Authors: Sara Craven
injured.'
He swore violently under his breath, and Sabine found herself
being propelled without gentleness into her own passenger-seat.
He slotted himself in behind the steering-wheel, and started the car
first time. Bastard, she thought. Know-all.
'Show me.'
'It was just before the fork.' In spite of the heat of the day, her teeth
had begun to chatter. 'I was standing on the grass—just standing
there. She —saw me, and — and —ran into a tree. I —I didn't
believe it.'
'No?' There was a kind of savage irony in his voice, and the dark
eyes seared her. 'I do.'
The damage to the Peugeot looked even worse as they approached,
and Sabine groaned under her breath. The driver was sitting up,
holding a hand groggily to her head.
'How did she get there?' Sabine was asked with a curtness that
threatened to remove a layer of skin.
'I put her there. I suppose I shouldn't have moved her, but I was
worried about the petrol tank —the car exploding.'
But he was already out of the car, ignoring her faltering
explanation. He went down on one knee beside the older woman.
'Tante Heloise.' His voice had gentled quite magically. 'Keep still,
and try to be calm. Jacques has gone to call an ambulance.'
'No.' A thin hand gestured in agitation. 'It isn't necessary. I bumped
my head, that's all. I don't wish to go to the hospital. Just take me
to the house.'
'You should have treatment. There may be some concussion.'
'No, Gaston must not be worried.' Her voice was stronger, more
forceful, and she was struggling to get up. 'Take me home, and
send for Dr Arnaud if you must.'
As he helped her up, her gaze went past to him to Sabine, who was
just getting out of the car to offer her assistance. The returning
colour drained out of her face again, and she looked on the point of
collapse.
'
Mon Dieu!'
she said, her voice hoarse and strained. 'Isabelle.'
Sabine flinched, but she kept her tone low, controlled. 'You are
mistaken,
madame.
My mother is dead.'
The woman cried out, and sagged against the man holding her,
pressing her face against his arm. He turned his head and glared at
Sabine. It was a look she recognised instantly, although it was the
first time she'd seen it in the flesh. He was the young boy in the
photograph, but over six feet now, with broad shoulders and lean
hips. The scowl too had gained at least another twenty years of
maturity. It had a lethal edge now which cut her to the bone. She
knew she didn't deserve such scorn, but she felt herself shrink
back, just the same.
'Get in the car,
mademoiselle.'
Contempt scored every word.
'Haven't you done enough harm today? You're not wanted here.
Go, and don't come back.'
She was trembling all over, holding on to the car door for support,
despising herself for her own weakness. Dry-mouthed, she said, 'I
would —only I don't think I can drive just yet.' She lifted her chin,
glaring back, refusing to allow herself to be bested completely.
'
Or
do you want to sacrifice another tree?'
For a long moment their glances clashed like swords, then there
was a shout behind her, and she turned to see the two men he'd
been talking to and a short stout woman in a dark overall running
towards them.
'Jacques.' One of the men was singled out with an imperative
finger, which was then stabbed at Sabine. 'Take her wherever she
wants to go. Only get her off this estate now, you understand?
Before more damage is done,' he added in an undertone.
It was unjust and degrading to be hustled away like this, Sabine
thought. She'd had a shock herself. She'd rescued this woman —
his aunt presumably — from her crashed car, and gone for help. So
much for gratitude — and the much vaunted French hospitality,
she thought almost hysterically as Jacques, his face expressionless,
indicated that she should resume her seat in the car.
She looked back, and saw that Tante Heloise was being led away
on the arm of the stout woman.
He was examining the damage to the Peugeot, and didn't even
glance in the direction of the departing car.
She sank back into her seat, still trembling. She hadn't expected to
be greeted with open arms, but the reception she'd actually
received had shaken her to the core. Isabelle must have left a
legacy of frightening bitterness behind her in this place in order to
set off a reaction like that.
She found it totally incomprehensible. She tried to remember
Isabelle objectively — wondering how she would have regarded
her if they had simply met as strangers, but all she could call
to
mind was her mother's warmth, and gentleness and capacity for
love, and a slow anger began to build in her. She could excuse
Ruth Russell to a certain extent. She was a jealous and overly
possessive woman who would have loathed anyone her brother
had married.
But there was no defence to be made out for the people she'd met
today. The small voice inside her, urging her to cut her losses and
go back to England, leaving the residents at the Chateau La Tour
Monchauzet to stew in their own rancour, was being overwhelmed
by a furious determination to vindicate her mother's memory at all
costs.
I'm not going to hang my head and run, she told herself. Nor will I
be treated like —a pariah. They may have driven my mother away,
but they won't get rid of me so easily.
Jacques slowed the car for the bridge. 'Where do you wish to be
taken,
mademoiselle?'
he asked with chill formality. 'You have
arranged accommodation?'
She'd noticed an attractive country hotel on her way through
Issigeac, and thought she might as well return there. Her lips
parted to tell him so, and then she heard herself say, to her own
amazement, 'Take me to Les Hiboux, please.'
His head jerked round to look at her, and he missed a gear change.
'Les Hiboux?' he repeated. 'But that is an empty house.'
She said coolly, 'Which I believe belonged to my mother, Isabelle
Riquard.'
'Why, yes, but —'
'I intend to use it,' she cut across him flatly. 'Is it far from here?'
Jacques would normally, she guessed, have an open, cheerful face,
on the borderline of good-looking, but now he looked distinctly
glum.
'No, not far. But M'sieur Rohan would not wish. . .' He hesitated in
turn. 'It would be better,
mademoiselle,
for me to take you to the
nearest
syndicat d'initiative.
Someone there will be able to arrange
a room for you. It would be wiser, believe me.'
She could guess the identity of M'sieur Rohan only too well, and
steel entered her voice. 'And I prefer to stay at Les Hiboux. If you
won't take me, then stop the car here, and I'll find my own way.'
His mouth tightened. 'The
patron, mademoiselle,
instructed me to
drive you wherever you wished to go. And that is what I shall do.'
Jacques called this Monsieur Rohan 'the boss', but surely that
didn't mean he was the Baron de Rochefort? The girl at the Maison
du Vin had said the
Baron
was in poor health, and this —Rohan
looked capable of strangling tigers with his bare hands.
The thought of him —the way he'd looked at her, and spoken —
made her start to shake again, but this time with temper. She
looked out of the car window, struggling to regain her composure.
In other circumstances, this would have been a pleasant drive.
Freed from the necessity to concentrate on the road, she could
have admired the sweep of the rolling scenery of broad fields
dotted with cattle, and tree-crowned hills. There were a few houses
here and there, some clearly centuries old, their stones weathered
to a cream, and pale sand, dark shutters closed against the power
of the south-western sun. Others were distinctly modern, looking
sharp and raw against the soft colours of their rural backdrop, but
all were built with the steeply sloping roofs and heavy timbering
that she'd already come to recognise as typical of the region. She
remembered reading that all kinds of property, as well as building
land in the Dordogne area, was being snapped up by the British
and the Dutch.
But the only real sign of activity she could see were the tractors, at
work in some of the fields, cutting hay. Certainly, they'd passed no
other vehicles.
It was totally tranquil, utterly serene, stamped with an ageless
certainty and stability, and, for the first time, Sabine realised what
poets had meant when they sang of
'La Douce France'.
I belong here, she thought fiercely. They won't send me away.
They had turned on to a side-road now. In the fields on both sides,
the grass grew high, interspersed with the crimson splash of
poppies. They passed a grey stone workshop selling agricultural
machines, a small garage with two petrol pumps, and a war
memorial surmounted by a statue of Christ on the cross.
They turned again on to an even narrower track, its tarmac pitted
and holed, with grass growing down the centre of it. Far ahead of
her, Sabine could see a cluster of buildings, obviously a farm, but
on her left, set back from the road across an expanse of roughly
cropped grass and stones, was a smaller property, whitewashed
walls, and earth-red tiles, standing alone.
She did not need Jacques's laconic, 'We have arrived,
mademoiselle,'
to tell her that this was Les Hiboux. Somehow, she
already knew.
The house presented a defensive, almost secretive face to the
world, she thought, as they approached. Fronting the road was a
long wall bisected by a low archway, and terminated by a structure
like a squat tower, surmounted by the usual pointed roof. As far as
she could see, the rest of the house seemed to be single-storeyed.
She reached for her bag, her hand closing on the bunch of keys, as
Jacques brought the car to a halt.
They both got out, and he looked at her, his pleasant face serious,
even concerned. 'You wish me to come with you — to make sure
all is well?'
'Thank you, but no.' She needed to be alone for this. 'How — how
are you going to get back to the chateau? Do you want to borrow
the car and return it later?'
'There is no problem,' he assured her. 'By the road, it seems a long
way, but I need only to walk a kilometre across the fields beyond
the farm. It is nothing.'
Following his indication, Sabine realised with a hollow feeling that
all they'd done was skirt the hill where the chateau stood; that Les
Hiboux in fact stood beneath La Tour Monchauzet, but on its other
side — and still in its shadow.
I could have done without that, she thought, and the short-cut past
the farm.
'M'sieur Rohan will wish to know where I have brought you,
mademoiselle,''
Jacques said uncomfortably. 'He will not be
pleased to know you are here, but I cannot lie to him.'
'Then tell him the truth,' Sabine said with bravado.
Jacques's brow became increasingly furrowed. 'He is a good man,
mademoiselle
— all the world would tell you so —but he has had
to be strong —to bear everything on his shoulders. It has not been
easy—and he does not like to be crossed.'
She thought, I knew that before I met him.
She shrugged, forcing a faint smile. 'I'll take my chance.' And
paused. 'Before you go, can you tell me where I can get supplies?
Without being disloyal to M'sieur Rohan, of course.'
There was a palpable hesitation, then he sighed. 'There is an
Intermarche in Villereal,
mademoiselle.
Now goodbye — and
good luck.'
He sounded convinced she would need it, Sabine thought as he
trudged off. She looked up at the hill, but the chateau was invisible
from this angle behind its enshrouding of trees. But it was there,
just the same, like prying eyes peering round the corner of a thick
curtain.
And he was there too. She was starkly aware of it. A man it was
not wise to cross, whose angry scorn had already bruised her. And
a man to whom she had just thrown down a deliberate challenge.
She said again, 'I'll take my chance,' and walked towards the
archway.
SABINE didn't know what to expect. This had been her mother's