Page 58 of A French Country Escape
‘Thanks, but there’s no need. You get off home,’ Penny said, her mind whirling with what had happened. She wanted some time to think through the implications of the family link that had been discovered. Once the dishwasher was working and she’d wiped down the work surfaces, she tookLa Maison du Jardinierkey off its hook. She’d get the privacy she wanted there.
Once safely inside, she closed the door behind her and slumped back against it. She’d have to step away from Lucas now they were related; it might be only distantly, but she didn’t feel comfortable about it. She suspected just being friends was going to be difficult for both of them. It would have to be a real break-up. No keeping in touch. To think she’d been almost floating with happiness after their visit to the Valley of the Saints. The way Lucas had defended her from Rory. And now the future she’d envisaged with him had been taken away from her. If only Sasha had thrown Eliza’s box away.
No, she couldn’t think that. Peter and Grandad Edward, as well as Eliza, were thrilled to finally know their family history. It wasn’t their fault that discovering the family connection was going to have such a negative impact on her own life.
44
It was two days before Bastille Day when Jean-Paul took Sasha, together with the pups, to show her his farm. About a kilometre from the château in the opposite direction of the village and down a long, gated rough track, the traditional granite stonemasnestled in a valley. Looking at the house, Sasha’s fingers itched to create a painting of it. With its faded red shutters opened flat against the walls, pale blue wisteria framing the front door and Viking asleep on the doorstep, it was picture-perfect.
She turned to Jean-Paul. ‘You leave Viking out when you’re not here?’
‘Sometimes, if I have the need. The yard gates are closed, the land around is mine and Viking, he never leave. I bring him with me most times, but today, with Mimi and Mitzi, there was no room in the car.’
Viking stood up and lazily stretched as Jean-Paul opened the car door and Mimi and Mitzi bounded out straight for him.
‘Come in,’ Jean-Paul said, leading the way. ‘I confess I do very little to the house since my parents leave.’
Sasha gazed around at the kitchen with its beams and red tiles on the floor, a large, battered table standing in the centreof the room, half a dozen chairs scattered around it. Although old-fashioned in style without built-in units, alongside the large dresser with its display of Bretagne pottery, it did have a modern stove and a dishwasher. Sasha thought it was the perfect-sized kitchen for feeding a family and entertaining friends. A picture window above the sink gave a view out over an orchard of apple and plum trees. Several chickens were scratching at the ground, while a few were enjoying dust baths in the loose soil they’d already scratched up.
‘They are not suppose to be in there,’ Jean-Paul said, laughing. ‘Their run is the other side of the fence. I give you some eggs when you leave if you like. Come see the rest.’
The sitting room alongside the kitchen had a wood burner fitted into the inglenook fireplace, two comfortable-looking settees, rugs on the tiled floor and bookcases lining two out of three walls. ‘You’ve got a proper library here,’ Sasha said.
Jean-Paul smiled. ‘My parents, they always read a lot and me the same. Some books are from my grandparents’ time.’ Mimi and Mitzi ran into the room at that moment and skidded to a halt, scattering the rugs. Jean-Paul laughed. ‘We let them run outside?’
‘Good idea,’ Sasha said.
Out in the farmyard, Viking lay stretched out in the sunshine again and warned the pups off with a short growl when they tried to ambush him into playing.
‘The sheep and most lambs are out in the fields,’ Jean-Paul said. ‘But the couple of late ones are still in this barn,’ and he took her over to the half-door of a small building.
Peering over, Sasha saw two ewes standing there contentedly chewing some hay whilst their lambs headbutted each other in play.
‘They join the flock out in the field later this week, I hope, when the weather is better,’ Jean-Paul said.
‘So sweet,’ Sasha said, quietly watching them.
‘Come on. I make some coffee and you can tell me what happening up at the château.’
As they turned to make their way back into the farmhouse, Sasha’s mobile rang. Jean-Paul gestured to her to answer. ‘It is perhaps important.’
Sasha recognised the number as the one Colette had given her, which she’d rung a couple of days ago to ask about the loan of the Welsh Cob, leaving a message. ‘I have been waiting for this call,’ she admitted as she pressed the button. ‘Hello?’
It was a few minutes later when she said, ‘Thank you for letting me know. If it doesn’t work out, please feel free to give me a call.’ Sasha sighed as she followed Jean-Paul back into the kitchen. ‘I thought I was in with a chance of having a horse on loan, but the owner has already found a new home for him. Probably just as well. I’ve got enough going on without adding a horse into the mix. One day the time will be right and I will have one,’ she said, smiling at him.
‘It is a pity this time it not work out but I hope you have your own horse one day in future,’ Jean-Paul said.
Five minutes later the two of them were sitting at a tiled table in a small garden at the side of the farmhouse, Viking and the two puppies under the table at their feet. Jean-Paul had placed coffee and two delicious-looking raspberry and cream tarts on the table before opening a large parasol to provide some shade from the heat of the sun.
Sasha bit into her tart and gave a little moan of delight. ‘This tastes even better than it looked.’ Jean-Paul, eating his own tart, nodded his head in agreement.
After she’d finished eating and could speak again, Sasha looked at Jean-Paul. ‘I need to thank you for talking to Freddie.’
‘I feel bad I interfere, but it would be a mistake for him to be involve with Maddie not knowing the truth,’ Jean-Paul said.
‘Don’t think of it as interfering,’ Sasha said. ‘You simply told Freddie something important and he made up his own mind, thankfully.’
Jean-Paul nodded. ‘It is better to think that.’
