Read A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress for Free Online Page B

shimmering among the trees? It looked like torchlight, only dampened. Almost like the memory of light. Laurent saw it too. He checked his stride but said nothing. In the courtyard, he murmured, ‘Sleep well, Shauna,’ and they went their separate ways.

    T he remainder of the week introduced Shauna to her new timetable, and Laurent’s warnings resounded as she got the measure of the children’s routine. After a hastily eaten breakfast, Olive and Nico would grab bulging sports bags and they’d all squeeze into the estate’s runaround, a fuel-efficient Renault Clio. First call, a tennis academy outside Garzenac where the children took tuition and played in a competitive league. That gave Shauna three hours to herself, and she could either drive back to Chemignac or hang around. Anxious to avoid Laurent, having catastrophically misunderstood his invitation to bed, she spent the first few days visiting Garzenac’s church, its ruined castle, wine museum and the chi-chi gallery next door where the art prices were stratospheric.
    She found the spot in the churchyard where her mobile phone worked and had a short, broken conversation with her mother and an equally broken and giggly one with Grace. Ultra-cautious of the heat, she drank copious water and far too much coffee, as well as indulging in a local speciality – sticky walnut cake. Even so, those three hours hung heavy.
    On day four, Friday, she came across an internet café in a backstreet and gave a ‘Yay!’ of delight. Here was a neat solution. She could hire a couple of hours’ online time each day, writing up her notes with the aroma of fresh-ground arabica tickling her nostrils. Monty, the café’s British-born owner, was friendly, giving Shauna to understand that she was welcome to make the place her office. Judging by the empty tables, trade was slow.
    That night, Shauna charged up her laptop and next day, Saturday, claimed a blue-painted table and chair in the corner for her own. She began transcribing the handwritten notes she’d made two summers ago as a volunteer goose-girl and all-round labourer on the Welsh farm. While Olive and Nico practised their killer shots on the lower side of town, she worked undisturbed, breaking off for coffee and cake and to check her emails. She responded to a message from an East Midlands lettings agency as to whether she was still looking to rent a home. ‘My plans have changed,’ she typed. ‘The job I was moving for fell through. Please take me off your mailing list.’
    She scrolled down several days’ worth of emails without finding anything from Mike Ladriss. Her professor had gone silent, it seemed. Quite likely, he’d had time to digest her angry reproaches at their last meeting. She took a breath and wrote an apology, giving him Clos de Chemignac’s fax number, which Isabelle had written down for her. ‘Can’t check my emails every day, so for a quicker response, fax me on this number. Assuming you want to, of course. I’m still in the job market. Any efforts on my behalf will be appreciated. Kindest regards, Shauna.’ She deleted ‘kindest’ and wrote ‘warmest’.
    After a salad lunch, she packed up her laptop and hurried off to collect the children, driving them back almost as far as Chemignac where she dropped them off at a riding centre within the forest. Watching them walk through the centre’s immaculate white gates, she felt a stab of envy. She’d been a capable rider as a girl and missed the magical afternoons she’d spent hacking out with her dad through Ecclesall Woods on the outskirts of Sheffield, on heavy-footed horses borrowed from country friends. Muck-splattered and laughing, they’d race each other, leaping puddles and fallen trees. Tim Vincent had been an instinctive horseman – not a lesson in his life – and she’d learned through copying him. No denying it, her childhood was a universe away from Olive and Nico’s. Happy and uncomplicated. Until her father’s death anyway.