Читать книгу Five Quarters of the Orange / Пять четвертинок апельсина онлайн

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Laure turned to me then. In her black dress, with the yellow lamplight on her face, I thought she looked quite ill.

“I’m sorry,” she said, with a meaningful glance at Yannick. “This was never meant to be about money. Obviously we wouldn’t expect you to give up your home-or any part of Tante Reine’s inheritance. If either of us gave the impression…”

I shook my head, bewildered.

“Then what on earth was all that-”

Laure interrupted, her eyes gleaming.

“There was a book…”

“A book?” I repeated.

Yannick nodded.

“Papa told us all about it,” he said. “You showed it to him.”

“A recipe book,” said Laure with strange calmness. “You must have all the recipes by heart already. If we could only see it… borrow it…”

“Of course, we’d pay for anything we used,” added Yannick hastily. “Think of it as a way to keep the Dartigen name alive.”

It must have been that-that name-which did it. Confusion, fear and disbelief warred in me for a while, but at the mention of that name a great spike of terror pierced me and I swept the coffee cups off the table, where they shattered against my mother’s terra-cotta tiles. I could see Pistache looking at me strangely, but could do nothing but follow the seam of my rage.