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

she entered the courtyard, she saw a light flickering at the top of the tower.

    S hauna’s bedroom was on the ground floor of Isabelle’s wing of the château. Though shadows had never worried her before, she found it hard to succumb to sleep that night. Her snarkiness with Laurent went round in her mind until she was sick of the memory of her own voice. After what seemed to be hours spent kicking her duvet, she drifted off, only to be jolted awake by the strangest of sounds. She sat up, her eyes trying to unravel the dark. Had she really just heard a gaggle of geese?
    Her room lay on the meadow side of the house, and as she listened for a repeat, she imagined a white-winged advance from the fringes of the wood. Chemignac’s walls, picturesque during daylight, seemed suddenly threatening. Scuffling mice and the occasional house spider were one thing. Imagining she was about to be surrounded by powerful necks and pecking beaks… That was truly disorientating.
    Pulling her quilt up to her chin, she drew her knees to her navel and closed her eyes. A moment later, she was sitting bolt upright as the same honking sound bubbled up behind her bedhead, seeming to come from within the wall itself. Geese, inside? Shauna stifled her breath, reminding herself that this was an old, old building. Its frame swelled in the day’s heat and contracted as the air cooled. What she’d heard could simply have been the settling of dry timbers. Or even the doves under the eaves.
    She wasn’t convincing herself, though. During a holiday job on an organic farm in Wales, her morning task had been to let the birds out of their fox-proof coops and dole out the grain. The racket made by twenty-four Brecon Buffs flapping to be first to the feeders was engraved on her mind. She had heard geese. Well, the only way to prove it so she could get back to sleep was to look. She groped for her bedside lamp and as the low-energy bulb warmed into light, she got up and flung open her door – stubbing her toe as she stepped into the hallway. Empty. Dark. Silent.
    Muttering, ‘Weird,’ she returned to her room, but not to bed. Instead, she opened her window shutters and leaned out. A chrome-bright moon lit an empty landscape.
    ‘Maybe sound carries across vineyards,’ she murmured, then jumped in alarm as a cry sliced through the night. In spite of her clashing heartbeat, she stretched further out of the window to investigate. The sound came again and she released her breath. It was owls hooting, playing catch among the winery buildings, by the sound of it.
    Now thoroughly churned up, she gave up on sleep, rooting through her drawers for something warm to put on. Hauling on tracksuit bottoms and a jersey, shoving her feet into a pair of comfy loafers, she crept through the sleeping house and out through the kitchen door. The night air tasted of warm cakes and, as in the old carol, all was calm, all was bright. But something made her look up. Light flashed erratically behind the tower’s louvred shutters. Not dazzling, but as if a lightbulb pulsed behind greased paper. Could somebody be up there, working in torchlight? Surely not. The moon at the peak of its transit told her it was two or three in the morning. The children would be fast asleep, Isabelle too. Besides which, Isabelle never climbed the tower, she’d said so. Albert? From what she’d seen of the old man, it seemed vanishingly unlikely that he’d attempt the stairs either. Laurent? But if he was still working, wouldn’t he more likely be in the chai or in his office, catching up on admin? There had to be a simple explanation. A lightbulb about to blow? Or a perished cable sheath creating a short circuit, or inadequately fused wiring?
    Which might overheat and catch fire…
    She headed back inside, obeying a reluctant need to investigate, only to find the door between the kitchen and tower firmly locked. Keys hung from a rack next to the refrigerator, but none of them fitted, so she gave up,