The French for Always Read Online Free PDF Page B

buildings, lovingly re-pointing stonework, sanding and limewashing beams, painting walls in colours that glowed with serene depths of tone befitting these ancient rooms. With the help of Claude, their part-time gardener, she’d laboured in the grounds, carving out a structure and a logical flow in the haphazardly laid-out gardens, and working the heavy clay, digging in tons of compost to improve it so that she could establish her planting schemes, soft carpets of prairie plants interspersed with obelisks of English roses and silver-leafed olive trees. In financial terms, she’d risked every penny she had on a future that had seemed to have such a good chance of succeeding when the two of them were committed to it, but now seemed distinctly tenuous. And emotionally, she’d invested everything she had too: her hopes and dreams, her love, her trust. She took stock now, steadying herself against the castle’s walls, sensing its ancient foundations solid beneath her feet, taking a deep breath.
    Okay, so the emotional investment was a write-off. Gavin’s behaviour had ensured that there could be no way back on that score. But she had the château, with six more weddings booked through August and the beginning of September. Daunting though it seemed, she’d just have to manage without him. Thank goodness she had the support of such a good team. And then, at the end of the season the château could be sold and she would return to London and try to pick up the threads of the life she’d left there. She just needed to get through the rest of this summer...
    Back in the cottage, she stood under a lukewarm shower until the plaster dust and the smell of smoke from the bonfire were washed from her hair and skin. She lay down on the bed, loneliness her only companion, and the silence closed in around her.
    But then, in the quiet darkness, a tiny scuffling sound made her sit up and listen. The mouse had returned to the space behind the wall and was busily making itself a new nest, rebuilding its ruined home. She smiled to herself. It was quite nice to have the company.
    And if that mouse could do it, then surely she could too.
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    S ara smiled in turn at each member of the company gathered around the kitchen table. ‘So that’s the situation, I’m afraid.’ She’d decided that there was no point trying to whitewash it. ‘Gavin’s gone back to England.’ (Had he? She had no idea, but it seemed the most likely scenario. He’d probably have run home to that bossy mother of his—and of course she’d be delighted to have him back. ‘Goodness me!’ she’d exclaimed on first meeting Sara, ‘but she’s really quite petite. I was expecting something more along the lines of Charlie Dimmock!’ Sara suspected no one would ever be good enough for Mrs Farrell’s golden boy.)
    ‘But I think we can manage, as long as you’re all sure you’re happy to do a few additional shifts?’
    ‘Suits me,’ nodded Karen. ‘The extra money will come in handy.’
    Twin sisters Hélène and Héloise Thibault exchanged a glance and nodded. ‘It’s good for us. We need to save up money for university next year anyway. We’ll earn more money and have less time to spend it—it’s a win-win situation.’ The girls lived in the local village of Coulliac and had just left school. Gavin had always referred to them as the ‘Héls Belles’, a nickname that had stuck.
    Antoine, the sommelier, bar-tender, waiter and general dogsbody, shrugged. He was a student of winemaking at the university in Bordeaux, and the only member of the team to live on-site, in what used to be the piggery but was now a bright studio apartment. ‘I’m here anyway and the weddings are my social life. It’s no problem.’ This was quite a long speech for him. He’d been taken on for the season as he spoke both French and English fluently, as well as for his knowledge of wine and ability to mix a mean Bloody Mary, but he appeared to be a man of few words in either