A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress (4 page)

Muttering, ‘Weird,’ she returned to her room, but not to bed. Instead, she opened her window shutters and leaned out. A chrome-bright moon lit an empty landscape.

‘Maybe sound carries across vineyards,’ she murmured, then jumped in alarm as a cry sliced through the night. In spite of her clashing heartbeat, she stretched further out of the window to investigate. The sound came again and she released her breath. It was owls hooting, playing catch among the winery buildings, by the sound of it.

Now thoroughly churned up, she gave up on sleep, rooting through her drawers for something warm to put on. Hauling on tracksuit bottoms and a jersey, shoving her feet into a pair of comfy loafers, she crept through the sleeping house and out through the kitchen door. The night air tasted of warm cakes and, as in the old carol, all was calm, all was bright. But something made her look up. Light flashed erratically behind the tower’s louvred shutters. Not dazzling, but as if a lightbulb pulsed behind greased paper. Could somebody be up there, working in torchlight? Surely not. The moon at the peak of its transit told her it was two or three in the morning. The children would be fast asleep, Isabelle too. Besides which, Isabelle never climbed the tower, she’d said so. Albert? From what she’d seen of the old man, it seemed vanishingly unlikely that he’d attempt the stairs either. Laurent? But if he was still working, wouldn’t he more likely be in the
chai
or in his office, catching up on admin? There had to be a simple explanation. A lightbulb about to blow? Or a perished cable sheath creating a short circuit, or inadequately fused wiring?

Which might overheat and catch fire…

She headed back inside, obeying a reluctant need to investigate, only to find the door between the kitchen and tower firmly locked. Keys hung from a rack next to the refrigerator, but none of them fitted, so she gave up, making a note to raise the matter in the morning. Fed up with worry and with her bed holding no appeal, she decided to take a walk and perhaps watch her first dawn break over Chemignac.

Owls screeched a welcome as she stepped outside again and Shauna set off to see if she could get sight of them. She hadn’t gone many steps along the cypress tree track when she noticed the steady glow of light in the winery. She’d had a patchy night’s sleep and
somebody
hadn’t even begun his.

O
pening
the door of the
chai
noiselessly, Shauna peered inside, blinking in the glare of the strip-lighting. Laurent had his back to her and she watched him move slowly along the row of oak casks. At each one, he bent down and she heard liquid trickle into some kind of container. Conscious that she was lurking, she called out, ‘Hello. Good evening – or morning. I’m not sure which it is.’ She moved forward, anticipating his surprise. ‘I saw lights and thought – have you been working all night?’

‘I suppose.’ Laurent frowned as if he couldn’t work out how she’d manifested in front of him. A plastic jar in his hand brimmed with red liquor and Shauna’s nostrils caught fruit-filled, leathery richness. It affected her senses and she blurted out, ‘I’m sorry I was rude earlier.’

Laurent shook his head. ‘You were rude? To me?’

‘I stormed out!’

‘You did?’

So he didn’t even notice her when she had a hissy-fit! But now she was close enough to him to make out the bubbles on the surface of his test jar. Their faint tremor suggested Laurent’s grip was not quite steady. Was he exhausted? His outer clothes, drenched several hours ago, had dried against his body like shrink-wrap. She saw once again how muscular he was, though in the unobtrusive way of someone who fuels himself well and burns it off in continuous manual labour. Her lovers had always been fellow academics, soft-limbed men, often hopelessly impractical. What would it feel like to hold this taut form in her arms, to rouse him and satisfy him while teasing out the intelligence of his mind?

‘Shauna?’

‘Oh, sorry.’ Her voice slipped gear as she explained, ‘I made that catty comment about pub quizzes and slammed out. Well, not slammed, exactly. Stomped.’

‘Ah.’ Laurent’s brow cleared. ‘At the time, I did not understand… Not sure I do now, but thank you for apologising. Not that you need to. Being lumbered with the dynamite duo would fray most people’s tempers.’

‘You mean Olive and Nico? I don’t know why you’re so down on them. They’re great kids.’

‘I think so too, but greater proximity has taught me that they’re also demanding and needy. Don’t get me wrong, I love them very much and if I’m angry, it’s with others, not with them. You will come to understand the situation better in time, but I warn you, you have entered the terrain of emotional trip-wires. No amount of kindness can supply what they need most.’

That didn’t sound promising.

He bent his mouth in sympathy. ‘Isabelle hopes you will make them happy, but my little cousins are fundamentally
not
happy. I should know, I recognise myself in them. You will try your best, but they will wear you out. Chemignac will wear you out.’

That sounded an even less joyous prospect, but Shauna managed to laugh. ‘I don’t flinch at a challenge. I’ll make it work.’ Had she said the wrong thing again? His expression hardened and his reply slashed at her confidence.

‘Shauna, you’re a stranger here. No –’ he corrected himself, ‘a
visitor
and you don’t yet perceive the complicated strands that weave us together. You were offended when I called you the “au pair”?’

‘Of course! You implied that the children were being palmed off on a lesser being.’

‘Not at all!’ Red liquid splashed on Laurent’s feet as he raised his hands, forgetting he was holding a jar. He was still barefoot, Shauna noticed, and ruby tears rolled between his toes. ‘It wasn’t an insult, just plain fact. Nico and Olive spend all summer here and Isabelle loves to have them, but she is getting too frail to properly supervise them.’

‘Are you suggesting their parents are over-compensating for sending them away? Making up for it by filling their days with training?’

He nodded. ‘Lavishing expenditure on them with a promise that one day they will be superstars. By the way,’ he went on, ‘“
Au pair
” means “equal”. In English, you use the word “peer” as in “peer group”, no? The words have the same origin. I do not think of you as a lesser being.
D’accord?
’

‘All right. I overreacted. I can see we both have the kids’ interests at heart. Truce?’

‘Are we at war?’ His gaze softened with concern. With question. ‘Why are you gliding around at this hour, like a wraith? Do you sleep-walk?’

Shauna explained about the owls, choosing not to mention the mysterious honking. However, she did tell him about the electrical anomaly in the tower. Laurent looked as if she’d given him an unwelcome message.

‘I’ll check it out, though it’s probably to do with the appliances in Isabelle’s kitchen causing a voltage fluctuation. When the tower was wired in the 1920s, there weren’t such things as fridges or electric ovens.’

‘I suppose not.’ It made sense, but didn’t wholly cure her unease.
In for a penny
… she described the strange noise that had woken her. ‘Geese, believe it or not. I was convinced they were right outside my room.’

Laurent stared at her, then bit his lip in automatic denial. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘I agree. I checked and they definitely weren’t there. Not so much as a feather. I dreamed them, Laurent.’

‘That seems the most likely explanation. And now you can’t sleep.’

‘May I ask why you’re working all night?’ She tapped his plastic jar with a fingernail. ‘Testing it or drinking it?’

‘Both.’ He seized on the change of subject. ‘And I’d better finish.’ Turning from her, he topped up his jar from one of the casks then held the phial up to the light, examining its gemstone colour. ‘This is last year’s blended Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, which we sell as “Tour de Chemignac”. I’m taking a random sample to find out if it’s ready to bottle.’ He moved across to a kitchen workstation where screw-top capsules were lined up. Shauna watched him decant a small measure of wine into each, then label them.

‘Now the fun part.’ He shared the remaining wine between two tumblers, handing one to her. ‘I haven’t worked all night. There’s still an hour or more before the birds start singing.’ His voice became reflective; ‘I often forget the time, and the dawn chorus chases me to my bed.’

‘Sleep deprivation isn’t healthy, not long-term.’ She over-tipped her glass, flooding her throat as the notion of chasing Laurent to his bed took hold. After a twenty-hour day he must crash into sleep, his circadian rhythms all awry. No doubt he’d wake, ragged, at the blare of his alarm. Did he ever indulge in a lazy morning under the duvet? She raised her glass for another slug of wine.

‘No, no.’ Laurent touched her hand, slowing her down. ‘It’s a good vintage and I want your opinion.’ He picked up one of the capsules. ‘Some of these will go to the lab in Bergerac for final analysis before bottling. The rest go abroad to my distributors so they can taste and then buy. An Irish wine merchant rang a few days ago. One of their directors tasted Tour de Chemignac while he was on holiday nearby and he’s talking about ordering five hundred cases. Wine bars are springing up all over Dublin, did you know that?’

‘No, though there are plenty in Sheffield.’

‘So? Give me your thoughts.’

If she told him those, he’d probably blush, or run a mile. ‘The wine? I like it.’ It was every bit as intense as its colour promised. She put her nose over the rim, wanting to dissect its aromas. Wanting to impress Laurent with her sophistication and intuition. Unfortunately, her scientist’s brain was taking over. ‘I’m getting… Hang on…’ Could she risk saying, ‘phenylpropene compounds’? Exactly what she was picking up, though most people would experience them as clove and nutmeg.
Come on, Shauna, let the poetry flow.
‘It’s like opening a spice cupboard at Christmas. I think I can taste vanilla.’ Laurent raised an eyebrow, sabotaging her confidence. ‘No – I don’t know. You tell me.’

He swirled his tumbler under his nose. ‘Seductively full-bodied, bright to the palate, with a long finish of smoke and, yes, vanilla. Spicy, as you say. That’s down to the compound eugenol.’

She knew that. Now she wished she’d said it.

‘There are hints of caramel and toffee…’

That would be Furfural and 5-Methylfurfural. Evidently, she and Laurent had studied the same food science modules.

Laurent drank from the glass, and rolled the liquid around his mouth before swallowing. ‘A back note of coconut, which is derived from oak lactones.’

‘From the casks?’

‘Not really.’ He surveyed the barrels, explaining, ‘French white oak, irreplaceable. They date from my grandfather’s time but they’re exhausted. I don’t mean they leak, they’re just neutral as far as flavour goes. So I use these.’ He produced a bundle of oak staves that resembled a dismantled window blind. ‘If you cannot bring the wine to the oak, you bring the oak to the wine. These slats go in the casks until the wine has the flavour and body I’m looking for.’

‘You love your work, don’t you?’

He didn’t answer straight away. ‘Love is too simple a word. I would do this even if I made no money from it. But love can tie you. It rubs sores in your flesh, so no, I would not say it is love. More, a life’s voyage. How do you feel about your work?’

‘Passionate. I could never imagine doing anything else.’

He frowned, as if her ready answer unsettled him. ‘I had a dog once,’ he said, looking towards the door. She followed his gaze, half expecting a four-legged ghost to amble in. ‘She was a Pyrenean Mountain Dog I called Saskia. She wasn’t much more than a puppy when I found her tied to a fallen log in the woods. The cord had cut into her flesh. She’d been there for days, I think. When I rescued her, she tried to climb into my arms. Now, that was love.’ He smiled, though sadly.

‘You kept her here?’

‘I kept her wherever I was. Nobody dared part us. She died aged ten, when I was twenty-one. I went to America after that.’

Suspecting he was talking of love in all its forms, she navigated the subject to safer waters. ‘When will you know if your Tour de Chemignac is ready to bottle?’

‘Tomorrow. But now, shall we go to bed?’

Her throat tightened. She couldn’t get a word out. Laurent waited, his expression guileless, his thick lashes intensifying the black radiance of his eyes. She needed to say something. ‘I don’t – I mean, I think I need to know you better.’

His brows pulled together as he considered her reply. He shook his head. ‘I meant, to our
separate
beds. I apologise. When I’m tired, I stumble over my English.’

Her face caught fire. ‘I really didn’t think you meant it.’ But she had. ‘I mean, I was a bit shocked because I haven’t – I mean, I don’t…’
Oh help, this is digging a mine-shaft.
‘What I mean is, I don’t—’

‘Want to. Very wise. Go out ahead of me and I’ll turn off the lights.’

T
hey walked
side by side back towards the château, she with her hands pressed to her flanks, he with his clasped behind his back. We’re doing a cracking impression of the Queen and Prince Philip, she thought. Dawn had brought streaks of pale pink to the eastern skyline, while to the west, above the forest, stars still pricked the purple-dark. Shauna stopped, frowned. Was that a shimmering among the trees? It looked like torchlight, only dampened. Almost like the
memory
of light. Laurent saw it too. He checked his stride but said nothing. In the courtyard, he murmured, ‘Sleep well, Shauna,’ and they went their separate ways.

T
he remainder
of the week introduced Shauna to her new timetable, and Laurent’s warnings resounded as she got the measure of the children’s routine. After a hastily eaten breakfast, Olive and Nico would grab bulging sports bags and they’d all squeeze into the estate’s runaround, a fuel-efficient Renault Clio. First call, a tennis academy outside Garzenac where the children took tuition and played in a competitive league. That gave Shauna three hours to herself, and she could either drive back to Chemignac or hang around. Anxious to avoid Laurent, having catastrophically misunderstood his invitation to bed, she spent the first few days visiting Garzenac’s church, its ruined castle, wine museum and the chi-chi gallery next door where the art prices were stratospheric.

She found the spot in the churchyard where her mobile phone worked and had a short, broken conversation with her mother and an equally broken and giggly one with Grace. Ultra-cautious of the heat, she drank copious water and far too much coffee, as well as indulging in a local speciality – sticky walnut cake. Even so, those three hours hung heavy.

On day four, Friday, she came across an internet café in a backstreet and gave a ‘Yay!’ of delight. Here was a neat solution. She could hire a couple of hours’ online time each day, writing up her notes with the aroma of fresh-ground arabica tickling her nostrils. Monty, the café’s British-born owner, was friendly, giving Shauna to understand that she was welcome to make the place her office. Judging by the empty tables, trade was slow.

That night, Shauna charged up her laptop and next day, Saturday, claimed a blue-painted table and chair in the corner for her own. She began transcribing the handwritten notes she’d made two summers ago as a volunteer goose-girl and all-round labourer on the Welsh farm. While Olive and Nico practised their killer shots on the lower side of town, she worked undisturbed, breaking off for coffee and cake and to check her emails. She responded to a message from an East Midlands lettings agency as to whether she was still looking to rent a home. ‘My plans have changed,’ she typed. ‘The job I was moving for fell through. Please take me off your mailing list.’

She scrolled down several days’ worth of emails without finding anything from Mike Ladriss. Her professor had gone silent, it seemed. Quite likely, he’d had time to digest her angry reproaches at their last meeting. She took a breath and wrote an apology, giving him Clos de Chemignac’s fax number, which Isabelle had written down for her. ‘Can’t check my emails every day, so for a quicker response, fax me on this number. Assuming you want to, of course. I’m still in the job market. Any efforts on my behalf will be appreciated. Kindest regards, Shauna.’ She deleted ‘kindest’ and wrote ‘warmest’.

After a salad lunch, she packed up her laptop and hurried off to collect the children, driving them back almost as far as Chemignac where she dropped them off at a riding centre within the forest. Watching them walk through the centre’s immaculate white gates, she felt a stab of envy. She’d been a capable rider as a girl and missed the magical afternoons she’d spent hacking out with her dad through Ecclesall Woods on the outskirts of Sheffield, on heavy-footed horses borrowed from country friends. Muck-splattered and laughing, they’d race each other, leaping puddles and fallen trees. Tim Vincent had been an instinctive horseman – not a lesson in his life – and she’d learned through copying him. No denying it, her childhood was a universe away from Olive and Nico’s. Happy and uncomplicated. Until her father’s death anyway. For her, none of the stress of league tables and striving for medals; but then, she’d never had her eye on Olympic glory.