Sara Craven - Place Of Storms

She sighed, huddling the fleecy softness of the duvet around her. It would be so easy to get involved, she thought, recalling the pang she had felt when Blaise had spoken of losing everyone he cared for in the space of a few hours. She wondered what had happened. Presumably he was referring to his brother’s death, so had the scarring on his face occurred at the same time? It seemed clear there was some connection, and that the subsequent loss of his fiancée was involved in the same web of bitterness.

She closed her eyes, willing her thoughts to be silent, but they would not obey. She found herself speculating about the girl Blaise had been engaged to. Somehow she imagined her small and blonde with a piquant face, like Clare. Was this because in her heart she knew her thoughtless cousin might well have reacted to his damaged face with the same selfish cruelty?

Intuitively, she knew that the visible scars were not the worst that Blaise Levallier carried. Shuttered behind that bleak hostility was a man who had once laughed and loved and expected to be married and raise a family. Now, as a substitute, he had decided on an emotionless relationship with a stranger, and any hopes for the future were pinned on his orphaned nephew. It was not a healthy situation, she told herself.

There was another puzzling aspect to it, too. Clare had told her and he had confirmed that he had spent much of his life abroad. But if he was the heir to this crumbling property, shouldn’t his duty have been to remain here? He had spoken of ‘heritage’, so obviously he was not indifferent to the fact that he was now lord of this particular manor.

She turned over resolutely, burying her face in the pillow. The linen was old, but had been of the finest quality, and it was charmingly scented with lavender. This was a bed for sweet dreams, not disturbing thoughts, she told herself determinedly, in spite of the leaking roof.

But the dreams which came when she at last fell into an uneasy sleep were as troubling as the thoughts had been. She stood in a ruined church, where stars peeped through the broken roof, and grass grew along the aisles. A man stood at the altar alone, endlessly awaiting a bride who did not come, and it was only when she tried to speak to him to comfort him, to run to him and touch his arm, that she realised that she was invisible, calling to him in a voice he could not hear.

When she awoke to find a ray of watery sunlight finding its way through a crack in the faded brocade curtains at the windows, she found her cheeks wet with tears.

She was angrily brushing the betraying drops away when Madame Bresson knocked at the door, and came in bringing a fresh jug of hot water for the washstand. She clucked distressfully at the sight of the bowl on the floor, and burst into a flood of largely incomprehensible explanations from which Andrea gathered that the majority of the bedrooms suffered in the same way during heavy rain, but that Gaston would be despatched to the roof that very morning to carry out some essential patchwork. After assuring herself that Andrea had everything she needed and could find her way downstairs to the dining room, she withdrew.

Andrea washed and dressed hastily in a pair of denim jeans, topped with a ribbed black polo-necked sweater. She looked about her with critical eyes as she went downstairs. The place was clean, certainly, but it was uncared for. There were some magnificent pieces of furniture, but they were not displayed to their best effect, and there were no flowers to be seen anywhere. She gave a little sigh. There might be no money for structural repairs, if Blaise Levallier was heavily committed to this farming co-operative of his, but it would take a very small outlay to make the interior of the chateau far more pleasant. Covers could be mended, she thought, and it might even be possible with care to dye some of the faded curtains. Then she checked herself abruptly. She had to remember why she was here, she told herself vehemently. The state of the chateau, or any of its occupants for that matter, was none of her concern. She would be better occupied in thinking about how she was going to get hold of Clare’s letter.

She was somewhat disconcerted to find Blaise Levallier already seated at the dining table, going through some mail. He did not look any more approachable in the cold light of day, she thought uneasily, as she slid into her place with a murmured greeting.

‘I hope you slept well, mademoiselle.’ The words were civil enough, but the tone of utter indifference in which they were spoken stung Andrea.

‘Not particularly.’ She shook out her table napkin, and helped herself from the basket of warm croissants.

His eyebrows rose. ‘You distress me.’ His voice was sardonic now. ‘May I ask why not?’

‘You may.’ She spread the croissant with jam and bit into it appreciatively. ‘The roof above my room leaks.’

He frowned swiftly. ‘Then you should naturally not have been given such a room. I will speak to Clothilde.’

‘Oh, it isn’t her fault.’ Andrea reached for the coffee pot and filled her cup. ‘She says all the rooms are the same.’

‘Mine is not.’

She gave him a dulcet smile. ‘Naturally,’ she agreed.

He lifted his cup and drank with a meditative air. ‘Then what do you suggest, mademoiselle? I hesitate to put forward the obvious solution …’

She hated herself for her faint, involuntary blush. ‘Naturally,’ she repeated, hanging on like grim death to the dulcet smile. ‘But you could also get the roof mended.’

He shrugged. ‘Gaston does what he can.’

‘So I’ve gathered, but perhaps it’s time you got a professional opinion—unless it’s your intention to have the house crumble about your ears eventually.’ She smiled at him again. ‘You’ll forgive my frankness, but I do have a vested interest in it now.’

That was good, she thought with satisfaction, and it should help allay any suspicions he might have about her motives. If she could convince him that she had given way to force majeure over their marriage, it would make her task very much easier.

‘Yes.’ He studied her for a moment, and she could sense he was puzzled. ‘You are—reconciled to our contract, then?’

‘I don’t seem to have much choice,’ she said, with a slight lift of her shoulders. ‘You’ve made it clear what will happen if I back out, and I couldn’t stand that.’ She gave an exaggerated shudder.

‘So I imagined.’ There was a wry satisfaction in his voice. ‘It would lead to the sort of publicity that neither of us desires, I am sure, apart from the probable injury to your father’s health.’

Andrea, who had just taken a mouthful of coffee, choked and had to replace her cup hastily on its saucer.

‘I—I don’t know what you mean,’ she managed at last.

‘No?’ His look was bleak. ‘I think I make myself perfectly clear, mademoiselle. Your father is an eminent man, and the deterioration in his health has caused a great deal of concern in circles with which I am well acquainted. You could not imagine I would make no enquiries about your background.’

She could not very well reply that they had been counting on it, she thought, her heart hammering unevenly.

‘I suppose not,’ she said at length. ‘That was why you knew you could threaten me, of course. Because of—Daddy.’

‘Hardly threaten, ma mie. I simply pointed out to you what the consequences would be if you failed to fulfil the terms of our agreement, and left the decision to your good sense.’

He was mocking her, she knew, and her resentment hardened.

‘I hope you think your victory is worth the means you had to stoop to to win,’ she said sharply.