‘You have records of the people who lived here at the time, don’t you? I thought I saw them in the library.’
‘Some local records, but not much. There wasn’t a census in 1941, for obvious reasons. Most of it is in the departmental archives. We have rent books, perhaps. We can look. I’ve never heard of a woman called Blanche in relation to Fabien other than here in his writings. Maybe Mémé remembers. She would have been very young when he died, but she adored him.’
Ari was reading again. ‘Look at this. “Tris tells me I am a fool and sometimes I believe him. He suspects Blanche of a darker purpose and fears she will lead me to my death. But it is like a spell comes over me when she is near. She is my every dream and she knows the way. She is a keeper of secrets and would share them with us. The secrets of Ys itself. If only we surrender to her and let the tide take us. And then stand beneath her eyes of stone.”’
Her voice flowed so sweetly, her translation perfect. Her French was good, for a foreigner, but he supposed that having spent so long with Simon, having stayed here, it was only to be expected. Still, it warmed some part of him he didn’t expect her to reach.
But that was Ari Walker, a constant revelation.
‘Simon said something like that,’ she murmured, more to herself than to him. ‘“I’ve let the tide take me and surrendered to her.”’ And she fell silent again, a deep, heartbroken silence. Thinking of Simon, he supposed. He was a constant shadow between them.
Rafael didn’t know how to talk to her about the kiss, about that flare of desire they had shared, but at the same time he wasn’t sure that he should either. He hadn’t doubted for a moment that Ari desired him, but as soon as she had time to think about it, she had started to doubt herself. Or to doubt him perhaps.
Well, anyone was entitled to change their mind. He shouldn’t have rushed her. She was as flighty as a deer, Ariadne Walker, and with good reason. Simon’s death had left deep scars.
Simon Poullain. Why did it always come back to a Poullain?
Tris. Fabien had called Tristan PoullainTris. A nickname, informal and intimate. Whereas Blanche was referred to more formally, as if he was talking about a priestess. Or a goddess.
Blanche…
Who on earth was Blanche?
And after almost eighty years, how would they find out what she had known? If she had shared it with Fabien, and if he had written it down, the final pages of this diary were gone now. Probably destroyed years ago.
Ari flicked through the pages and then got to her feet, pacing back and forth as she read. He watched her, framed by the evening light coming through the high windows and slanting across the floor. She looked like a classical statue, beautiful and untouchable, a dream he didn’t even know he had until he met her. Not a model, or socialite, not a head of industry or anything like any of the women he had briefly dated. She was a whirlwind, intelligence and brilliance entwined with a quick wit and a fearless spirit.
It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. He barely knew her. But it was something he didn’t want to lose. He didn’t even want to risk that.
He had never told a woman he loved her. It had never been true.
Suddenly, Ari’s shoulder’s tensed. ‘The pages…’
He rose from the table, her alarm infecting him.
She looked over at him, met his gaze and frowned, her eyes wide with shock. ‘I think I know where the missing pages are. Simon had them. They’re back in the gîte. In my room.’
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Ari tipped the box out on her bed as if unveiling a guilty secret. She only half believed it herself. The idea of Simon stealing something like that, of him tearing out pages from a historical document, a unique archive of his beloved home…
It was so out of character.
And yet, there they were.
Gibberish, that was what she’d thought when she first glanced at the pages.
Rafael took them solemnly. They moved as his hands trembled, as if a breeze shook them. ‘But why would he do such a thing?’ Even he sounded horrified.
Ari didn’t have an answer to that. She was wondering the same thing herself, but she didn’t want to tell him. It was not like the Simon she had known. He had such respect for the past. Madame du Lac must have given him the diary, trusted him, and this was how he repaid her?
‘What’s that?’ Rafael asked.
Another photograph, she realised, in the back of the notebook. She pulled it out. It was Simon and, to her surprise, Gwen. She handed it to Rafael, trying to ignore the way the two figures sat close together, their legs kind of tangled with each other.
‘What the hell?’ he muttered.
Ari’s throat had tightened. It was like seeing a whole different side to Simon, someone she didn’t know at all. And she didn’t like it. It brought the words he’d written in his last letter back to her a bit too vividly. It must have been Gwen. It had to be.
