Blaise Levallier the truth, throwing herself on his mercy, then she dismissed the thought, remembering how he had rejected her accusation that he was cruel.
She squared her shoulders slightly. No, there was little of the milk of human kindness left there, she told herself, and he deserved everything that was coming to him. If Clare’s foolish letter was in the chateau she would find it somehow and—Monseigneur could find another dupe to play his marriage game with him.
She gave a little shiver, and wondered why she did so. And at the same time, the thought occurred to her that the sooner she could get away from the chateau—and its master—the better it would be for her.
It rained again in the night. Andrea’s first intimation of the fact came when she was rudely awoken by water dripping on her face. Still half asleep, she dragged herself upright and lit the lamp beside her bed, spilling some of the matches as she did so. She stared upwards with mounting indignation as she registered the spreading patch of damp on the ceiling above the bed. She scrambled out of bed and tugged and manoeuvred the heavy bedstead a few inches to the right. Then she fetched the basin from the washstand and placed it to catch the water. There was no point in allowing the water to ruin yet another ceiling below, she thought crossly.
The fire was out, a pile of grey ash, and outside the wind had got up. Somewhere one of the broken shutters was banging monotonously each time a gust took it, and Andrea got back into bed feeling chilled and thoroughly out of temper. Between the sound of drips falling into the china basin and the banging shutter she would be lucky if she closed her eyes again for the rest of the night, she thought.
But it was her inner anxieties, more than exterior conditions, that kept her from sleep, she found. No matter how resolutely she tried to exclude him, the scarred face of Blaise Levallier kept intruding on her interior vision. She told herself she was being ridiculous. After all, he had no real power over her. She was free, white and just over twenty-one. The most she had to fear was his anger when he found out he had been deceived and with any luck she would be well away by then. But all the time, a nagging voice somewhere deep inside her kept telling her that it was not going to be that simple.
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
