Chapter Five
Arielle woke. Her bedroom was full of sunshine. She hadn’t drawn the curtains the night before, performing the minimum of bedtime ministrations, barely getting into her nightgown before sinking down on to her bed and drawing the bedclothes over her. Exhaustion had overcome her.
Emotional exhaustion from the cataclysmic events of the day and, too she knew, from the wine she’d drunk and that lethal liqueur.
As she came to consciousness now, she felt a fleeting longing that what had happened yesterday had only been a nightmare, unreal. But it was all too real. All too real a nightmare.
The Mas Delfine was gone, no longer her home. And she must leave and lose it for ever.
Words that the man who was taking it from her had framed themselves in her head.
You will survive.
Her face soured. Yes, of course she would survive. What choice did she have? None.
But survival would be bleak.
Heavily, she got out of bed. Judging by the sun, she’d overslept by a good couple of hours and compunction smote her.
The hens, and Maurice and Mathilde, would be desperate to get out.
Hastily she pulled on the same clothes she’d worn yesterday and ventured out of her room, burningly conscious that at the other end of the landing was the man who was taking her beloved home from her.
But she must not think of that right now.
She must only hurry down to let out the poultry.
But as she unlocked the kitchen door and opened it, she stopped dead.
The hens were already out. Jean-Paul, the very handsome, and very conceited cockerel who lorded over his harem, was strutting about, helping himself to the maize plentifully scattered over the cobbles. His harem was equally busily engaged.
‘Have I given them too much?’
A voice from the gateway to the gardens made her head turn sharply. Lycos was strolling forward. For ten seconds Airelle could only stare. He was wearing a tee shirt, damp over his chest, and dark blue board shorts, his bare feet in open sandals. His sable hair was glistening wet.
‘The pool was irresistible,’ he said. ‘And I wanted to beat Maurice and Mathilde to it.’ He glanced at the poultry, greedily pecking away, the ducks joining in, as well as some opportunistic pigeons from the barn roof. ‘I think I did overdo it,’ he said ruefully.
Arielle laughed. She couldn’t help it.
‘You’ll be their friend for life now,’ she said dryly. ‘Watch your toes!’ she added sharply. ‘Jean-Paul likes to remind everyone he’s boss guy!’
Lycos stepped nimbly aside, as the cockerel headed purposefully towards him, wings stretching out.
‘He knows you’re male,’ Arielle said.
‘Please inform him…’ Lycos said gravely, dark eyes glinting, ‘…that the only designs I might have on his harem is a culinary one.’
She gave another laugh, heading for the hen house. ‘While they’re feasting, I’ll get the eggs gathered,’ she said.
It seemed strange to be having any kind of civil conversation with Lycos Dimistrios, she thought as she started to check for eggs.
Maybe, though, it makes a hideous situation easier to cope with? Gives me a semblance of normality. However impossible…
Perhaps in anticipation of their very generous breakfast, the hens had laid well and she emerged some minutes later with a full colander.
Lycos had disappeared, but when she went into the kitchen, she could hear the shower running.
She set the colander of fresh eggs on the work surface and stared out of the window.
Her mood was strange, how could it not be?
Her thoughts were stranger. Outside the poultry were still making the most of the unexpected largesse.
She took a breath. This time yesterday her world had ended.
Lycos had walked into her life and smashed it to pieces.
Now…
It’s still smashed. He might have let out the hens and fed them, and made himself at home in the pool—made himself at home, full stop—but he’s invaded my life and taken it from me.
She felt her chest and throat tighten. But what could she do about it? Nothing. Nothing at all.
I have to cope with this. I knew it was coming. Gerald and Naomi made it clear. Relished making it clear. My days here are numbered.
And now the countdown had begun. Entirely at Lycos Dimistrios’s timetable.
All I can do is bear it as well as I can.
Mechanically she got the coffee going, fetched milk from the fridge and set it to heat.
From the ancient chest freezer, housed in what had been the old dairy but was now the utility with its old-fashioned washing machine, she removed a frozen baguette and some frozen croissants and popped them into the oven to thaw and warm through.
Readying the breakfast tray made her chest tighten again.
Putting out crockery and cutlery for two.
Juicing some more oranges for them both.
She might as well enjoy her oranges while she still had them.
‘How did the egg collection go?’ a voice behind her broke her painful reverie.
‘Plenty for an omelette if you want one,’ she said.
‘Sounds good,’ said Lycos. He leant against the door jamb. ‘Any orange juice?’
Wordlessly Arielle poured a glass for him, then busied herself breaking eggs for omelettes and making coffee.
Checking the milk heating in its pan on the stove, she got out a skillet and set the butter to melt for the eggs.
The routine, mechanical movements kept her mind from thinking. Kept herself from thinking.
She removed the warmed bread and croissants from the oven, wrapped them in a clean tea towel and placed them on the tray, together with the freshly made coffee and hot milk in jugs. She handed the laden tray to Lycos, who had drained his orange juice.
‘Take it out to the terrace,’ she instructed. ‘I’ll be out with the omelettes in a minute or two.’
For a moment he did not move, as if she’d asked him something outrageous.
‘I’m not your servant,’ she said. ‘If anything, I’m your guest,’ she added sweetly, holding the tray towards him.
Wordlessly he put his empty glass on the worktop, took the tray and disappeared with it.
She went back to the smoking skillet and poured in the beaten eggs, deftly spreading and lifting them as they cooked.
Minutes later she was emerging on to the terrace with two plates, each with a folded omelette on them, which she deposited on the table.
‘Bon appétit,’ she said and got stuck in.
Lycos Dimistrios did likewise.
Together, under the bright morning sun, they ate. As they did, for reasons that made no sense at all, Arielle felt the tightness in her chest slacken. Imperceptibly, incomprehensibly, but slacken all the same.
Whatever it took to get her to bear what was happening, she would do it. Even if it meant being civil to the man who was taking her home from her.
‘OK, where do I start?’
Lycos stood at the edge of the kitchen garden, surveying the scene beyond.
‘Strawberries first, then raspberries, then peas, then beans,’ Arielle said in response.
‘Are we eating all that?’ he asked.
‘Either we do, or the birds will,’ Arielle answered, heading towards the strawberry patch with her empty colander.
She crouched down and made a start on lifting the leaves to check on the ripeness of the fruit beneath.
She glanced back at him. ‘If you don’t pick any, you don’t get to eat any. You’re not eating mine!’
Resignedly, Lycos started on another row, hunkering down.
Even dressed only in shorts and a tee shirt, he could feel that the morning was already hotting up.
He glanced towards Arielle. She had put on a decrepit straw hat and, though it was fraying at the edges, it did the job of shading her head and neck.
He kept his eyes on her a moment as she worked her way along her row.
She couldn’t see him looking at her and he was glad of it.
It was extraordinary, he thought, that even dressed as she was, making no effort whatsoever to look good, she nevertheless looked extremely good.
Beautiful.
A kind of natural beauty. Unforced, effortless, unadorned. Her hair was caught back in a thick knot on the nape of her neck. Her slender forearms were honey-toned and her bare legs likewise. Her tee shirt was rounding her breasts in a very pleasing manner indeed.
He looked away. Thoughts were running through his head and blood was running through his veins.
Coursing to places that were inappropriate for a morning dedicated to fruit and vegetable picking.
He set them aside firmly and focussed on gathering the luscious looking ripe strawberries.
After a while, his colander was full and he straightened up, stretching his back.
‘Strawberries are the worst,’ Arielle said, straightening up likewise. ‘Raspberries are much easier. No stooping.’
So it proved and, although it took longer to fill his fresh colander on account of his sampling rather too many of the fruits he was picking, Lycos found it pleasantly relaxing. But then everything was proving pleasantly relaxing.
There was something about being in the fresh air with the heat of the sun beating down baking the earth and ripening its fruits.
With no noise other than the ever-present chorus of cicadas beyond the kitchen gardens and the birdsong from songbirds chirruping from the sun-warmed walls against which pleached peach trees were espaliered.
Something that really was very pleasant.
Very peaceful.
Very remote.
The world he knew seemed a long, long way away.
And he was glad of it.
Glad too, he realised, that he was not here alone, for there was something very companionable about working like this with Arielle nearby.
She seemed to have changed her attitude towards him.
Was she accepting the inevitable now, that the mas was lost to her?
The bristling hostility, the baleful expression in her eyes, had dissipated.
Not completely, but he found he was glad of it all the same.
Now she was being matter of fact, directing him to the next task.
‘OK,’ she announced. ‘Time to tackle the peas and beans.’
She moved towards the serried rows of legumes, pausing only to toss down a handful of her picked raspberries onto the path, where almost immediately it was targeted by several of the waiting birds, who demolished the fruit in short order then retreated to the walls again to await more largesse.
Peas and beans were picked, Lycos attending to the former and Arielle the latter.
They gathered up all their collective harvest, together with a head of lettuce, some tomatoes and a fistful of rocket.
As they headed out, Arielle set down some strawberries for the birds.
She closed the wooden gate securely as they left the kitchen gardens.
‘Or the hens will wreak havoc!’ she said. She headed back to the kitchen with Lycos following her.
‘I’ve never picked my own lunch before,’ he observed musingly.
‘It makes it taste even sweeter,’ she assured him.
He heard her words echo again as they settled down to lunch.
Did it taste all the sweeter for his having picked and prepared so much of it himself?
He fancied it did and the thought was pleasing to him.
As pleasing as sitting here, in the fresh sweet air.
Shaded from the heat of the sun by the faded awning, while he sank his teeth into the luscious ripe tomatoes, sprinkled with olive oil and salt, and helped himself to another slice of ham to go with the healthy portion of warm, lightly toasted bread, lavishly spread with creamy butter.
As pleasing, too, as letting his gaze settle, through half-lowered lids, on the woman sitting opposite him.
His eyes rested on her. How effortlessly lovely she looked, even in clothes that were not designed to enhance her beauty.
But there was an allure about her, natural and without design, that was drawing him.
That had no art to it, no intent, no coquetry.
He felt the blood course through his veins yet again, admitting to himself that it was her difference to all the women he frequented, was familiar with, that was drawing him… Kindling in him a nascent desire that he saw no reason to deny, or diminish. Why should he?
She is here, and so am I. So why should we not indulge?
Why not indeed? He could think of no reason. He had time on his hands. Time that could be spent very pleasurably, exploring and experiencing, all that this so-totally-different woman had to offer him. Charming this beautiful, bucolic Cinderella…
His gaze shifted, going out over the peaceful, scent-filled gardens, to the lavender fields beyond, framed by the citrus and mulberry trees. Then it came back to Arielle.
She is part of this place. She goes with it.
And after all, he mused, since he had come here to take possession of this remote and unexpectedly his mas, why should he not take possession, too, of Arielle?
So very, very lovely…
He let his gaze continue to rest on her, taking pleasure in it. Confirmed in his resolve.