Page 85 of Ravishing Camille
The next afternoon, Pierce jumped down in the drive from the rickety open landau he’d hired at the train station in Tours. The quaint Amboise chateau sat nestled in its charming gardens. But it looked deserted, its windows closed, the drapes pulled across the glass. The flower pots full of reds and pinks and lush yellows that had welcomed him and Camille drooped, wilting in the late afternoon September sun.
Anger that Camille had not come home drained away as he looked at the chateau where once he’d found happiness in every minute. Fear clawed away the remnants of his rage.
He mounted the broad steps and knocked upon the old blue varnished door. No one answered. He motioned to his driver to wait for him. Then he was off to tramp around to the side of the house. He tried the gate. It did not give. But he peered through the spokes of the large wrought iron fence into the vegetable garden. At the little house beyond, neither Monsieur Barrère nor his wife appeared.
And neither did Camille.
He traipsed round the other side of the house and jogged up to the back kitchen door. He banged on the door. Got no answer. Then tried the latch but it was locked.
He took the path to the stables, fighting alarm that Camille had not simply fled him but all the family. And why. Because they’d been seen in the station kissing?
No.
He scoffed at that. There was more. More. Love, career, travel, Shanghai. He should have broached more before he left. Settled a few things.
But he understood one fact well. That she would flee and not return home because she wanted solitude to think. It was not like her to allow her family to worry about her, but even that was a measure of her discontent. Still, he understood the need for a solemn communion with one’s self.
Hands on his hips, he stood in the stables in an open stall and hung his head. He prayed he’d find her, assuage her concerns that…what? What?
No answer came to him. And the only sound was that of the mice skittering about in the rafters. Outside, farther along the lane, the chickens clucked and pecked. The wind from the river blew soft and warm and swirled around him in the stables. Its caress drained him.
He strode back to the front of the house and stood back to view it one final time. An old stillness settled about the place. He ran a hand through his hair. In town, he’d search for the Barrères and ask after Camille.
He jumped up into the landau. The coachman winced as the old thing creaked and groaned.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Hanniford!”
Monsieur Barrère bustled around the far side of the chateau. The smile wreathing his face dropped at the sight of Pierce’s frown.
“Monsieur?” He met him in the grass. “You return. May I help you?”
“I’m here to seeMademoiselle.” He examined the chateau once more, its closed sad state so reflective of his own.
“She is not here,Monsieur. She left the day after you did.”
When she had not come home, he’d feared the worst. “Where did she go?”
“I am not certain, sir.”
“What, exactly, did she say?”
The little man shuffled his feet. His wife ducked her head around the foliage of a huge rhododendron. She curtsied and kneaded her fingers in the white cotton of her little apron.
Barrère bit his lip. “She asked for a carriage to take her to Tours. I presumed she was returning to Paris.”
“Did the coachman perhaps see her buy a ticket for Paris?”
“No,Monsieur.”
“No?”
“He thought it odd what she did do.”
Pierce had agonized over her fate for interminable hours. Odd was not the word he’d use to describe the fright Camille’s disappearance had cost them. Especially him. “What did she do?”
“Once the carriage arrived, she asked him to take her to Blois.”
North east to Blois? The opposite direction from Tours? Blois! Of course! She’d gone to Monsieur Daumier’s chateau. Where she could contemplate her future…alone. Pierce panicked. “You saw him afterward?”
