A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress (3 page)

The one evil of technology, to Shauna’s thinking, was that it made rejection easy. Fire off an email, job done. Whatever happened to sitting down with a person and looking them in the eye?

Watching Isabelle assembling her
Sobronade
, Shauna wondered if her mistake in life was too much planning. Plans hadn’t stopped Jason going to the States. It hadn’t stopped Shauna’s father dying. Nor had it prevented Isabelle’s widowhood, which, Shauna had gleaned, had begun almost thirty years ago. ‘Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.’ John Lennon hadn’t even realised how ironic he was being when he said that.

For some reason, Shauna’s eye was suddenly drawn to a narrow door in a corner of the kitchen. ‘That leads to the tower,’ she said without thinking.

Isabelle looked up from her casserole. ‘How on earth did you know that?’

‘I’ve no idea. Can I go up?’

‘The children can show you, though they don’t like it up there.’ Isabelle explained hastily, ‘Because they are outdoor beings. It’s a lot of steps to climb, and there is only a bedroom at the top. The view is good, I grant you. If you like old rooms with cobwebs and sad memories, go any time. Me, I like my feet on the ground.’

‘You never go up there? Oh, I’m sorry,’ Shauna exclaimed as Isabelle tapped the crook of her walking cane. ‘Nothing about you seems old,
Tante
Isabelle. I forgot about your limp.’

‘I wish
I
could forget it, but there. If I had not fallen, you would not be here.
C’est le destin
. Elisabeth’s girl! Tell me, which shade of red is your natural hair?’

Shauna touched her short layers. ‘Um… My real colour is what we call “strawberry blonde”.’

‘
Blond Vénitien
? How pretty. You should let it grow out. But not now,’ Isabelle added hurriedly. ‘I mean, well… Here it would fade in the sun.’

Shauna suspected that Isabelle might not have meant that at all.

‘
G
randmère
, we’re home!’ The kitchen door was flung open.

‘Well, I didn’t think it was a visitation of angels. Olive, Nico, say hello to Shauna. She’s on her feet now.’

Shauna laughed as two children clad in up-to-the-minute sportswear looked her up and down, taking in her short print dress, cropped cardigan and bright hair.

‘You are wearing gold rings on your toes.’ Olive stared, fascinated, at Shauna’s criss-cross sandals.

‘Cool,’ said Nico.

‘I always think toes get neglected. Why shouldn’t they have jewellery too? Happy to meet you properly at last.’

Olive, twelve, and Nico, ten, were tall for their age. Brunette like their grandmother, their deep tans were accentuated by their white sports kit. They were chatty too. Over dinner, they peppered Shauna with questions about British sports stars and pop groups. She tried to give useful answers, but when Nico asked which soccer team she preferred, Arsenal or Chelsea, she had to admit that she only cared about Sheffield United as that was her home team and even then, she didn’t care very much.

‘If you don’t watch soccer, what
do
you do?’ Nico asked, bewildered.

‘Read. Study. I dig about in forest floors and peer under stones to see what’s crawling about beneath.’ Laughing at their bemused expressions, she explained, ‘I studied biomedical sciences at university. I spent the last two years researching plant medicines for my MSc. Master of Sciences,’ she translated. ‘I’m taking a year out, then I may go back to do my doctorate.’

‘Are you a professor?’ Olive asked, with a glint that might imply respect but which was more likely astonishment. People were often downright disbelieving when Shauna told them she was a scientist. Something about the pixie hair, the fact that she was barely five-foot-five and did not wear glasses. People had fixed ideas that female scientists resembled either Jodie Foster, or Rosa Klebb from
From Russia with Love
. ‘Not a professor, no. My ambition is to carry out research and work in industry. I don’t see myself teaching.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Isabelle cut in, ‘did Elisabeth mention that I wish you to give the children two hours’ English coaching each day?’

Olive and Nico issued a simultaneous groan.

‘She did, and that’s no problem, if you don’t mind them ending up with a northern accent.’

‘We all have a regional accent,’ Isabelle laughed. ‘I promised their mother they’d finish the holidays well ahead in their studies. Two hours a day, nothing but English.’

‘What will we talk about?’ Nico’s eyes burned with anxiety.

‘You can show me Chemignac and the vines,’ Shauna suggested. ‘I’d like to see them.’
And Laurent, just possibly.

‘They’re boring.’ Nico wrinkled his nose. ‘Lumps of green with silly grapes on them. All of Chemignac is boring, apart from the horses.’

‘My grandchildren are sports mad, as you must have noticed. But like you, they can read and study when they set their minds to it.’ Isabelle got up to cover a plate of food with silver foil, explaining, ‘I’m taking this next door.
Oncle
Albert won’t eat with me while the children are here. He cannot bear modern manners. Olive, go fetch some books to show Shauna. Nico, fetch the apple tart from the pantry. Shauna, help yourself to another glass of wine. It’s our 2001 Sauvignon Blanc. What do you think? Not a bad year.’

It tasted exquisite to her, though to be fair, pub Chardonnay was the limit of her experience. Shauna watched the children doing their grandmother’s bidding and knew that she liked them.’
Should have boned up on Arsenal and Chelsea, though.

Olive came down with
Le Seigneur des Anneaux
– the French translation of
The Lord of the Rings
– announcing that J.R.R. Tolkien was the best writer in the universe, ever. Recognising common ground, Shauna said, ‘Why don’t we get hold of the English version and read it together?’

‘Laurent has an English copy,’ Nico piped.

‘Repeat that in English,’ Shauna commanded. They might as well start as they meant to go on. Nico struggled through the sentence, then reverted to French. ‘Let’s go find him. He’ll be in the
chai
.’

‘What’s—’

But the children were already outside. They moved fast, Shauna was discovering, out of sight before she’d put on the straw hat Isabelle had found for her.

S
hauna guessed
the direction the children were heading in. Leaving the courtyard by a side gate, she found herself on a track lined with the spindle-shaped cypress trees that were the predominant vertical feature in this landscape of vines. Ahead stood a huddle of stone outbuildings and she saw the children dash into one. Presumably the
chai
– pronounced ‘shay’. She found the door they’d left half-open. Breathing deeply as butterflies took off in her stomach at the thought of seeing Laurent, she stepped inside and – before she could catch herself – said, ‘Wow!’

Built of venerable old stone in keeping with the rest of Chemignac, inside the
chai
was as slick as any modern food-processing unit. Its walls were panelled with fibreglass sheets and its concrete floor shone wet, evidence of a recent hosing. Hearing the pulse of water hitting a hard surface, she followed a snaking hosepipe. As she approached the source of the noise, she began to understand that Clos de Chemignac was no small wine-making concern – not if the ten or so towering silver vats were all full at once. A line of handsome oak barrels stole her attention, but she didn’t count them because she saw the children just then. They were peering inside the porthole of what looked like a concrete bunker, their voices echoing over the hiss of water.

‘Laurent!’ they shouted. ‘Laurent! She’s here!’

Glancing over Nico’s shoulder, Shauna got a spray of cold water in the face. Laurent was inside the bunker, which was a couple of feet taller than him – about the dimensions of a very small bedroom. Noticing her, he grinned. The first smile she’d had from him and it turned her blood to warm syrup.
Get a grip, girl.
He was absolutely drenched. Barefoot, too. Water spewed out of the sluice holes onto the giggling children. ‘Go turn off the tap!’ Laurent yelled at them, and the children ran to do it. When the jet ceased, he asked Shauna, ‘Have you come for a wash?’

Bereft of a witty retort, Shauna said, ‘I’ll pass, thanks.’

Olive skidded up to them, asking Laurent, ‘Can we borrow your
Lord of the Rings
?’

‘Sure. Though I thought you were too busy whacking the life out of tennis balls to read. It’s in the bookcase by…’ But the children had gone, like a pair of greyhounds. Laurent climbed out through the tank’s porthole and twisted the hem of his T-shirt, shedding droplets. ‘I hope you’re strong now, Shauna, or they’ll exhaust you.’

‘I’m fine. Thanks for electrolytes by the way.’

‘You’re welcome. I keep two stocks, one for my workers and one for my horses.’

‘Which did I get?’

‘They’re pretty much the same, though the dosage is different.’ Laurent’s next smile crinkled his eyes. He waited for her to say something.

‘Um, thanks anyway. For scooping me up…’ Shauna could hear herself urgently filling the silence, ‘and thanks for lending the book. Or agreeing to, anyway. It’s about nine hundred pages, isn’t it? Should keep us all out of trouble. They’re really nice kids. I just wish I knew more about soccer.’

‘Soccer… You mean English league football? Why?’

‘For Nico’s sake.’

‘Oh, Nico doesn’t care about football. He’s interested in footballing stars.’ Laurent began to wind up his hosepipe. ‘Any sports stars, actually, because that’s what they intend to become. Nico in tennis, Olive in gymnastics. Or show jumping, if that brings in the prizes faster. They could make it, I think. Their parents spend a fortune on their training.’ It was said without rancour or judgement, but with an edge Shauna couldn’t wholly translate.

‘Lucky them,’ she said, watching Laurent fix the hosepipe on to its bracket. Water belched out of the nozzle. ‘Having such dedicated parents.’

‘I think it’s more to make up for sending them to their grandmother all summer. To make up for handing them over to an au pair.’

And she’d thought him so friendly!
He’d said ‘au pair’ like ‘serving-wench’. ‘I still say they’re lucky,’ she swiped back. ‘This is such a beautiful place.’

‘Beautiful, but cruel.’ Laurent took a broom to the puddles that had collected outside the concrete tank, sweeping them towards a drain. The hands that had felt her pulse and tested her temperature were tense and she kept getting flashes of his thorn tattoo. She wondered what he’d say if he saw hers.

Troubled, she sought a change of subject and rapped her knuckles against the tank’s concrete side. ‘Is this the staff hot tub?’ She winced. Always a bad sign when she made jokes.

Laurent seemed to take her seriously, even more worrying. ‘It’s a holding tank for white juice, and a vat for red. After we’ve pressed our main red crop, Cabernet Sauvignon, we pipe it in there and let fermentation start. After the malolactic stage, we pump it into the steel containers. Malolactic means—’

‘The conversion of mallic acid into lactic acid, which gives wine its pleasant flavour.’

‘You understand viniculture?’

‘No, I’m good at pub quizzes.’ She left, not waiting to see Laurent’s response. Outside the
chai
, she let the evening air erase the goose pimples she’d walked out with. They’d sprung up as Laurent spoke the word “viniculture”. That husky French accent! She mustn’t fall for it or she’d never get out of here unscathed. For a while, she watched the swallows hoovering up midges as they darted between the roofs. In the lyrical trill of a song thrush, she heard an echo of her mother’s promise:
you’ll fall in love with this place.

Elisabeth had fallen for green-eyed Tim Vincent among Chemignac’s vines.
It won’t work for me
, Shauna told herself fiercely
.
I’m ‘reyt bad’ as they say where I come from, and all out with the world.
Laurent had just paid the price, getting his head bitten off in exchange for an innocent remark. She half hoped he’d come after her as she trudged back to the château, but he didn’t.

As she entered the courtyard, she saw a light flickering at the top of the tower.

S
hauna’s bedroom
was on the ground floor of Isabelle’s wing of the château. Though shadows had never worried her before, she found it hard to succumb to sleep that night. Her snarkiness with Laurent went round in her mind until she was sick of the memory of her own voice. After what seemed to be hours spent kicking her duvet, she drifted off, only to be jolted awake by the strangest of sounds. She sat up, her eyes trying to unravel the dark. Had she really just heard a gaggle of geese?

Her room lay on the meadow side of the house, and as she listened for a repeat, she imagined a white-winged advance from the fringes of the wood. Chemignac’s walls, picturesque during daylight, seemed suddenly threatening. Scuffling mice and the occasional house spider were one thing. Imagining she was about to be surrounded by powerful necks and pecking beaks… That was truly disorientating.

Pulling her quilt up to her chin, she drew her knees to her navel and closed her eyes. A moment later, she was sitting bolt upright as the same honking sound bubbled up behind her bedhead, seeming to come from within the wall itself. Geese, inside? Shauna stifled her breath, reminding herself that this was an old, old building. Its frame swelled in the day’s heat and contracted as the air cooled. What she’d heard could simply have been the settling of dry timbers. Or even the doves under the eaves.

She wasn’t convincing herself, though. During a holiday job on an organic farm in Wales, her morning task had been to let the birds out of their fox-proof coops and dole out the grain. The racket made by twenty-four Brecon Buffs flapping to be first to the feeders was engraved on her mind.
She had heard geese.
Well, the only way to prove it so she could get back to sleep was to look. She groped for her bedside lamp and as the low-energy bulb warmed into light, she got up and flung open her door – stubbing her toe as she stepped into the hallway. Empty. Dark. Silent.