“Freddie?”
“Hmm?” I glanced up from my saucepan over my shoulder to see Cranwell’s brown eyes spark at me. He was wearing a ribbed oregano funnel-neck sweater over black moleskin pants. Somehow that particular shade of green added depth to his eyes.
“I knew it!”
“Knew what?”
“That somewhere, sometime, someone must have called you Freddie.”
“You’re very clever.” How he gloats! “My father. He started when I was thirteen and only continued because it annoyed me so much.” I knew the rising color in my cheeks probably matched the crimson color of my long-sleeved envelope-necked sweater. If I hadn’t been so intent on finishing the sauce, I would have glared at him. As it was I decided to ignore him. “Aren’t you supposed to be writing or something?”
“Freddie, I’d really like to stay longer.”
“When you came you knew it would only be for a month.”
“I know. And I appreciate you having let me stay for a couple more weeks, but I need more time. I feel like I’ve only just begun to get the rhythm of the story.”
“This isn’t really your kind of book. There aren’t any guns. No terrorists.”
“I know. But this is the novel I’ve always wanted to write. Historical espionage.”
“That’s ridiculous. You only found out about Alix a few months ago.”
“Then I used the wrong words. This is the novel I’ve always meant to write. When I first started, I wrote a novel like this one, but it wasn’t very good. I knew I had to make money if I wanted to keep writing, so I wrote what I thought people would want to read.”
“And you’ve done very well at it.”
“But now I want to write something I want to read. I love history. And the fifteenth century of France was a tumultuous period: The independent duchy of Brittany at odds with the King of France. Given her husband’s position at court, Alix could have had access to confidential information. Even if she weren’t a spy, I can fictionalize her story. At least her journals provide a glimpse of what life must have been like then.”
What could I say?
“I’ll wash dishes for you. I’ll scrub my own toilet.” He didn’t even crack a smile. This man was serious.
“I don’t mind toilets, but I hate vacuuming.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll even do it tonight. Where’s the vacuum cleaner?”
He was out of the kitchen and halfway up the stairs before I called him back.
“You can stay. But I need my space. And I’m not going to change my plans just because you’re around. I have some trips planned.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist, spun me, and kissed me on the cheek. Then he set me back down on the floor. “If you need to go somewhere, I’ll stay with friends in Paris.”
When I caught my breath and the scent of his cologne had stopped making my head spin, I agreed. “Deal. The vacuum cleaner is on the first floor in the small closet to the right of the stairs. But dinner’s almost ready. You can worry about it tomorrow.”
I was stuck with him now for the duration, and it was my own fault. One of my virtues is that I always take responsibility for my actions. I’d done it to myself. I desperately needed to learn how to say no.
Two days later, box after box of books began arriving from an Internet bookseller. They kept coming for the remainder of the month and in small packages of one or two for several weeks thereafter.
“What did you do, order one of each?” I shivered, having come from the warmth of the kitchen in my tank and chef’s pants up to the cold vault of the entry. After signing for what seemed like the twentieth delivery, I had called Cranwell down from his room. I didn’t mind signing for him, but I didn’t have the strength to cart a box full of books up those spiral stairs.
Cranwell glanced up from the box. “Basically.” He paused to push up the sleeves of his black boat-neck sweater and then returned his attention to the books.
I looked over his shoulder. A History of Medieval France. Women of the Fifteenth Century. Atlas of the Medieval World. The Church and the State in the Middle Ages. The Hundred Years War. The Economy of Medieval Europe. A History of Costume.
At the least he would be widely read.
Cranwell hefted the box and started up the stairs with it.
Following him halfway up the first spiral, I made sure he didn’t stumble. I may also have been admiring the way his jeans fit and the sheen of his black venetian loafers. “What do you plan on doing with these when you’ve finished with them?”
“Donating them to you.” He flashed a smile over his shoulder at me as he disappeared around the bend.
During October, Cranwell was much more present inside the chateau than he had been in September, although he was never without a book in his hand. Sévérine and I would run into him in all manner of odd places.
One afternoon I found him sprawled on my bed, his back to the door.
I’d just come up from the garden and wanted to take a shower. Good thing I hadn’t started stripping off my mineral blue wool shirt or black flannel work pants; I was used to having my room to myself.
Walking up to him in my stocking feet, I tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, I hate to displace you or seem rude in any way, but would you please leave?”
“Hmm?” Cranwell rolled toward me, glancing up from his book over his reading glasses. “I’m sorry?”
“What are you doing in my room?”
He closed his finger in the book, played with the collar of his shirt, and looked around as if mystified. He turned the book over and read the title aloud. “Fortified Castles of the Middle Ages.”
He looked at me. Looked at the book, flipped back through some of the pages. Looked at me again. “Studying fireplace and ceiling construction.” He rose from my bed, shoved something into the pocket of his cognac-colored plants, and sauntered out, reading all the while.
I bolted my door behind him. The man was a menace to polite society.
Except at dinner.
It was as if he worked from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. and then flipped a switch and became the Cranwell I had known in August. An enjoyable, if flirtatious, companion.
“Where did you grow up, Freddie?”
“California.”
“Really? Me too.”
This I already knew from my Internet research.
“Where?”
“Near Hollywood.”
“Me too.”
I smiled. “On the other side from you. Toward the west.”
“You lived there all your life?”
“Until I was old enough to escape.”
“You didn’t like it.”
“Not particularly. Did you?”
“Loved it.”
That figured.
“Only child?”
I nodded.
“I have one sister.”
I knew that too. Her name is Laura. She is a dental hygienist.
“What did your family do?”
“My father was a senator.”
“Which one?”
“Howard.”
“Duke Howard? No kidding! I knew him well. I was sorry to hear of his death. Of your mother’s too. It was just, when?-’98?”
I nodded.
“That must have been a hard year for you.”
A renegade tear sprung to my eye. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never been that close to my parents, but being around someone who knew them opened the floodgate of my memories. It had been comforting to know that somewhere in the world, I had belonged to someone. And someone had belonged to me.
“They threw the best parties.”
Smiling was difficult with my chin beginning to tremble.
“I never knew they had children. How come I never met you?”
I shrugged. “I was never really a party girl.”
“But when they had a party, everyone would come.”
Pulling my hands inside my arctic blue sweater, I wrapped my arms around my waist. “I wasn’t presentable, Cranwell. I was pudgy, I was covered with zits. My hair was stringy, and I was introverted in the extreme. I wasn’t the kind of daughter Duke needed.” I didn’t compare favorably with my parents’ glamorous clique.
“It’s hard for me to imagine he ever would have thought that.”
My shoulders tipped up in a shrug.
He leaned between our stools and lifted my chin with a finger. “Freddie, you’re lovely.”
To avoid having to look at him, I closed my eyes, but I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. I had no power to stop it. I was reliving my childhood in front of one of those very same beautiful people. It was my fate to live my life in a purgatory of humiliation.
Cranwell let go of my chin and then reached an arm around my shoulders, hugging me to his side.
I turned my head into his chest. My fists clutched handfuls of his wool polo as my anguish found voice in my sobs. They were deep and ugly sounding. I was embarrassed; I was mortified, but the hurt of those years was so deep I could not control them.
Cranwell smoothed my hair while his arm offered firm support for my back.
Eventually, my sobs quieted, my hands slackened their grip, and my arms found their way around his waist. I attempted a deep, quivering breath.
Cranwell never stopped smoothing my hair.
I stayed there, with my cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
“Freddie, I wasn’t lying. You really are lovely.”
“Thanks, Cranwell.”
Gathering what strength was left in me, I made a move to turn away, trying to hide my face from his eyes. I knew how hideous I looked when I cried. My face swells up, and the ice blue color of my eyes only accentuates how bloodshot they are.
Cranwell stopped me.
He cupped my face with gentle hands and turned it toward himself. I thought for a moment that he was going to kiss me, but then he used his thumbs to press away the last traces of my tears.
He let me move away and then offered to help me do the dishes.
A man after my own heart.
I spent several hours that night tossing in my bed, remembering my childhood. My self-imposed exile from my parents’ life. Maybe Cranwell was right; maybe my feelings of inferiority originated in me rather than my parents.
Summoning a vision of myself as a teen, I subjected that person to an honest examination. That appraisal revealed exactly what I had told Cranwell-but did that mean no one would have wanted to talk to me? That I wouldn’t have been interesting? That my parents weren’t proud to call me their daughter? Maybe what I had perceived as rejection was only their attempt to shelter me, to keep me from situations they knew I wasn’t comfortable with. To protect my privacy. My anonymity.
In the final analysis, the problem had been my self-esteem. I couldn’t imagine anyone being interested in knowing me. And the thought of meeting new people terrified me. I was so self-absorbed I was incapable of directing my focus from myself to others. That’s what college, and Peter, had helped me to do.
Although I still wasn’t comfortable at parties, and given a choice, I would rather read a book, at least I no longer thought of myself as a social pariah.
I was an interesting person.
I was well traveled. I was an expert in my field. I was intelligent; I could hold my own in any conversation. I was an excellent hostess; I threw fabulous dinner parties… at least while Peter had been alive.
I had achievable goals for my future and considered myself successful.
I was not beautiful, but I was pleasant looking. I would never be a model. I didn’t care to be one. I knew my best features, my eyes and hair, and I accentuated them. I kept my weight under control.
In fact my life seemed perfect. But why didn’t it feel that way? I could almost sense the spectre of God hovering at the edge of my thoughts. I wrestled with Him. Tried to push Him away. Why did He always keep popping up? Like a spiritual jack-in-the-box? Would I ever be able to push him back down? Put a definitive latch on the box?
Staring up at the ceiling, I let go of the rein I had on my thoughts and let them gallop away. I closed my eyes, hoping for sleep, but Cranwell’s brown eyes haunted me.
What if I had met him at my parents’ house?
My thoughts had veered off in a completely unforeseen direction. I kept thinking of his thumbs wiping away my tears. Of those brown eyes, looking into the depths of my soul. He was the type of person I’d always worked hard at staying away from. He was the type of person I had never allowed myself to trust. The type of person I’d listened to from the safety of my room while my parents had entertained. And yet…
And yet, he was forty-five with a whole life full of people and places and experiences that I’d never known and frankly never wanted to. I decided, in a searing flash of insight, that I had developed a crush on Cranwell.
But crushes were something I had experience with. As long as I didn’t feed the fascination, didn’t fixate on the object of my affection, I knew it would go away. Especially when it lacked encouragement from him. Which it did.
Which it would.
The only reason he paid me any attention was because of my position. If he were kind to me, it was only because he wanted me to let him stay longer. If he flirted with me, it was only because he flirted with everyone; I knew his type. And if he had an interest in anyone in the house, it would be Sévérine.
And that proved to be the happy thought to which I fell asleep.