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Luc ticked off his fingers. ‘Your dad was too busy watching the “making of” film to find anything but the obvious, your gran skived off on the bench under the tree, Veronica kept being entranced by the trains and sneaking around trying to figure out what I was looking at and I was having too much fun misleading her to pay proper attention to what I was doing. Dedication and application, Sophie, that’s what made you the winner.’
‘All right!’ Assured that she had justly earned her triumph, Sop
hie did her little dance of victory.
To celebrate her success, on the way home they stopped off at the café opposite the lavoir in St Romain and Miles bought them all lavish ice-cream concoctions, which they ate at one of the outside tables, under the spreading shade of a massive plane tree.
The conversation turned from the scale models they had seen to computer modelling and animation, specifically an animation feature film that had recently won an award, and Veronica discovered that Luc not only provided investment finance for businesses, he had also acted as Angel for a string of successful stage plays, musicals and independent films, anonymously backing the productions for a share of the profits.
‘He knows heaps of famous film stars,’ said Sophie, licking chocolate sauce off her spoon.
‘I know of them,’ he said drily. ‘I make my money off the back-end of the production. I deal with accountants and producers, and sometimes directors. Apart from the occasional handshake introduction, I generally try to steer clear of all the publicity hoopla.’
‘But you did say you’d take me to watch a film being made when I come to visit you in England,’ Sophie reminded him. ‘And maybe even to a première.’
He grinned at her awed tone. Veronica noticed that he never got annoyed with the girl’s interruptions or innocently awkward questions or comments on subjects he might well prefer to avoid.
‘Only if it’s got a PG rating. We can’t have you walking the red carpet only to have the door shut in your face and me dragged off in handcuffs for trying to corrupt a minor.’
‘Then we’d appear on the Entertainment News Channel!’ she said brightly, as if that would be the pinnacle of his achievements.
‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent child?’ he implored the heavens, thumping his fist on his heart.
Even Sophie, who didn’t understand the historical allusion, burst out laughing at his dramatic declamation.
‘Perhaps you should act in films yourself,’ said Veronica. ‘Though your florid style seems more suited to the silent era.’
He twirled an imaginary moustache over the top of a wicked leer. ‘As a hero or villain?’
She hesitated, swallowing a mouthful of heavenly honey-and-almond ice cream, and he propped his chin on his hand, studying her across the tabletop. ‘Still undecided, Veronica?’ he challenged with a lazy amusement, his voice dropping to a provocative drawl. ‘Maybe you’d like me to do another personal audition for you?’
Conscious of their audience, Veronica squinted at him in silent condemnation.
‘Perhaps she realises you’re clever enough to play either role effectively, if you set your mind to it,’ said Zoe, picking up on the undertones that had Miles looking faintly baffled. ‘You know what Napoleon said: put a rogue in the limelight and he’ll act like an honest man. Well, I say put an honest man in the limelight and sometimes he’ll act like a rogue.’
‘Are you calling me a rogue, Zoe?’ Luc appeared entertained rather than offended.
‘I’m saying no man is completely one thing or the other, and a woman would be a fool to forget it,’ she said stoutly. ‘Fred was a wonderful person, but he drove like a maniac and was stubborn as a mule. He’d be alive today if he’d done what the doctor told him. Now sit up straight and let the girl finish her ice cream before it melts.’
‘Yes, ma’am!’
When they got back to Mas de Bonnard, Melanie was pecking one-handedly at her laptop on the dining-room table, but she waved away Veronica’s tentative offer of help, saying that she was just answering a few private emails.
‘Thanks to you I’ve got plenty of reading and sorting to be getting on with, and Luc has downloaded some voice-recognition software for me so I’ll be able to dictate my notes and ideas directly onto the computer so—panic over.’ She smiled, after she had listened to Sophie’s excited report and sent her off to wash her sticky face and hands.
‘Which is fortunate as things are turning out—’ She broke off, hitting the key that would send off her emails. ‘Did Karen finally get through to you, by the way?’ she said, swivelling in her seat. ‘She rang here saying she’d been calling your phone for hours.’
Knowing Karen that probably meant she’d tried once or twice. ‘I must have left it in the cottage,’ Veronica said, refusing to feel guilty after all the times she had tried to get hold of her sister. ‘It’s acting a bit erratically at the moment.’ She might have been talking about herself, she thought ruefully.
‘Probably because she over-cooked her SIM card when she left the phone on the dashboard of the car while we were having lunch yesterday,’ said Luc.
Veronica wasn’t going to play the blame game. After all, who was responsible for her forgetting it in the first place? Luc had no right to be so distracting.
‘Did she give you any message for me?’
’ Well, the signal was breaking up a lot by the time I got on the line—Ashley took the call initially, but I’m not sure what they said to each other because she and Ross have gone off to dinner and an arts festival performance in Avignon. From what I could make out, Karen said they’re having a tropical storm, which has apparently meant a few changes of scene. They’re on some remote island where they were going to do a photographic shoot on a boat, but that’s put off for a few days…’
Karen had been highly excited that they were going to spend part of the time aboard a luxury super-yacht owned by some local gazillionaire, Veronica remembered. It seemed that even gazillionaires couldn’t control the weather.
