Late that night, I awoke to shouting.
It had wafted up the stairs and was just pointed enough to make sleep impossible.
Propelling myself from bed, I threw on a robe and pushed my feet into my slippers. By the time I reached the third floor, Cranwell had poked his head out of his door.
Reaching out an arm, he caught me as I walked past him. He was wearing his signature silk paisley pajamas. His bangs were sticking up as if he’d leaned his head against his palm for some indefinite period of time.
“What should I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? How can you say that? He could be beating her.”
Cranwell shook his head and drew me into his room. “He’s not beating her. Do you hear any fear in her voice?”
Cocking my head, I listened for a moment. “No.”
“Lover’s quarrel.”
As I looked around the room, I realized that he’d probably been working. If the argument had disturbed my sleep, it had probably disturbed his concentration.
I sagged into the extra chair by the desk. “Is he always like this?”
Cranwell shrugged. “He’s temperamental.” He looked at his watch. “It’ll probably be over in fifteen minutes.” He sprawled into the chair in front of the desk, making it look like an extension of his body.
We were facing each other.
All I really wanted was sleep. I drew my feet out of my slippers and tucked them up underneath me. I also slid my hands up into the sleeves of my robe. “Why do people stay in relationships like that?”
“Some people need it. At least if someone’s yelling at you, they’re paying attention to you… and then there’s always the making up afterward. Some people think it’s romantic.”
It didn’t seem as if he thought so. At least we were in agreement about that.
A door slammed.
“Did you ever have a relationship like that?” The lateness of the hour must have loosened my tongue.
“Never really stayed in one long enough for it to deteriorate into something like that. I’ve always relied on more polite forms of communication.”
“Letters? Faxes?”
“E-mail.” He smiled and pushed back his chair. His hands joined behind his head and he closed his eyes. He looked tired, and his five-o’clock shadow made his face pale.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Surely you know that I don’t have a fabulous track record on relationships.”
I clamped my lips together so that I wouldn’t say anything I’d later regret.
“I’m not sure why. They’ve just never worked out.”
At that moment, I was biting my tongue so hard I thought I’d punched a hole in it. Clearly, it was not the time to talk; it was the time to listen.
“I’ve never felt like anyone has wanted to be with me for the simple reason that I am me. I’ve had people want to be with me because it makes them look good. I’ve wanted to be with people because they make me look good. I’ve been in relationships where both of us were using the other for some ulterior motive.”
At that point, he opened his eyes. They were empty. Denuded. And they made him look a hundred years old.
My heart reached out for him.
“It tends to make a person cynical.”
There was pounding on a door downstairs.
A corner of Cranwell’s mouth lifted. “See? She wants back in.”
“She can’t be older than twenty-one.”
“Nineteen.”
“She’s so young.”
“And tonight, they’ll be together. And they’ll drive back to Paris tomorrow, and they’ll fly out next week. And once they’re home, he’ll forget to call her. She’ll call him. He’ll promise her a weekend somewhere exotic. And then he’ll cancel: unforeseen circumstances. And she’ll still be waiting for a call when she reads in the paper about his latest girlfriend.”
“But she’s so innocent.”
“The problem with innocence is that once you pluck it, it’s all gone.”
We listened for a moment to the silence, felt the chateau go back to sleep around us.
I stretched and got up to leave.
“You’ve managed to keep yours, Freddie.”
Facing Cranwell, I found him looking at me as if I were a rare antique.
“My what?”
“Innocence.”
“I’ve been married.” If we were talking about sex, I’d had plenty.
“I’m not talking about that.” He stood beside me and cupped my chin in his hand. “I’m talking about your soul. And don’t tell me you don’t have a soul and that you don’t believe in God, because you do. You wouldn’t fight Him so hard if you didn’t. But you’re not jaded. I still haven’t figured out if you were well loved, but I can tell that you loved well.”
He kissed me on the forehead and led me out into the hall.
When I had been with Peter, I had felt well loved. In retrospect, I had given much more than I had received in return. Not that love is selfish, but the person I was now would have demanded better treatment.
Mid-stride, I paused as I walked up the stairs.
How had Cranwell known that?
And what did he mean that I believed in God?
Carl and Fran left the next morning, practically attached at the lips. The chauffeur bundled them into the limousine and sped away down the drive. I couldn’t help pitying her as I watched the car turn onto the road.
I didn’t think it was worth it.
The next week, my thoughts turned toward Christmas. And not voluntarily, for I hadn’t celebrated the holiday since Peter had died. There was no one I bought presents for and no one who bought them for me. There had been no one to cook for, no one to decorate for. I wasn’t even sure where I’d stored my Christmas tree ornaments. In fact, it was Cranwell who brought it up.
“What’s the plan for Christmas? Is Sévérine going to be around?” He’d been writing in the kitchen as I worked, but had slid back his chair and stood up for a stretch. His turmeric-colored chamois shirt was tucked and belted into a pair of olive twills. The month before, I might have thought he looked good, but by December, I was immune to his charms.
“I’m pretty sure it’s on the twenty-fifth, just like last year, Cranwell.” I gritted my teeth to answer his second question. “Sévérine’s going away for Christmas, but she’ll be back by New Year’s.” Why hadn’t he just asked her if he were so interested?
He bent down so he could scratch Lucy’s stomach. “You don’t do anything for Christmas?”
“What’s there to do?” I turned from the vegetables I was chopping and unsnapped the sleeves of my red denim shirt so that I could roll them up. The close-fitting cut of the shirt allowed it to stay close to my body and wear it untucked over my jeans without it becoming a hazard to cooking.
“I don’t know. Cut down a tree. Sing carols. Go to church. Drink eggnog.”
“What do you usually do for Christmas?”
He smiled. “Not a whole lot. Go out for dinner. Take a walk with Lucy. I’d hoped this year to go to church somewhere.”
“I’m planning on being here for Christmas, so I’ll definitely be cooking.” I shook some pistachios into a bowl and set them on the island.
Cranwell joined me at the island as I sat down on a stool.
“Seriously.”
“I am being serious. If you’d like a tree for your room and if I can find my ornaments, you can have them.”
“We should do something.”
“Like I said, I’ll cook dinner, but beyond that, it’s up to you.” I took a pistachio and used a thumbnail to pry it from the shell. As far as I was concerned, the full-blown Christmas experience was best saved for small children. I remembered my parents’ extravagant holiday parties and I wanted nothing whatsoever to do with them. When I was young, planning for Christmas began in October.
“How about I take care of the whole thing?”
“The whole thing?”
“Decorations, Christmas dinner. Everything.”
I felt my eyebrow lift in surprise. I took another pistachio and cracked it open, buying time to think about his proposal. I was no grinch. I had nothing against Christmas in general. It was the energy, the time, the pressure of tradition that made me pretend the holiday didn’t exist.
“Freddie?”
“Dinner too?”
“Dinner too.”
“Deal.”
The next morning I began to pay for my error in judgment. Every ten minutes, Cranwell came down to the kitchen to ask me for something: an axe, a hammer, nails, screws, wire, wire-cutters.
“Do you have a-”
Tu danse sur mon dernier nerf! I tugged at the hem of my white tank top then gave my pot of soup a vigorous stir. “Cranwell, anything I have that’s tool-related is in the garage. Did you look there?” He was tap-dancing on my last nerve.
“No.”
“Then I probably don’t have one.”
“I’m sure you’ve got to at least have a couple.”
At that point I was very close to ripping my hair out. I put the ladle on the counter and turned to look at him.
He put a tentative hand up to his hair and came away with what looked like a few pine needles. There were a few more sprinkled on the shoulders of his plum zip-neck sweater too. He frowned, glared at them over the top of his reading glasses, and then let them drop to the floor. His eyes zoomed from the floor straight up toward mine. “What I wanted to know is if you have a minute to spare.”
Okay, so at that point, I felt foolish. I pushed my arms into a black shawl-collar cardigan, tied it around my waist, and accompanied him up the stairs.
He led me past the central stairs, through the reception hall, and into the dining hall.
What I saw amazed me.
He had fixed pine boughs to the primitive iron chandelier, woven red ribbon around the anchoring chains, and replaced the lightbulbs with candles. I had to admit that it looked good. So did the trail of intertwined holly and ivy that wound down the center of the table and the myriad ivory candles of various sizes that covered the mantle of the fireplace.
He was staring at me, his brown eyes begging for approval, as I took in the extent of his handiwork.
“Very nice, Cranwell.” Even though I wanted to wring his neck most of the time, I couldn’t help but acknowledge that he’d done well in his Christmas decorating endeavor.
“Where do you think your ornaments are?”
“They could be anywhere. The garage. The cellar…”
He held out a hand, “Let’s look!”
“Cranwell, I have things to do.”
“Lunch can wait.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one worried about scorching a soup.
He’d already grabbed my hand and was tugging me toward the reception hall.
I pulled it from his grasp and planted my feet against his persistent tugging. “What do you need them for?”
“I’m going to cut down a tree-”
The laugh escaped from my lips before I could stop it. I couldn’t imagine him swinging an axe, let alone carrying a tree through the woods.
“-and decorate it.”
“I have to check on the soup. Why don’t you go to the cellar and I’ll join you in a minute?” I pointed to the arched doorway to the right of the entrance hall and saw Cranwell start down the stairs before I ran down to the kitchen.
Thankfully, the soup hadn’t boiled over. I pulled it from the stove and then cut a lemon and squeezed it on the fruit I’d cut earlier to keep it from turning brown.
Quickly, I scraped the undesirable odds and ends into the trash and scrubbed the cutting board and knife clean. Then I retied the cardigan, shook out my hair, and climbed the stairs to join Cranwell.
The light wasn’t the best in the cellar, so it took me a moment to realize what he had in his hands.
Livid sums up how I felt when I realized he was looking at my wedding photos.
Apparently, he read the anger in my face, because he immediately shut the album. “I was just looking for the ornaments.”
Snatching the album from him, I tucked it back into the box labeled “Wedding” and then hefted it back onto one of the storage shelves that lined the cellar walls.
“I’m sorry, Freddie.” He’d come to stand behind me and had placed his hands on my shoulders, coincidentally squeezing a knot right beneath my left shoulder blade.
Wincing, I ducked away from his grasp and whirled to face him. “You have no right to poke your nose into my private things.”
“You’re the one who sent me down here.”
“To find Christmas ornaments, which are probably located in the box labeled ‘Christmas.’” I stabbed at the box as he moved to take it from the shelf. “What gives you the right to pry?”
“Nothing really. I was just interested.” He knelt beside the box, remorseless, and began to dig through it.
“Well, did you see everything you wanted?”
“No.” He looked up from the box and there was no humor in his eyes.
“What is it that you want from me?”
“Evidently, something you’re not prepared to give.”
Not like Sévérine was.
His eyes darted back to the box. “I was curious. You’ve never talked much about Peter. I just wanted to see what he was like.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. But then I saw the pictures and I wanted to know what you were like. You looked happy…”
“I was happy. It was my wedding day!”
“But you didn’t look like you. You’ve changed.”
“Of course I have, Cranwell. Everyone changes.” My words might not have conveyed it, but I did know what he meant. I had looked different then. I’d been the prototype diplomatic wife. My hair had been conservative, my smile had been level, my clothes had been appropriate, my makeup discreet. I’d devolved into the wild-haired, cynical, take-it-or-leave Freddie that he’d encountered. But I liked the new Freddie.
“I like you, Freddie. The you that I know. I didn’t know who that other person was.”
He’d done it again; he’d nailed it on the head. That was the problem with that other person. The former me. She hadn’t known who she was.
He shrugged. “So that’s why I was curious, but I am sorry that I violated your privacy.”
How could I be angry with him? I wrapped my arms around myself and tried hard to glare at him anyway. “You’re forgiven.”
He rose to his feet, hefting the box. “These are all ornaments.”
“Fine.” I went before him up the stairs, waiting until he’d reached the entry before I turned out the lights and shut the door behind him.
Cranwell placed the box on the entry table.
“Where are you going to put the tree?” I couldn’t imagine any place in the chateau that wouldn’t dwarf the average Christmas tree.
“I’m not sure yet.”
Walking past him, I began the descent to the kitchen.
“What about mistletoe?”
I paused on the third step. “If you want to climb a tree and find some, be my guest.”
“It grows in trees?”
“Yes. It’s a parasite.” Just like love.