Page 56 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
Quite unnecessarily, their driver pointed ahead to the sprawling home on the horizon and shouted to them in a flurry of rapid Spanish, which Jade presumed could be summarized to a simple message ofwe have arrived.
There was, mercifully, no rain as of yet. The intensity of the sunlight streaming down on them through the cloud cover did have a feeling of thickness to it, however, which made her think that their luck was fading with every passing second. Perhaps that was why it was so hard to breathe.
"So, do we... Do we just knock at the door?" Jade asked, although she thought as soon as the words left her that it was a rather silly question. From here, the approach of the house was drawing nearer at an alarming rate. The blur of the gardens was taking shape into individual hedges and trees, individual fruits and flowers. The winding earthen drive began to sink into individual bricks leading through a gate that was, distressingly, already standing open, as though they had already been welcomed through the threshold.
At this very moment, her mother and father could be only steps away, somewhere in the curving network of buildings that linked together to form the home ahead of them.
"We won't need to," Mathias said to her, rubbing his thumb along the edge of her hand either in reassurance or as a gentle reminder that the bones of his own hand were still at her mercy. "Look there, by the hydrangeas."
There was a figure in a wide straw hat kneeling at the flowerbed, kneading moss and fertilizer into the soil with gloved hands. From here, she could tell that this wasn't her mother, though the woman looked familiar all the same. She leaned back, rubbing the dirt from her gloves as she turned over her shoulder, alerted to their approach by the clicking of the horseshoes on the tile drive.
Her face was a healthier shade of bronze than Jade remembered, her hair perhaps a purer shock of white, but as the woman ambled to her feet and raised her arm in an energetic wave, there could be no doubt of her identity. Here was Pauline Olivier, a world away and years since the night of the fire, and despite her surprise and half-finished occupation, she had broken into a run toward the carriage, with one hand holding her hat to her brow and the other fisted in her blue and russet skirts, shouting greetings to them from across the expanse.
"Goodness," said Isabelle. "Look at her go! Is that your mother?"
The driver, perhaps worried that this rapidly approaching little woman would fly directly into his horses, commanded an abrupt halt of their progress, pulling hard on the reins while clicking his tongue in disapproval. Presumably this was rather shocking behavior for a woman of status even here, in this foreign paradise on the side of the sea.
"Oh, Mathias! Jade!" Pauline's voice cried, her steps slowing as she drew nearer. "Oh, sweet heavens! Oh, what a surprise!"
Mathias grinned at her. "Hullo, Pauline. May I assume we are a welcome surprise?"
"More than welcome! Oh, look at you!" She was panting, and approached the rear of the cart pink-faced and ecstatic. Her eyes slid from Jade to Mathias to Isabelle, where they stopped for a moment and widened. "And you've brought Mary's daughter too!"
"Isabelle Applegate," Isabelle confirmed, leaning over the railing to shake the other woman's hand. "And you are Pauline Olivier?"
"I am, I am!" Pauline confirmed, gripping Isabelle's hand and pressing it to her cheek. "Oh, gracious. I am quite out of breath. Might I climb aboard for the rest of the way up to the house?"
"Please do," Isabelle said warmly, angling herself so that her grasp on the other woman's hand might be used to assist her in climbing onto the modest platform at the back of the cart. "Perhaps you might prepare us for what's to come."
She fell into the seat opposite the trio, whipping her hat away to fan her face with it as the driver set them into motion once more. "Prepare you?" she repeated, her gaze drinking them in, one after the other and back again. "My dear, none of us could have prepared for this!"
CHAPTER25
The sky opened up almost the instant they had crossed the threshold into the villa, dumping forth the wealth of water that had been building in the heat of the day. It was as though heaven itself had been bating its breath, waiting for this moment.
"Gerard!" Pauline Olivier called in a tone that demanded action, charging ahead of them with her straw hat fisted in her hand. She was a plump woman with a powerful voice that seemed to magnify in the plaster and tile entryway of the villa. "Gerard, I require you! Come here at once!"
A maid, physically startled by this shouting, had frozen in place next to the front door, her dusting rag held half aloft as she stared after her mistress. She turned confounded eyes onto the three young people who stood in Pauline's wake and blinked at them, trapped in her own bafflement.
"¿Hola?" Jade attempted, though she sounded rather small and meek opposite Mme. Olivier's railing through the ground level in search of her husband. She wished she knew the Spanish to say almost anything else, but alas, a simple greeting would have to do.
"Hola," the maid returned, appearing more confused by the moment. Her eyes slid over the trio at the doorway, tawny brows drawing together in confusion that seemed only to heighten the more she took them in.
"Poor dear," said Mathias with a chuckle. "She probably doesn't know whether to seat us for tea or throw us out on our ears after that introduction."
Isabelle tilted her head, listening to the slosh of rainwater flinging itself against the door behind them. "I'd prefer to keep my ear indoors, if it's all the same to her. That sounds impossibly frightful already."
To their left, a man appeared, looking both exceptionally harried by the ruckus and oblivious to the presence of guests. "Pauline!" he barked back in the direction his wife had gone. "For God’s sake, woman, I'm over here!"
"Afternoon," Mathias said easily, startling the poor old man half out of his boots.
He spun to face them, dropping the book in his hands and slapping a hand to the bald pate at the top of his head. "Dempierre!" he shouted much louder than necessary, charging forward to embrace Mathias. "Oh, I've missed you, lad!"
What followed was a chaos of greetings and questions. It was so torrential that Jade wondered if this was simply how daily life was lived by the Oliviers, who seemed to do everything at a sprint.
They were jostled toward a mosaic-studded sitting room with a bubbling fountain at its center, while voices overlapped and collided around them. Jade could only stare in awe at the speed in which words and phrases were exchanged, not only by the Oliviers and Mathias, but by Isabelle as well, who took immediately to their particular flavor ofFranglaisand seemed perfectly at home in the torrent of activity and sound.
Tea and honey cake were eventually brought out, giving Jade something to occupy her hands with at the very least while questions were deployed and answered in her orbit.
