Anne Mather - Devil In Velvet

‘It is the Chateau de Rochefort, mademoiselle ,’ he told her reluctantly. ‘Anyone could tell you that.’

‘Thank you.’ Harriet gathered up her handbag and the map she had carried with her, and together with Susan left the café.

‘What was all that about?’ exclaimed Susan, as soon as they were outside and out of earshot. ‘What does it matter who owns the chateau?’

Harriet gave a secret smile. ‘I should have thought it was obvious.’

‘Well, it’s not.’

Susan was getting irritable, and Harriet gave in. ‘Don’t you see? Monsieur Frond is an agent, acting on behalf of the owners. The house—our house—was probably owned by the Count de Rochefort, or whatever the owner of that chateau up there calls himself.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Susan’s face cleared. ‘You mean—perhaps we should speak to him, is that what you mean?’

‘Something like that.’

‘But when? Now?’

‘Heavens, no.’ Harriet shook her head, and consulted her watch. ‘It’s nearly six. There’s no point in us trying to find our way there tonight and getting lost in the process. No, we’ll have to leave that until tomorrow.’

‘So what are we going to do?’ exclaimed Susan.

Harriet gave her a rueful look. ‘Well, I’m loath to say it, but I guess we go back.’

‘To the house!’ Susan sounded highly delighted.

‘Yes,’ agreed Harriet dryly, ‘to the house. But I suggest we buy a few things before we go. Like some cleaning materials, for example, and some disinfectant.’

The car was already loaded with food for a week, but Harriet added a carton of milk and some fresh eggs for good measure before bundling their recent acquisitions on to the back seat.

‘I hope you realise this isn’t going to be a picnic,’ she warned Susan, when her niece seemed incapable of wiping the smile from her face, and Susan laughed.

‘I don’t believe you’re really as sorry to be going back as you pretend,’ she insisted, and although Harriet disputed this, she couldn’t help the surge of pleasure she felt when the Fiat turned on to the bumpy, tree-lined lane. The setting sun through the trees was gilding the tiles of the house, casting a concealing mantle of shadow over the chipped and peeling walls so that like a courtesan at dusk, it did not reveal its flaws.

It was only as Harriet brought the car to a halt in front of the house that she saw the smoke emitting from the chimney, and her heart palpitated wildly as all the wild stories she had heard of ghosts and unearthly presences tumbled through her head.

‘The chimney’s smoking!’ cried Susan in alarm. ‘Harriet, we didn’t light the fire!’

One look at the girl’s haunted face was enough to bring Harriet to her senses. ‘No, we didn’t,’ she agreed grimly, thrusting open the door and climbing out with a degree of composure that inwardly amazed her.

Even so, her legs felt uncomfortably shaky as she traversed the short weed-strewn path to the open door, and her heart leapt into her throat when a tall figure appeared in the entrance, his face shadowed by the sun on her eyes. She halted uncertainly, wondering if he was a tramp or a squatter, wondering whether he might be violent; and then he spoke, and her whole world dissolved around her.

‘ Harriet !’ he said incredulously. ‘ Mon dieu , Harriet, is it really you?’

HARRIET stood as if frozen to the spot. She was aware of Susan coming up the path to stand behind her, of her touching her arm and whispering: ‘Who is it? Harriet, do you know him?’ But she made no immediate reply. She was too stunned. Too shocked. Too lacking in control of her vocal cords to allow anything to escape them which might reveal to this man exactly what finding him here had done to her. Did she know him? Oh, God! she thought vehemently, if only she didn’t. If only she had never met him! But that still didn’t explain what he was doing here.

It helped to hold tightly on to her handbag, and as her eyes adjusted themselves to the light she was able to see him clearly. Without his instant recognition of her, she wondered if she would have recognised him; and then dismissed the thought as unworthy of her intelligence. Of course she would have recognised him. He had not changed so very much, except perhaps that he was thinner, and in consequence the lines of his face were more deeply drawn. There were more streaks of grey in his hair than she remembered, but why not? It had been eight years, after all, and he must be what? Forty—forty-one, now? Maybe even forty-two. Yet his hair was still predominantly dark, and presently overlapped the collar of the rough shirt he was wearing. He had obviously been cleaning out the grate, and his hands and forearms were blackened with soot; so he made no attempt to touch her, just looked at her with those dark, heavy-lidded eyes she remembered so well.

‘Harriet,’ he said again. ‘I did not know it was you!’

‘What was me?’

The words came out sharp and staccato, not at all like her usual husky tones, and his dark brows lifted interrogatively.

‘I did not realise you were the purchaser of the house,’ he explained simply. ‘What did you think I meant?’

Harriet chose not to answer this, and glancing round nervously at Susan, made a feeble introduction: ‘This is Monsieur Laroche, Susan. He—I—we met some years ago, in Paris. At—at an auction.’

This was such a travesty of the truth that Harriet was half afraid he might contradict her, but she ought to have guessed he would not commit himself so far.

‘How do you do, Susan?’ He inclined his head politely, displaying his dirt-grimed hands. ‘I regret I am unable to offer a salutation. My apologies.’

Susan smiled a trifle uncertainly, looking to Harriet for guidance, and her aunt cleared her throat. ‘You still haven’t explained what you’re doing here— monsieur ,’ she prompted abruptly, and suffered the full strength of his gaze upon her.

‘Did I not? But then I would have thought it was obvious. I am afraid I have to offer apologies for the state of the house, but my excuse is that I did not learn until yesterday that Frond had in fact found a buyer.’

‘You mean—’ Harriet stared at him aghast. ‘You mean, you were the previous owner?’

‘That is correct.’

Harriet could hardly believe it. But then she could hardly believe any of this. Even Laroche himself was far removed from the sophisticated man she had met in the St Germain salerooms in Paris. The clothes he had worn then had been immaculate and expensive, fitting his lean body as only expert tailoring can. Now of course she had to make allowances for the fact that he had been cleaning out the grate, but nothing could alter the fact that the shirt he was wearing was made of rough homespun, and the tight-fitting jeans that moulded the powerful muscles of his legs were worn and shabby.

‘You lived—here?’ she echoed faintly, feeling a growing revulsion for the place if this were so, but he shook his head.

‘No, I did not say that. I live—well, a few kilometres from here, but when I learned from Frond that the house had been sold, I realised he could have no conception as to the state it was in.’

Harriet heaved a sigh. ‘I see.’

A sudden crackling from within made him turn his head swiftly, and excusing himself he went back to attend to the sticks which were burning brightly in the grate. Harriet exchanged a helpless look with Susan, and then followed him.

The room seemed smaller with his presence by the fireplace. But she noticed that the debris had been swept away, and some attempt at cleaning the table and wooden seats had been made.

‘You did this?’ she asked disbelievingly, and he nodded.