“Catherine?”
She gazed at him absently. “If it’s time to harvest, why are there no pickers in the fields?”
A slow smile broke over his face. “They’ve gone back to their village. It’s over that far hill.” He gesturedtoward a rolling hill to the west of the manor. “It’s late in the afternoon and it’s always best to pick flowers early in the morning, when the scent is the strongest. They usually start picking at dawn and continue until just after noon.”
“Oh.” She looked out into the fields again. “Everything is blooming. In Paris the flowers will die soon.”
“Here, the climate is such that there are always blossoms. Not the same ones, of course. There’s a season for every variety.”
“And we grow them all?”
“Almost. Vasaro has the most fertile ground on the coast, and it extends for miles.”
“I see.” Catherine leaned back in the carriage and breathed deeply. Fresh-turned earth and the heady scent of geraniums and lavender drifted to her in an intoxicating cloud. “I don’t see how the scent can be any stronger than this.”
“At dawn. You should smell it at dawn.”
“Should I?” She gazed out the window again and the stirring came again, stronger this time. Her land. Vasaro.
The carriage stopped at the house.
“This is Manon, Catherine.” Philippe gave his hat and gloves to the plump, smiling woman who met them in the flagstoned hall. “We also have three other maids and two cooks besides the stable workers, but Manon has been here supervising the running of the house ever since I first came to Vasaro.”
Manon murmured a low greeting and curtsied to Catherine.
“She’ll show you to your chamber.” Philippe took Catherine’s hand and raised it to his lips. “Until supper.”
Catherine nodded and followed the servant up the stairs and down the hall. She had no memory at all of this house, and yet she was beginning to feel a growing serenity, a sense of coming home.
Manon opened the door and preceded her into the bedchamber. The room was filled with sunshine, not only the light pouring through the long casement windowsacross the room but in color. The Aubusson rug spilling across the shining oak floor was patterned with delicate ivory flowers on a green background and the bed and wall hangings were also ivory with a lemon-yellow border. Yellow cushions graced both the window seat and the armchair at the elegant rosewood desk across the room.
“I’ll unpack as soon as your bags are brought up, Mademoiselle.” Manon strode briskly across the room and threw open the casement windows.
Scent again. Overpowering fragrance swept into the room.
“Monsieur Philippe always dresses for dinner whether he has guests or not,” Manon said. “Shall I send Bettine to help you with your bath and dress your hair?”
“Yes, if you please.” Catherine moved slowly across the room to stand before the window. The breeze blew gently, lifting the tendrils of hair that had escaped the confinement of her bun. Stretched before her were fields of flowers, groves of lime and lemon trees, a vineyard nestled beneath a far hill, and in the distance a glimpse of steep, jagged mountains.
“Is the scent too strong?” Manon asked anxiously. “We who live here hardly notice it, but visitors claim it makes their heads ache. I could close the window.”
“No, don’t close it” As she looked down at the fields of flowers that seemed to stretch into forever, Catherine again had the strong feeling of homecoming. “I’m not a visitor. I belong here. I…like the scent.”
“No!”
Catherine sat bolt upright in the darkness.
She was trembling, sweating. The tomb. No faces.
She was alone.
Dear God, where was Juliette? Juliette had left her alone with the nightmares. Alone with the fear that swelled her heart until she thought it would choke her and churned the black bile into her throat.
She wrapped her arms around herself, panting, trying to shut out the sounds of the tomb. The men’sguttural laughter, the tear of fabric, the sound of her own moans.
Bells.
No, that was wrong. There weren’t any bells in the tomb.
