Chapter nineteen
One small daughter at school. Tick.
One kitten sunning itself on the windowsill of the open window where she could keep half an eye on it to make sure it didn’t wander. Tick.
One large blank piece of paper on the table in front of her awaiting her roughed-out concept for the park. Pens, pencils, assorted drawing paraphernalia and fresh cup of coffee sitting alongside. Tick.
And one son out in the centre of the field having his inaugural archery lesson where she could also keep an eye on him –she could see his tousled blond head nodding vigorously in response to Gabriel’s instructions- though what good that would do if anything were to go wrong was more than Darcy could work out this fine morning. Big fat cross.
Darcy sighed deeply. It was a little difficult to concentrate on her design concept for the park when those two were out there playing around with sharp pointy things but she supposed she had to let it go. She had work to do.
She sighed once more, pulling the paper closer and grabbing a black felt tip from a mug full of black and coloured pantones sitting on the table beside her. This design work required her undivided attention. It was easy enough to keep an eye on the kitten to make sure it stayed nearby but she couldn’t keep looking up to check out progress in the pasture. So for the next hour and a half she kept her head down, mostly –she couldn’t resist the odd nervous glance- transferring her ideas from her head to paper in rapidly drawn plans and sketches. Deep in concentration, she was just finishing a quick perspective sketch of the walled garden, looking from the central pergola towards the gardener’s cottage when a shadow fell over the paper. It was Gabriel, with Connor looking remarkably unscathed and, what’s more, quite pleased with himself standing at his side. She’d been so engrossed she hadn’t heard their approach.
“I got a bullseye!” Connor announced jubilantly. “And Mom, we stowed all the archery gear in the stable tack room and Gabriel’s padlocked the door, ‘cos he said you’d worry otherwise,” he added helpfully.
“Yes, we did. And he’s a natural,” this from Gabriel, smiling, patting Connor’s shoulder in congratulation. And, Darcy noted, looking more than a little pleased with himself as well.
“Must be all that practice shooting things on his video games,” his mother said dryly. She knew from Gabriel’s comments that he thought Connor’s video games a waste of time. As far as Darcy was concerned, they were a useful parenting tool but when she’d shared this with him, Gabriel had been unimpressed.
Gabriel scooped up Napoleon from the window ledge to give him a scratch under his chin. Other than raising one eyebrow disdainfully, he didn’t comment, preferring to converse with the kitten. “Hey little fellow, I see you’re making a start at getting out into the wide wide world. We’ll make a barn cat out of you yet.” Napoleon, the little turncoat, Darcy thought, was purring his heart out at the attention.
“Hmpf,” she interjected, “I don’t see Napoleon ever sleeping in barns. I woke this morning to him curled up on the spare pillow next to me. He spent all night on my bed.”
“Well, aren’t you one lucky fellow?” Gabriel drawled laconically to the kitten. Feeling a short stab of envy for the feline he bent to set the kitten on the path outside, with instructions to Connor to watch it didn’t wander too far before leaning over the sill to inspect Darcy’s work, and Darcy herself. His appreciative eye noted the close-fitting black yoga-style pants she wore with the wispily-thin UT tee-shirt she’d worn the day he’d first seen her at the vets -he had fond memories of that same shirt wetly plastered to her body after her tussle with the kitten. That her morning had been productive was self-evident from the numerous sheets of drawings spread around the floor. “I like your drawings,” he commented, surveying the just-completed sketch lying on the table in front of her and several more strewn on the floor. “Have you ever thought about exhibiting your work?”
“Nah, I went to art school before I studied landscape but it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. The sketches are only a means to an end. I prefer to see my drawings translated into three-dimensions.”
“Meaning you like to build stuff?” She nodded, “Still, they’re very good,” he reiterated.
“Thanks.” He noted that she could handle compliments about her work without blushing –interesting- unlike whenever he complimented her person. “Unless the work gets constructed they’re just a pretty picture,” she spoke pragmatically. “I’ve got a few more I’d like to do then if you could look them over and give them the okay, or not, I’m going to work these up on CAD. After I do that these drawings will be useless. I usually end up throwing them away.”
“Please don’t do that,” he entreated, “I’d like to frame some for a record of the renovations.” He could see these sketches adorning the halls of the chateau as a permanent reminder of the works.
“Okay,” Darcy shrugged, “they’re yours anyway.” She looked down at her watch, a bright green and silver Esprit model with a large face that she could read easily at a glance. “I’d better get Connor to school,” she raised her voice to get her son’s attention, “Sweetheart, grab your bag and we’ll go.” The bag was sitting at the door ready.
“How about I take him and let you carry on with this?” he suggested. “We’ll take the kitten so you aren’t disturbed and if you’re ready by the time I get back perhaps I could look over the drawings.”
“Gee, thanks. Much appreciated” Darcy said a brief goodbye to Connor, picked up her pen and a fresh sheet of paper and had begun the next drawing before they had gone ten steps.
The final sketches were sitting on the top of a now-neat pile of completed drawings on the tabletop and Gabriel hadn’t returned so Darcy made another coffee and flicked her computer on to check her emails and Facebook messages . She logged in to Facebook first and smiled when she saw there were several new messages and photos from Halley.
Halley was a third generation Brit of Chinese-Afro-Jamaican descent who Darcy thought had been blessed with all of the best attributes of her varied ethnicities, with the exception of, -as Halley bemoaned loudly and often- her hair. She and Darcy had met rather ignominiously one evening in the ladies powder room of a pub while both were at the mirror attempting to tame their unruly locks –neither had much success with their hair that night but a bond was made that had now outlasted both a husband and a partner.
Halley had been left by hers when pregnant with her daughter, Alicia, who had celebrated her second birthday on the weekend. Darcy had been sad to miss the party but had sent a gift and been in touch regularly since leaving London. She’d been looking forward to reading the after-match commentary and was not disappointed with Halley’s amusingly detailed play-by-play rundown of events. She missed Alicia’s sweet cherubic angel-face and was glad to see an album of photos of her and her little friends having an obviously fun time at her party. The final photo of a partied-out little girl asleep on a big floor cushion, surrounded by discarded boxes and wrapping paper was enough to make Darcy feel tearful with yearning to see them both.
Sipping the hot coffee, she opened a second tab to check her email account and got a nasty shock that caused her to jerk her hand in alarm, spilling hot liquid down the front of her tee. With the near-boiling liquid burning her chest, she was torn between running to the bathroom to tear off the shirt and reading the rest of the rant that was an email sent from her ex. The need for a cool compress won and she ran for the bathroom, thinking as she went that she should have changed her email account when she’d left London –it was an oversight that she hoped would not come back to bite her any worse than the diatribe that she’d just begun reading. Running cold water over the tee she held it to the scorched skin just above her bra. The cooling effect was bliss but now there were rivulets of cold water running down her tummy onto the band of her pants. Darcy grabbed a hand towel and held it against her stomach to catch the drips as she strolled back into the living room through the kitchen, thinking that she would sh
ut down the email account as soon as she had scanned the rest of his hate-filled missive for anything of importance, before creating a new one.
She had read the whole ugly tirade, full of threats and invective, through twice and was heading back to the bathroom to change the no longer cold compress when Gabriel opened the outside door and poked his head around the jamb. He was holding a small paper-wrapped package in one hand and Napoleon was sitting quite comfortably on his wide shoulder. Darcy froze on the spot, looking to him like a child playing a game of statues. Not again, she thought. What a day this was turning out to be -and it had started so well.
Now, that was more like he’d remembered that tee-shirt, only better, since the wet, clinging fabric was in her hand rather than on her body, was Gabriel’s happy thought. Unable to drag his eyes away from the sight, he moved towards her. He had made it as far as the kitchen door when she unfroze.
“Stay right there and don’t say a single word,” Darcy held up a hand to forestall any comments as she hot-footed it into the bathroom. She emerged moments later wrapped in a voluminous bath sheet. As per instructions, he stood rooted to the spot, looking like some latter-day pirate who had swapped his customary parrot for a cat as he silently watched her walk the two steps across the hall before disappearing once more into her bedroom where she shut the door firmly. When she did not return straight away he took the kitten down from its lofty perch and walked into the living room where he deposited the package on the table and Napoleon on the chair next to Darcy’s computer.
The kitten immediately jumped up onto the desk and began to batt at the keyboard. Seeing the screen was in active mode Gabriel leant down to stop Napoleon’s game in case it ruined a document Darcy had been working on. He glanced at the screen intending to simply check nothing had been affected but the words that sprang out at him had him sitting and reading the full screen of correspondence. He hadn’t needed a re-read to get the drift of the document.
Darcy came back into the room, dry and with a fresh shirt and sweats to find him seated in her office chair frowning angrily at her computer. As she walked through the door he swivelled to face her.
“He doesn’t sign it Patrick le Pew but I assume this is the work of the stinky skunk?” he queried in a quiet tone, indicating the screen.
“Yes,” she smiled thinly at his paltry attempt at humour but he could see that she was worried. She was gnawing her lower lip so hard he thought she’d draw blood if she didn’t stop.
“He says he’s,” Gabriel paused, “let me paraphrase this without all the additional adjectives and threats –both implied and direct,” he pondered for a moment, “extremely unhappy that you’ve left London with his children and he wants to know where you are so that he can collect them to take them to live in sunny Brazil.”
“He doesn’t want the children, he just wants to hurt me some more and he knows that’s the best way of doing it.” Darcy slumped onto the sofa, picking up the kitten and cuddling him to her in a way that suggested she would protect her children, no matter what. Napoleon tolerated the close confines of being clutched in her hands for a moment then struggled to be free so she let him go. He jumped down on the floor and began licking at a paw.
“On the contrary, from the threatening language in that email, I’d say he’s very focused on hurting you in a far more physical and direct way,” He’d read something in paragraph three about taking a knife to her in a way that was both disfiguring and permanent. “Would you allow me to take a copy of this and alert the gendarmerie and police, here and in London? You need a restraining order taken out on him at the very least.”
“I don’t know,” she replied uncertainly, “he’s never threatened me outright like this before. It could be all just words written in a drunken rage.” Patrick had tended to become more voluble and verbally abusive when he drank. It had been one of the reasons she seldom touched alcohol. His threats had never been as vehement as this though, she acknowledged with a chill creeping down her spine.
“Do you have a spare USB?” Darcy mutely pointed to a drawer in the desk, “On second thoughts, I’ll just forward it to my own email address.” He did so before she had time to object. “There, done. Now, shall we delete this account so he can’t send you anymore of this vitriol?”
“That’s what I was about to do before you barged in and read my private correspondence,” she wanted to be angry at someone and he was the handiest target.
Seeing the attack for what it was Gabriel didn’t take umbrage. “My apologies but you were the one who told me the butler was no longer in residence and to let myself in, so I did,” he parried in mild self-defence. “As for reading the email, that was Napoleon’s fault so take it out on him, not me. I never set out to poke into your private life, but having read that, I’m thankful that I did. You shouldn’t have to face this creep alone, you know.” He tapped a finger on the computer screen, “Is there any chance he could find you?”
Darcy tried to feel thankful for his support but the knot of fear growing in her stomach was getting tighter and tighter as she went through a mental list of who she’d told about the move to France. She trusted her closest friends like Halley not to let anything slip should Patrick question her but there was one weak link in particular that she didn’t trust at all. She wished now, that she hadn’t let her mother know their new address and the location of the chateau. She jumped to her feet and started pacing the room.
“Possibly. Maybe. I don’t know,” perhaps her mother might, for once, be on her side rather than Patrick’s, but Darcy doubted it.
“Well, for now, this cottage is like a little fortress when the shutters are closed so you should be safe enough at night. I’ll get Bertrand to add a new deadlock to the door today and I’ll notify the police,” he reached out and took her in his arms as she passed by, hoping to comfort her fears. As an indicator of how upset she was, she didn’t protest being held.
“Hey, I bought mille feuille.” He indicated the package on the table, “One for each of us this time,” he smiled down at her strained features, “So perhaps, in the meantime, we shall be like Marie Antoinette and eat cake in the face of adversity,”
“Yes, let’s,” she responded sardonically, “Because the whole cake-eating thing worked out so well for her.”
He laughed. Sarcasm was an improvement on the worried frown. Reluctantly, he dropped his arms, letting her go. Now was not the time to being making moves on her, he knew, but it was more than he could make himself do to move away. “You make fresh coffee and I’ll put these on plates. First one finished gets to fight the other for theirs.”
“You’re on,” she laughed, pushing him away and stalking off to the kitchen ahead of him.
By end of day, as promised, Gabriel had Bertrand fit a new dead latch and safety chain on the outside door and check all the shutter mechanisms to make absolutely sure they were sturdy.
For the next two days, Darcy went through all the motions of being a good mother and professional, carrying on as if nothing had happened to disturb hers and the children’s new existence. She made good progress with the landscape drawings, working through the days and making the most of not being able to sleep by toiling at her computer long into the night. By the early hours of Friday morning she had the concepts complete, printed off on her A3 printer and ready for her bosses’ approval.
Unknown to her, she was not the only one awake. Gabriel and Frodo were also up and on the prowl. The man and dog making regular nightly patrols by the stables and cottage. Seeing the thin slivers of light still seeping from the cracks in the living room shutters at two a.m. the following morning Gabriel was tempted to interrupt her work, but kept on walking, thinking that a knock on the shutters or door would just add to Darcy’s fears and potentially disturb the sleeping children.
It wasn’t as if he’d been sleeping well anyway, he thought as he wandered back past the stables towards the chateau, so at least this gave him something useful to do with the hours. Frodo wa
s more than happy to accompany him on these late night perambulations and gambolled alongside his master quite contentedly.