The Lavender Garden by Lucinda Riley

Author:Lucinda Riley [Riley, Lucinda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781476703558
Publisher: Atria
Published: 2012-08-01T07:00:00+00:00

20

The following morning was hectic as Emilie greeted the architect and the foreman. After they’d wandered around the house discussing the renovations in detail, Emilie swallowed hard when she saw the revised estimate, but the architect assured her the work was worth every centime in comparison to what the value of the château would be once it was restored.

“I’m sure we’ll be in touch on many occasions in the next few months,” said Adrien, the foreman. “And you must understand that the château will look very forlorn when you next see it—and it will be a very long time before your beautiful house returns to its full glory.”

Eventually, when everyone had left, Emilie closed the front door and took a slow wander around inside. Feeling both silly and sentimental as she did so, she assured the rooms that the transformation they were about to go through was for their own good.

She had called Jean earlier and he had offered her supper at the cottage, as well as a bed. Wandering back into the scullery where she had stowed her suitcase and the two black garbage bags, she pulled out the last unread pile of papers and photographs. Picking up a yellowing envelope, she opened it. Inside was a photograph of a young Édouard—probably in his twenties—standing on a beach, his arm protectively around the shoulder of a beautiful, fair-haired girl. Emilie recognized her from the portrait in her father’s Paris study. It was his sister, Sophia. Another piece of paper was also in the envelope, torn from a notebook. . . . Emilie unfolded it and saw the familiar, uneven, childish writing.

Mon Frère . . .

“My brother,” Emilie whispered to herself, then did her best to decipher the appalling writing. It was a eulogy to Édouard and was signed, as the other poems she had read, by Sophia de la Martinières, âge 14.

Realizing her fingers were numb with the dense cold of the empty house, Emilie returned to her chair by the range and sat down. This poem illustrated like nothing else could the adoration the young Sophia had felt for her brother. So why had Édouard never talked of her? What had happened between them to render his sadness and silence? Given the obvious affection shown in the photograph between brother and sister, Emilie knew there must be a reason.

Stowing the poem and photograph in her handbag, she picked up the garbage bags and her suitcase and closed the door on the château for the last time. As she was steering the car along the gravel drive to Jean’s cottage, her mobile rang suddenly. Seeing it was Sebastian, she brought the car to a sharp halt and answered the phone.

“Where have you been? I’ve been worried out of my mind!” she almost shouted down the phone, a mixture of anxiety and emotion fueling her anger.

“Darling, I’m so, so sorry. I left my mobile charger in Yorkshire and the battery ran out on Tuesday morning.”

“Sebastian, that’s no excuse! Surely there

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