“Yes. Although won at monstrous cost.”
“It’s odd,” said Lydia, as the bill came and Manners paid. “We came here expecting to concentrate on the history of seventeen thousand years ago, and we have been caught up, consumed I suppose, by what happened just a few decades ago. And it’s all connected. The one leads to the other. This same river where men died stopping German tanks was the same river where ancient artists drank and fished. They even used the same caves.”
“And we still have our own cave to find,” said Manners. “Come on, I’ll walk you along this lovely riverbank as the sun sets.” She looked at him thoughtfully. She’d enjoy a walk, but there was something in his tone that alerted her. Twilight, riverbank, romantic setting. Brace yourself, my girl, she told herself. I do believe the man is girding himself to make a move.
“You’re determined to go on?” Lydia asked, taking his arm as they strolled down the steps by the bridge and onto an embankment that ran along the river’s edge. “You don’t want to give up now Malrand has advertised his reward.”
“No, not even with his security man snooping round to keep an eye on us. I want to finish this. How about you?”
“There was a moment when I wanted to go back to London, when I thought it was all too depressing,” she said frankly, enjoying the easy way their steps fell into rhythm. “But then seeing Clothilde with her mother this evening-I suppose I realized that matters must be resolved. It doesn’t do to duck them.”
“I’m glad you’re going to stay,” he said, squeezing her arm and placing his hand on hers. “Most of the fun would go out of this without you, Lydia.”
“Fun?” she said, startled. Where on earth did he think this conversation was going?
“I haven’t enjoyed the company of a woman so much as far back as I can remember,” he said soberly. His voice sounded almost gruff.
Aha, thought Lydia, biting back a smile. The tongue-tied but decent Englishman is finally building up with grim fortitude to what seems to him to be a romantic declaration. She could feel his tension under her arm. He was looking firmly, even sternly ahead to the bend in the river. Should she help him, tease him, or remain silent? She couldn’t resist the tease and said lightly, “You seemed to spend most of your day enjoying the company of Horst.”
“Oh, he’s all right,” said Manners. “I wish it had been you, though.” He stopped, turned, and put his hands on her shoulders. “You are witty and interesting and lively, which are all qualities I prize highly. And I think you are kind. You were marvelous in looking after Clothilde.”
She felt her lips quiver as the smile began to break through. Would this man ever get to the point?
“You are marvelous altogether,” he said. Not quite stammering, Lydia noted. She had better stop this cool, detached observation of his-what would the appropriate military term be? — his deployment. She didn’t want to frighten the poor man off, and she hoped that she was looking suitably encouraging. Or at least not forbidding.
“You’re also very beautiful,” he said, and kissed her, hesitantly at first, as if he were out of practice, and then with growing enthusiasm.
Well, about time, thought Lydia, and kissed him back. She enjoyed the feel of his arms about her, and the bulk of his chest. She felt his hands come up to her face to cup her cheeks and he kissed her again, lingeringly. Mmmm, she said, or perhaps she only thought it. His beard was a little rough, but not abrasive, and his hair short enough for her hand to feel the smooth skin of his neck as her arms rose up his strong, broad back and he kissed her again warmly. She pressed against him, feeling agreeably conscious of her breasts. This, she thought, amid the gathering dusk, was decidedly pleasant, kissing in public like a teenager, and not caring who saw. He was a handsome and interesting man, and she did indeed feel rather beautiful and distinctly romantic. And she was content for this pleasure to continue to its logical conclusion. More than content, she thought. Distinctly eager.
“Manners,” she said as he broke off and beamed down at her with a rather endearing foolishness on his face. “Dear Manners. Don’t you think it’s time you took me to bed?”
Clothilde came onto the hotel terrace, looked at Lydia stretching contentedly like a cat in the sun, and glanced at Manners eating his morning croissant. Sipping her coffee, Lydia felt Clothilde’s amused gaze, and stared innocently back. Clothilde gave a distinct wink, sat down to join them, and said, “I was telephoned at home by the London Embassy late last night. They had a message that the ransom is accepted. Your father’s cave painting is being returned later today.”
“Jolly good,” said Manners. “I’ve had a message as well, from Malrand. It was dropped off at the hotel here first thing this morning.”
Clothilde looked pointedly at her watch. “First thing? It’s nearly eleven.” Manners blushed, and Lydia smiled quietly. “Mine came before eight A.M. A cocktail at his house tomorrow evening at six,” Clothilde went on. “Mine had a small note added-not to let our German friend know about it.”
“Very well. It will give us a chance to ask him why his security chap has been sniffing round in our footsteps. And to see if he’s prepared to tell us about Marat and the hiding of the guns,” said Manners. “Do you have any plans today, Clothilde? Lydia and I rather thought of looking round la Ferrassie again, trying the far side of the road toward Cumont.”
“I have some museum work I must do, and a meeting with architects about the new building. But I’m rather more intrigued by Malrand asking us to see him again,” said Clothilde. “In the meantime, I had a call from my stepfather about the parachute drop at Cumont, the one the Germans ambushed. He did an oral history project with the children at his school, getting them to interview all their relatives about their memories of the Resistance. He used some of it in his book. Something was jogging his mind, so he went back to the papers they had written, and pulled out two. I went to get them, had them photocopied, and here they are. They are very vague, but they might be significant. My mother sends you her warm regards, Lydia, and says she appreciated your delicacy yesterday.”
Lydia covered her embarrassment by reaching for the papers. She felt a touch of relief. She enjoyed bedtime romps, but chose them with such care and infrequency that she had never got accustomed to sharing breakfasts the next morning. Conversation the morning after so often seemed so forced and fraught with forbidding amounts of meaning that the occasion cried out for the distraction of a newspaper. In the bedroom when they woke, Manners had solved that problem in the most satisfying way. But now over coffee, and feeling a little shy about her own emotions for the man and nervously hopeful that this affair would last, she was glad of the prospect of some work.
The photocopies were of the small
My brother Jeannot was sixteen years old when I was born, and he was the member of my family who fought with the Resistance even though he was very young. He helped with the parachute drops that came from England and America. Because our family has a farm, Jeannot was very good with horses. My mother says that Jeannot was away all night at one parachute drop near Cumont just before the invasion at Normandy when the German soldiers came to shoot the Resistance fighters and the horses they used. The Germans were very cruel. Jeannot came back home in the middle of the night to take our horses so that he and his friends could move the carts and take the English guns away. Jeannot went to la Ferrassie, but there was only one cart and it was empty because the guns had been hidden in a cave by the Englishman who was called “
.” Jeannot was frightened of the Englishman who was very fierce. Jeannot took the carts away to hide them, my mother said. My father said that he was very cross with Jeannot when he came back because he was frightened we would lose the horses. But Jeannot had boasted that the work was very important to the war. They now had special guns that could shoot at the German tanks, and when the invasion came Jeannot went off to fight the tanks. Jeannot said the Englishman had taught him how to fight tanks, and how to fight Germans. They had to be as cruel as the Germans to make them angry so they would not think clearly and charge into ambushes. My mother said Jeannot cried once when he came back because of the bad things he had done to some Germans to make them angry. Jeannot stayed away all that summer and autumn, and came back on leave in a French uniform and went back to join General Leclerc’s Free French Army. He was wounded in 1945 in the fighting at Strasbourg, and then
