Fran watched as Pierre blushed, colour stealing across his cheeks like ink on water. It seemed she wasn’t the only one to have found Johnny attractive.
It also seemed that Johnny had something he wanted to share with her.
Before she gave herself time to pause, Fran thanked Pierre and took the stairs to the first floor, heading along the wide corridor which led to the corner of the building, and the turret room. Johnny’s room. No longer a member of staff, Fran didn’t have her passkey, but she had no intention of bursting in on another guest without their knowledge, even if it was Johnny. Instead, she rapped her knuckles against the hardwood of the door and waited for a reply.
After she’d knocked for a second and then a third time, Fran had to admit defeat. Johnny wasn’t in his room. Unsure what to do next, she loitered in the corridor, then went and peered through the narrow window set in the end wall. One of those windows which hadn’t been designed as a way of enjoying the view; instead it had a slit running through the middle, through which, back in medieval times, marauding neighbours could have been spotted and dispatched via a well-aimed arrow. With a lack of modern-day invading forces, it now made for a charming little nook. A way to view a narrow slice of Loire countryside framed between deep-set granite slabs.
For the first time in what seemed like an age, there was a smudge of grey on the horizon. In a sky which for weeks had been a resolutely gorgeous shade of blue there now hung a stain of charcoal. As Fran turned away, she wondered if it would rain later, finally breaking the deadlock of heat.
Heading back down the staircase, Fran asked Pierre if he had any idea where ‘the tall Englishman’ might be. When Pierre had no intel on Johnny’s whereabouts, other than the fact he’d seen him heading towards his room earlier, Fran took a walk through the hotel, checking the dining room, bar, salon – once she’d exhausted the possibilities inside, she headed out to the pool area, then skirted through the gardens. The oak with the split trunk caught her eye – the winds had really picked up since her father had left and the tree was swaying like a drunk, creaking as it moved. Not a place Red would choose to be right now, she thought. Fran turned and headed for the car park, to see if Johnny’s car was still there.
There was a grey Mercedes parked up, but was it Johnny’s hire car? Fran hadn’t taken much notice of the numberplate when she’d travelled in it, and Johnny had told her that his brother had insisted on having two vehicles, and that they were almost identical.
It occurred to Fran that Johnny might have gone to visit Chateau des Rêves without her. After all, she had told him to make the decision for himself, and not to include her in his calculations. But it stung to think he was there without her, and it hit home that while she hadn’t wanted him to take her words at their literal face value, it was possible that he had.
A heaviness settled on Fran as she gave up on her search and headed back inside. Perhaps she should change focus, concentrate instead on finding Penny, asking for five minutes of her time to try to explain.
Penny was at the back of the hotel when she saw it, saw the slash of grey staining the sky as she was finishing the bathroom in one of the turret suites which faced directly out over the countryside behind the chateau.
The window was small, and only opened partially, so at first, she thought she was imagining things. It wasn’t as if she was able to focus on anything other than her tumbling thoughts about Harry – and the revelations about Fran. Penny felt as though someone had pulled the floor out from underneath her, that at any moment she might fall through the turret window and float away, like discarded lint. It wasn’t as if anyone would miss her, was it?
Penny sucked in a frustrated breath, and it was then that she smelt it.
It might be very faint and carried like the twist of cigarette smoke on a busy street, but it was distinctive none the less.
Penny could smell burning.
Craning as far as she could, she scanned the horizon, then slammed the window and gathered her cleaning equipment as quickly as possible, shoving everything into the plastic tray and grabbing up the dirty towels. She took the staircase likea mountain goat and dumped everything in her haste to find someone to tell.
Pierre was taking a phone call as she entered the foyer, so she kept moving, heading for the labyrinth of staff corridors. Spotting the cellar door open, light on, she peered down the stairs and came face to face with the sommelier, Alain, checking off boxes on a list.
‘I think there’s a wildfire,’ she said. ‘I could see smoke from the top floor.’
The statement had Alain abandoning his task. He shoved some of the boxes to the side of the staircase, dumping his list on top of one of them and pushed his way past her, a sense of urgency replacing his normally languid attitude.
Chapter 27
Fran had fully intended to follow everyone else outside. The process of mustering guests and employees as far away as was practical from the approaching wildfire was in full swing, the noise of the fire alarm ripped through every other thought or action, and she was out of her room before she realised she’d left her passport and bag behind. Her phone was in her pocket, but in her haste she’d left everything else.
From the main foyer, Fran could see people beginning to pool quite a way down the chateau’s main driveway. Further down than the designated muster point, because although the chateau itself wasn’t on fire yet, the fire was whipping through the surrounding farmland, vineyards and grasslands, driven on by the strength of the wind. This wasn’t the only fire in the area, she’d gleaned that much information, and the fact that a number of fires had broken out almost simultaneously was stretching the resources of the fire brigade to breaking point.
The emergency services would be at Chateau les Champs d’Or as quickly as possible, but how quickly was pure conjecture.
Today the mention ofles pompiersdid nothing to amuse Fran, all the jokes from earlier in the week falling away at the thought that this was real, this fire was intense and spreading almost uncontrollably, that it looked as though the chateau might be next in its path and there was no way for the sheer number of people pouring out of the hotel to go anywhere other than across the bridge and hope the river would provide a barrier to escape the spreading fires.
She was about to head outside when a thought struck her. What about Red? She’d forgotten about him. The cat must be terrified.Everywhere he was familiar with was on fire, or about to ignite. Where would he go to seek safety? Everywhere Fran had ever seen him was in the path of the fire.
Fran made a split-second decision and slipped away from the doorway, running instead for the side door, the staff door through which she’d gone the very first time she’d met Red. It was open, left ajar by someone in the flurry of panic, she assumed. Pushing it fully open, Fran shot through it and headed along the side of the chateau, heading for the long grass where Red had first made himself known.
This time the squeaky mouse noises she made were almost supersonic, her lips so dry she could hardly manage the sound at all. Whether or not the cat would be able to hear her was in the lap of the gods, the wind was whipping the sound away from her lips the moment she made it.
With no sign of the cat, Fran continued to work her way around the rear of the building, getting her first blast of smoke full in the face. She took a lungful before she could stop herself, pushing most of it back out on a reflexive coughing fit.
She should head back and wait with the others. From ground level, it was difficult to see anything through the bloom of smoke, impossible to know how close the actual flames were. The last strand of logic Fran was hanging on to told her it would be impossible to spot a small ginger cat in these conditions, that this was a dangerous situation, and she should leave it. Right now.
But logic and love didn’t necessarily make ideal travelling companions, and Fran knew, above anything else in that moment, that she loved that scruffy, scrawny little bundle of trouble. And she also knew there was no way she was going to abandon him.
Wrapping her gauzy scarf as a makeshift face mask, she continued around the back of the pool area. Perhaps Red had taken himself up into the canopy of the oak with the split trunk – that was where he’d gone the last time he’d panicked.
