The French Prize

by Cathryn Hein

  ‘Often.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you would have. You soldier types do tend to get into scrapes.’ She turned to Olivia. ‘Rather taciturn, isn’t he?’

  Olivia said nothing. Raimund was probably saving his words for when they were alone.

  He proved a quick and surprisingly skilled medic while Dame Elizabeth showed admirable fortitude as he worked, not once crying out or wriggling. Her endurance was rewarded with three tiny, perfect stitches in her ear.

  As soon as Raimund was done, Edouard handed Dame Elizabeth a glass of watered-down pastis. To Olivia’s surprise, her eyes widened with glee.

  ‘Good man,’ she said in perfect French. ‘Just what a lady needs after an ordeal like that.’

  The smile on Edouard’s face became huge.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,’ said Olivia, looking at Raimund for support, but he was too busy tidying away the medical kit. Either that, or he was deliberately ignoring her.

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a wowser, Olivia,’ said Dame Elizabeth in English before switching back to French for Edouard’s benefit. ‘Pastis does wonders for the constitution. Isn’t that right, Monsieur Rosec?’

  ‘Oui, oui. C’est vrai! ’

  Raimund stood with the medical case in his hand. ‘Finish your drink. I’ll show you to the guest room.’

  Dame Elizabeth looked him up and down. ‘I don’t think so. We have work to do.’

  ‘Raimund’s right. You’ve suffered blood loss and shock. You need rest.’ Olivia glanced at him. ‘And Raimund and I need to talk.’

  Dame Elizabeth stared from Olivia to Raimund and back again, her shrewd eyes taking in their expressions. She pondered a little and then, to Olivia’s amazement, capitulated.

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right. Perhaps a bit of a lie-down would be wise.’ She held out her half-finished glass. ‘Here, take this and help an old lady up, would you? I’m feeling a fraction stiff.’

  But Raimund was on her before she could even heave herself out of the chair. The medical case was thrust into Olivia’s arms, while Dame Elizabeth was gathered into his. Without another word, he marched her upstairs and down the hall to Olivia’s bedroom.

  Once settled, Olivia spent some time fussing over Dame Elizabeth, checking she was comfortable and had all that she needed, but knew she was only putting off the confrontation to come. Dame Elizabeth knew it, too.

  ‘Thought you had more backbone,’ she said when Olivia went to straighten the top sheet for the third time.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. ‘I’m just trying to figure out what to say, that’s all. I’m not going to apologise, though. He wasn’t there when Gaston was threatening to cut out your tongue. I did what I had to, but I’m not sure he’ll see it that way.’

  ‘Too bad. The situation is what it is now. He’ll just have to adapt. Shouldn’t be hard. He’s a soldier, after all. Now, if you don’t mind, I need a nap.’ She waved a bony hand towards the door. ‘Off you go.’

  As Olivia reached it, Dame Elizabeth spoke again.

  ‘Don’t let him bully you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’

  Leaving the door slightly ajar in case Dame Elizabeth called for her, she trudged slowly down the hall, her feet leaden. Now there was no danger, Olivia felt washed out by depression and tiredness. She knew it was only the aftermath of shock and the comedown from an adrenaline rush, but that didn’t make her feel any better. And now she would have to descend to the archives and face another unpleasant confrontation.

  It seemed a lifetime ago that he had stood at the entrance to Dame Elizabeth’s hotel and kissed her, when she’d felt her stomach swoop and her heart soar at his touch. She’d promised herself then that they would talk, but that was before Gaston had spewed his evil over them. And before she revealed what Raimund had been exhausting himself trying to protect.

  The thought that he might never forgive her made her eyes itch.

  ‘Olivia.’

  Raimund stood at the door to his bedroom. He beckoned her inside.

  ‘I thought you’d be down in the archives,’ she said.

  ‘No. Please, come in.’

  She looked at him warily. His voice and countenance had given no indication of his mood, except that the extreme coldness was gone, replaced with a moderate but unfathomable tone.

  He held out his hand, beckoning. ‘Please.’

  With a last glance at his expressionless face, she stepped into the room.

  Quietly, the door closed behind her.

  CHAPTER

  16

  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 hi
s 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.

  H
e 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.