The Woman From Paris (34 page)

“Phaedra!” he exclaimed happily, climbing out. “What a nice surprise. I didn’t think you’d be here so early.” Rufus clambered out and bounded up to her, greeting her like an old friend. She patted his soft head.

“I had to leave the city as soon as possible. It’s becoming unbearable.”

“That I understand. I could never live in London.”

“And I missed Rufus.” She tickled him behind the ears.

“He missed you, too.” David watched her crouch down. She wore a floral sundress and a short denim jacket. Her blond hair was unkempt and falling over her shoulders and down her back in thick tendrils. Every time he saw her he was struck by her beauty, as if seeing it for the first time. “Were you stopping to see the bluebells?”

“I couldn’t help myself. They’re amazing.”

“If you like, we can walk in them now. I’m in no hurry to go anywhere.”

“Farm life is good.”

He grinned. “It is today. Thank you for the rain!”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Certainly did.”

She swept her eyes over the fields of wheat. “It all looks pretty healthy to me.”

“We needed rain for the fertilizer. The ground’s very chalky, so there’s plenty of water stored underneath; it was overground that I was worried about.”

“Farmers always worry about something, don’t they? Too much rain, too little, not enough sunshine, too much sunshine.”

He shrugged. “I’m philosophical. There’s nothing I can do about it, so I just take it as it comes. Let’s walk through the woods. You’re seeing them at their best.”

They strolled up the track that cut through the trees. The grass was lush and damp, the air sweet with the scent of bluebells. “Shall I pick some for your kitchen?” she asked.

“No point, I’m afraid. They die very quickly if you take them out of the soil. Better to admire them here.” Ahead was a copse of large rhododendron bushes in pink, red, and white. “You can pick some of those, if you want.” He handed her his penknife.

“You’re a good Boy Scout.”

“I think there’s a Boy Scout in the heart of every farmer.” He
watched her examining the flowers. He wanted to pick one and put it in her hair, but he knew that would be inappropriate. Instead, he sat on a pile of logs chopped from a tree that had fallen during a winter storm.

“I saw your grandmother outside the church, talking to the vicar,” she said.

“There’s something very fishy going on,” he mused, rubbing his chin.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I interrupted them having a rendezvous in her sitting room the other day. They were holding hands, and he was talking about love.”

She cut a big pink flower. “Are you suggesting she’s having a romance?”

He screwed up his nose. “I don’t know what to think. If she is, it’s very out of character.”

“Good for her.”

“Not so good for the vicar.”

She laughed. “I think he’d just given her a bunch of flowers. Maybe he’s wooing her.”

“Don’t you think that’s rather like wooing a scorpion?”

“You know, you’re very mean, David,” she teased. “I like Margaret.”

“And she likes you. She wants to give you the sapphires.”

Phaedra walked over with her flowers and sat beside him on the logs. “I don’t want them, David.”

“Why not?”

She dropped her eyes into the trumpet of a red rhododendron where a large bumblebee was noisily sucking nectar. “I don’t wear jewelry. Whenever am I going to wear those? And I don’t think they
should
be mine.”

“Dad wanted you to have them.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean that I
should
have them. I mean, I’m not a Frampton. Not really.”

“By blood you are.”

“I’ll marry and become something else, and then those beautiful
jewels will be lost to your family forever. I don’t think that’s what your great-great-grandfather intended.”

David tried to ignore the idea of her marrying. “My great-great-grandfather is dead and no longer cares,” he said.

“So is George, David,” she added softly. “It’s much more important to take care of the living.”

At that moment the bee flew out of the flower and landed unsteadily on Phaedra’s arm. David made to shoo it away, but she stopped him. “Don’t, he’s a friend,” she insisted. They watched the insect, drunk on sugar, make its way down her arm to her hand. “He’s not going to hurt me. He’s far too sensible for that.”

“Or too sleepy,” David replied. They watched it awhile. “You know, Grandma will be offended if you don’t accept the jewels. She’s very excited about giving them to you.”

“I’ll accept them on loan, then. Perhaps I can leave them in your safe. I don’t have one in London, and I’d be so scared about losing them.”

He smiled. “Do you know how much they’re worth?”

“Not a clue.”

“Well over a million now.”

Her jaw dropped. “Over a million pounds? Oh, my God!”

“Are you sure you don’t want them?”

She shook her head, flustered. “I’m even surer now!”

She got up and handed David her bunch of flowers. “I’ll put this little bee somewhere safe so he can sleep it off.” Gently, she put her finger in the insect’s path and watched it heave its round body up onto it. Then she encouraged it to enter another trumpet. After a moment’s hesitation, the smell of nectar was too great a temptation and it toddled in.

They returned to the vehicles, and Phaedra followed David’s Land Rover back to his house. Once he had taken her case upstairs they sat on his terrace with cups of tea and biscuits. Phaedra felt a soothing sense of peace wash over her as the sunshine warmed her skin and the birdsong lifted her spirits. London and Julius Beecher seemed a million miles away now. At Fairfield she felt safe.

She gazed across at David. His navy eyes were made more intense by the blue shirt he was wearing, and his skin was tanned and weathered from his life in the outdoors. His rolled-up sleeves exposed strong brown forearms and big, capable hands. She found him desperately attractive. He returned her gaze and for a long moment neither withdrew their eyes. Phaedra knew she should look away because it wasn’t prudent to encourage him; but while her head cried caution, her heart ignored the warning. It was so comfortable in the warmth of his stare and as familiar as if she had always been there.

22

T
hat night David and Phaedra dined alone in his kitchen. Phaedra had cooked a mushroom risotto, and David opened a fine Burgundy. It pleased David that he had managed to smuggle her onto the estate without his mother or grandmother finding out. He had her all to himself.

They had spent the afternoon together, driving round the farm in his Land Rover with Rufus on the backseat. She had delighted in accompanying him as he went about his work and didn’t mind at all that by the time they returned home she was hot and dusty.

After dinner they went outside to see the stars. Unlike the stars in London, which were dimmed by the smog, here they were as bright and twinkling as the most exquisitely cut diamonds. They decided to walk around the lake with Rufus. The darkness added an element of excitement to their midnight stroll, and David had to put his hands in his pocket to stop himself from reaching out and taking hers. He kept reminding himself that they were siblings, but the words seemed empty and meaningless. She didn’t
feel
like his sister. Saying it was so didn’t change the way he felt about her and the way those feelings were growing stronger and more unmanageable by the minute. If he could be convinced that she didn’t feel the same, he would somehow smother those feelings—but she laid her heart open every time she locked eyes with him.

They reached the lake, where the moon was reflected on the water like mercury. Bulrushes were silhouetted against it, their heavy heads gently swaying in the wind, and a fat moorhen sat sleeping on her nest in the middle, out of reach of foxes. As they walked around it they began to hear the dulcet tones of the piano, carried on the
breeze from the big house. “Who’s playing at this hour?” David asked.

“Does your mother play?”

“She used to. But she hasn’t touched the piano in years.”

They diverted their course and wandered up the lawn. “You’re not going to spy on her, are you?” Phaedra whispered.

“Why not?” he replied, setting off over the recently cut grass.

“You don’t think Rufus will give the game away?” she hissed.

He watched his dog bound up to the window, where a single light shone from the drawing room. “As long as Mother’s dogs are shut away, we’ll be okay.”

The music grew louder as they neared the window. It was a sad tune played fluidly.

“Is your aunt still here?” Phaedra asked.

“Yes. I think she’s here for good.”

“Doesn’t she have a home of her own?”

David chuckled quietly. “You wouldn’t think so, would you? She came to comfort Mum, but now Mum’s comforting her. She fell down the stairs.”

“Yes, Margaret told me. Poor thing.”

“She had drunk too much, apparently.”

“Oh dear.”

“At least it’s given her the excuse to stay another week. Dr. Heyworth has insisted she rest.”

“It’s probably nice for your mother to have the company.”

“I think she’s getting a little tired of her, actually. She spends all day out in the garden or up at the folly, restoring it, probably to get some time alone.”

“Oh, the folly,” exclaimed Phaedra in a loud hiss. “I’m so pleased she’s taking care of it.”

“She’s requested that we all help her this weekend. At least it’ll get you out of Grandma’s clutches.” He stopped by the window and peered in. “It’s Mother,” he whispered.

“She plays beautifully.”

“She’s in her dressing gown, and she’s lit a candle on the piano.”

“Is she by herself?”

He pulled a startled face. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m just thinking of your grandmother and the vicar. Maybe there’s something in the water.”

He smacked her playfully on the arm. “You’re a wicked girl! Let’s get out of here before she sees us.” Suddenly, the music stopped. He grabbed Phaedra’s hand, and they ran off down the lawn.

Antoinette stood at the window and watched them disappear into the darkness. Rufus trotted up to the window and cocked his leg on the hellebores, not at all surprised to see her there. She frowned and wondered who the girl was with David. She’d looked suspiciously like Phaedra. That blond curly hair was unmistakable. But would David be holding her hand? Surely not.

She returned to the piano with an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. It had been niggling there since David had got back from Switzerland, set off by the way his face had lit up when he spoke about Phaedra. Now it niggled with more vigor as she deduced that the two people running down the lawn together holding hands were undoubtedly David and Phaedra. She knew her son was sensible. Had it been Tom she would have been seriously worried. The niggle, however, wasn’t fear that David might embark on a relationship with his half sister. On the contrary, she trusted he never would. The niggle was born out of sadness that if David had at last found his soul mate, he could never have her.

She blew out the candle and closed the piano lid. That piece of music soothed her spirits and lifted her higher, to somewhere beyond her senses, where she felt flooded with peace: the same sense of peace she had felt in the church. There, too, she had perceived a presence that reassured her she wasn’t alone. It was comforting to know that she could tap into that feeling simply by playing the piano.

She turned out the light and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She still hadn’t finished clearing out George’s room. It didn’t frighten her as it had, but a part of her still wanted to hold on to his things
because they connected her to him. If she shut them all away in boxes, wouldn’t she be shutting him away, too? Surely his room, as he had left it, kept his memory alive.

She climbed into bed and switched off the light. Closing her eyes, she thought of George. Then, just as her grief rose in a wave of sadness, she turned her thoughts to the garden and the folly and all the exciting things she planned to do. The window was open. The wind blew through the trees, and an owl hooted to his mate. She listened to the familiar sounds of the night and was gently lulled to sleep.

David and Phaedra walked back round the lake. David dropped her hand, not because he wanted to, but because the longer he held it the greater the temptation to pull her towards him and kiss her. It was better not to have any physical contact at all. Phaedra folded her arms and continued walking, as if holding hands with him had been the most innocent thing in the world. In reality, her skin still tingled from his touch. If they hadn’t been siblings she would have let him lead her to some secret spot by the lake and take her in his arms. She wished that things were different. But there was no changing them now.

That night they lay in their separate beds, each acutely aware of the other a few doors away. Phaedra tried to listen to the night’s sounds, but David was everywhere. He was in the wind, in the mournful hooting of the owl, and in the occasional cry of an animal set upon by a fox. His face shone through the darkness as she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep, and when she did finally drift away, David was there in her dreams and George was gone.

The following day they breakfasted on Phaedra’s pancakes then set off in the Land Rover to find Antoinette up at the folly. It was a bright, sunny morning, but a cold easterly wind blew over the fields and swept the cotton wool clouds swiftly across the sky. Phaedra wore a sweater on top of her sundress, but still she could see the goose bumps ripple across her naked legs. She wished she’d put on jeans instead, but the urge to look pretty for David had been greater than her sense.

They drove up the track. A family of swallows swooped and dived,
and a fat partridge with six young hurried across the grass to seek shelter in the undergrowth. Phaedra smiled at David and he grinned back, pleased that she took pleasure in the natural world as he did.

At last they reached the folly. As they stepped out of the Land Rover they could hear Antoinette singing contentedly inside. “Mother,” David shouted. The singing stopped, and Antoinette emerged in blue overalls, her hair tied back with an elastic band.