Enemy Within by Christiane Heggan

Author:Christiane Heggan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-One

Inside her farmhouse deep in the mountainous region of the Auvergne, Ginnie Laperousse tossed aside a circular advertising half-price sofas and continued to sort through the mail that had accumulated over the past three weeks.

That was the trouble with vacations, she thought as she kept tossing. Not only did it take days to get back into a routine, it took just as long to catch up with the mail.

From the stack still waiting to be read, she picked up a copy of the weekly newsmagazine, Paris Match, and began thumbing absently through it as memories of her recent trip played in her mind. What a wonderful time she and Hubert had had in Venice. They had walked through the streets of that magical city, hand in hand, like two young lovers, taking in the incredible sights, riding gondolas and eating in little unknown trattorias where Hubert, thank God, hadn’t been recognized.

She laughed as she turned a page. They had even kissed as they’d passed under the Bridge of Sighs, prompting their gondolier to break into a powerful rendition of “’O Sole Mio.”

As she smiled at the recollection, a piano adaptation of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony flowed in from the music room, filling the salon with the rich and powerful sounds of Hubert’s immense talent.

Ginnie laid the magazine down for a moment to listen. At sixty-eight, and after thirty-five years as a concert pianist, her husband had never sounded better, never played with more fervor, or, as one critic had pointed out, with more heart. No wonder he kept getting requests to play Europe’s greatest concert halls—and kept getting standing ovations night after night.

Flipping another page of the magazine, Ginnie glanced absently at the pictures. She was glad Hubert’s next tour wouldn’t begin until November. She rather enjoyed having him home, surprising him in the music room in the middle of the afternoon with a tea tray and their housekeeper’s sinful little cream horns, an Auvergne specialty Ginnie had become addicted to.

She glanced at her watch and realized it was almost that time. Hubert must have noticed, too, for he had stopped playing. She was about to call Mme. Desforges to let her know they were ready when her gaze fell on the page open on her lap.

The blood seemed to drain from her entire body, leaving her suddenly cold as ice.

The face that stared back at her was that of a young woman, a beautiful young woman, who looked enough like Ginnie thirty years ago to have been her identical twin. “Oh, my God!”

Before Ginnie could call her husband, Hubert rushed out of the music room, his expression worried. He was a tall, handsome man with silver hair, a thin black mustache and elegant, aristocratic features.

“Chérie, what is it?” he asked in his lightly accented English. “I heard you cry out.” Sitting beside her on the sofa, he took her hand. “Did you hurt yourself?”

She shook her head and handed him the magazine.

His eyes swept briefly over the photograph. “She looks just like you,” he said, looking puzzled.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.