The French House by Helen Fripp (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📕

picture, frozen despite the heat. It was a boy, about the same age as Mentine, in Russian uniform. Like Alexei, but not him.

She ran through the last moment she saw him, his arms clamped by his side. He had been stopping himself from putting them around her. He looked so alone, and angry.

Chapter 28

A Glamorous Moon

May 1814

The bakery kitchen smelt of yeast and cinnamon, the marble surfaces scrubbed until they gleamed, deliciously cool against the heat of the day. Natasha swirled the steaming water in the copper bowl and mouthed an oath. She beckoned to Nicole.

‘Now, come, hold your face over the whirlpool and close your eyes.’

The steam formed warm beads on Nicole’s face and she remembered Alexei wrapping his jacket around her, fastening the buttons against the cold.

‘Stand back and let me see,’ said Natasha. ‘Here, take this.’ She handed Nicole a starched tea towel, fresh with rose water and lemon, and turned back to study the shapes in the steam. ‘A fish jumping, an artist, a wooden rowing boat…’ whispered Natasha.

She swirled the great pot again, frowned and took the kettle off the hob, pouring in more water. A plume of steam misted upwards.

‘Quick, breathe over the pot again.’

Nicole winced against the heat.

‘Don’t move yet,’ instructed Natasha.

‘What can you see now?’ asked Nicole.

‘Stand back,’ said Natasha, making shapes in the steam and pushing it up, up until the whole kitchen was filled with it. ‘More luck from the east.’ Natasha bit her lip in concentration. ‘A ship on the sea, very cold. Love, but not as you expect.’ The steam swirled and curled back down from the ceiling. ‘Luck and danger, in equal measure.’ She took the bowl off the hob again and flung open the windows. The steam began to disperse. ‘That’s enough of that, it’s nonsense anyway.’

‘You always say that, but you still do it,’ said Nicole suspiciously.

‘It’s the only way I can get you to see sense.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘How long have you been in love with General Marin?’

‘Natasha, I’m not!’

‘Be careful. Madame Olivier says she saw you in a boat with him at Tours, ’til late in the evening.’

‘Is there nothing that woman doesn’t see! I thought she was my friend.’

‘She’s also the biggest mouth in Champagne. A juicy piece of gossip like that is irresistible, friend or not. I told her to keep it to herself and I believe she will, this time, but don’t give her anything else.’

‘So you didn’t see all those things in the steam?’

Natasha narrowed her eyes. ‘You mean love?’

‘No!’

‘I don’t need steam for that. I know you better than you think.’

‘What does it matter? He won’t do me wrong.’

‘How do you know?’

‘How do I know when my wine is ready? I just know.’

‘But don’t expect too much. That’s what the steam tells me. Love doesn’t always come to you how you would wish it. Just let it be what it is.’ Natasha hugged her. ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this and that’s as much as anyone can predict, though people aren’t always what they seem. Take care and be discreet, Babouchette, this town has more eyes and ears in its stones than you imagine.’

Along the lanes back to her Bouzy house, foxgloves, buttercups and cow parsley tangled together and the May blossom weighed the branches in white and pink sprays. She imagined the soldiers returning back from the front to this and thanked God for the end of the war for now, with Napoléon safely exiled to Elba.

In the fields, a few of her most loyal workers were back, out digging trenches, creating rows, according to the region’s planter à la route methods, nice and ordered. Never mind the flowers, there weren’t enough workers to get it all finished in time. She lashed Pinot to speed up and when she arrived at the press yard, Emile came running and took the horse’s reins.

‘There’s a package for you.’

‘Thank you, Emile. It’s a hot day, so make sure he gets plenty of water.’

She patted Pinot and Emile led him to the stable, hugging his soft nuzzle.

The package on the desk had Alexei’s handwriting on it. Nicole tore it open and folded out a cape in the same cloth as the jacket he had lent her, the one she still had in her room, next to her bed. She unpinned a note from the collar and took it to the window to read.

I gave you my jacket to keep you warm, milaya, but it’s military issue and I must return it as soon as this war is finally over. I will be passing by your cellars in Reims this evening. Perhaps you could keep my cape and swap me back my jacket. I can meet you there at 8 p.m. Send your boy to the camp with a reply.

Alexei

A glamorous moon hung swollen in the translucent dusk as she made her way to the cellars on the Place des Droits de l’Homme, and Alexei was already waiting outside when she arrived. She took the big key from her belt to open it – all the workers would have left for the day.

He smiled. ‘You’re wearing it. Here.’ He turned up the collar of her cape against the cold and she lit a lamp to go inside, locking the door behind them.

‘I have your jacket, it’s heavy!’ Nicole handed it to him.

He shrugged it on. ‘Heavier than you imagine, but it’s all I’ve known these past few years.’ He nodded down the steep cellar stairs. ‘How many kilometres do you have down there?’

‘The cellars go on forever, to nearly twenty-nine kilometres. I know every inch.’

‘Of course you do. Will you show me?’

‘That would take all night!’

‘Exactly.’

‘Be careful on the steps, all the torches have been put out. Fuel is scarce and everyone’s gone home.’

In the cellars, the air was cool, a velvet-dark cocoon. She held up the lamp.

‘This is the first rack I ever saw, the day the revolution came to Reims.’

‘What happened?’

‘I was a tomboy and foolishly picked