A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress Read Online Free PDF Page A

thanks.’
    Olive skidded up to them, asking Laurent, ‘Can we borrow your Lord of the Rings ?’
    ‘Sure. Though I thought you were too busy whacking the life out of tennis balls to read. It’s in the bookcase by…’ But the children had gone, like a pair of greyhounds. Laurent climbed out through the tank’s porthole and twisted the hem of his T-shirt, shedding droplets. ‘I hope you’re strong now, Shauna, or they’ll exhaust you.’
    ‘I’m fine. Thanks for electrolytes by the way.’
    ‘You’re welcome. I keep two stocks, one for my workers and one for my horses.’
    ‘Which did I get?’
    ‘They’re pretty much the same, though the dosage is different.’ Laurent’s next smile crinkled his eyes. He waited for her to say something.
    ‘Um, thanks anyway. For scooping me up…’ Shauna could hear herself urgently filling the silence, ‘and thanks for lending the book. Or agreeing to, anyway. It’s about nine hundred pages, isn’t it? Should keep us all out of trouble. They’re really nice kids. I just wish I knew more about soccer.’
    ‘Soccer… You mean English league football? Why?’
    ‘For Nico’s sake.’
    ‘Oh, Nico doesn’t care about football. He’s interested in footballing stars.’ Laurent began to wind up his hosepipe. ‘Any sports stars, actually, because that’s what they intend to become. Nico in tennis, Olive in gymnastics. Or show jumping, if that brings in the prizes faster. They could make it, I think. Their parents spend a fortune on their training.’ It was said without rancour or judgement, but with an edge Shauna couldn’t wholly translate.
    ‘Lucky them,’ she said, watching Laurent fix the hosepipe on to its bracket. Water belched out of the nozzle. ‘Having such dedicated parents.’
    ‘I think it’s more to make up for sending them to their grandmother all summer. To make up for handing them over to an au pair.’
    And she’d thought him so friendly! He’d said ‘au pair’ like ‘serving-wench’. ‘I still say they’re lucky,’ she swiped back. ‘This is such a beautiful place.’
    ‘Beautiful, but cruel.’ Laurent took a broom to the puddles that had collected outside the concrete tank, sweeping them towards a drain. The hands that had felt her pulse and tested her temperature were tense and she kept getting flashes of his thorn tattoo. She wondered what he’d say if he saw hers.
    Troubled, she sought a change of subject and rapped her knuckles against the tank’s concrete side. ‘Is this the staff hot tub?’ She winced. Always a bad sign when she made jokes.
    Laurent seemed to take her seriously, even more worrying. ‘It’s a holding tank for white juice, and a vat for red. After we’ve pressed our main red crop, Cabernet Sauvignon, we pipe it in there and let fermentation start. After the malolactic stage, we pump it into the steel containers. Malolactic means—’
    ‘The conversion of mallic acid into lactic acid, which gives wine its pleasant flavour.’
    ‘You understand viniculture?’
    ‘No, I’m good at pub quizzes.’ She left, not waiting to see Laurent’s response. Outside the chai , she let the evening air erase the goose pimples she’d walked out with. They’d sprung up as Laurent spoke the word “viniculture”. That husky French accent! She mustn’t fall for it or she’d never get out of here unscathed. For a while, she watched the swallows hoovering up midges as they darted between the roofs. In the lyrical trill of a song thrush, she heard an echo of her mother’s promise: you’ll fall in love with this place.
    Elisabeth had fallen for green-eyed Tim Vincent among Chemignac’s vines. It won’t work for me , Shauna told herself fiercely . I’m ‘reyt bad’ as they say where I come from, and all out with the world. Laurent had just paid the price, getting his head bitten off in exchange for an innocent remark. She half hoped he’d come after her as she trudged back to the château, but he didn’t.
    As