Storm Winds (38 page)

“You’re quite correct, I have changed my mind. You’ve been wounded and I find I can’t stomach the thought of risking hurt to you again. Believe me, that discovery astounds me far more than it does you.” His lips twisted as he looked at her. “Which is the reason you’ll not accompany me to Spain. You have far more chance of being hurt by me than by the Spanish border guards.”

“It’s because of what I told you about the abbey? I’m not really wounded. I wouldn’t let Dupree hurt me.” She stared at him defiantly. “And I wouldn’t let you hurt me.”

“I don’t think we’ll allow that opportunity to arise. You’re going to stay at Vasaro with Catherine.”

“Hmm, we’ll see.” She hurried from the salon.

“What do you think he’s after, Georges Jacques?” François asked as he gazed thoughtfully out the window of the carriage at the passing scene.

“I have a few ideas and I think you do too.”

François nodded. “It’s well known Andreas tried desperately to purchase the Wind Dancer several years ago. I even noticed a portrait of the statue in his salon. Juliette goes to the Temple to speak to the queen. Andreas leaves for Spain.” His gaze shifted to Danton’s face. “As Andreas doesn’t meddle in politics except to benefit himself, I doubt if he’s on a mission for the royalists. I’d say he’s going after the Wind Dancer.”

“And it’s a peculiar coincidence that Dupree was also sent on a mission to Andorra at virtually the same time.”

“You think Marat knows where the Wind Dancer’s to be found?”

Danton shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to take the chance of it falling into Marat’s hands. He has power and stature enough without being known as the hero who returned the Wind Dancer to the republic.”

“And?”

“I
need
those Jacobins curbed.”

“You’re going to give Andreas what he wants.”

“Oh, there was no question about that. But I’m also going to give him something he doesn’t want” He grinned. “You.”

François gaze flew to Danton’s face. “Me?”

“I believe it’s my responsibility to keep Andreas safe on this dangerous journey. And who could better assure his safety than you? You’re not only equipped for the task by your professional talents, but you’re Basque and know the Pyrenees well.”

“You wish me to go with him?”

Danton nodded. “And, at the proper time, confiscate the Wind Dancer in the name of the republic and return it to me.”

“And you’ll reap the benefit of the bounty of prestige Marat’s seeking.”

“Certainly. Who deserves it more?”

“No one.” François gazed unseeingly out the window again. “I may be gone for months. Can you do without my services?”

“Obtaining the Wind Dancer would be worth doing without them for a decade. And I may be leaving for the front shortly anyway. Will you go?”

François was silent for a long time before he finally said, “Yes, I’ll go with Andreas.”

V
asaro!

A curving driveway fringed with lemon and lime trees and paved with stone and cork chips led up the hill to the large two-story stone manor house. Immediately behind the mansion Catherine could glimpse a stable and carriage house and several hundred yards beyond several long stone buildings. For the first time since they had left Paris she felt a tiny stirring of excitement beneath the numb bewilderment that had enveloped her on the long trip to Vasaro.

She leaned forward to look out the window of the carriage and inhaled sharply at the sheer beauty of the scene. Sloping fields surrounded the house on all sides and in those fields grew flowers of seemingly every hue and description. Blossoms of misty blue lavender, golden jasmine, creamy tuberoses, and vivid orange-scarlet geraniums waved gently
in the breeze, and still farther away she could see other fields of flowers she couldn’t even identify.

Philippe nodded at the lush scarlet flowers they were passing. “The geraniums are ready for harvesting. They’re very rare, you know. Vasaro is the only place in France that grows them. Jean Marc’s father had them imported from Algiers as a favor to your mother.”

She glanced at him beneath her lashes and then quickly looked away.

“No,” he said quietly. “Look at me. It can’t go on, Catherine. We’ve been friends too long for you to hold me in such aversion.”

“I … don’t hold you in aversion.” She slowly turned her gaze to meet his own. Straight and golden and bronze, in his way he was as beautiful as the fields of flowers beyond the window. So beautiful. The color flew to her cheeks. “I don’t remember any of it,” she whispered. “You’d think I’d never be able to forget a place as beautiful as Vasaro, wouldn’t you? Those fields of flowers are—”

“Catherine, you’ve been avoiding speaking to me for the entire journey. Will you not let me beg your forgiveness? I know what I did was unpardonable.”

“Please, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then we’ll speak no more but will you let me help—show you Vasaro? It belongs to you now, but I love it too.”

All this beauty belonged to her. She gazed out of the window and felt again that stirring of excitement mixed with something else too evanescent to define.

This was her property, her land. Her mother had been the mistress of Vasaro and her mother’s mother before her. They had beheld this glory, wandered in those fields, and spent their years helping it to flourish. Now she was there to take her place in caring for the blossoms of Vasaro.

“Catherine?”

She gazed at him absently. “If it’s time to harvest, why are there no pickers in the fields?”

A slow smile broke over his face. “They’ve gone back to their village. It’s over that far hill.” He gestured
toward a rolling hill to the west of the manor. “It’s late in the afternoon and it’s always best to pick flowers early in the morning, when the scent is the strongest. They usually start picking at dawn and continue until just after noon.”

“Oh.” She looked out into the fields again. “Everything is blooming. In Paris the flowers will die soon.”

“Here, the climate is such that there are always blossoms. Not the same ones, of course. There’s a season for every variety.”

“And we grow them all?”

“Almost. Vasaro has the most fertile ground on the coast, and it extends for miles.”

“I see.” Catherine leaned back in the carriage and breathed deeply. Fresh-turned earth and the heady scent of geraniums and lavender drifted to her in an intoxicating cloud. “I don’t see how the scent can be any stronger than this.”

“At dawn. You should smell it at dawn.”

“Should I?” She gazed out the window again and the stirring came again, stronger this time. Her land. Vasaro.

The carriage stopped at the house.

“This is Manon, Catherine.” Philippe gave his hat and gloves to the plump, smiling woman who met them in the flagstoned hall. “We also have three other maids and two cooks besides the stable workers, but Manon has been here supervising the running of the house ever since I first came to Vasaro.”

Manon murmured a low greeting and curtsied to Catherine.

“She’ll show you to your chamber.” Philippe took Catherine’s hand and raised it to his lips. “Until supper.”

Catherine nodded and followed the servant up the stairs and down the hall. She had no memory at all of this house, and yet she was beginning to feel a growing serenity, a sense of coming home.

Manon opened the door and preceded her into the bedchamber. The room was filled with sunshine, not only the light pouring through the long casement windows
across the room but in color. The Aubusson rug spilling across the shining oak floor was patterned with delicate ivory flowers on a green background and the bed and wall hangings were also ivory with a lemon-yellow border. Yellow cushions graced both the window seat and the armchair at the elegant rosewood desk across the room.

“I’ll unpack as soon as your bags are brought up, Mademoiselle.” Manon strode briskly across the room and threw open the casement windows.

Scent again. Overpowering fragrance swept into the room.

“Monsieur Philippe always dresses for dinner whether he has guests or not,” Manon said. “Shall I send Bettine to help you with your bath and dress your hair?”

“Yes, if you please.” Catherine moved slowly across the room to stand before the window. The breeze blew gently, lifting the tendrils of hair that had escaped the confinement of her bun. Stretched before her were fields of flowers, groves of lime and lemon trees, a vineyard nestled beneath a far hill, and in the distance a glimpse of steep, jagged mountains.

“Is the scent too strong?” Manon asked anxiously. “We who live here hardly notice it, but visitors claim it makes their heads ache. I could close the window.”

“No, don’t close it” As she looked down at the fields of flowers that seemed to stretch into forever, Catherine again had the strong feeling of homecoming. “I’m not a visitor. I belong here. I … like the scent.”

“No!”

Catherine sat bolt upright in the darkness.

She was trembling, sweating. The tomb. No faces.

She was alone.

Dear God, where was Juliette? Juliette had left her alone with the nightmares. Alone with the fear that swelled her heart until she thought it would choke her and churned the black bile into her throat.

She wrapped her arms around herself, panting, trying to shut out the sounds of the tomb. The men’s
guttural laughter, the tear of fabric, the sound of her own moans.

Bells.

No, that was wrong. There weren’t any bells in the tomb.

But there were bells here, fragile silvery threads of sound coming from beyond the open window across the room.

She slowly swung her feet to the floor, stood up, and crossed to look out the window.

A column of men, women, and children straggled down the road, coming from the direction Philippe had indicated as the workers’ village.

The first light of dawn broke over the distant field, torching the orange-red blossoms with fire as she threw the casement window open wider and knelt on the cushioned window seat. She gazed curiously at the small throng of people walking down the road. Men and women dressed in coarse clothing and wooden shoes, the women with braided hair or heads covered with shawls or scarves.

Catherine hadn’t expected to see the children. Children of all ages staggered sleepily in the wake of the grown-ups, the smallest clinging to their mothers’ skirts or carried in their arms.

The pickers followed a cart drawn by two shaggy horses, and as the animals tossed their heads, Catherine heard again those silvery bells fixed to their harnesses. The driver of the cart stopped before a field of geraniums and the throng following him grabbed their large woven baskets from the cart and flowed leisurely into the field. She could catch the sound of laughter and chatter carried on the clear morning air, the scent of the flowers beckoned with irresistible allure.

Catherine turned dreamily away from the window and began to dress.

A short time later she was standing on the small hill overlooking the geranium field. The scent was almost dizzying. She watched the pickers pluck the dew-covered blossoms and toss them into their baskets. Babies were now tottering among the rows of flowers or lying in their
own baskets while the older children picked the blossoms with the same amazing speed as their parents.

All except one child. A small boy slightly apart from the rest of the pickers had paused and was staring at her as intently as she was staring at the field below. The boy was no more than nine or ten, with tousled curly black hair, and winged black brows, dressed in a coarse blue shirt and ragged trousers.

She glanced away from him and drew her shawl closer about her as she sat down on the dew-wet grass of the hillock. She was soon absorbed in watching them pick and then throw, pick and throw. Why, there was a curious rhythm to their movements, as if they were moving to the beat of a drum only they could hear. She found herself unconsciously straining to hear the—

“Hello. I’m Michel. Who are you?”

She turned her head to see the curly-haired boy who had been watching her from the field. His face was too thin to qualify him as a beautiful child. His skin was browned to the color of sandstone, and his eyes were the clearest blue she had ever seen. He gazed at her with a gravity that was curiously unchildlike.

“My name is Catherine.”

“You’re new here.” His face lit with a smile of unusual sweetness. “Would you like to pick with me today?”

She was startled. “I wasn’t thinking of picking the flowers. I’m here to watch.”

“You should come down to the field. It will help you. The rhythm is very good today.”

Her gaze flew to his face. Rhythm? It was almost as if he had read her mind. “What do you mean?”

He knelt beside her and dug his hand into the earth. “Here, feel it. Put your hand here.”

Bemusedly, she put her palm on the earth.

“Do you feel it?”

“What am I supposed to feel?”

“The earth sighing, trembling, giving up its soul.”

“Soul?”

“The flowers. Everything has a soul, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know. Is that what the priests told you?”

He shook his head. “But I know. Can you feel it?”

She did feel a stirring beneath her palm, but it surely must have come from the breeze disturbing the grasses, their roots slightly moving in the soil. “I don’t think so.”

He frowned in disappointment. “I thought you might be one of the ones who felt it right away. Don’t worry, you’ll feel it later.”

He was so earnest she found herself smiling at him. “You’re so sure that—”

“Run away, Michel.”

She looked around to see Philippe dismounting from a chestnut horse a few yards away. She had never seen him dressed so simply in worn brown knee-boots, dark trousers, and a linen shirt unbuttoned at the top to reveal his strong brown throat.

Michel nodded in acknowledgment, but his gaze never left Catherine’s face. “You should come with me now. We can pick together.”

Philippe smiled indulgently at the child. “This is the mistress of Vasaro, Michel. She won’t be picking the blossoms.”

Michel turned to Catherine. “Are you sure? I think you’d like it.”