Escape to the French Chateau

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Fran had plenty to think about as she wound her way through the long grass at the very back of the chateau, the remnants of a ham and cheese croissant in one hand and a small pot of ham offcuts, courtesy of Harry, in the other.

Penny had rolled her eyes when Fran said she would use her break to search for Red, but after having no luck finding the cat the previous evening, Fran was more determined than ever to find him today. A walk on her own would also help Fran decide how much of the chateau’s problems with staffing and salary issues she should include in her report. It seemed difficult to accept that, with its massive portfolio and unerring determination to provide the perfect holiday for its guests, Wilding Holdings were underpaying their staff so badly.

A thought had Fran’s stomach dropping. Perhaps it wasn’t a Wilding Holdings issue. Perhaps it was a Chateau les Champs d’Or issue. Perhaps Madame Beaufoy was actually a criminal mastermind, fleecing both her staff and her employer.

Or maybe the intense heat from the unyielding sunshine was making Fran hallucinate. She was forgetting what Madame Beaufoy had said about her husband’s wine being sourced at rock-bottom prices. And what Penny had only just said about a level of animosity with the locals – Fran itched to know what that was about. What it did seem to point towards, though, was that Madame Beaufoy wasn’t the root cause of the hotel’s issues.

She would do her best to put on a sleuthing hat and find out what the true cause was. It was possible that whatever had happened, there was a chance to broker peace between the hotel and neighbouring towns. With any luck, it would encourage more local people to come and work for the hotel – especially with the enticing offer of a better pay scale. Either way, she would put the details of what she’d found into her report, then it would be up to Wilding Holdings as to what they did with the information. Hopefully they would be able to assist Madame Beaufoy with the staffing problems she seemed to feel she had to deal with single-handedly.

A rustling up ahead had Fran pausing. Grassy seed heads wavered like an early-warning system, and she caught sight of a bushy ginger tail, held high and flicking at its very tip in rhythm with the grasses.

‘Incoming …’ Fran knelt, pulling the last traces of ham and cheese from the croissant. As the cat broke cover, Fran held the protein combo in outstretched fingers and held her breath.

Red hardly broke step, heading for her with a sense of determination before sniffing, then taking, the piece of ham from her fingers.

Fran grinned. Red had never been this bold before; he must be beginning to understand she wanted to help him.

The cheese was appropriated next, then the knob end of Fran’s croissant. Red licked at it before seizing it between startlingly white teeth and whomping it down. He swallowed hard, as though it was lumpy in his throat.

‘Serves you right for not chewing it properly,’ Fran whispered, taking the lid from the pot of scraps as quietly as she could. Before she could tip the contents onto the patch of flattened grass, Red was bumping at her fingers with the crown of his head.

‘All right, hold on. It’s coming.’

Fran emptied the contents of the tub and Red wolfed them down, hardly pausing for breath until every last morsel was gone. Once he was sure he’d hoovered everything, Red sat and stared at her, his tongue making a final inspection of his lips while his tail flicked. Fran wondered if his tail ever stopped moving as Red set about cleaning one paw, then the other.

Once his ablutions were complete, Red sauntered closer and didn’t flinch when Fran extended her hand to touch the incredibly soft fur on the bony shape of his skull. In fact, he pushed against her touch, turning himself so she could run her hand along the length of his body. Still way too thin, his spine and ribs too easy to feel below the softness of his fur, Fran felt a tug of sorrow.

‘You poor boy. Why doesn’t anyone love you?’ The words caught in Fran’s throat. ‘Well, I’m here now. I’ll look after you.’

Fran was rewarded with a rumble emanating from deep within the cat and he meowed at her as he pushed himself up onto her lap. Sitting on the dry grass with the cat nestled on her knees, Fran lost all sense of time as she felt her way over every bony inch of Red, tried her best to tease out the lumps of matted fur when her fingers faltered on them. Found herself chatting away to him about her life, about what had brought her to this chateau, about what might come next. It struck her that she knew nothing about how to import an animal into the UK, or how on earth she would look after him if she took him home with her, while continuing her nomadic lifestyle for Wilding Holdings.

Frowning, she pushed the difficulties to one side, concentrating instead on the fact that the cat had gone from skittish and wary, to covering her lap in fluff in a matter of a couple of days.

Perhaps she should attempt to learn something from the animal’s willingness to try again, where humans were concerned.

From the gravel pathway threading its way through the lavender-rich borders of the gardens, Johnny heard the series of backfires and caught sight of a classic MG as it headed away from the chateau. A cloud of dust whirled to obscure the vehicle as it shot down the drive, but he already knew it was a beauty. Johnny had admired it in the parking area, the deep woodland green of its paintwork setting off the brilliant shine of its chrome wheels and accessories. Stooping to peer through the window, he’d known even before he saw it that the interior would be cream leather and walnut. He wasn’t disappointed.

He was still grinning at the thought of the car as he caught sight of Fran, pelting across the grass in the distance, then heading back towards the outbuildings they’d searched the previous evening.

Johnny rounded the end of a border and slipped between the low shrubbery as he tailed her.

‘Fran, what’s the matter?’ Johnny was calling at nothing more than her shadow, the swing of her bobbed hair glossy in the sunshine as she shot towards the outbuildings.

By the time he found her, she was yanking open one of the shed doors, gaze scanning the interior.

‘Fran, what’s the matter?’

Finally, she noticed him, as she raced from that outbuilding to its neighbour.

‘I need a ladder. Something to climb on.’ She was out of breath, her cheeks flushed and her expression fraught.

‘A ladder?’

‘Did you hear those explosions? Sounded like fireworks …’

‘Yes, an MG backfiring, that’s all.’ Johnny couldn’t see the connection.

‘It frightened Red. He’s gone up a tree and I don’t think he’ll be able to get back down. He’s stuck.’

Fran pulled at one of the aged wooden ladders inside the building, her frustration overflowing as she yanked at it and swore under her breath.

‘Let me get it,’ Johnny said, waiting for Fran to calm a little and take a step back.

She drew in a deep breath. ‘Thank you.’

With the ladder out in the open, Johnny cast around. There were a few spindly young trees dotting the grassy area, with more substantial, mature oaks partially obscuring the view out onto the neighbouring vineyards. Fran pointed towards those.

‘He’s over there. He ran away so fast, I only caught a glimpse of him as he shot up that big one with the split trunk.’

‘And you’re sure he’s stuck?’

‘Yes, I’m sure. Are you going to help me, or not?’ With exasperation in her every word, Fran tried to pull the ladder from his grasp.

‘You lead the way,’ Johnny said. ‘I’m right behind you.’

By the time he’d lugged the hefty ladder through long grass, which caught at his every step, and had reached the tree, Fran was in the dappled shade thrown by the tree’s leaves, peering up through the canopy. He rested the ladder against the trunk as Fran pointed upwards.

‘He’s up there.’

‘Where?’

‘Third bough up. I can see his paws. And I can hear him, can’t you?’

Johnny strained eyes and ears, unsure whether the noise he could hear was the yowling of a cat, or the sound of a far-off motorbike. Either way, he’d come too far to back out of this now. He steadied the feet of the ladder as best he could on the uneven ground and gnarly roots sticking proud of the soil.

‘Will you hold the ladder steady for me?’

‘I’m doing the climbing,’ Fran said. ‘He trusts me. You’ll just make things worse.’

Johnny had to admit she might be right where the cat was concerned. However, what Fran hadn’t factored was the length of the skirt she was wearing, and the fact that he would be stood directly beneath her if it was him holding the ladder. Yes, his thought process might not be very far advanced from that of a twelve-year-old, but the point still held. He’d be staring straight up her skirt. Plus, the ladder looked ropey, to say the least. If it hadn’t suffered irreparable damage at the hands – or maybe that should be teeth – of generations of woodworm, Johnny would be very surprised.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep my eyes closed. Promise.’

‘What do you mean? I need you to be able to take the cat from me once I get him down. How can you do that with your eyes clos—oh.’ She must have tracked his gaze.

‘I’ll climb. If the cat wants rescuing, I’m sure he’ll let me help him,’ Johnny said.

Fran frowned, then nodded. ‘Fair enough. Thank you.’

The ladder seemed relatively solid as Johnny began to scale his way up. Not convinced he would be able to reach the cat, even from the very top rung, Johnny wondered if he would somehow be able to coax the feline down far enough to get hold of it. He glanced down to check Fran had a decent hold on the ladder, was reassured by her firm grip and stance, and continued to climb.

With a combination of the dry, dusty feel of the rungs of the ladder and then the strong, rough bark of the oak itself, Johnny felt relatively confident as he came level with the first bough. From here he had a better view of the cat. If he was being honest, Johnny didn’t consider the cat to look at all traumatised by its current situation. If anything, he looked rather at home, lying flat and with his tail curling and flexing as he observed Johnny’s progress with a look of disdain.

‘Fran thinks you need to be rescued, young man. So, do me a favour, would you? Climb down here so I can look like the hero, there’s a good cat.’

‘Is he OK?’ Fran called from below.

‘He’s fine. Just trying to work out how to reach him. Give me a minute.’

‘Can you get onto the branch, maybe reach him that way?’

‘If I want to slip and break my neck, then, yeah,’ Johnny said, under his breath. Fran was overestimating both his climbing ability and, quite frankly, his levels of bravery. A glance down to see how far below him she stood didn’t help, his throat drying at the thought of falling.

‘Can you call him, maybe he’ll come down a bit closer?’ Johnny yelled down.

Fran made a strange, inhaled squeaking noise. Johnny stifled a laugh, but Red perked up, ears pricked, giving his total focus on the source of the noise.

‘It’s my impression of a mouse,’ Fran called up. ‘Is it working?’

‘Think so. Keep it going.’

The squeaky noise came again, and the cat moved, slinking to the very edge of the branch before peering down. Fran squeaked even more loudly and after a brief pause, Red began to leap elegantly from branch to branch.

Johnny looked on as the cat negotiated his way effortlessly to the final junction between branch and trunk, before scaling down the rest of the tree to the ground. He could have sworn the cat gave him a look of derision as it swept past.

As she watched the cat descend, Fran grimaced. Perhaps Red hadn’t been as stuck as she’d assumed. He’d hightailed it away from her when he heard the backfiring engine and had scooted up into the tree in what appeared to Fran to be a total blind panic.

But he climbed from the tree with far more grace than Fran had been expecting, sauntering across to where she stood, braced against the ladder. As he rubbed against her ankles, Fran could hear the cat begin to purr and she reached down to stroke him between the ears.

‘For Christ’s sake, don’t let go.’

The ladder jiggled in the one hand Fran still had on it, and she reinstated her grip with both hands as Johnny began a clumsy descent. Fran was about to whisper to Red that his exit from the tree had been a whole lot more elegant than Johnny’s, when there was a dry crack, followed by a lot of movement and a rapid volley of swear words. The ladder went one way, the cat scarpered in another direction and before Fran had time to move away, or attempt to do anything to help Johnny, his tall frame was colliding with hers.

Despite both their best efforts to stay on their feet, Fran tripped on a tree root, Johnny flailed but couldn’t control his forwards momentum and they landed with a thump on the dusty ground beneath the oak’s wide canopy.

‘Oof,’ Fran said, using up what little air she still had in her lungs. Johnny sprawled across her, his lips way too close to her ear as he asked if she was hurt.

‘Don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘You?’

‘Nothing’s broken,’ he said. ‘Except for the ladder.’ Johnny drew in a breath as he shuffled his weight away from her but made no move to get up. ‘And possibly my pride.’

He turned to lie on his back beside her, and they stayed put, staring up through the shimmering canopy of the tree. Fran made a mental map of her body, deciding nothing was damaged further than a bit of potential bruising.

‘I really thought he was stuck,’ Fran said, after a while.

‘Yeah, well, he had us both fooled, didn’t he?’

‘If only I’d known I didn’t need a ladder at all.’

‘What?’ Johnny sounded horrified as he twisted up onto an elbow. With his gaze on her, Fran could see the twinkle of a smile in his eyes, the skin crinkling into crow’s feet as he said, ‘But without a ladder, I couldn’t have given you my best impression of a pompier, could I?’

‘A what?’

‘A pompier. Fireman.’

‘Oh, OK. I suppose not.’

‘Admittedly, a fairly rubbish fireman, with faulty equipment, but still …’

‘I should have thought about the fact that the ladder looked about a hundred years old.’

‘Hmmm. The woodworm has had plenty of munching time,’ he said.

‘I’m so sorry. Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Haven’t been this all right for quite a while,’ he said, his gaze steady as he stared at her. Fran held his gaze, blinking as though she had something in her eye as she tried to process what he’d just said.

Luckily, Johnny must have sensed her confusion, because he frowned and glanced away, holding up a hand. ‘Actually, I might have picked up a couple of splinters on the descent.’

Fran appreciated his joke, the effortless way he’d broken the tension, and she switched her gaze back to the sunlight marbled in greens by the tree. She supposed she should get up, should check on Red, shouldn’t be lying on the ground next to a man she barely knew, and yet, apart from the fact she had the edge of a tree root digging into the back of her shoulder, she hadn’t felt this comfortable in a long time. With the slightest of breezes stirring the leaves, creating a rustling perfectly accompanied by a kaleidoscope of hues in the canopy, Fran felt strangely at peace.

It was just as well that the splinters in Johnny’s hand were beginning to sting like the very devil, as it enabled him to focus his attention on his hand, rather than on the fact that he was lying on the ground next to a woman he found startlingly attractive. The pain helped him ignore the strength of the impulse he’d felt to kiss her neck when he’d landed on top of her. Even now, the realisation that with the slightest of movements he could reach across and brush his fingertips across the creamy skin of her arm was difficult to disregard, the desire to do so only marginally buried behind the pain in the palm of his hand.

There were a couple of large splinters sticking from the skin of his palm and he rolled flat onto his back to be able to make a more detailed search. Running a finger across his hand, he found a couple more smaller shards of wood buried deep in his flesh.

‘Does the chateau have a medic?’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ Fran said, levering herself up onto her elbows to observe. ‘Oh, my God. I thought you were joking. You really do have splinters. That looks painful.’

‘It’s not that bad. I’ll live.’

‘Well, that’s good news, because I’m pretty sure killing a guest might get me the sack.’

Fran grinned, and he joined in, disappointment clouding the moment when Fran sat up and then stood, brushing crumbs of dusty soil and leaf fragments from her clothing.

‘I’m sure we must have somebody trained in first aid. Let me get back to the chateau and find somebody to help you.’

‘What about the ladder?’ he said, more to prolong his time with her than because he had any burning desire to tidy up.

‘I suppose I should return it,’ she said.

‘I might as well do it,’ Johnny said. ‘It’s already done its worst to me, what else can go wrong? And then I should probably get some disinfectant for my hand.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.’

And he was only partially joking.

In the end they both carried what was left of the ladder back to the shed. The impetus of Johnny’s rapid descent when one of the brittle rungs gave way had shattered several more on his way down, and to all intents and purposes the ladder was now a structure of two halves. With a bit of persuasion, in the form of a sharp kick, Johnny separated the two side rails from the remaining rungs and, carrying a rail each, they lugged the pieces back to the shed, shoving them inside and closing the door with the speed of the guilty wishing to remain undiscovered.

Fran glanced around sheepishly, checking they hadn’t been rumbled, while Johnny began to pick at the larger of the splinters.

‘I should go and get myself cleaned up,’ he said.

‘Do you want me to come back with you and organise some first aid?’ Fran glanced around, as though she’d misplaced something.

It took Johnny a while to realise what she was looking for. He sighed.

‘No. I’m more than capable of phoning room service. I’ll head back.’

‘If you’re sure?’ she said, backing away from him as she added, ‘And thanks again for your help.’

‘Even though it wasn’t really required?’

She grinned. ‘He’s such a naughty cat.’

Johnny remained by the shed as Fran’s distracted smile gave way and she turned from him with a final wave, no doubt to go and check on Red.

That ginger tomcat was one lucky son of a … gun.

As he trudged through the gardens and into the chateau, a thought stuck with Johnny, and as much as it surprised him, it wasn’t one he found he wanted to discard, either. Because he realised he really wanted Fran to care as much about him as she cared about that cat.