounted the winding stairs.
The office door was slightly open. She pushed it wider and saw Monique Chaloux on her knees, feverishly feeding sheet after sheet of paper into the shredder, oblivious to the fact that she was being watched.
But she shouldn’t even be here, Ginny thought, startled. This isn’t one of her days. And that stuff she’s shredding looks like bank statements.
So what on earth’s going on?
She said quietly, ‘Bonjour, mademoiselle. Ça va?’
The older woman glanced up, her face as white as the paper she was destroying. She was far from her usual soignée self. Her clothes looked as if they had been thrown on and her hair needed washing.
‘You,’ she said, almost spitting the word. ‘What are you doing here?’
Ginny walked forward, raising her eyebrows. ‘I think that should be my question.’
‘And my own business,’ Monique retorted. ‘You are not mistress here yet.’
‘Nor are these working hours,’ Ginny said levelly. ‘So who authorised you to destroy these documents and why?’ She saw Monique hesitated, and bent, dragging the shredder’s plug out of the wall socket. ‘I’d like some answers.’
‘You would like. You would like.’ Mademoiselle’s voice was harsh and jeering. ‘What are you? Nothing but an interfering English bitch like that other one. Just as pale, just as dull.’
She got clumsily to her feet and even across the room Ginny could see she was shaking.
‘I believed she was my friend, but instead I had to watch while she took the man I loved. Even when she went away, he could not forget her, and when she came back, enceinte with another man’s baby, he married her. C’etait incroyable.’
Her voice rose. ‘He should have loved me. I could have given him children of his own, not the leavings of some Anglais.
‘When she died, I thought I had been given another chance. So I returned, hoping that at last he would see me as the wife he should have taken.’
She gave a strident bitter laugh. ‘And he was grateful to me, ah, oui, and kind. All these years, so grateful and so kind. Until the night of Baron Emile’s birthday when I saw Andre fasten the Baronne’s rubies round your throat, and I knew then I had wasted my life in vain hope.
‘I realised that I would have to see another putaine Anglaise in the place that should have been mine, and once again I would leave Terauze with nothing.’
She shook her head, a trace of spittle on her rigidly smiling lips. ‘But not this time.’ She looked down at the remaining papers crushed in her hand. ‘All these years of devotion deserve a generous reward from the Duchards and I have taken it.’
Ginny stiffened. My God, she thought. She’s been stealing money. Maybe those computer glitches were deliberate. A cover-up. If so, this is real trouble. And I’m not just uneasy. I’m beginning to be scared.
She said quietly, ‘I’m sure Baron Bertrand truly values you, mademoiselle.’ She paused. ‘So why don’t I go and find him, so you can talk things over.’ She added carefully, ‘Before things get serious.’
Mademoiselle’s eyes glittered with malice. ‘You mean before they send for the police? You are a fool. They will not do so.’ She shrugged almost gleefully. ‘Bertrand knows what I am truly owed, and he can afford the loss. Nor will he want the brouhaha of an action in the courts. The Duchard name is a proud one and your sister’s disgraceful affaire is scandal enough for the moment.’
She nodded. ‘En plus, I have been clever, taken care a couvrir ma marche. They will be glad just to let me go.’
‘You say you love Monsieur Bertrand,’ Ginny whispered. ‘Yet you can do this to him.’
Monique Chaloux gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘Love? What do you know of love, a silly girl with water in her veins instead of blood? No wonder Monsieur Andre amuses himself elsewhere. You deserve no more.’
She reached for a large leather bag on the floor beside her, stuffing the remaining statements into it. ‘Et maintenant, I am finished here,’ she added.
‘But I’m not.’ Ginny lifted her chin. ‘Because you’re not getting away with this. I’m going straight to Monsieur Bertrand.’
She turned and went quickly down the stairs. As she reached the turn, she was pushed violently as Monique barged past her. She grabbed desperately at the rail of knotted silk rope on the wall, missed and fell forward, crying out as her body rolled and jolted down the remaining stone steps, crashing into the door at the bottom.
She felt a sudden blinding pain in her head, and the world went dark.
* * *
There was something shining above her, a light so bright it managed somehow to penetrate her closed eyelids, making the previous darkness seem friendly. She tried to ask someone to switch it off, but her voice wasn’t working.
Also somewhere in the distance, someone else was speaking. Whispering, so that she had to strain to hear him, ‘Virginie, mon ange, mon amour. Wake up, chérie. Look at me, je t’en supplie.’
The voice was familiar but the words made no sense. No sense at all. Just the same, she tried to obey, but forcing her eyes to open was altogether too much of a struggle. Besides, she was aware of pain, a ferocious ache like the jaws of an angry animal waiting to devour her.
It was easier to decide that she must be asleep and dreaming, and let herself slide back into the tenuous comfort of her inner night-time.
But the voice would not let her rest, calling her, ‘Ma douce, ma belle.’ Commanding her, ‘Reveille-toi.’
And he was being joined by others, none of whom she recognised except for Cilla, sounding strangely choked, as she begged, ‘Oh Ginny, please speak to me. Please say you’re all right.’
And she wanted to say crossly, Of course I’m not all right, because the pain was no longer at bay, but all around her, grinding at her when she attempted the simplest movement.
When, at last, she opened her unwilling eyes, she discovered a different kind of light in the form of the sun streaming through a large square window, in a room with ice-blue walls where she lay in a high, narrow bed.
And she thought—Where am I? What’s happened to me?
She turned her throbbing head slowly, wincing, and saw Andre, unshaven, dishevelled and fast asleep in a chair a few feet away.
He looked terrible, she thought, filling her eyes and her heart with him, physical discomfort almost forgotten
as she thought of his voice—the things he’d said to her. Until, of course, she also remembered it had only been a dream.
She said his name, her own voice a husky shadow of itself, but somehow he must have heard it because his eyes snapped open and he sat up. For a heartbeat he stared at her with something like incredulity, then, with a noise like a yelp, he was out of the chair and racing to the door, yelling, ‘Philippe.’
Within seconds, the room was full of people led by a thin dark man with lively dark eyes and a goatee beard, who shone something like a pocket torch but infinitely more powerful into both her eyes and took her blood pressure before asking her in careful English if she knew what day it was.
It took a moment, but she told him.
‘You know why you are here?’ the doctor enquired. ‘What happened to you?’
For a moment Ginny was silent, then as if a curtain in her mind was slowly being raised, she remembered being jostled. Trying to save herself but pitching forward.
She croaked, ‘I fell. On some stairs.’
He nodded approvingly. ‘Très bien. Vous êtes couverte de bleus, mademoiselle, mais rien est cassé. Vous comprenez?’
‘I’m very bruised but nothing’s broken,’ she said obediently. Then tensed, smothering a gasp of pain. She whispered, ‘But the baby. I’ve lost my baby, haven’t I?’
‘Heureusement, non.’ He smiled at her reassuringly. ‘As I told Andre, a fall does not always lead to une fausse couche, and the child is still safe and warm inside you.
‘No, our concern has been the blow to your head which has caused une commotion cerebrale. A concussion.’ He nodded. ‘We shall carry out some more tests, but there is no internal bleeding and I believe the injury to be not serious.’
But there had been a serious injury of a very different kind, thought Ginny, as events and images began crowding back into her mind. And the results could be dire.
She said urgently, ‘Andre—I have to speak to him. There is something he must know. Quelque-chose très importante.’
He clicked his tongue reprovingly. ‘It is more important that you rest and recover, mademoiselle. But,’ he added, his face softening, ‘I will allow you a few moments with your fiancé, if first you must take the painkiller and the sedative the nurse will give you, so that you sleep when he has gone.’
And how many tons of the stuff would it take to knock her out at nights when he’d gone for ever? she asked herself wretchedly as she swallowed the proffered pills.
When Andre came in, he looked as if he was wired to snapping point. Maybe his doctor friend should prescribe a sedative for him, thought Ginny, her heart turning over as he brought the chair close to the bed and sat.
He said, stammering a little, ‘Philippe said—that you have asked for me. That you have something to tell me.’
His hand went out as if seeking hers, and she withdrew it quickly, knowing that his lightest touch, especially if offered only in compassion, could cause her more pain than any bruise.
She said breathlessly, staring down at the white coverlet, ‘It’s Monique Chaloux. I found her in the office shredding bank statements. She’s been stealing money from you—probably quite a lot. I—I was coming to tell you about it when I—fell.’
There was an odd silence, and when she ventured to look at him, she saw that he was white beneath his tan, his eyes bleak with shock, and a kind of desperate disappointment.
Small wonder, she thought. After all, it was the last thing you wanted to hear about someone you’d known and trusted for so long.
At last, he said quietly, ‘I think you mean when you were pushed. Monique has admitted to that too.’
‘Admitted?’ she echoed.
‘Why, yes,’ he said. ‘At this moment, she is, as you would say, helping the police with their enquiries.’
‘But you mustn’t let her!’ Ginny tried to sit up and wished she hadn’t. ‘She’s going to say foul things in court about Cilla.’ She looked away, swallowing. ‘About her getting married. It will be dreadful—for everyone.’
He shrugged. ‘Monique est terriblement snob, as all the world will tell you. And if Papa welcomes the marriage, as he does, what else can matter?’
She said in a low voice, ‘Of course, you’re quite right.’ And paused, taking determined control of her emotions. ‘How did you find out about Monique?’
‘Jean Labordier from Credit Regional notified us that a new account had been opened in the name of the Domaine, and he wished to check the letter of authorisation. This, of course, was false,’ he added with a grimace. ‘But we arranged for the account to be left open to see what would happen. We discovered that Monique was quitting her appartement, so Papa tried several times to talk to her—almost to warn her, but it was of no use.’
‘But how could she do this to your father, when she claimed to love him?’
‘Because her love was not returned,’ he said with sudden harshness. ‘And she never learned to understand how that can happen—or to forgive.’
She said haltingly, ‘That’s—not an easy lesson.’
‘I do not need to be told that.’ Andre paused. ‘Yesterday, Jean telephoned to say that one hundred thousand euros had been transferred to the new account. This morning she was arrested, with attempted murder added to the charges against her.’
Ginny gasped. ‘Isn’t that going much too far?’
‘You think so?’ he demanded roughly. ‘When you could have fractured your skull—broken your neck? Do you know the agonies I suffered when you did not immediately regain consciousness? When I realised that Philippe was trying to warn me that because of the blow to your head, you could be brain damaged or suffer a fatal haemorrhage?’
He added, his voice shaking, ‘And you could have lost our child.’
Yes, she thought. It could have happened. My one precious link to you taken from me. Leaving me with less than nothing.
She braced herself. Kept her tone spuriously bright. ‘Yet here I am, safe and soon to be well again. Well enough to leave, anyway, and let you get on with your life.’
‘A thousand thanks,’ he said with intense bitterness. ‘And now, unlike Monique, I suppose I must learn to forgive you. Even to hope you will find the happiness that I have been denied. All that I dreamed, if I was patient, I would discover with you, the love of my heart.’
In spite of her bruises, Ginny sat upright. ‘You dare to say that to me?’ Her voice was incredulous. ‘To speak as if I am to blame for ending our mockery of an engagement? When you’re planning to marry my sister?’
The dark brows snapped together. ‘I—marry Lucille? What madness is this?’
‘Oh, don’t pretend,’ she said hotly. ‘You slept with her in England, and when she turned up here, you resumed the affair. Do you deny you encouraged her to stay for as long as she wanted?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘That at least is true. But for Jules’ sake, not mine. I could see that he too had suffered the coup de foudre—that moment when you look into a woman’s eyes, and know that your life has changed for ever. He begged me to persuade her, and against my better judgement, I did so.’
‘Jules,’ Ginny repeated. ‘You mean—Jules Rameau?’
‘How many others do you know?’ Andre demanded impatiently.
She said slowly and carefully, ‘You’re telling me that Cilla and Jules are together and planning to be married?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘C’est incroyable, n’est-ce pas, what love can do?’
‘Well, yes,’ Ginny said doubtfully.
‘You do not see them as a couple? Yet Jules is the strong man that I knew she truly needed. With him, she has grown into a woman, not the spoilt, selfish child who came to my hotel room because she was bored with her fiancé, and wanted a little adventure.’
Ginny gasped. ‘Did she tell you
so?’
‘Of course,’ Andre said drily. ‘And she was most shocked when I made it equally clear that she was wasting her time and sent her away.’
‘But she let me think you’d been lovers.’
‘She is no longer that person, Virginie. Ask her again and she will tell you the truth.’ He paused. ‘But when she arrived here, it was that capacity for making mischief that concerned me when she and Jules began spending time together.
‘I was not really sure of her true feelings until our day in Beaune. I needed to find out if she was truly committed to spending her life here in Burgundy, or whether she would decide in the end that England had more to offer.
‘Because Jules, I know, will never leave here.’ He added sombrely, ‘And I could not bear for her to break his heart, Virginie, as you were breaking mine.’
‘But you only brought me here because you realised I might be pregnant and you felt guilty.’
‘Yes, there was some guilt,’ Andre admitted. ‘Because I had rushed you into a relationship you were not ready for. But I always intended to bring you back here with me, ma mie, because I was very aware I could not live without you.’
He paused. ‘When I came to the house for the reading of the will, I was late, I was tired and I was angry because I knew the problems it would cause. Then the door opened, and you were there, with my father’s dog at your side, as if you were waiting for me. I saw how pale you were, how unhappy, and I wanted to pick you up in my arms and keep you safe for ever.
‘And in that moment, I knew that the greatest happiness this life could bestow would be to come home each day and find you waiting for me.’
She said unevenly, ‘But you were still angry.’
‘That is true.’ He was rueful. ‘Because it was something I did not expect and I do not appreciate shocks. Also, if I am honest, it was something I did not want. A wife—one day, peut-être, but not immediately. But you changed my mind, ma belle.’