Chapter Four #3
Lycos watched her head across the courtyard, opening the feedstore door and emerging with a metal bowl filled with corn.
Immediately she was surrounded by the entire flock of hens, clucking loudly.
She led them into the hen- house, their wings flapping eagerly.
Moments later she backed out, shutting them in and locking the door with a lowered bar. Then she turned around.
‘Time for Maurice and Mathilde,’ she announced, heading back into the grain store to emerge again with the refilled bowl. A noisy quacking filled the air and suddenly Maurice and Mathilde were bustling forward from the direction of the pool, necks outstretched.
‘They sleep next door to the hens,’ Arielle said and led them into the duck-house, repeating the procedure as with the hens.
‘All done,’ she said, replacing the now empty bowl back in the grain store.
‘My turn next,’ said Lycos. ‘For feeding. After…’ he added purposefully, ‘…that aperitif. What does your sommelier recommend?’ he quizzed.
‘Vin d’h?tes,’ came the tart reply. ‘From my neighbour’s vineyard.’
‘?a suffit bien,’ Lycos murmured, standing aside so she could get into the kitchen. He watched while she extracted two wine glasses and then fetched a bottle of wine from a wooden rack. She took the glasses and handed the bottle to him, along with an ancient, and very primitive, corkscrew.
‘You can watch the sun set over your new domain,’ she said, leaving him to follow her across the hallway, then out on to the terrace.
He heard the sudden choke in her voice. Saw, as he came out on to the terrace, her shoulders hunch as she put the glasses on the ironwork table. He set the bottle and corkscrew down beside the glasses. Lifted his hand to her hunched shoulder.
‘Arielle—’
He said her name, his voice low, felt her flinch beneath his touch. Something moved in him, but he did not know what. Only that it was not what he usually felt about another human being.
Or himself.
She pulled away, reached for the corkscrew, seized the bottle and begun ferociously busying herself with opening it before placing it back on the table.
‘Your aperitif, m’sieu,’ she said. Her chin was lifted. Defying the crack in her defences.
‘Thank you,’ he told her gravely. ‘But you must share it with me. I insist.’
He held her chair for her and, stiffly, she sat down.
He took his own place. He reached for the bottle, pouring equal measures into both glasses.
The setting sun streamed golden light over the gardens.
The cicadas were insistent in their chorus.
Lycos watched her shakily lift her glass and he lifted his in unison.
He looked across the table at her and held her gaze with his own.
‘To survival, Arielle. Whatever the blows that fall.’ He paused. Kept his gaze steady on her. ‘You will survive them all, if you find the strength to do so.’ He saw the uncertainty in her eyes. The doubt. The fear.
‘Believe me,’ he said. ‘I know.’
Arielle lifted her fork, making a start on the bourguignon.
An air of unreality possessed her. It was the strangest meal.
Here she was sharing dinner and conversing civilly, if stiffly, with a man whose existence she had been completely unaware of not even twenty-four hours previously.
A man who was creating a conflict within her that she could make no sense of.
None at all. Because the only thing that made any sense to her, the only thing thundering in her head, was that this complete stranger was taking her beloved home away from her.
Yet he was having an effect on her that she could deplore all she liked, try to ignore all she liked, that had nothing to do with that nightmare. Nothing at all…
She felt her gaze fix on him. His face was lit by the soft light from the table lamp, that she’d switched on as the last of the daylight had faded with the setting sun, throwing his chiselled features into relief and yet somehow reflecting in the dark of his eyes, flecking them with gold.
She felt something catch inside her. A tiny, silent gulp.
A slight, sudden breathlessness. She wanted to shift her gaze, but couldn’t.
It seemed to be stuck. The sense of sudden breathlessness intensified.
With distinct effort she dragged her gaze away, dropping her eyes to her plate, taking another mouthful of food. She became aware that Lycos, having already drained his glass of wine, was reaching for the bottle. He glanced in her direction.
‘This is surprisingly good,’ he said. ‘May I top you up?’
Arielle nodded absently, hoping he hadn’t noticed her gazing at him.
‘Perhaps I should call on your neighbours and introduce myself,’ he said as he lifted his refilled glass to his mouth.
Arielle stared. ‘What for? I’ll tell them what’s happened. I’ll tell them to watch out for realtors descending and an eventual sale.’
‘It would be more civil if I did that,’ he countered, resuming his eating.
She continued to stare at him. ‘Why would you want to be civil? You’ve only turned up here to check out your latest gambling win, which you’ve now done. So tomorrow you can head on to Paris.’
She could hear the tightness in her own voice and she reached for her glass, suddenly wanting the strength that came from wine. In the lamplight she could see a considering look cross Lycos’s face.
‘I might stay another day,’ he said.
Arielle set her glass down with a click on the ironwork table.
‘Why?’ she demanded. She didn’t want him hanging around. She wanted him gone. Gone, gone, gone. So she could mourn in private.
Have this last…this very last, time here.
Anguish clutched at her, and she could not stop it. Dimly, she was aware Lycos was replying.
‘It’s very pleasant here,’ he was saying, but she noticed that there was something new in his voice. Something she hadn’t heard before. She looked at him again and saw a musing expression in his lamp-lit face. He lifted a hand and gestured around.
‘Relaxing,’ he said. ‘Just sitting here, dining en plein air, like this, with the warmth all around and the cicadas and no traffic noise. No noise at all,’ he mused. His face tilted up.
‘And the stars above,’ he said. He lowered his hand so that it covered the table lamp, bringing the heavens instantly to light. ‘Looks like that van Gogh painting,’ he remarked. ‘Starry, starry night…’
Arielle’s face tightened. She didn’t want Lycos Dimistrios saying things like that, she didn’t want him praising the Mas Delfine, or the wine or anything else. She didn’t want him full stop. His gaze dropped to her. A sardonic tug pulled at his mouth.
‘Why don’t you just hold up a sign saying, “Go Away”,’ he said cynically.
She didn’t answer, only attacked her boeuf bourguignon with renewed force. A low laugh broke from him and he picked up his own fork again. After a moment he spoke.
‘I mean it, Arielle, I might stay another day. There’s no rush for me to reach Paris. And, like I said, this really is very pleasant. Good food and drink, a warm evening, a starry sky, the scent of…’ He paused, looking at her quizzically.
‘Jasmine,’ she said shortly. ‘It’s always more fragrant at night.’
‘Jasmine,’ he echoed meditatively. He set down his fork, plate cleared.
‘That was good,’ he said approvingly. ‘Maybe, I should keep you on as my personal chef while I’m here,’ he said with the sardonic note back in his voice, although it was tinged with something else.
‘Tell me, what is for dessert? And what liqueurs might there be? The evening calls for something sweet, I feel, on both counts.’
Saying nothing, Arielle stood up, cleared the plates and marched indoors. She didn’t want his compliments, or his praise, or anything at all. She felt her eyes sting as she went into the kitchen, and she blinked rapidly. She didn’t want him here at all.
But there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that she could do about it.
A hand squeezed around her heart, hard and painful. And despairing.
Lycos stretched out his legs under the table, switched off the table lamp and lifted his face to the stars as the rich wine coursed through his veins, replete from that very good boeuf bourguignon.
Relaxed.
He frowned slightly, gazing upwards at the stars studding the night sky.
They burned much more vividly here than they ever did at the coast with all the light pollution from buildings and lit up yachts.
Other than the cicadas he really couldn’t hear a thing, maybe just vague sounds coming from the direction of the kitchen.
When had he last felt this relaxed? It was a pointless question because the answer was that he never felt relaxed. Not like this.
He heard Arielle emerge from the house and reaching out a hand he flicked the table lamp back on. She deposited a tray on the table holding dessert—a carton of vanilla ice cream and a bowl of raspberries—along with a square glass bottle and two small glasses.
‘That looks promising,’ he said approvingly, nodding at the glass bottle as he helped himself to a bowl and spoon.
‘It’s an orange liqueur,’ Arielle informed him.
‘Do you make it yourself?’ he asked, helping himself to a generous scoop of raspberries and another of ice cream.
When had he last ate this simply? He did not know. What he did know was that it was surprisingly enjoyable.
She shook her head. ‘No, my neighbours do. They have the equipment and the skill. But the oranges are from here. I’ve soaked the raspberries in it too.’
She filled the glasses, pushing one across at him. He took a cautious mouthful and blinked.
‘It’s strong,’ she said unnecessarily. ‘I’ve no idea what proof, but it’s got a kick.’
‘Very definitely,’ Lycos said dryly, lowering the glass again. He looked across at her. ‘This dinner has been very good, Arielle. You know, I think I will definitely keep you on as my personal chef,’ he said.
He was baiting her and she reacted as he knew she would. Her face tightened, lips compressed. Very tender lips…
‘So…’ he went on, still in baiting mode, ‘…how do you intend to entertain me tomorrow?’
‘I don’t intend to entertain you in any way, at any time,’ she said bitterly.
‘I don’t care what you do, M’sieu Dimistrios, tomorrow or any other day.
I’ll start packing up my personal belongings and I must go and see my neighbours about their taking the poultry.
Then I must contact the local lycée, to collect the piano I’m giving them. ’
He looked across at her. Her expression was closed, but there was something in the bleakness of her eyes she could not hide. Something that might have been tears welling. Something that made him speak.
‘There’s no rush,’ he heard himself saying. ‘Not for me. Nor you.’
He lifted up his liqueur glass, tilted it slightly at her and said, ‘Why don’t we just see how things turn out?’
Even as he spoke, he wondered at that too.
Never, in his life, since he’d taken control of it as a teenager, had he ever held to such a pointless mantra.
It ran counter to everything he lived his life by.
Even when it came to the random turn of a card he did not hold by it.
For in that card, whatever it was, he would make his calculation.
His decisions based on that calculation.
They were cold, careful decisions. Ruthless ones if necessary. But never made on impulse.
Except that it had been impulse that had made him turn off the highway and head off into this remote, deep countryside. Made him seek out the mas whose existence, let alone ownership, he had not known of this time yesterday.
And was it impulse now, saying what he just had?
See how things turn out…
The unfamiliar, alien words hung in his head. More thoughts formed. Questions.
What is it about this place that made me say that?
And it was not just this strangely peaceful mas. His eyes rested on the woman opposite him. Her face so beautiful. Her expression so sad.
He did not want her to be sad.
A frown flickered in his eyes. Why should he care if she was sad? Why should he care anything about her at all?
Or the home she was losing.
The place that was now his…
He drew his gaze away from her as she took some raspberries and began to eat them silently, still with that haunting sadness in her face.
He eyes gazed out into the dark. The quietness of the garden and the surrounding countryside all about him.
The scent of jasmine, the murmur of the cicadas, beguiling his senses. Inviting him to stay.
Slowly he lifted his liqueur glass to his lips and tasted, again, the sweet, fiery distillate easing down his throat. His gaze returned to Arielle.
Lingering.
Questioning.
Beguiling his senses.