The French Gardener (25 page)

She laughed at his teasing. “Seriously now, how do I look?” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Flushed.” He took her hand. “Come, we’ll walk the long way around, that way any evidence will be blown away by the wind.”

When they reached the terrace, Antoinette, Henri and Phillip were just getting up to go in for lunch.

“Perhaps you’d like to freshen up in your room,” said Antoinette to Ava. “I’m sorry, I should have offered when you arrived. Françoise will show you.”

Ava followed the older woman up the stone staircase and along a corridor until they reached a door at the end. Françoise opened it to reveal a large bedroom with a four-poster iron bed draped in white linen. A window was wide open, giving on to the dovecote and the fields of vines beyond, and a pair of white curtains billowed on the breeze that blew in from the garden. Françoise was surprised that she spoke French. “Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked, grateful to be understood.

“No, thank you. I’ll be down in a minute.” She noticed that her suitcase was on a stand, open and ready to be unpacked. She delved inside for her sponge bag and hurried into the bathroom to wash away the evidence of adultery. Catching herself in the mirror she paused to see if there was anything in her appearance that might give her away. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes shining, her hair tousled and tumbling over her shoulders. She pulled out a piece of straw that had gone unnoticed. Instead of throwing it in the bin she put it in the pocket of her sponge bag. Something to treasure. It would always remind her of the first time they made love.

She leaned out the window and surveyed the gardens. The sky was clear blue, the scent of newly cut grass and sweet-smelling shrubs rose up on the air and, beyond it all, stood the dovecote, their secret place, half hidden behind the wall. She smiled to herself and thought of Jean-Paul, recalling his kiss and his touch. She closed her eyes and wished the week would last forever.

Ava sat through lunch exuding a radiance that affected them all. Phillip delighted in his wife’s happiness and silently congratulated himself on arranging this break away from home. It was obviously what she needed; she was back on sparkling form, looking lovelier than ever. Henri smelt Ava’s sexuality like a dog sensing a bitch on heat and flirted with her in his coarse, bombastic manner. Jean-Paul watched her with dreamy eyes, holding her gaze a little longer than was prudent, throwing his head back and laughing in a way he hadn’t laughed for weeks, certainly in a way he never behaved in the presence of his father. Antoinette reveled in his joy and knew that Ava had done as she had asked and persuaded him to return to England. Ava slipped back to her normal, ebullient self, holding the table with her stories and making them all laugh with her impeccable timing and witty repartee. She felt electrified by Jean-Paul’s presence in the room, as if he were spring incarnate, coaxing her winter branches into blossom.

After lunch, Henri insisted on showing them around the vineyard. Antoinette declined gracefully, floating off for a siesta. She kissed her son, leaving him with an affectionate look, then smiled conspiratorially at Ava. Ava panicked. A
mother’s instinct perhaps? Then she shook off any feeling of unease. She couldn’t possibly know. Her complicit look must refer to the fact that Ava had succeeded in getting her son to change his mind and return with them to England.

Ava walked behind Phillip and Henri with a bounce in her step, her shoulder almost touching Jean-Paul’s arm. She was unable to hide her exhilaration, taking pleasure from every stolen moment. Henri led them down the garden to the dovecote. “Thank goodness doves can’t talk,” Jean-Paul commented under his breath as they slipped through the gate.

“Les Lucioles has been in my family for five hundred years,” said Henri, puffing his chest out with pride. “This dovecote was built in the time of Louis the Thirteenth.” He patted Jean-Paul on the back, feigning fatherly affection. “One day my son will take over from me. Once he has found a wife and produced an heir. Am I right?” He pulled a face and gave a few exaggerated nods, appraising his son like an old king. “Yes, one day you will inherit all that is mine. It has lasted five hundred years; there is no reason why it won’t last another five hundred. Eh?”

Ava winced as he flung open the door so that it crashed against the wall, sending the doves shooting into the air like bullets. “It’s beautiful,” she commented, stepping inside.

“It is very special to me,” said Jean-Paul without looking at her. Then he put his hand on his heart. “Very special.”

Phillip glanced at his wife. “Slightly more charming than ours, don’t you think, Shrub?”

“Oh, I think ours has a lot to recommend it.”

“No doves,” he added.

“We should buy some. We can’t have a dovecote without doves.”

“And give it a lick of paint,” Phillip continued.

“No, no. Don’t paint it. You will ruin it if you paint it,” said Jean-Paul. “I like it just the way it is. It has a secret magic.” Ava pretended to be distracted by something in order not to have to look at him.

“So, when are you planning on returning to Hartington?” Phillip said to Jean-Paul.

“Next week,” he replied coolly. “I needed to spend some time with my mother.”

“Can’t you find him a suitable English girl?” Henri interrupted. “Don’t they make them like you anymore?” he added to Ava with a wink.

Ava smiled sweetly to hide her embarrassment. “You flatter me,” she replied, shrugging off his comment with a laugh.

“Come, let me show you Antoinette’s garden.” He put his hand in the small of her back and escorted her out of the dovecote. Jean-Paul walked behind with Phillip, but she felt his eyes upon her and the frisson of excitement they caused. “We need to find him a girl,” he said, lowering his voice.

“He’s young,” Ava replied in his defense.

“It is time he settled down. Between you and me, I had to get him out of Paris. He was living the life of a playboy, dating the most unsuitable girls. I will not hand over the estate to a woman of that sort, who will piss it all away on frivolity.”

“Don’t you find him changed?” she asked, suddenly realizing that she was in a position to help him. “When he arrived in England, I’ll be honest, I didn’t think he’d last a week. He had never done a day’s work in his life and it showed. He was completely ill equipped to work in a garden and arrogant with it. But he’s changed. Can’t you see it?”

“He looked as miserable as a dog!” said Henri unsympathetically. “I said to Antoinette, ‘That boy’s in love.’”

“With the garden,” replied Ava deliberately. “He’s in love with my garden. You wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it
with your own eyes, but he’s put his heart and soul into it. He’s worked so hard to create something really beautiful and he’s never too proud to learn. When he comes back he’ll enjoy the fruits of his labor.”

“I am pleased.” Henri shrugged. “I wouldn’t believe it had anyone else told me but you.”

“I think he worries about Antoinette,” she added carefully.

“She’s stronger than she looks.”

“I’m sure. He’s a dutiful son.”

“He’s her only son. That makes her very anxious. You understand, you’re a mother. She’s overprotective and over-indulgent. If he came back from Paris with one of his strays she’d accept her. Anything to make him happy.”

“And you’re tougher, to compensate?”

“Perhaps.” He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “You’re very perceptive, Ava Lightly.”

“It’s easier to see if one’s not involved.”

“I can see the bigger picture. Life is not a fairy tale. I need a son who is a man. I entertain on a grand scale. Some of the most important men in the land walk through my gates. I cannot hand the business over to a man who does not accept his responsibility with a grubby tart for a wife.”

“You want your son to be like you,” she said, feeling sorry for Jean-Paul, his destiny all mapped out for him like that. Even though it was a magnificent destiny, there was still so much pressure to conform. While his father was alive, there was no hope of freedom, except in England with her.

“I need my son to be as solid as me,” Henri replied. “With a good head for business. He must find a decent girl and start a family. A girl who knows her place, not a flighty girl with ambitions of her own.”

“Like Antoinette.”

“Jean-Paul needs to return to England in order to stay away from his mother. Sometimes love can be suffocating.
There is nothing wrong with love, but we all need a little space. Relationships work better when the air is able to circulate between two people. Antoinette would have liked more children. It would have been easier for Jean-Paul if she had.
Tant pis
!”

“He will make a wonderful vigneron,” she said diplomatically.

“He has watched the machinations of the business since he was a little boy and then, bam, all of a sudden he lost interest and I lost him.”

“Don’t all children go through that stage? They rebel against their parents when they try to work life out for themselves and gain a little independence. He’ll come back to you.”

“I don’t know. I had such high expectations of him.”

“Don’t be too hard, Henri. On yourself or on him. If you give a horse a long rein he won’t run away; if you pull it in tight, he’ll bolt.”

“You are wise for someone so young.”

“It’s all the spinach I eat. Good for the brain,” she quipped.

“Then I should eat more than I do.”

Antoinette’s garden was bursting into flower. Pink roses were budding against a wall where great stone urns of white tulips sprang up with yellow senecio and violas. Box hedges were frothy and pale green, and wild yellow narcissus grew in abundance among rampaging honeysuckle and daisies. The air was sweet with the scent of spring, stirred by the merry twittering of birds as they flirted in the cedar and sycamore trees. In the middle of her carefully designed garden was an ornamental pond, the statue of a little boy, his hand outstretched, touching the wing of a bird in flight. Ava was drawn to it. She stood beneath the sculpture, admiring the way the boy’s fingers barely touched the bird so that it appeared to be totally unsupported. Jean-Paul came up behind her.

“Isn’t it incredible?” he said.

She turned and smiled at him. “It reminds me of the little boy and dolphin that stand on the Embankment in London.”

“This was commissioned for me, by my mother.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I am the little boy, the bird symbolizes freedom. As you can see, I can almost touch it.”

“You can be free at Hartington.”

“I know,” he replied, so softly she could barely hear him. She felt the breeze ruffle her hair. “I want to kiss your neck,” he added.

“Be careful.”

“I’m French, I say what I feel.”

“I ask you to take care, Mr. Frenchman. We are being watched.”

“They are not interested,
ma pêche
. Look, they are busy discussing the history of the
cave
and the great freeze of ninety-one. Papa will not cease to worry about frost until
la lune rousse
.” He sighed heavily. “But I couldn’t care less about frost. I want to lie with you and make love to you in the warmth of my cottage, up there under the eaves. I want to kiss you all over, slowly, carefully, savoring the taste of you inch by inch.”

“Stop,” she pleaded. “Phillip…”

“Your Phillip is enraptured by my father. Listen, they are discussing the quality of the grape.”

“There’s nothing that interests him more than that.”

“Then leave them to it. He is happy. Come.”

“We can’t,” she protested.

“I want to show you the greenhouses. They are spectacular.”

“It’s too obvious!”

“Only to you. They suspect nothing. Isn’t it natural that I should want to show you my home?” He began to walk towards the yew hedge.

Ava turned. Phillip raised his eyes, she waved, he waved back, then she was gone through the hedge and Jean-Paul had taken her hand and was leading her down a gravel path.

Once inside, he closed the door and kissed her. It was hot and humid, smelling of damp earth and freesias. She felt his excitement as he pulled her hips towards him. “We can’t…” But it was useless to protest. His mouth silenced her and his arms wound around her in a passionate embrace.

“I wish we were alone. You drive me crazy,” he gasped. “I want to take your dress off and feel your flesh. I want to lie naked with you so nothing separates us but skin and bone.”

“Darling Jean-Paul, it’s not possible here. Phillip and your father could come in at any time.”

“Curse them both!” He scowled. “I will engineer it so that we can be alone.”

“How?”

“You will see. I have a plan. Trust me.”

Ava pulled away to inspect the greenhouse. There were pots of highly scented tuberose, rows of orchids in myriad colors, and pretty nerine lilies, just opening. Jean-Paul followed her, holding her hand, turning her around every few minutes to steal another kiss. It was fortunate that when Henri entered with Phillip they were on either side of a table of rare purple orchids. “Phillip, do come and look at these,” she called to her husband. “They’re almost checked.”

Phillip strode over, admiring the plants as he passed them.

“This is quite something,” he agreed.

“Oh yes, Antoinette is a keen amateur,” said Henri.

Jean-Paul remained apart, watching Ava’s every move. “I think you should take them around the vineyard in the truck,” Jean-Paul suggested to his father. Henri enjoyed nothing more than showing off to his guests.

“We have just started spraying the crop,” he said. “Would you like to see?”

“That would be splendid,” said Phillip.

Jean-Paul waited for Ava to back out so that they could be together at last.

“I think I’ll leave you boys to it,” she said on cue. Jean-Paul threw her a secret smile.

Phillip frowned uneasily. “Why don’t we go for a walk?” he asked his wife. Jean-Paul looked at him in alarm.

“A walk?” Ava repeated.

“How far is it into town?” he asked Henri.

“A fifteen-minute walk. It’s a nice walk. There are some pretty shops you might like, Ava. Women’s shops, soaps and things.”

“I’d love to,” she replied. She wanted to explain her actions to Jean-Paul. They had to behave with caution. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Phillip. Her desire to be alone with her lover would have to wait.

“I can show you the vines tomorrow,” said Henri. “Now, let me show you how to get to town.”

Ava was sure that Jean-Paul would sulk. She braced herself for a sullen face, but to her surprise he simply shrugged. She smiled at him gratefully and he seemed to say “It’s okay, we’ll have plenty of time.” Reluctantly, she left him in the garden by the fountain and accompanied her husband to the front of the house. “Isn’t it a beautiful place?” she said as they walked down the drive beneath the shimmering plane trees.

“Beautiful,” he agreed. “Now you can see why it matters so much to Henri that his son gain experience of running an estate.”

“Completely. But I think he’s matured so much since he came to stay with us.”

“He’s a different man.”

“That’s what I said to Henri. I want him to know that he has a very talented son. I think he’s hard on him.” Phillip nodded. “His mother overcompensates.”

“It’s good for Jean-Paul to get away from both of them.”

“Do you think someone will be saying that someday about Archie and Angus?”

“Of course not, Shrub,” he reassured her. “You and I are pretty solid parents.”

“I hope so. I’d hate to think of them escaping to another country to avoid us.”

“Children go through stages. They have to spread their wings and fly. We have to let them. Jean-Paul will come back in the end and run this place as his father did. You can see how much he loves it and why.”

“I never imagined it to be so spectacular,” she agreed.

He took her hand. “So, you’re not missing the children?”

“Not yet.”

“You’re happy I brought you here?”

“Very happy.”

“And your thoughts on motherhood?”