The Eden Inheritance (12 page)

Charles noted it all and tried to quell his misgivings. This man wasn't another Buhler. They were going to have to be very careful not to antagonise him. He could, Charles thought, be dangerous.

At the moment, however, he was choosing to play the part of the appreciative guest, praising the Baron for his excellent wine.

‘I'm glad you like it,' Guillaume replied. ‘I think you will like our cognac even more. And I hope you will allow us to go on producing it as we have done now since my grandfather's day.'

‘Certainly. As long as you are prepared to share it with us, there will be no problem.' He said it pleasantly enough, but the threat was there all the same, implicit in his words, and Charles knew he did not mean only a bottle or two for him and his fellow officers at the Château François where he had his headquarters, but wholesale consignments for the hierarchy back home in Germany.

‘We don't want the way of life here to suffer more than is unavoidable,' von Rheinhardt continued smoothly. ‘Hopefully we can all live side by side without acrimony. I don't want trouble and I am sure you don't either.'

‘No one wants trouble,' Guillaume replied. ‘ The people around here simply want to be allowed to get on with their lives. General Buhler found that to be the case and I am sure you will too.'

The very blue eyes narrowed a shade.

‘I certainly hope so. The area is not without its problems, though, I am afraid. There will always be those who behave stupidly, those who are too pig-headed to accept things as they are – and will continue to be. General Buhler was a good man but he could be a little blind on occasions. If there are troublemakers here, be sure I shall find them, and they will be dealt with most severely.'

Charles experienced a chill of disquiet. He knew very well what von Rheinhardt meant by severe dealings. When the Nazis had first come two youths in a nearby village had tried to sabotage their operations by cutting the telephone wires. They had been caught and shot. And stories were rife of the way that any who resisted or tried to oppose the invaders in more insidious ways were treated – they were tortured before they, too, were shot, or taken away, God alone knew where.

As his father had pointed out, as yet there had been no such incident in Savigny, thanks mainly to the fact that the villagers were following the example of the de Savigny family and appeasing the enemy, but it was almost inevitable that eventually some hothead would step out of line. When one did Charles was sure von Rheinhardt would show no mercy. Unlike Buhler this was a man with a burning zeal for the Fatherland and the coldly clinical will to do whatever he had to in order to ensure everyone who came under his jurisdiction toed the line. What was more, Charles thought, he would enjoy enforcing it.

‘It is good, however, to know I have your support,' von Rheinhardt continued. ‘I am sure your influence will be most helpful to me in maintaining calm. It is also very kind of you to invite me to dinner and afford me the opportunity to visit your charming château and meet the members of your family socially.' He looked from one to the other of them with an almost regal smile, then his eyes narrowed a shade. ‘I look forward also to meeting your daughter-in-law at last. She is English, is she not?'

‘Kathryn is English-born but naturalised French,' Guillaume said swiftly. ‘I am sure she will be joining us soon, won't she, Charles?'

Charles experienced another moment of something close to panic.

‘She wasn't feeling too well earlier, Papa. She was suffering from a headache. I'm not sure if she will feel up to joining us.'

‘Really?' Von Rheinhardt's tone was silky smooth but the undertones were unmistakable. ‘That is a great pity. I do hope that I am not the cause of her indisposition.'

There was an awkward silence. Even the centuries-old walls of the château seemed to be holding their breath.

Then, as if she were an actress making a perfectly timed entrance, Kathryn opened the door and came into the salon.

‘Thank God you changed your mind and came down,' Charles said. ‘He had noticed, you know, and he didn't like it.'

‘Really,' Kathryn said coldly.

They were in the bedroom of their apartment. The evening had passed off without incident. Von Rheinhardt had been almost genial, the de Savignys courteous good hosts; though Christian had been quieter than usual and Kathryn had hardly spoken at all, Guillaume had played the diplomat and Louise had been her charming, if rather vacuous self. The dinner, though not up to the standard of excellence offered by the superb cuisine of happier times, had still been imaginative and well presented; Angeline, the cook, had worked miracles with vegetables from the château gardens and some of her wonderful sauces, though they were no longer rich with cream as they had been in the old days, and von Rheinhardt had appreciated the Château de Savigny cognac as Guillaume had predicted he would. There had been a few awkward moments, small silences following unfortunate nuances of speech which might have been misinterpreted, but they had been glossed over and only von Rheinhardt's thinly veiled warnings had caused any lasting discomfort.

‘I understand an enemy aircraft came down about thirty miles north of here a few nights ago,' he had said, almost conversationally. ‘If the pilot should come this way I sincerely hope no one in the community would be foolish enough to try to assist him.'

‘Wouldn't he have been killed?' Guillaume enquired blandly.

‘We don't think so. At least, no body was found in the wreckage.'

‘Well, he wouldn't survive long in the open country. It's been wet and bitterly cold.'

‘Exactly. Still, if someone is hiding him we shall soon find out, never fear. Then those responsible will be dealt with. We cannot, we will not, allow that sort of behaviour to go unpunished.'

‘The poor man!' Louise had murmured. ‘It must be dreadful to be wounded, hungry and cold in an alien country.'

Von Rheinhardt had looked at her almost benignly – Louise was quite capable of saying such things and getting away with them – but his reply was unequivocal, just the same.

‘You must not think of him as a man like your own sons, Madame – he is not. He is the enemy. I hope you would not be tempted to help him.'

‘Oh no, indeed not,' Louise replied, smiling at him charmingly, and Charles glanced anxiously at Kathryn, afraid of what her reaction might be.

But Kathryn had said nothing. He knew from the tightening of the muscles in her cheeks and the way she folded her hands together in her lap so that her nails bit into the backs of her hands that she was struggling to keep silent, and for that he was grateful. But he had continued to worry, all the same, that she might still say something unpardonably rash, and the evening had been a tense one for him.

Now, wearing silk pyjamas, he leaned back against the pillows and watched Kathryn getting ready for bed.

She sat at the dressing table, a rich peacock-blue kimono that he had bought for her in the East before the war covering her slender figure, but he could see that beneath it her shoulders were rigid and she was brushing her hair with unnecessary vigour.

‘You did the right thing, Katrine,' he said. ‘We all did. There is nothing else we can do.'

She did not answer; he tried again.

‘We have to be sensible,
ma chérie
. You don't like it, I know, but what good would it do to have more French blood spilled? Life has to go on.'

Still she did not answer and he felt the familiar frustration begin to build inside him. How dare she sit there ignoring him? She was his wife, for God's sake! Surely he was entitled to a little respect? He tried to think of something grand to say, and instead only heard himself ask peevishly: ‘How did Papa persuade you to come down? You wouldn't listen to me.'

Kathryn slammed the ivory-backed brush down on the dressing table and swung round. The lines of her throat above the silky kimono were taut.

‘He didn't persuade me. I came because I decided to.'

‘Oh really? Then what was it that affected your decision?'

‘I suppose I realised I didn't have any choice – that yes, I could place Guy's life in danger if I refuse to go along with these disgusting games your family is playing. He's my son, he's half English – and the English, at least, haven't given up the fight. We're still at war with
cochons
like von Rheinhardt and that makes us vulnerable. I don't care for myself – I really don't, Charles. Personally I would rather die than kowtow to the Nazis the way you seem to be prepared to. But Guy is just a little boy. I can't take chances with his safety.'

‘Good. I'm glad you've seen sense.'

‘Are you? I'm not sure I am. I'm afraid for him, yes, and that is why I went along with your repulsive charade. But I can't pretend I'm proud of myself for doing it. Are you proud, Charles? Are you proud of the French capitulation?'

‘I'm doing what I have to do,' he retorted, stung. ‘I'm trying to save lives; to protect my heritage.'

‘Oh yes, your precious heritage! What's left of it? Tell me that! You've chosen to lie down and let those bastards walk all over you and you've forced me into a position of having to do the same. And let me tell you, Charles, I find that unforgivable.'

He looked at her and felt his body begin to stir. She infuriated him, yes, especially when she talked this way, and he longed for Regine's flattery and soothing touch. But there was also something devastatingly attractive about Kathryn when she was angry, those brown eyes flashing liquid gold fire, muscles taut, breasts heaving. What was it about a woman's breasts that he found so irresistible? It couldn't be an Oedipus complex, his own mother was small, flat as a boy in the fashion of the twenties when she had been in the prime of her beauty. No, it was some other half-forgotten memory that pre-dated Regine, pre-dated even his first experiences in the high-class brothels of Paris where he had first been initiated into the pleasures of sex and learned the taste of passion.

‘You knew when you married me that you were marrying into a family with traditions to uphold,' he said testily, annoyed with himself for allowing her to stir him in this way. ‘ You seemed happy enough with the situation then.'

‘Did I? Perhaps that was because in those days I was naive enough to have romantic notions. I was stupid enough to think that your traditions, as you call them, included pride and honour. I didn't realise they meant doing anything, however demeaning, in order to save your own skins.'

‘That's unfair, Katrine. It's not our skins we are trying to save – it's a whole way of life.'

‘Which is obviously so rotten at the core it's scarcely worth saving.'

He sighed.

‘There's no point in going over all this again, is there? You simply refuse to see that what we are doing is trying to safeguard the local community who depend on us. You were willing this evening to sacrifice your principles in order to look after Guy's best interests because he is your son. Can't you see we feel the same way about the people who work for us and live on our estates? They are a sacred trust to the de Savigny family just as Guy is to you.'

‘No,' she said. ‘I can't see it. I only know I feel grubby and ashamed of myself.'

She stood up, slipping off the kimono and draping it over the stool. Beneath it she was wearing a simple opera-topped nightgown; the chill in the unheated bedroom shivered over her bare arms and she moved quickly to the bed, sliding between the sheets and pulling the voluminous eiderdown a fraction higher.

‘Katrine … you're cold.' Charles reached for her, his hand brushing her breast. ‘Come here, let me warm you.'

The touch of his hand made her flinch. In the old days when they were first married she had loved cuddling up to him in their big bed, loved the warmth that was generated by two bodies pressed close together, loved the feeling of being one with the man who had seemed to her to be everything she could wish for in a romantic hero made flesh. Believing he loved her in return and wanted her physically had been a source of wonder that made her turn weak with desire and strong with a feeling of invincibility. There were differences between them, she had known that, but she had been supremely confident that their love was deep enough to overcome any obstacle and bridge the divide formed by nationality and culture and breeding.

Now she knew differently and the disappointment ached in her alongside all the other emotions.

With an impatient movement she pulled away from his questing hand.

‘Don't, Charles, please.'

‘Katrine …'

‘We can't solve our problems like that. At least, I can't.'

‘Very well. If that's the way you want it.' He turned away from her, hurt more by her rejection than he would ever admit.

‘It's not the way I want it. It just happens to be the way it is,' she said bitterly.

Charles chose not to reply. He humped the eiderdown over him and infuriatingly soon began to snore gently. But sleep eluded Kathryn. She lay, cold still, the expanse of icy sheet which surrounded her making her unwilling to move into a more comfortable position, wondering if she and Charles would ever understand one another again. Somehow she doubted it. The chasm that had opened up between them was too great, the disillusion too damaging. Yet she had bound her life to his, he was her husband and the father of her son. Guy was a de Savigny whether she liked it or not.

What am I going to do? Kathryn asked herself despairingly.

In that moment the dilemma eclipsed even the day-to-day privations and fears of living in a country no longer at war, but under enemy occupation.

N
IGHT HAD FALLEN
early on London. All day a thick blanket of cloud had hung over the city, threatening snow and throwing a sombre yellowish-grey hazeover the bomb craters and the shells of devastated buildings; now, though it was not yet five-thirty, the darkness was complete. Not a single chink of light showed at the windows of the hotels and houses, mostly converted into flats, which flanked Portman Square – the enforcement of the blackout made certain of that – and the sidelights of what vehicles there were had been half covered so that there was only the dimmest of glimmers to show they were there at all.