Authors: Karen Swan
‘I—’ Her eyes filled with tears. He was right. It was absolutely her fault. Unwittingly or not, she had given Stefan just enough information to run with this and make his
career. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t. You are supposed to be working for my family, not against it.’
‘I’m not! I swear. I had no idea about the article. I was as shocked as you.’
‘I doubt that.’ His face darkened as the public pillorying he had just endured flashed through both their minds and she couldn’t help it; a tear slid down her cheek as she saw
the muscle ball in his jaw, felt the fire in his hands. Something . . . something else passed between them; like a blip of interference between radio stations she saw a change in his eyes as he
bore down on her, anger transposed with frustration. He wiped away the tear with his thumb, pressure on her cheek. ‘What the hell are you doing to me, Flora?’ he whispered, his voice
grained with despair.
‘To you?’ she echoed, confused.
Her words made him blink, as though he hadn’t expected to hear them out loud. The channel changed again; he took his hand from her face. ‘To my family. What are you doing to my
family?’
‘Hey! Is there a problem here?’
They both jumped in surprise to find that a sleek black Mercedes had pulled up beside them, Noah leaning through the open window in the back, one arm slung casually over the side – but
there was war in his eyes as he saw Flora caught in Xavier’s grip.
Xavier stared at him with chilling stillness, dropping Flora’s arm as Noah pointedly looked at his hold on her.
Normal service resumed; the sneer climbed back onto Xavier’s proud mouth. ‘No problem, man. I was just helping your girlfriend. She slipped.’ Bitter sarcasm clung to every
word.
Flora opened her mouth to protest – although she wasn’t sure which to protest against first. To Noah, that she hadn’t slipped? Or to Xavier, that she wasn’t Noah’s
girlfriend?
The driver got out and opened the car door for her. Noah climbed out too, showing off his size; he wasn’t quite as tall as Xavier but he was older, broader and easily withstood the
hostility in Xavier’s glare. ‘You OK?’ he asked her, but with his stare still on Xavier.
‘Yes,’ she said quickly, walking towards him, the car. ‘Let’s just go.’
She went to duck into the car but for the second time she felt her wrist grasped and in the next instant, Noah kissed her on the mouth; she tried to pull back as she felt his tongue push her
lips apart but his hand clasped the back of her head and she couldn’t move.
He was the one who pulled back, a moment later, his point made. He didn’t even bother to shoot Xavier a victorious look; he just gestured for her to get in the car. ‘Ladies
first,’ he said, patting her lightly on the bottom.
The driver shut the door behind her but she kept her eyes down, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth; there was nowhere to hide, the window was still open from where Noah had sat and she
blushed, feeling humiliated.
The seconds felt like minutes as they waited for Noah to saunter slowly round to the other side. He wouldn’t be rushed.
‘Enjoy your new car,’ she heard him say to Xavier, the sarcasm his this time.
Flora kept her head lowered as finally the passenger door opened and he slid in beside her, one hand immediately on her knee. But she couldn’t keep it up and as the limo began to pull
away, her eyes betrayed her, flashing up to Xavier one last time. Their gazes linked for only a fraction of a second but it was long enough.
‘What the hell are you doing to me,
Flora?’
Correction. What the hell was he doing to her?
Antibes
‘And these are your quarters. Madame thought it would be easier for you here, away from the distractions in the main house.’
The housekeeper stepped back from the door, allowing Flora to pass through first. The dimness took a moment to get used to, coming straight in from the dazzling light outside, but as her eyes
adjusted, she looked about her in wonderment. Everything was white – the floors, walls, ceilings, curtains, flowers even – and punctuated with vast plumped ikat-printed sofas in peach
and mango and melon that broke up the room like pastel colour-bombs. A large bowl of fruit scented the space and she could just see a hand-worked lace coverlet on the bed in the room off the far
left corner. A small but chic kitchen was in the back right corner.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Flora murmured, mainly to herself. And this was just the cottage. The main house wasn’t a chateau so to speak, but rather a tall sandstone villa with
dust-blue shutters that looked like something Coco Chanel or Wallis Simpson would have lived in.
She turned back to the housekeeper – Genevieve, if she remembered correctly. ‘Thank you. This is beautiful.’
Genevieve nodded and handed her a set of keys, one for here, one for the main house where her temporary workshop had been set up in the old flower-cutting room.
Genevieve retreated and Flora set her bag down, wandering – awestruck – through the dreamy space. The white plantation shutters outside had been left closed, keeping the cottage cool
in the fierce August heat, and she walked over and through the striped shadows thrown over the floors and walls, her hand trailing over the blanket on the sofa (cashmere linen), lingering to smell
the hibiscus flowers on the coffee table.
She stopped in the doorway of the bedroom (an en-suite colonial-style bathroom led off on the right) and saw that notionally it was simple and restrained: a bed, a rug, a wardrobe – only
the rug was plush alpaca fur, the wardrobe covered in shagreen and the walls decorated with several bold James Whistler pastels.
Flora walked back through to the living area, opening the fridge to find it was stocked full of fresh groceries, a magnum of champagne and a box of truffles beside the coffee machine. She went
and sat on the sofa that was opposite the still-open front door, letting the breeze lift her hair and tickle her face. Directly outside, the turquoise pool glittered as it caught
the light, swallows intermittently swooping low to skim the water’s surface.
She wondered how she dared to sit on this sofa or drink from those cups or sleep in that bed, knowing that – intentionally or not – this was her fault. The Vermeils were still
unaware of her part in it all, Xavier notwithstanding. But for all his accusations, he knew nothing of her (former) friendship with Stefan, nor ever would he. One phone call by Travers had
confirmed the magazine was asserting its right to protect its sources.
Her.
The family was in no mood to put up a fight. The resulting furore had been everything they’d feared. In the three days since the issue had hit the news stands, the stain of a Nazi past
blotting the illustrious Vermeil family’s name had made for compelling reading throughout France and it had hit the front page of
Le Monde
the very next day. Lilian had been
forced to cancel attending a Unicef fundraiser, Jacques’ private offices had been daubed with
Nazi Scum
in red paint and, as feared, several of the major charities supported by the
Vermeil charitable foundation had issued public statements saying they were ‘reviewing their links’ with the family. Photographers had camped out on the streets outside the town house
so that no one could come in or out without being blinded by camera flashes – treacherous on those steps – and after several days’ confinement, whilst Flora had packed and
relocated the now-notorious art collection across the country, the family had made the decision to relocate to the Antibes estate too, until things died down.
Flora closed her eyes at the irony of their misplaced sense of security as they sought refuge behind their high walls and CCTV-protected grounds when she, the very person behind the leak, was
living in the cottage at the bottom of the garden. Angus had been the first to suggest that the leak must have come from the website Flora had shown him of where the urban explorers’ photos
had surfaced, getting on the phone to the family himself and commiserating that they’d all been naive to think that the intruders had been satisfied with merely notifying the family of the
apartment’s existence, like some band of crusading architectural evangelists. This must have been their plan all along, he’d bemoaned and Flora had quietly agreed, too scared of losing
her job to come clean and admit how this had all really played out.
It wasn’t for want of trying to leave that she was still here. She had desperately tried to plead her escape – now that they were involved in full provenance research, she had tried
convincing Angus that Bridget – their lead research analyst, based in the London office – should fly in and take over; it was her area of interest, after all. But Angus had been
adamant: the family wanted her; they’d been badly hurt by events and felt they needed someone they could trust. It was to be her and no one else.
The flower room made for a perfect workshop – large and bright, with high ceilings, full-length windows and deep wooden counters running round the walls, there was plenty
of space for her to set out the artworks and begin to get some sort of order established. Now that the time pressure of getting everything ready for auction had
been taken away, she could get on with simply identifying and archiving the rest of the collection. The Renoir – still being professionally cleaned in Paris – at least had a full
provenance now and should the family choose to sell it at some point in the future, the new owner would buy it in full knowledge of where it had come from and through whose hands it had passed.
She made good progress throughout the day, hanging many of the paintings on the small hooks that had once been pinned into the wall for binding wall-climbers, taking them down one at a time and
starting on her condition and evaluation reports.
Her iPad rang on the counter – FaceTime calling – and she picked it up, walking over to the open French door and leaning against it, her eyes on the sweep of velvet lawn before her.
She had taken her shoes off in the heat and rubbed a bare foot against her leg.
‘Hey.’
Ines’s throaty voice made her smile. ‘Hey back.’
‘How’s it going down there? Shabby?’
‘You have no idea,’ Flora smiled, half-expecting a peacock to strut past and shake a tail feather. She turned the iPad around and gave her friend a quick 180-degree view of the
gardens. ‘I shouldn’t be expected to live like this. It’s criminal.’
‘I bet.’ Ines laughed, a reassuring sound. ‘And how are you? Feeling better? You look better.’
Flora dropped her head. ‘I feel so guilty.’
‘It wasn’t your fault. How many times do I have to tell you that? Stefan did this. Not you.’
‘But I never should have said a word. I knew he was a journalist. Worse than that – he was a journo looking for a story!’
‘You were among friends. You shouldn’t have to act like you’re a fucking spy! You know we’re never going to speak to him again, right? I told Bruno, him or me. He has to
choose.’
‘Ines, don’t feel you have to—’
‘It’s already done,’ Ines said stubbornly. Loyally.
Flora shrugged, taking the iPad over to the bench as her arms tired from holding it up and out. She propped it up against the window and leaned over the bench, her head cupped in her hand.
‘Anyway, look, it’s already beginning to die down. They’re yesterday’s news.’ Ines was ever the optimist. ‘Did you hear about the Minister of the Interior?
He’s been shagging the Vice-President’s daughter.’
Flora spluttered with laughter and dropped her head. ‘Oh, my God! Are you kidding?’
Ines grinned, nosily scanning the room behind Flora. ‘See? It’ll be OK.’ She whistled. ‘Phew! Is that all the stuff you’ve got to organize?’
‘Yeah.’ Flora glanced at the decorative objects arranged in classified groupings on the far bench, the easel for photographing the paintings and sketches over her right shoulder.
‘It’s not as bad as it looks. Terrible as it might sound, everything’s a lot easier to follow up, provenance-wise, now that we know where our end point is. I felt like I was
banging my head against a brick wall before, trying to get past Von Taschelt to François Vermeil.’
Ines tutted, before changing the subject. ‘So listen, we might come down for a few days. Bruno’s got a promo to do in Nice so we’d only be half an hour away from
you.’
‘Oh, that would be amazing.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I could do with seeing a friendly face round here.’
‘Things bad, huh?’
‘Well, I’m not exactly surrounded by friends.’
‘Have you seen the Son and Daughter of Darkness yet?’
‘Don’t call them that,’ she said quietly, wincing.
‘Why not?’ Ines chuckled devilishly. ‘They are, aren’t they? Or do you know something I don’t?’
‘No, but . . .’ She trailed off, not sure why she’d defended them. Perhaps because even they didn’t deserve the vitriol being meted out to them at the moment.
‘Well? Have you seen them?’ Ines repeated impatiently.
‘No. I mean . . . I’ve heard Natascha getting out of the car, I think.’
Ines rolled her eyes. ‘Of course you have. And what about Xav? Glimpsed him in his swimming shorts yet?’ She shrugged her eyebrows naughtily.
Flora frowned. ‘
What?
’
Ines shrieked with laughter. ‘He might be a brat but he’s a gorgeous brat. Go on – admit it.’
‘No.’ Yes.
Ines leaned in to the screen. ‘Personally, I’m worried for your safety.’ For a moment, her face was perfectly serious before she broke up into laughter. ‘Well, your
virtue more like!’
Flora shook her head, looking away. The truth was, she was desperate to avoid him. Their encounter at Chantilly – and this was within the context of
none
of their encounters having
been positive – had left her shaken. They’d only ever spoken to argue, she had yet to find one redeeming quality about the man and yet . . . and yet . . . he kept creeping into her
mind, unbidden. Just the thought of him made her feel restless, agitated, nervy, rattled.
So every day she managed down here without seeing him would be a good day. She had her plan worked out already – meals in the cottage, cloistering herself in the flower room all day. If
she was careful, there was every hope she might get through these next few weeks without actually having to come into contact with either him or his sister.