Raimund pointed to the bed. ‘Sit down.’
It was an invitation rather than an order, but Olivia chose not to take up the offer.
‘I’d prefer to stand, thanks.’ She turned to face him, her arms crossed over her chest. ‘Before you start, I need to know one thing.’
He eyed her cautiously. ‘Which is?’
She took a gulp of air, almost too afraid to ask in case the answer was the one she feared. The answer that would leave her reassessing everything she knew about him, everything she felt.
‘Would you have let him kill her?’
His hand drifted to his forehead as it always did when he was vexed. ‘That was not going to happen.’
‘Oh, come on, Raimund. You saw him. He would have slit her throat in a heartbeat.’
‘No, he would not have.’ He indicated the bed again. ‘Please. Sit down so we can talk.’
Five feet of terracotta tile separated them, but to Olivia it felt like a mile. Her unanswered question hung in the air. Its ramifications had the power to change everything. A soldier she could understand, a compassionless man she could not.
‘We are talking, Raimund. You’re just not answering.’
‘Then I’ll explain further so you understand. Gaston is not a fool. He knew that as long as Dame Thatcher was alive, I would not attack. If she died, he would die. I knew it. He knew it. The danger was not as acute as you imagine.’
The words were dispassionate, as though he was presenting a summary of his actions to an uncomprehending underling. The lack of humanity, the lack of empathy and emotion left her reeling. This was a living, breathing person he was discussing.
‘You can’t be sure of that.’
‘Not positive. There are no absolutes. But I calculated the risk. The odds were in my—and Dame Thatcher’s—favour.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Is that what a person’s life means to you? A calculated risk?’
He didn’t answer, but his eyes seemed to darken as though a cloud had passed over them.
‘Then what the hell does that make me?’
His answer was simple and devastating. ‘A risk I can no longer tolerate. You and Dame Thatcher are leaving for England tomorrow.’
‘Like hell!’ Olivia was almost shaking with anger. How dare he throw this at her? She walked towards him, her fingernails digging into her palms in an effort to keep herself under control. ‘You can’t make me leave, Raimund. Not after all we’ve been through. Not after today. This is not just all about you. I’m a part of it, too.’
‘Not any longer.’
She stared at him, her breath coming in pants as her fury built. ‘You really think you’ll be able to force both me and Dame Elizabeth onto a plane? And what about Gaston? He knows half the riddle. The bastard’s probably smart enough to have worked it out already. But even if he hasn’t solved it, I can guarantee he’ll have it figured out before you. And then what will you be left with? Empty promises, that’s what. You’re the one that asked for my help. So I’m helping. Whether you like it or not!’
He grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers digging hard into her muscles. The face he had held so inscrutable cracking with feeling.
‘Do you have any idea what it was like for me today? Seeing you at Gaston’s mercy. Watching him manipulate you.’ He gave her a shake. ‘Do you?’
She shook her head, overwhelmed by the passion in his eyes, by the furrowing of his brow, the turning down of that beautiful mouth as it gave into despair.
‘I know what it took for you to reveal La Chanson. How much it must have hurt you to utter those words, and I cannot think of it without my head filling with rage. It makes me want to inflict the same torture on him as he did to Patrice. It makes me into someone I do not want to be. It makes me into him!’
He let her go and stepped back, his hand immediately moving to the point above his left eye. ‘I cannot do this any longer. You must leave. For your safety as well as my sanity.’
Fight leaked from Olivia’s body like a punctured tyre, seeping out and leaving her flat and limp. It wasn’t anger at her that had turned him so cold but fury at himself, for the feelings her predicament had unleashed.
She moved towards the bed and flopped down. Then she looked at him, standing with his fingers digging into his brow like he wanted to burrow them all the way into his head. There was no stoicism, only a tortured man trying and failing to come to terms with his emotions, with a promise made to a dead brother. He stared at her with an expression that bordered on agony.
‘I can’t leave, Raimund,’ she said quietly. ‘Not just because of Durendal but because of the way I’m beginning feel about you. But you suspected that already, didn’t you?’
His hand dropped and he nodded.
She bit her lip, blinking. ‘You used it against me. Took one of your calculated risks. You had your ends and that was all. If it meant using me to reach them then so be it. But you missed something, didn’t you? The one risk you never saw.’ She gazed at him, her chest hurting. ‘You didn’t calculate that you might also come to care for me.’
Raimund refused to look at her.
The pain in her chest made the crack in her voice impossible to cover. ‘Is it really so bad to care about someone?’
He moved then, to where she sat on the bed, and crouched down in front of her. He folded her hands in his and looked at her with shining eyes.
‘You know it is not that simple.’
‘All I know is that you choose this empty life.’
‘I do, and it’s because of that sacrifice that I can ensure others have full ones. That is my promise and that is why I must send you home.’
He dropped his eyes to her hands, then with a tenderness that sent her heart fluttering, he turned them palm up, and, one after the other, lifted them to his mouth and laid a feathery kiss in the soft centre hollow. Then he curled her fingers over, capturing the kiss as though it was a tiny bird he wanted her to hold.
Letting go, he stood and touched his fingers to her chin, his thumb running over the contours of her lips. ‘You have so much faith in the future. So much optimism. Never lose that.’ His thumb fell away and he walked towards the door. ‘Come. It is close to dinner. We must not keep Christiane waiting.’
Olivia stayed on the bed staring at her still curled hands. ‘I won’t leave, no matter what you do.’ She looked at him. ‘This is my fight. I’m staying to the end.’
‘Oliv—’
‘No, Raimund.’ She rose and crossed to stand in front of him, then unfurled her fingers and pressed her palms against his cheeks, laying his kisses back on him. ‘This is my calculated risk. I’m staying.’
‘And Dame Thatcher?’
She smiled a little. ‘If you want to tempt the devil, go right ahead.’
Dinner was a subdued affair. On checking, Olivia had found Dame Elizabeth snuffling an old-lady snore and so had left her to sleep, but she missed her presence. With her wit and savage observational skills, Dame Elizabeth could liven up even the dourest event, and dinner at the Rosecs’ that evening was very dour indeed.
Edouard did his best, topping up both Olivia’s and Raimund’s wine glass each time they took a sip, but it had no effect. Even Christiane’s delectable salade de chèvre chaud elicited little more than polite compliments.
To fill in the silences, Edouard told stories about Raimund and Patrice when they were boys, but with each tale, Raimund’s face grew stonier and stonier until, halfway through a tale about the boys’ misadventure in Marseille, he scraped back his chair, threw his serviette on the table and stalked outside to the terrace.
Christiane looked at her husband. ‘It’s time we went to the co-op.’
‘It’s not co-op night.’
‘It is now.’
Edouard frowned and then caught on. ‘Of course.’
Before leaving, Christiane took Olivia aside. ‘Don’t give up on Raimund. He’s worth fighting for.’
Olivia had given her a reassuring smile. ‘I know.’
Through the sliding glass door, she saw Raimund leaning on his hands over the edge of the parapet, staring towards the ruins of the old town, his shadowed face inscrutable. She observed him for a while, noting the rigid way he held his arms, the way his fingers curled on the stone, the way his shoulders hunched. Then she ascended to her room for a last check on Dame Elizabeth.
Her return found Raimund sitting on the edge of the parapet with a denuded rosemary sprig in his hand. At his feet lay the leaves he had picked off. The air was warm and still, and heavy with the herb’s pungent scent.
‘It’s for remembrance,’ he said when she came out onto the terrace.
She sat down next to him. ‘Yes.’
‘I do not like remembering. It only reminds me of what I have lost.’
‘We have all lost someone, Raimund. Death is part of life. Though knowing it could happen at any moment shouldn’t stop us living.’
He looked at her. ‘You sound like Christiane.’
‘She’s a very wise woman. You should listen to her sometime.’
‘My mother once said the same.’ He twirled the twig. ‘Neither she nor Christiane wanted me to join the army. Like all mothers, mine was afraid for me, but Christiane, she said it was not fear of my death that made her not wish me to go, but fear of my not living. I did not understand at the time what she meant.’
Olivia searched his face, wondering where this was leading. ‘And you do now?’
‘Yes. I think so.’ He tossed the sprig over his shoulder into the street below. ‘I don’t like it, though.’
‘No. We never like truths we’ve kept hidden from ourselves.’ She took his hand. ‘What do you really want, Raimund? I don’t mean Durendal or justice for Patrice.’ She pressed his hand to a point above her left breast, to where her heart lay beating. ‘I mean what you want in here. Your dream.’
He stared once more at the silhouetted ruins, his eyes shiny under the moon’s glow. Olivia waited, hoping to hear the truth from him. That after all they’d been through, he could trust her with this secret part of him. The words, when they came, were raw.
‘I dream of freedom from this legacy. Of a normal life with a wife and children and no Durendal waiting to hack it apart. But I cannot have both.’ His head dropped and he inhaled deeply. ‘So I will remain a soldier like Roland. Only with my death, there will be no sword left behind. No legacy to ruin lives. Only peace.’ He dragged his hand from hers and stood up.
‘You can have both.’
His eyes closed.
She rose to stand in front of him, her hands on his chest, on the muscular hardness of him. The solid framework of a man of honour and conviction. Her modern-day knight.
‘Nothing’s going to change the way I feel.’
‘Even Durendal?’
Olivia thought of her grandmother and the childish promise she had made. Compared to losing Raimund, it was meaningless—a child’s romantic fantasy that paled against the real thing. But precious, ancient Durendal? Sword of history, of infamy, of fairytales and legends. A relic sought for over a thousand years. Could she stand by and allow its destruction?
She took a breath. ‘Even Durendal.’
But in the quiet caverns of her heart, she hoped and prayed it would never come to that.
‘You would sacrifice your dream for me?’
She nodded.
He closed his eyes again. ‘And so you leave me with yet another burden.’
‘Not a burden, Raimund. A gift.’ She took his hand. ‘Take Christiane’s advice. Live a little, even if it’s just for one night.’
His eyes raked her face. ‘And tomorrow when you wake and find my resolve intact?’
‘Tomorrow will sort itself out.’
Warm arms enveloped her as a lingering kiss caressed the hollow of her neck. Olivia smiled, still dozy from sleep, and wallowed in the moment.
‘Bonjour, Olivia.’
The words were breathed into her skin in the sexiest of greetings. A rush of yearning washed through and over her, leaving her skin prickling and her insides flooded. There was no doubt now, not after last night. She wanted this man forever and longer.
Stretching a little, she rolled over. Raimund smiled at her with molten dark-chocolate eyes.
‘Do you know,’ she said, weaving her arms around his neck and sliding her body against his, ‘there’s something very seductive about a French good morning.’
His fingers traced circles down her back, lazily gliding towards her buttocks. His erection pressed hard against her stomach. ‘There is something very seductive about an Australian good morning also.’
‘We could have been doing this for months.’
‘Ah, but perhaps you would not have achieved as much.’
She laughed. ‘You’re probably right.’
They made love as a terracotta dawn blazed the walls and tiles in the colours of Provence, free of inhibition or worry, as if they had stolen this moment in time just for them. An arc of pleasure in the circle of tension that surrounded them. Olivia felt no urgency, no fear that this was temporary, just the sweet joy of sex with a man she cared for.
Throughout the night, at the edges of passion, in the inviting tentacles of encroaching sleep, she’d wanted to reveal how deeply he’d touched her, but the words remained unsaid. This was for now. Talk of love meant the future and neither of them knew what that held.
They showered together, made love again under the cascade of water, giggled as they slid and slipped against the wet tiles, Raimund holding her steady, never once letting her go. Holding her to him, kissing her wet skin, fastening his brown eyes on hers as she gasped and moaned from his touch.
And then it was over.
Olivia stood at the door, waiting as Raimund fiddled with his laptop. Her heart felt full and heavy, overloaded with feeling, and, as she watched him, so handsome, so noble, so knight-like, she knew she had spoken the truth. She would forgive him anything. Even Durendal.
The question remained, though. Would he forgive himself?
His computer work accomplished, he walked to the door but made no move to leave. He was homed in on her, and his gaze sent her stomach somersaulting.
‘Thank you,’ he said, cupping her face. ‘For all you have given me.’
‘I haven’t finished yet.’
He let her go. ‘It’s tomorrow now.’
‘No, my knight. It’s today. And today is full of hope.’ She curled her arms around his neck and dragged his mouth onto hers, kissing him hard, breathing into him until he was filled with a memory he would be unable to shake. Then she let him go and grabbed his hand. ‘Come on, I’m starving. And we’ve a lot to do.’
She reached for the door, but he stopped her. ‘I’m not your knight, Olivia. There’s nothing noble about me or what I’m going to do.’
‘You’re wrong.’
His mouth thinned and his eyes turned desperately sad. ‘I’m not the man you think I am.’
‘Then what are you?’
He didn’t answer for several seconds. His breaths were long as though he was priming himself to admit a deep secret. Then he frowned and blinked several times, as if clearing away bad thoughts, and spoke, leaving her wondering what he’d left buried. What he had left hidden from her that saddened him so much.
‘A man who fulfils his promises. If you help me find Durendal, I will destroy it.’
‘I know. But we haven’t got that far yet.’
His hand rose to his forehead, but she caught it, tangling her fingers in his, letting him know she understood.
‘It’s okay.’
‘And when this is over, when I’m back with my men. When I’m back in Afghanistan or Chad or some other miserable place, what will you do then?’
Her stomach dropped. She had thought this was enough, that she could save him from self-destruction. ‘Must you return to the army?’
‘It’s for the best.’
‘Whose best? Yours? Mine? What about the life you really want? The one you talked about last night? What happens to that dream?’ Her throat turned thick. ‘That could be …’ She swallowed the ‘us’ back and stared fixedly at the floor.
‘It’s not going to happen,’ he said gently, tilting up her chin. ‘You know this.’
‘It could.’
He sighed and took her in his arms, held her to him with his face buried in the hollow between her neck and shoulders. His breath was hot on her skin.
‘You think you are strong now but that will change.’
‘It won’t.’
He let her go, and she could see him distancing himself, donning his soldier’s mask, hiding his feelings. The stoic had returned, and this time, Olivia feared he had come for good.
The door opened. He beckoned her through.
‘We will see, Olivia. We will see.’
As Olivia and Raimund entered the kitchen, three wrinkled faces turned as one to grin at them, Christiane’s by far the broadest. No one commented, but then they didn’t have to. Their faces said it all. Even Dame Elizabeth looked delighted. Christiane, Olivia suspected, had been gossiping.
Greetings out of the way, the senior citizens returned to discussing the dire state of the nation. From the nods and smiles, all parties were in agreeance and it took only a moment of eavesdropping for Olivia to determine that Dame Elizabeth loathed the British invasion of southern France as much as Christiane. Given that was Christiane’s favourite topic, their easy camaraderie was unsurprising.
She sat at right angles to Raimund, and although the scent of pastries and coffee sent her stomach growling, she could only pick at her food. Her mind was too preoccupied with him.
She wanted the man back. The man she knew existed under that facade of stony resignation. The man who only an hour ago had smiled with her and filled her heart with love. But the soldier had taken over and he was as obdurate as ever.
She reached under the table and put her hand on his leg. He glanced at her and shifted it away, then picked up his espresso cup as though she had suddenly ceased to exist. His dismissal caused her eyes to smart with developing tears. With an iron will, she suppressed them. Despair would only make him distance himself more. Clinical detachment was his way of coping when his emotions became too exposed, even if their suppression left his insides flailed and bleeding.
‘Did you tell Dame Thatcher about the archives?’ he asked quietly.
‘No. I made you a promise. I wouldn’t break that.’
He stared hard at his cup, his jaw rigid. ‘I’ll carry her down after breakfast.’
She leaned forward, trying to keep their conversation private. ‘You don’t have to. The archives are your secret. You don’t have to show her.’
‘I want this over. The riddle will be solved quicker with her there.’
Olivia stared at him. ‘Or is it that you don’t want to be alone with me?’
He said nothing.
‘You think you know me, but you’re wrong. No matter what you do, no matter where you run to, it won’t stop what’s in my heart.’ Her hushed speech made, she sat back, her arms crossed over her chest.
Silence had descended on the breakfast table. Dame Elizabeth, Christiane and Edouard were watching them intently. In the sudden quiet, the scrape back of Raimund’s chair sounded like a screech.
‘You have finished, Dame Thatcher?’
Dame Elizabeth picked up her last scrap of pastry, popped it in her mouth and chewed vigorously. ‘I have now.’ She gazed up at Raimund with sparkling blue eyes. ‘Are you taking me to see it?’
‘After I have changed your dressing, yes.’
For an eighty-four-year-old, Dame Elizabeth could move when she wanted. In seconds, she was on her feet and at Raimund’s side with her bandaged ear cocked towards him.
‘Well? What are you waiting for?’
While he inspected and dressed her ear, Olivia helped Christiane with the dishes. Edouard retreated to the terrace to water the plants.
‘I’m pleased,’ said Christiane as she stood with her arms in suds.
Olivia didn’t have to ask what she was talking about. She stared glumly at the draining dishes, a tea-towel in her hand. ‘I don’t think he intends for it to happen again.’
‘Intentions can be changed.’
‘I hope so.’ She picked up a plate. ‘He said he’s returning to the army.’
Christiane gave her a sharp look. ‘You must not let him.’
‘Easier said than done, Christiane.’
‘You love him?’
Love didn’t seem a strong enough word for the way she felt, and yet there was no other word to explain the utter adoration, the longing that made her insides radiate with the glow of a thousand fireflies, the passion he could elicit with just one look, one tiny touch.
Her throat closed over with the intensity of it. She nodded, momentarily unable to speak.
‘Then you must find a way.’
She swallowed but still her voice came out hoarse, made gravelly by the fear of losing him. ‘He’s so stubborn, Christiane.’
‘Of course he is. He’s a Blancard.’ She smiled. ‘But you’re also stubborn. You’ll find a way.’ She cast a glance over her shoulder. Raimund was packing up the medical kit. ‘Go. Edouard and I will finish this. You have important work to do.’
Olivia knew she didn’t mean La Tasse.