A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress (25 page)

A
mber beads sprayed
with atomised honey was how Shauna described the bloom on the Semillon grapes. They were reaching the end of the second day’s picking, and that would complete the main white grape harvest. A half-hectare would be left to succumb to ‘noble rot’, a strain of botrytis mould essential to the production of sweet Monbazillac wine. What was needed, according to Laurent, was a humid spell followed by drying winds. Without the dryness, they’d get rotten grapes, good for nobody.

True to their agreement, they’d not spoken of Yvonne or Henri since their night in the tower room. Laurent needed every grain of energy for the
chai
. Loaded trailers left the vineyards in relay, the crushers and presses roaring and grinding the day long. The vats were filling.

‘You’ve missed a cluster.’

Shauna tensed. Even if she hadn’t recognised the walking stick and round-toed boots planted on the ground beside her, she’d have known that critical tone. Without looking up from the vine she was denuding, she said, ‘I’ve seen it, Monsieur. Thank you.’

‘You missed another one further back.’

‘Because some of the grapes looked rotten. But feel free to check.’ The boots did not move.

‘I know what you are,’ Albert de Chemignac said, not seeming to care who heard.

Madame Guilhem, who’d specially requested another stint as Shauna’s picking partner, paused, scissors aloft. ‘Don’t fight with him,’ she advised in a low voice.

But Shauna had waited a long time for this moment. She got to her feet. ‘Did you know, Monsieur Albert, there are as many redheaded people in my home county of Yorkshire as there are in Ireland? We have a reputation for being fiery tempered, but it’s not strictly true.’ She breathed down her rising emotion, reminding herself that whatever else he was, Albert was an old man. He was looking all at once wary, or perhaps he was trying to follow what she was saying. So she explained. ‘You say you know what I am. But what is that, exactly? It’s convenient to stereotype people, particularly if you’re out for a scapegoat – “Oh, it was that
rouquine
, the redheaded one. The foreigner. Put the blame on her, since she’s not around to argue back.” I’ve discovered something extraordinary, Monsieur.’ Shauna lifted her hair at the roots and let it fall. It had grown out of its bob in the weeks she’d been here and the highlights were fading to reveal her natural colour. ‘She
is
here. Yvonne is here, looking out through my eyes. When the harvest is done, you, me, Laurent and Yvonne are going to talk. Maybe even Henri too. We’re going to reminisce about old times. Talk about the war years. What would you think of that?’

Albert did not reply, but made his escape as fast as his painful joints allowed him.

P
ipes everywhere
, the elephant-roar of the crusher… The
chai
was still going full blast when Shauna joined Laurent there, bringing another of Audrey’s packed suppers with her. No competition from Rachel this time. Shauna had come from the kitchen by way of the stable yard, and had seen her rival leading horses out to the fields, Adão alongside.
You fry your fish, I’ll fry mine
.

Armand, who had just delivered a final tractor-load, gave her the thumbs-up when he saw her, and nodded appreciatively at her overalls. Taking the basket, he said, ‘You are the cavalry! Raymond’s back has gone again.’ He nodded towards his colleague, who looked sick with pain. ‘Laurent wants him to go home, but he won’t. Now we can say you’re here to relieve him.’

Laurent turned off the crusher and silence rocked the air. ‘This lot into the press, then we’ll put that lot –’ he indicated the trailer that had been backed into the
chai
, the half-barrels on its back overflowing with white grapes – ‘into the crusher. Then the Semillon is finished!’ He was shouting, but everyone did that here until they adjusted to the machines being off. A few minutes later, the place was shuddering again as the press got to work on the de-stalked white grapes, sending juice up through a pipe into a stainless steel vat. Laurent climbed a step-ladder at its side.

‘He’s ensuring the pipe is securely connected,’ Armand roared at her. Shauna was helping him decant grapes from the crusher into the press. ‘If it comes away, a geyser of juice paints the ceiling. It happened to him in his first season here, when Albert was watching. Ha! You can imagine.’

As Shauna emptied the last bucket into the press, Laurent raised his hand. ‘OK, we’re full. Switch off.’ He asked for a jug, which he dunked into the vat. Armand brought four glasses.

They let Laurent taste first. ‘Mmm-hmm.’

Raymond and Armand echoed his opinion, though Armand added, ‘
Oui, très jolie
.’
Lovely.

Shauna gulped the cool, smooth liquid, hit first by its sweetness, then its complex fruitiness.

‘What do you taste?’ Raymond asked her.

‘Honey…’ Her appreciation of a good wine had developed apace since her first days here, but these men had spent their adult lives tasting. She didn’t want to come across as pretentious or ignorant. ‘And grape of course.’

‘What does your palate tell you?’ Laurent had his nose over the rim of his glass. Unlike her, he’d taken only a sip or two.

This time, she let the liquid stay in her mouth for a few seconds. ‘Citrus. Lime, I think. Yes, lime, not lemon. Passionfruit sorbet. And – ’ she might as well give them a laugh – ‘buttered toast and the leaves of
Ribes
, a garden shrub we call “Flowering Currant” in England. I suppose that comes from the volatile compounds—’

Armand waved away the science, saying to Laurent, ‘She has a good palate, this one. You should send her to Bordeaux to a wine master’s course.’

‘What wouldn’t I give to keep her.’ Laurent downed his juice and started shovelling grapes from the trailer into the crusher.

‘
R
aymond has been chewing
pain killers all day,’ Laurent confided to Shauna once the two of them were finally alone in the silent
chai
. ‘I said that if he didn’t rest, he’d not be fit to help with the red grapes. He’s not missed a harvest here in over thirty years.’

‘Who brought in the 1943 harvest, after your grandfather —’

‘Albert and the village women.’ Laurent laid a finger against her lips. ‘Not them, not now. You and I are going to spend the next few hours cleaning this place until every microbe and every mould-spore is vanquished. Never say I don’t show you a good time.’

Together, they sluiced out the crusher and the press using hosepipes and brushes. Every time Shauna thought they’d cleaned the steel components, more grape residue splurged out. ‘It’s like squashed slugs and beetle wings,’ she said.

‘That is the most romantic thing a girl has ever said to me.’

She sprayed him with the hose. He got it off her and squirted her. Soon, they were both soaked, spattered with grape grunge. Declaring a moment’s recess, Laurent turned off the water and took a bottle of four-year-old dry Semillon from the fridge in the corner and poured them a glass. He showed her the label with its ‘Clos de Chemignac’ coat of arms. ‘This one ages well and I love it, though most growers blend Semillon with other whites.’

‘But you do things differently.’ They clinked glasses. She drank. ‘Mm, I like it. It’s… Grown up.’

He laughed in pleasure. ‘I’ll put that on the back of the bottle. “A grown-up wine, ideal for drinking with sensible seafood and highly-responsible meat.”’

After that, a dozen more things had to be hosed down and re-sterilised. The sun was sinking as they closed the
chai
behind them. They stood, hand in hand, not speaking. Shauna thought –
he does this every day, for weeks.

A breeze took some of the moisture out of their overalls. Tomorrow, they’d be picking the Cabernet Sauvignon vines, two days’ labour topped off by the
fête de vendange
. Audrey had promised that it would be a feast to remember, telling her, ‘The women in the village consider it an act of friendship to help this year, for Isabelle’s sake and for yours, because now you are one of us. You have proved yourself.
Voilà!
’ Stepping back, Audrey had cupped Shauna’s face and stroked her red hair as tears welled in her eyes. ‘You and Yvonne must have been kin,’ she murmured.

‘Yvonne – a relation? Audrey, what do you know of her?’

But Audrey had turned away and Shauna had to be satisfied with the very real compliment that had been paid her. Being accepted by Chemignac’s wives and mothers was the finest accolade she could ever hope for.

Now, she bent to rub her aching knees. ‘I can see why a lifetime here leaves you all limping and crippled,’ she remarked to Laurent.

‘Let’s walk it off.’

They crossed the meadows. Evening mist rose from the shorn grass, icy on the toes. The air’s perfume was of resin and roses. ‘I love this place,’ she said. ‘I don’t ever want to leave.’

‘What Armand said about you doing a wine master’s course… You could study viticulture and oenology, all the wine sciences. My own
oenologue
. My own genius. There’d be no stopping us, though all the other growers would want to kidnap you!’

‘Lock me up in the turret then!’ she joked, unsure if he was proposing or offering a job. ‘But surely you’d let me out every September?’

‘September and October.’

Before they reached the woods, they turned back to look at the château. The tower loomed milky-grey and Laurent stifled a shudder. He said, ‘Soon, we’ll take a few days to ourselves. Go away maybe? I want to ask you…’ He broke off. A window shone bright at the top of the tower. A window where there ought to be solid stone – stones they’d both seen and touched. They stared at panes of glass throwing back the sunset. A figure stood behind the glass. Female, undoubtedly.

‘That’s what I saw!’ Shauna gripped Laurent’s hand. ‘I didn’t want to believe it.’

He squeezed her hand in return and she felt his rising excitement, and his fear too. He said, ‘I saw the window and the girl years ago, when I was just a bit older than Nico. It scared the hell out of me and everybody I spoke to about it shook their heads and turned away. When you related the same experience, I couldn’t quite cope with it. Who is she?
What
is she?’

‘If we close our eyes and count to ten, she’ll be gone.’

They did, and she was, and so was the window.

‘It could be Yvonne,’ Shauna said. ‘Asking for justice. Albert framed her for a war crime and she wants her name cleared.’

‘You have it in for Albert.’

‘You bet I do!’ Shauna hooked her arm around Laurent’s waist, sensing his desire to stride away. ‘
I
have no family allegiance getting in my way. What we experienced last night was no hallucination, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Albert as good as threatened to betray Yvonne and Henri. He had the opportunity and the motive. He desired Yvonne, but she had eyes only for his brother.’

‘Fraternal jealousy… Is that motive enough? We’re talking of the most vicious of crimes.’

‘My God, Laurent, you’ve clearly never been passed over in favour of someone else! Sex, money and revenge tops the charts of motives for murder. Albert had them all. He was lustful and humiliated, out to get even, and his brother’s death – your grandfather’s death – handed him control of Chemignac. How many years was it until your father took over the reins?’

‘About twenty-five.’

‘So – Albert de Chemignac got control of the family farm for a quarter of a century and all the blame, all the mud-slinging and howls of “treachery” landed squarely on Yvonne.’

‘Motive and opportunity doesn’t make a person guilty.’

‘Won’t you give Yvonne the same benefit of the doubt?’

He replied, but Shauna didn’t hear as she was already walking into the woods. She knew Yvonne was innocent and Laurent knew it too. Or he would do, by the time she had finished with him.

He caught her up. ‘Where are you heading?’

‘That cave,’ she answered, ‘then the memorial stone. I want to see how far apart they are.’

‘We don’t know where the cave is, remember. We couldn’t find it even in broad daylight.’

‘So.’ She gave him a meaningful push. ‘That proves my point.’

A silence. ‘Which is?’

‘That somebody close to your grandfather betrayed the tunnel’s existence to the Germans. You said it yourself at Monty’s, your phrase was, “Sold out to the Gestapo”.’ She walked on, her mind spewing pictures. ‘I’m guessing that something forced Henri and the English agents to flee from Chemignac. They emerged from the tunnel straight into the arms of the Gestapo. Imagine a bitter, desperate struggle—’ Actually, Shauna didn’t have to imagine it. She’d shared the men’s panic at the mouth of the cave. That stampede to get away, and the feeling of splitting apart, of the mind flying outwards… That was death by machine-gun fire. ‘None of them had a chance. Cyprien drained of his strength, Jean-Claude hobbling.’ Henri, trying desperately to protect his guests and save himself, until a hail of bullets felled him… She shook the images away. ‘My guess is that the Germans meant to take them alive, perform a little virtuoso torture to extract information about the Resistance and British intelligence. After which, they’d shoot them in the square at Garzenac as a warning to others. But the men wouldn’t surrender and, after a bloody massacre, they had bodies on their hands. They dragged them to a nearby clearing because they wanted to keep the existence of the tunnel a secret. It might be hiding an arms cache, or other supplies. Resistance fighters might be tempted to use it again, and be captured in their turn.’ Hearing Laurent’s troubled sigh, she re-issued her point. ‘We couldn’t find the cave. So how come the Germans did? Why were they waiting, weapons cocked? Who showed them where the tunnel came out?’

‘Yvonne. My grandfather led her through the tunnel. Albert always insisted a woman knew too much.’

‘What did she know, though, really? Henri took her to the cave, but only after he’d hustled her along a maze of paths, through acres of woods,
at night
. You admitted yourself, even you wouldn’t have a hope of finding that cave in the dark.’ Shauna looped her arms around his neck, kneading his muscles until he relaxed and their lips met. ‘Besides, you’re being too logical, Laurent. Think with your body. That’s how Yvonne was thinking on the night it all ended.’