Maude brushes his hands away, turns around to face him. ‘Heck. I’m quite frightened, you know. I mean – I think we both should be. Somehow or other, she’s worked out what we do.’
‘She’s guessing,’ he murmurs soothingly, edging towards her again.
‘She’s found something out. She’s going to try to pump us for more information. And she’s going to pump you especially.’
‘Pump me?’ Heck says, licking his lips, trying to make a joke of it. ‘Bloody hell. Are you sure?’
Maude doesn’t smile. ‘Emma’s a lot of things, but she’s not stupid. And if she’s wheedled something out of Jean Baptiste and put two and two together…’
‘Jean Baptiste wouldn’t have told her. Why would he? Apart from anything else, what does he actually know? We told him we had a friend in England who’d been bankrupted by French taxes, who might want to help.’
‘You think he believed us?’
‘Probably not.’
‘And what about the bookshelf?’
Horatio shrugs. ‘I trust him, Maudie. And so do you. If we hadn’t we would never have helped him in the first place…’
‘Well I hope so,’ she says slowly.
‘I know so. Besides which, what the hell’s going to happen to him if it gets out we’ve been providing him with fraudulent –’
‘Shhh! For God’s sake, Heck…’
‘I think Emma’s remark was a shot in the dark. I think it was a one-in-a-million fluke. There are always rumours flying around about us. You know that. Last time I saw her she insisted we were running a brothel up here. She’s fishing, Maude. It’s nothing. We’ll be fine.’
‘You’re quite sure about that?’
‘Absolutely. Absolutely convinced of it.’
Maude flicks him a smile, asks in a small cold voice: ‘So why are we going to dinner with her tonight?’
‘What?’
‘If you’re so certain she knows nothing and that we’re absolutely fine – why are we going to dinner with her tonight?’
‘Well…Because…I don’t know…’ Horatio examines his fingernails. The fact is he’s not certain she knows nothing. How can he be? He’s trying to get Maude to relax. If she walks into Emma’s drawing room looking as uptight and terrified as she does right now, he thinks, they might just as well drive straight on to the police station and give themselves up. ‘Because it might be fun?’ he suggests.
‘You stupid sod,’ Maude snaps.
‘Well it might be. If you’d bloody well allow it to be. If you could stop being so bloody uptight.’
Maude stares at him. There are times, even now, after all these years, when she feels she might be talking not to her closest ally, her lover, the father of her children, her best friend. But to a total out-and-out shit. ‘Don’t you get it? Heck, she doesn’t give a damn about you. Or me. Or anything. Or anyone, and if she –’
‘Oh, don’t preach at me, Maudie. For Christ’s sake. I’m aware of that. But she’s not the devil. Just because you’re a bit jealous –’
‘And I have BLOODY GOOD REASON to be jealous, Horatio Haunt. As you well know –’
‘OK. I didn’t say you didn’t. I mean you don’t. Oh, don’t be stupid, Maudie. What I meant was…’
HORATIO, LADY EMMA AND THE ALMOST-KISS
Every year, in early May, the village of Montmaur has a fête in the Place Marronnier, opposite the hotel. Everybody comes, rich and poor, old and young, French and English. The three large chestnut trees in the middle of the place are rigged with coloured electric bulbs, trestle tables are laid out for supper, and a sound system and music stage is built. It is the highlight of the expat social calendar. Apart from the fact that it is lovely to be drunk on local wine, and to dance under the balmy French stars to the music most of them danced to as teenagers, the annual Fête de Montmaur is the one time in the year when they can persuade themselves they are a bona fide part of the local French community. Which they aren’t, of course. Nor, secretly, would they ever really want to be.
What happened at the last fête, just under a month ago, wasn’t all Horatio’s fault. Maude, too, had enjoyed a certain amount to drink, and was very happily occupied most of the night, jiving her slimmish, thirty-something hips to French pop with the flirtatious divorcé and outgoing mayor of Montmaur, François Bourse.
Emma Rankin’s husband David was in London that evening, not entirely surprisingly, since that’s where he generally is. And Maude, much to her delight, had been invited by François Bourse to sit next to him at dinner. It was a place of great honour, especially for one of the English, and when she came over to show off about it to Horatio, he noticed the gleam in her eye and teased her. He was a bit jealous. François Bourse is a very attractive man: tall, slim, cultivated, humorous, and immaculately dressed. Also, at that point, still a mayor: a big fish on that particular night, and in that particular pond. Maude had reason to feel pleased with herself.
So while François and Maude were displaying their foreign language skills to one another, mixing that up with a few delicate innuendoes and accidentally allowing their thighs and knees to rub lightly one against another beneath the long trestle table, Lady Emma Rankin, seated at the far end of the same table and half-hidden in shadows, was working her magic on Horatio. The difference was that where Maude was only having fun, enjoying a harmless, merry, early summer thrill, Emma Rankin, as always, meant business.
Dinner was finished. The tables had been cleared for dancing. Maude was still with François Bourse, waiting for the music to begin and jabbering happily to anyone who came over. With her easy laugh and brilliant French, she was doing excellent ambassadorial work for the expat community. Meanwhile, Emma and Horatio were sitting just where they’d been sitting all evening, apparently unaware that every other chair in the place had been cleared away, and even the table between them…
‘…You’re so clever,’ Emma was murmuring to him. ‘So intelligent and unusual and fascinating and alive. You must be so bored out here, living out your bloody Good Life…’
‘Must I?’ he laughed.
She laughed too, a lovely soft laugh, barely audible. ‘Well of course you must, Horatio. I think we both know there’s a great deal more to life than growing potatoes.’
‘Actually, I’m not convinced there is,’ Horatio said mildly, feeling the moonlight on his back, the soft air on his skin, the cool pink wine washing through his veins…‘One should never underestimate the importance of potatoes, Emma. Ask the Irish. Passionate about potatoes, poor old sods. Or they used to be.’
‘Well of course,’ she replied, faintly confused.
‘But what about you, Emma, anyway? Don’t you get bored?’ Horatio smiled. ‘If I get bored growing potatoes, or whatever it is you seem to think I do –’
‘Isn’t that