Cranwell and Lucy found me one afternoon on my third run-recovery lap around the chateau. It was one of the rare times I’d seen him without a book.
He caught me near the garden and began to walk beside me, fitting his stride to mine. “There was a call for you while you were out.”
I glanced at him. He looked scholarly in a pair of chocolate wide-wale corduroys and a cardigan. “You don’t have to answer the phone.”
He shrugged. “I was in the kitchen.”
Doing who knows what. “Who was it?”
“Some people looking for a room.”
“I’ll call them back this afternoon. I’m probably booked.”
“I found your booking calendar and there was no one scheduled, so I booked them for you.”
That brought me to a halt so fast I almost fell over. “You what?!”
“I booked them. Two couples, two rooms. I even remembered to ask for their credit card numbers.” He looked supremely satisfied with himself.
“First of all, Cranwell, it’s not your job to answer the phone for me. Sévérine does that. Second, it’s not your place to book rooms for me.” I hadn’t been that angry in years.
“I looked in your schedule and you don’t have anyone coming until after Christmas.”
“That’s because I don’t want anyone. I refuse most of the people who call.”
“That’s not any way to run a business, Freddie.” The louder I responded, the quieter Cranwell became.
“It’s my business. I like it this way. I need solitude.”
Lucy had clamped her ears to her head and was crouching close to the ground.
“Don’t you think it’s a little strange to be refusing guests when you run an inn?”
His mild tone infuriated me, but I could think of nothing to say.
He snapped a finger at Lucy, and she stood up, rolling her eyes toward the forest, looking eager to get away. They had started for the trees when he stopped and turned around. “By the way, I forgot to take down their phone number. You can’t call them back to cancel. Sorry.”
I was steaming when I resumed my walk. The worst of it was that my calves had cramped while I’d stopped to argue with Cranwell. I spent a good five minutes stretching them out against the chateau’s wall. By then, even zipping my black jogging fleece up to my neck failed to keep me warm.
Taking a deep breath, I held it for ten seconds and looked up at the steel gray clouds. I saw a flock of hirondelles, sparrows, heading south. Their cries skirled across the sky and echoed in my ears, reminding me that fall was upon us. Which meant that winter would soon arrive. The chill that tinged the air would only get worse.
Clapping my glove-clad hands together for warmth, I jogged around to the front door.
“I’m sorry, Freddie. I thought I was doing you a favor, and I can tell now that I wasn’t. I didn’t mean to infringe on your territory.”
At least Cranwell had apologized before I served dinner. Now I would be able to enjoy the food. I washed my hands and wiped them on my twill pants and tugged on the long sleeves of my lagoon blue U-neck sweater to pull them back down. Then I served him a thick slice of paté de lapin aux noisettes before I answered.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you.” I set a plate down for myself and broke a crisp baguette in two, handing half to him. Then I took my place on my stool. “After Peter died, this was my sanctuary. It still is. I’m redefining my place in the world, and I like to do it at my own pace.”
“I can understand that. It’s what I’m doing too. Redefining myself as a Christian. This is a sort of sanctuary for me too.”
We ate in silence for several minutes, savoring the rabbit and hazelnut spread. “I don’t take many guests.” I didn’t reveal to him my decision mechanism. It sounded juvenile even to me.
“Nothing wrong with that. If you had too many, you wouldn’t be able to pay individual attention to me.” He winked at me.
I wrinkled my nose at him.
“So what was Peter like?”
“Blond. Blue-eyed.”
“I mean, what kind of a person was he?”
“At least give me some place to start, Cranwell.”
“What did he want out of life?”
“He wanted to be the head of his agency.”
“That’s it?”
“It? Cranwell, that’s like saying, ‘I want to be the president.’ Very few people get to that point in their careers.”
“What did you want out of life?”
Why did Cranwell have to be so nosy? “For Peter to be the head of his agency. I was a good wife.”
“I’m not saying you weren’t.”
“He would have made a good executive. He was smart. He worked hard. People listened to him. He was a natural leader.”
“What attracted you to him?”
“He knew what he wanted from life. And because he knew where he was going, I didn’t have to. He had everything planned. When you met him, you knew it would all work out. And he made you want to be around when it did.”
“Where would you be if he were still alive?”
“Belgium? Switzerland? Morocco? Côte d’Ivoire? Somewhere in French-speaking Europe or Africa. And after, we would have gone back to DC.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I just can’t see you living that sort of life.”
“I was good at it. We entertained a lot; I enjoyed it. And I’m a patriot; I felt honored to serve my country as a diplomat’s wife. If life hadn’t turned itself upside down, I would still be doing it.”
After clearing away our plates, I portioned out the pintade aux figues sèches, a guinea fowl prepared with dried figs. I loved cooking with dried fruit. They always lent an earthy flavor to food. The fowl was cooked to perfection. As I carved, it fell away from the bone. I served it with buttered French-style macaroni sprinkled with chives.
I brought the plates to the table and then took my seat.
“So, are you happy here?”
Surprised at his question, I looked up at him from my food. “I’m very content. I like it here.”
He took a bite of pintade and chewed a moment before speaking. “This chateau suits you. Classic, but comfortable. Traditional, yet surprising. Welcoming, but guarded at the same time.”
“Thank you.” I ripped a piece of bread from my half of the baguette. “I think.”
“It was a compliment. You’re welcome. This is excellent. What’s in it?”
The next several minutes I spent explaining the recipe to him, realizing, over the course of our conversation, how good it felt to have someone to talk to. And someone to listen. Any lingering irritation from earlier in the day had vanished.
We savored our ginger-spiked pumpkin mousse and sipped espresso afterward.
The next weekend, I bought a fortune in game from local hunters. They brought venison, partridge, duck, rabbit, squirrel. The only thing I refused was pigeon. Pigeons don’t have gall bladders, and if not cooked to perfection, their meat can be tough and chewy. And worse, when it’s raw, the flesh is dark, almost purple. In contrast, I love squab, but I don’t cook it. Because squab are baby pigeons, just four weeks old. And that seems cruel. But for the most part, I try to keep ethics out of my kitchen.
Sunday evening I spent dressing the game and portioning it for freezing. I laid aside a nice rabbit to make lapin au moutarde and several squirrels and a hare to make a terrine.
I love fall. It’s my favorite season.
Cranwell’s guests came the next weekend. They weren’t very old, but I could tell they were well-connected. The French would have called them branché. Fashionable. Trendy. And I’m sure the only reason they wanted to stay at the inn was so they could brag to all their friends.
The two men I pegged right away as X-graduates. They had the same arrogant savoir faire as other graduates of Ecole Polytechnique that I had known from Embassy connections. As France’s premier engineering school, it was the most elite of the country’s elite schools. Graduates hired only other graduates, and even a diploma from Ecole Polytechnique with poor grades was more valuable than perfect scores from any other university.
The women I labeled as ENArques; they seemed less Silicon Valley and more Wall Street. ENA, Ecole Nationale d’Administration, was the only other school in France that rivaled X.
They were all pleasant, but in a detached, judgmental sort of way.
The moment I saw them walk up the front steps, I completely changed the menus I had planned to offer them.
Even though I love cooking, I hate it when people criticize my food. And had I served anything classically French, I know they most certainly would have. If I had served duck, then I would have had to serve a Saumur-Champigny wine. Had I served foie gras, then I would have had to offer Sauternes.
So I decided to serve them food they might never have tried before. Not knowing how it “should” be, they’d have no reason to snub it. Their first evening with me, they sampled the delights of prawn-stuffed avocadoes with cumin sauce, green enchiladas, fajita-style flank steak, and salsa verde. I served flan with cinnamon sauce for dessert. And a Chilean wine that I’m sure they would have protested against had they known it cost fewer than 10 euros.
As it was, Sévérine relayed to me nothing but their compliments.
The next morning, I made the most delicate of New Orleans-style beignets, sifting a generous portion of powdered sugar over the heaping platter. I actually waited until I laid eyes on Sévérine before I began to fry them; I wanted to ensure that they would still be piping hot when they were served. I saved enough batter to make a half dozen for Cranwell and myself. It had been ages since I’d last made them.
The couples sat in the dining hall through lunch, debating and laughing until they finally jumped into their car and roared down the drive for their afternoon adventures.
For dinner that evening, they started with an American-style shrimp cocktail, which was followed by broiled salmon paired with a cranberry and cilantro relish. In celebration of the next day, Halloween, dessert was a pumpkin cheesecake served over a pool of rich ginger crème.
For their last morning, they ate tottering stacks of hotcakes served with authentic Vermont maple syrup.
By the time they drove away, I was exhausted. I had meant to spend that day putting the chateau back in order, but dawn had brought a raging storm, and the accompanying gloominess inspired lethargy rather than industry. Thankfully by nightfall the storm had blown past and left in its wake a clear, if cold, darkness.
As I walked across my rug from the bathroom to my bed that evening, I glanced out the window and noticed the haziest of rings surrounding the moon: frost. And the moisture left from the storm would make the damage worse. My garden needed protection. I still had tomatoes and herbs that I wanted to cook with. I hurried to my armoire, threw on my robe, and got out my slippers, then I pounded down the stairs, running out the front door to the garage. I stopped only long enough to gather an armful of rags. When I got to the garden, I tucked them around my plants. I had just finished wrapping a rag around the last tomato plant and had risen to step across the row to the herbs when I heard a footfall on the flagstones of the pathway.
I froze. I’d never before felt frightened on my own property.
“Freddie.”
My knees almost buckled in relief. It was just Cranwell. “What?”
“Lucy and I were out for a walk. Can I help you?”
“I’m trying to save these from the frost.” I tossed a handful of rags at him, and Lucy jumped to grab at them. “Drape these across the chives.”
He immediately stooped to the task.
We worked together in silence until the plants at last were covered. He gave me his hand as I stepped back over the rows. Releasing it as I set foot on the path, I was suddenly very aware of my thin cotton batiste chemise. Had the moon not been full, I would not have been so worried, but as it was, the moonlight sharpened every image it touched. I comforted myself with the thought of my robe. The medieval-inspired blue-gray velvet garment fit tightly over my torso but fell loosely from my waist and from its bell-shaped sleeves. I was safe.
“Freddie.”
“What?”
“Come here.”
Why did I find myself suddenly backing away? All week I’d been aware of his lips. All month, I’d been fascinated by his eyes.
He took a step closer as I took a step back. Unfortunately, his steps were bigger than mine. And I tripped over the hem of my robe. He slipped an arm around my waist and steadied me. “Freddie. You shimmer in the moonlight. You look like a fairy.” His gentle fingers immersed themselves in my hair. Began to swim through it. It had been so long since anyone had done that. I wanted to melt.
I moved my head so his hand slid to my cheek. The sleeve of his pea coat felt rough against my neck.
He pulled me closer. “You beguile me.” His face hovered above mine. His nose nuzzled my cheek; his breath frosted my eyelashes.
His words were so soft and gentle it was as if he’d whispered them inside my head.
My arms rose of their own volition and wrapped themselves around his waist.
He cradled my face between his hands and stood back and looked at me. Then his hands slid to my neck and he brought my face close and kissed my forehead.
My eyes fluttered shut.
He kissed my eyelids.
I sighed.
He kissed my nose.
A frenzied burst of barking came from Lucy.
We broke apart, staring at the dog.
Her stance was rigid, and she was glaring fixedly at the end of the forest.
I knew what it had to be: one of Alix’s admirers. Alix ruined everything.
His eyes were full of regret. And-were it possible-shame. “Stay here.”
I couldn’t find the voice to tell Cranwell not to worry. I was floating. I was sinking. I couldn’t remember the last time my head had spun so fast.
He took Lucy with him and walked straight toward the forest. They rustled through the woods for about five minutes, but of course, they didn’t find anything. Or anyone. The moonlight from behind drenched his form in its glow as he emerged from the woods. I couldn’t see his face; it was shadowed, but I could feel the heat of his gaze.
I stood, rooted to the brick pathway for a moment. Then I turned and fled.
As I neared the back door, I came upon Sévérine. Emerging from the shadow cast by the forest, she had just become visible as she slipped around the corner of the chateau. Her figure appeared ghostly in the moonlight, but still, it seemed as if her hands concealed something long and quite real behind her back. I gasped as I looked into her glittering eyes and then continued in a stumbling run, pulling open the door and continuing my flight upstairs. And there’s no other word to describe it, for when I reached my room, I bolted the door behind me.
In that last conscious second before sleep claimed me, a searing thought flared in my mind: What had Sévérine been doing in the forest?