Cranwell was talking to me about Alix’s journals. I hadn’t read them myself, but apparently, if Sévérine’s translations were correct, for the first three years, Alix had been a neglected wife.
“Not abused.” Cranwell put down his fork of joue de lotte fish and leaned toward me to emphasize the point. “Neglected. Her husband didn’t even consummate the marriage.”
I fixed the appropriate shocked look on my face that Cranwell seemed to expect. Personally, I was all for Alix’s husband. They married when she was thirteen and he was thirty.
Trying to focus on what Cranwell was saying, I tore my thoughts from the barbarity of the Middle Ages. I found myself looking at the slight wave in his hair, wondering if Sévérine liked to push her fingers through it. My eyes strayed to the top button of his navy cashmere polo. I could just imagine Sévérine undoing that button, and the next, and pushing the sweater up over his shoulders…
“And then she grew up.”
Men! It all had to do with looks. Of course Alix’s husband hadn’t been interested in her. At least not until she grew breasts and hips and obtained the allure of an adult. Men are pigs. I glanced down at the low square neckline of my hyacinth blue jersey shirt, making certain it hadn’t slid too far down my chest.
When I looked back up at Cranwell, I discovered that he’d been doing the same.
He had the grace to look guilty, and he took another swallow of wine.
Refusing to be embarrassed by his transgression, I considered his words. “So she grew up. Most girls do. What was it that caused him to notice?”
“She was mistaken for his cousin. An older man, a count, made a pass at her. And later in the evening, her husband realized that none of the guests was treating her as if she were his wife; they were treating his cousin, Anne, that way. He got angry, and he reminded the guests that Alix was his wife. His lady.”
“Why would that have made him angry? If he wasn’t paying attention to her, why should he care that anyone else wasn’t? That seems completely out of character. You could hardly portray him as a jealous husband.”
“He wasn’t jealous. He was making Alix a player. There were very different ideas of love in the Middle Ages. And strange rules governing how people should act when they were in love.” He reeled off a score of them. Cranwell had a phenomenal memory. “Rules like, he who is not jealous is not in love. One cannot give one’s heart to two women at the same time. No one may be deprived of a loved one without reason. Love is not miserly. A new love chases away the old one. Once love has diminished, then disappeared, it cannot come back. Jealousy makes love grow. Tormented by love, the lover sleeps and eats little. The lover must act while thinking of his beloved. The perfect lover likes only that which pleases his love. The smallest suspicion incites the lover to suspect the worst in his beloved., Nothing stops a woman from being loved by two men or a man from being loved by two women. Love is necessarily adultery. And most of all, the lady of the castle is to be adored by the knights as the perfect woman.”
“So by naming her his lady, he was, by definition, turning his knights’ attention from Anne to Alix.”
“That’s right.”
“But did he do it because he wanted Anne’s attention for himself or because he’d begun to like Alix?”
“At least begun to respect her. Maybe it was because he simply felt the knights’ attention was Alix’s right.”
One of the rules he’d recited earlier had caught my attention. “Why was love assumed to be adulterous?”
“It wasn’t always. Not among the lower classes. There was much more freedom for women of the peasantry to marry whom they wished. But the women of the upper classes were considered property. As property they were bargained for and consigned into marriage. The heart was a separate consideration. Marriage concerned property, love concerned the heart… and fidelity of the heart was never considered part of a marriage contract.”
“How convenient. And by Alix’s own words, she had become a woman?”
Cranwell nodded. “And by her husbands actions, he’d finally noticed. My problem is that I just can’t bring myself to believe she didn’t know anything about what was going on between Anne and Awen.”
“Why should she?”
“Come on, Freddie, they spent so much time together! She reports that herself. How could she not know?”
I shrugged. “Who was going to tell her?”
“Agnès.”
“Her maid is going to tell her that her husband is cheating on her? I don’t think so.”
“It’s not natural to be so naïve. Besides, part of the legality of a marriage involved its consummation. Alix could have had her marriage annulled on that basis alone.”
I thought about that. “Well, from what you’ve told me, I’d bet her father didn’t tell her the facts of life. He probably assumed his wife would do it. But you told me that Alix wasn’t close to her stepmother. The stepmother probably assumed Agnès would do it, but in that period, you’d be as likely to shoot the messenger as not. Besides, by telling her, Agnès would be humiliating her. The only possible person who could have told Alix the facts of life was her husband. And he wasn’t telling.”
“It’s not like it’s any big secret.”
“It would have been to a high-society medieval girl of thirteen.”
“She was sixteen at this point.”
“Men are more experimental. I was a virgin when I married Peter and-”
“You were a virgin?”
“Yes.”
“You mean you didn’t have sex? Not even while you were engaged?”
“That would be the definition of virgin, wouldn’t it?”
“Not even-”
“No.”
His fingers were fingering the collar of his polo sweater. “Why not?”
“You know, Cranwell, virginity used to be the default condition of a woman. Unless she were married. And I am not one of your actresses or models.”
He must have seen how irritated I was becoming because he dropped it, although I saw him shoot a look at me from under his eyebrows.
Ignoring him, I continued with my argument. “So, yes, it is entirely possible that Alix had no idea what sex was about.”
After clearing our dinner dishes, I retrieved the crème caramels from the refrigerator. The dessert was a custard, typical of what a French grandmother might have served in the 1950s. It was nothing fancy, but sometimes I had a craving for plain, homegrown food.
I put a ramekin in front of Cranwell and set one at my own place, then I turned on the espresso-maker.
“So Peter’s the only man you’ve ever been with?”
I turned to face him with a hand on my hip. “And when did this become your business?” Yes. Peter was the only man I’d ever been with.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just so interesting.” There he went again, his fingers toying with his collar.
“Don’t you mean quaint?”
“No, I mean interesting. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“Exhibit three-virgin girl in natural habitat.”
“Don’t make fun of yourself.”
“Cranwell, enough has been said.”
“Okay. Fine.” He held up his hands in surrender and then picked up a spoon and dug into dessert.
The next morning, I delivered Cranwell his breakfast, the way I usually do. I plunked a cube of sugar into his espresso and handed him the cup. He took it from me, set it down, and then put a hand on my arm.
“Freddie, have I done something to make you upset with me?”
He had no idea. If he hadn’t safely stowed his espresso on the opposite side of the table, I would have doused him with it.
Smiling was difficult. “Why do you ask that?”
“You haven’t been… you lately. I miss the time we spend together. I miss you.”
Cranwell, you have a funny way of showing it, sleeping with Sévérine. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”
“Are you sure? If there’s anything…?”
Well, now that you mention it, could you keep your pants zipped? The problem with me is that I never say what’s on my mind. “No, there’s nothing.”
That weekend, we had guests. Friends of Cranwell’s under the auspices of his Freddie Improvement Project. When they pulled up the drive in a limousine, and I saw the chauffeur hand them out of the car, my eyes must have popped out of my head.
Cranwell was halfway out the door and had raised a hand in greeting when I grabbed ahold of his shirt and yanked him back beside me.
“You might have warned me.”
“About what?”
If looks could kill, Cranwell would have been drawn and quartered that very instant.
“About the bowing and scraping I’d have to do. I would have said no.”
“Then you would have missed out on becoming acquainted with some very charming people.” Cranwell’s eyes swept from mine to the couple now ascending the steps. He lifted a hand in welcome.
“You’re an American. You can be forgiven for your uncouth behavior,” I whispered. “I have to live here. Do you even know the protocol involved in hosting someone of royal blood?”
Cranwell rolled his eyes and blew me off, reaching to grasp the hands of the guests who had by now reached the front door.
While they exchanged European-style kisses, I fled to the kitchen and began flipping through my Miss Manners book.
Several minutes later, Cranwell snuck up behind me. He wrenched the book from me, closed it, and returned it to the bookshelf. “Listen. It’s not a big deal. They don’t expect any ‘Your highnesses’ or ‘Your graces’. This is a weekend getaway.”
My lunge for the book was quick, but he managed to step in front of me fast enough to block it. He held onto my upper arms and gave me a shake. “For this weekend, just pretend they’re Carl and Fran.”
“When you booked them, you said they were Carlos and Maria.”
He released me and threw his hands into the air. “Forgive me. Maria was last month. This month it’s Francesca. Next month, it will be someone else. It’s not a big deal. The reason he came here is because I said he wouldn’t need a bodyguard, that they would never mix with the general public. So don’t make me regret my advice.”
“I’m not going to do anything differently.”
“Fine.”
“I’m not changing the menu.”
“Okay.”
“And I won’t bow or kiss anyone’s hand. It’s not democratic.”
Cranwell didn’t even bother to respond. He just brushed past me as he walked toward the stairs.
Carl and Fran turned out to be perfectly pleasant. Mostly because I had Sévérine deal with them. Like most French women I’d met, she seemed to have an intuitive grasp of how to treat people from all stations in life.
“Did you know that she is the Princesse de Kohn-Bavarie?” she asked as she waited for me to prepare a breakfast tray.
“I had no idea.”
“And he a crown prince.”
“That, I knew.”
Glancing over at the island, I saw her sitting on a stool staring off into space with a smile on her lips. Sévérine must have been reliving those childhood fairy tales her father had told her.
Uh-oh. Carlos was a magnificent specimen of a human being, but definitely not of the over-the-counter variety. Bending down, I drew a cutting board from a cupboard. Putting it in front of Sévérine with a knife and a mound of mushrooms, I commanded her to chop.
“Now?”
“Now.”
“But they will brown.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m using them in a sauce later.”
She sighed in protest and then took up the knife and began to chop. She brightened a moment later when she heard Lucy skitter down the stairs. Where Lucy went, Cranwell could not be far behind.
“Espresso?” he asked me when he appeared.
“Help yourself.” I didn’t have time that morning to wait on him personally. And should he even think of complaining, I planned to remind him that Carl and Fran were his great idea.
“Want one?”
“No, thanks.”
Sévérine?
“Non, merci.”
Sévérine sounded suspiciously listless. I’d never seen her that way before, and it had the potential to put a damper on my reputation as an innkeeper. She could flirt all day with my guests as long as she was professional. Sulky, however, was another matter. Not everyone of noble blood was a louse like her father. But then again…
“Cranwell, please tell Sévérine what a rat your friend Carl is.”
“Rat?”
“Playboy. Philanderer.”
“He dates around, but in his circle, it’s not unusual.” Cranwell was looking at me as if confused.
“A new girlfriend every month? You’d think he’d run out of eligible women.”
“He is a crown prince, Frédérique.” Sévérine was staring at me with the same look of confusion as Cranwell. “This is normal.”
“Normal? He’s a lecher.”
“Maybe to some people, but in his mind, he’s just having fun. At some point, Daddy will put his foot down and make him marry some suitable sort of woman. Morals aside, he’s a good guy. Very smart, actually.”
“And someday he will be king.” Sévérine put down her knife and shoved the cutting board away so violently that several mushrooms tumbled to the floor.
Lucy growled at Sévérine and then gave them a good sniff before deciding that they were better left alone.
Oh no. Sévérine had that look in her eye again.
I tried to distract her. “But what kind of king?”
“It does not matter. There have been many kinds of king. All of them have left a page in history. It matters only that he is king. And that he choose a queen.”
Rolling my eyes, I looked to Cranwell for help. Surely he could see Sévérine needed a reality check.
“Well, he’s certainly trying.” Cranwell drained his demitasse and then loped off outside with Lucy. A big help he was.
“Not everyone can be Arthur and Guinevere.”
The eyes that looked across at mine glittered. “And why do you think I search so hard for-” She untied her apron and folded it. Then she placed it on the island and left. And then I was left alone wondering why loutish behavior was forgiven in royalty and wondering what Sévérine was searching so hard for. Love? Acceptance? What else could it be? Alix’s journals had already been found.
Sévérine served dinner that evening. I started Carl and Fran with a pinot gris and a salmon mousse served with tarragon sauce, followed by pork with kiwi and onion sauce, and a dessert of key lime pie.
Cranwell, Sévérine, and I dined on pot roast. There are times when I need the food I grew up with. That night was one of them.
For Cranwell’s epicurean taste, I had also offered a generous selection of cheese with our baguette.
“Delicious, Freddie. Dessert?”
“What would you do for a plain old brownie?”
“Almost anything you wanted me to.” He clapped a hand to his mouth. “Did I just say that? I’m sorry.” He really did look very contrite. “Sometimes I speak without thinking. I’m working on it.”
“Relax, Cranwell. We’re all working on it.”
It wasn’t stretching the truth at all to say that he looked irresistible in his hand-knit Norwegian sweater. I offered him a steaming brownie with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream melting across the top.
We savored the marriage of chocolate and cream and talked for a while about how the book was coming. Then Lucy scrambled to her feet, and we both knew that meant she needed to go for her walk.