Ari Walker.
Rafael closed the laptop and swore softly to himself. He’d been awake for hours through the night and had ended up working on the financial records, trying to untie the knot that had been bothering him for months now. Something wasn’t right and he couldn’t get to the bottom of it. He paced the room, went down and raided the kitchen, and even tried working in the study instead. At least with a house of this size, he could be sure he wouldn’t disturb his great-aunt’s sleep. Mémé’s room was on the other side of the building, a whole wing to herself. It was too big a home for her. He knew that logically. But it would break her heart to leave it.
He’d taken a light breakfast alone and tried to focus on his work. He shouldn’t even be here. He should be back in Paris at his desk. There were meetings he needed to attend, and he wanted to talk to the accountants about that strange thing he’d seen in the financial records. He needed to talk to Elena about Georges as well, to touch base with her and make sure everything was OK. He had flights booked to New York for a gala in a week. He would have to cancel that. He didn’t want to go anyway. It would have been more Jacqueline’s thing, and they weren’t going anywhere together now. Besides, he didn’t like leaving Laure in charge of the office. His sister wasn’t ready, and his mother had too great a hold on the board already. Laure would always cave to Maman’s demands. Anything could happen. Meanwhile, his mother was already pushing for the Root Aviation takeover and they’d have to pull reserves from any number of accounts to do it. He’d been unequivocal in the email. He just hoped it was enough. He didn’t want to confront his mother. Not yet. It wasn’t time.
It had been hard enough to insist that he be the one to take care of this issue with Mémé and her money. Maman had agreed all too willingly, which suggested she wanted him out of the way for some reason. He didn’t like it.
‘Rafi?’ His great-aunt called from the hall outside. ‘Rafi? Something’s wrong. Can’t you hear it?’
She was the only one who still called him that. His father had called him Ael, his Breton name, but after he died, his mother had put a stop to that. He couldn’t bear to hear it anyway. Mémé calling him Rafi had been one of his few comforts in that dark time.
‘Hear what, Mémé?
Hushed voices came from the other side of the door, someone trying to calm her down.
Rafael got to his feet. He felt weary, worn out to his core. It was this place. No wonder his mother never wanted to come back. If he could have persuaded Mémé to move to Paris, or anywhere else, he would have. The rest of the family had tried, time and again, but she wouldn’t budge.
The Manoir had been in the family for generations. And it was beautiful, he knew that, and despite the other members of his clan making plans for it – a hotel, a luxury retreat, even a campsite – he knew he would never be able to give it up. He loved it as much as he loved his great-aunt, as much as she loved it. He might not want to be back here, but that didn’t mean he could let it go either.
No more than he could force Mémé to let it go. Even if that had been possible, he didn’t have it in him. He didn’t want to take that decision out of her hands, but the more he saw, the more he feared he was not going to have a choice. Eventually.
He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon, or to be this bad. He had not wanted his mother to be right. But Mémé was not herself.
Opening the door, he saw the housekeeper talking softly to his great-aunt. Nolvene Cariou had worked there for as long as he could remember. She was a friendly and familiar face. She was the one who had phoned him to warn him of the changes in his great-aunt.
Him, he noted. Not his mother. Just as well really.
But then Yvette du Lac was not Mémé’s blood, as the old woman was so fond of pointing out. Laure would laugh about it and insist that they were all family, but she always took their mother’s side in the end. She was more like their mother than he was. Always had been.
His father had been smitten with Yvette from the moment he saw her, that was what everyone said. Until, some time after Laure’s birth, he came back here. There was some kind of affair, Rafael thought, although no one would admit anything. Rumours and hints, innuendo. He didn’t know who it was with or what had happened. He didn’t even know how his mother had found out, although in Sainte Sirène there were very few secrets.
But Théo du Lac had died before she could confront him. Another thing for which she could never forgive him.
Rafael knew his mother was vain, and shallow, spoilt, and sometimes very cruel. He liked to think it was losing her husband so young that had made her that way, but he wasn’t sure. She had inherited a financial empire, but she had always been rich, and expected everything to be laid at her feet. Perhaps Mémé had realised that from the start and clearly nothing would have been good enough for her Théo. Yvette had never liked Mémé and the feeling had been mutual.
If he left it to her, his mother would see to it that his great-aunt was shut away in a nursing home far from here, far from anywhere, where she couldn’t embarrass the du Lac foundation. It would be luxurious, exclusive, beautiful, but it would be as good as a prison to Mémé. And it would be far from her friends, far from her beloved Sainte Sirène.
‘What’s happened? Nolvene?’
Nolvene was not only Mémé’s housekeeper, but also her companion, a middle-aged woman who could always be depended on. But the look she gave him right now was frankly rattled.
‘Nothing, Monsieur Rafi. Nothing, she just needs a rest. That’s all. Come along,madame. Come and have a lie-down.’
Mémé was having none of it. ‘I heard it. I know I did. And you did too, Nolvene. Don’t lie to him. It does no one any favours.An neudenn eeun eo ar gwellañ.’
It was always a bad sign when she was quoting old proverbs in Breton.
He frowned, trying to remember. Once, he knew all her sayings by heart. ‘A straight thread?’ He looked to Nolvene for help.
‘A straight thread is best,’ she confirmed.
Don’t lie. Be straight with him. Mémé was reverting more and more to Breton, he thought, or at least it appeared that way. Her first language, the one her grandmother taught her. The language of the du Lacs, she would say.
Rafael nodded slowly. ‘Well then?’
He waited and Nolvene frowned.
‘She heard a sound. Just a sound carrying over the water. Waves in the sea caves or a rock fall on the cliffs. Or something coming over the bay. We hear it all the time. It’s just an old story made up to explain it.’
