The Eden Inheritance by Janet Tanner Read Free Book Online Page B

purpose.
    Kathryn hoped fervently that the man was not von Rheinhardt.
    The headlights of his car cut a swathe through the darkness as Guy navigated first the lanes and then the major roads on his way back to Bristol.
    He drove more slowly than usual because his mind was busy and to drive fast, even on these quiet roads, required all his concentration.
    His mother’s reaction had been no more or less than he had expected – why should she change the habits of a lifetime and discuss with him now the things she had always resolutely refused to discuss? But he was disappointed all the same. Knowing her hatred of the Nazis, and this one Nazi in particular, he had hoped she might put her reticence aside when she heard there was a chance that von Rheinhardt might, at long last, be brought to face trial for his crimes. Surely, Guy had thought, she would want justice? Wouldn’t that free her in some way from the ghosts of the past? But it seemed she did not want that. Not even the prospect of revenge had been able to persuade her to give up her secrets.
    Well, at least he had told her what he intended to do – that he was going to take Bill’s job in the Caribbean, if he could get it, and investigate the German at first hand. He wouldn’t have wanted to begin something like that without telling her. Whether he had her approval or not. It was part of Guy’s nature to like things straight and above board. He had hoped for her assistance, too – God knew he needed it – but that she had not been prepared to give. Well, he would have to look for the evidence he would need to establish the German’s identity in another quarter. His grandfather would not be so unforthcoming, he was sure. He would go to France and talk to his French family. He had intended to do that anyway; Kathryn’s refusal to help made it that little bit more necessary, that was all.
    But why was she so anxious to block out the past? He couldn’t understand it, never had been able to. In most matters she was as open and honest as he was, she didn’t shy away from the unpleasant or try to avoid harsh reality. Just this one area was a closed book with her and nothing, it seemed, would make her turn the pages.
    Guy’s, breath came out on a long sigh. He hated upsetting her, but his mind was made up. He would not be able to rest until he discovered for himself if the German Bill had told him about was, in reality, Otto von Rheinhardt. Any other consideration must, in this instance, be relegated to the sidelines.

Chapter Three
    P ALE WINTER SUN filtered through the bare branches of the poplar trees surrounding the château. It lent a semblance of warmth to the pale stone walls and the dull red of the roof, it glinted on three storeys of unshuttered windows and threw poorly defined shadows in the shape of the twin towers which stood guard over the ancient building which was the ancestral home of the de Savignys and the centre of life for the village which bore their name.
    In his study on the first floor Baron Guillaume de Savigny, sitting at his heavy old desk, looked up from the ledgers spread out before him and felt the pleasant diffusion of the sun warm his parchment-like skin through the glass of the window. A slight smile curved his once well-shaped but now thin lips and he turned his face towards the warmth. It was good to feel the sun; he hated being cold and in winter it seemed he was cold too often nowadays. For all the fires that were kept blazing in the grates and the central heating which he bad had installed, at enormous cost, in his private apartments a few years previously, the château could still be a draughty place. He had not used to notice it, of course; as a younger man he had poured scorn on those who complained when the warm summers of Charente gave way to the chill winds and sudden harsh frosts of winter. Now, in his eighty-fifth year, he viewed things differently. The cold which he had once