The next morning, I decided practical clothes were the order of the day. Especially if we’d be hiking over the jagged rocks of the Pointe du Raz. I wore jeans with a fuzzy fleece turtleneck. The hiking boots I laced on were a burnished brown.
Cranwell wore a thyme-colored wool polo-neck sweater over a pair of nice fitting jeans. He’d folded a heavy coat over his arm and had squatted to rub Lucy’s stomach when I reached the bottom of the stairs. Sévérine was leaning against the front door watching Cranwell. Considering the way Lucy always snarled at her, I didn’t blame her for keeping her distance.
Cranwell looked up when he heard me.
His chest hairs were peeking out of the collar of his sweater.
Swallowing, I focused my attention on Lucy. I’d never said the man wasn’t handsome. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
We walked to the garage together. It was his idea, so Cranwell insisted on driving. I offered no argument; his black Jaguar beat my cream soda-colored Mini hands down. And his heater probably worked too. Though I still had money left from the settlement of my parents’ estate, I didn’t choose to invest it in a car. What I owned had four wheels, and it got me where I needed to go.
As I settled myself into the beige leather passenger seat, I sighed in pure bliss as Cranwell pushed his coat into the space behind our seats. He glanced over at me and started laughing.
At that moment, I didn’t care: I liked the smell of leather, I liked the look of burled walnut trim. I liked nice cars; it just wasn’t a priority for me to own one. “How do you come to be driving a Jaguar?”
“I like Jags. After I bought my first one, I promised myself I’d never drive anything else.”
“So you had this one shipped to you?”
“No. I bought it in Paris and then drove it over here.”
“And what will you do with it when you leave? Sell it?”
He shrugged. “Probably give it to a friend.”
“Nice gift.”
“I have nice friends.”
He’d alluded before to the fact that he had friends in Paris, but he hadn’t left my chateau for the city except when I’d forced him to in the middle of the month. Maybe, like most smart rich people, they spent their winters in places farther south.
Cranwell pointed out the heated seat feature and let me play with the adjustments while we sped away from the chateau. The ride was heavenly. The weather wasn’t the best, but cocooned inside the Jag, it didn’t matter.
The trip took three hours.
By noon, we had motored into Douarnenez, the site most closely connected with the ancient Legend of Ys. A quaint fishing town in the old Breton style, its fishing port is brightened by a string of buildings with colorful facades topped with black roofs facing off against the ocean. We checked into the hotel and had lunch at a restaurant at the Port de Rosmeur along the water. Heat lamps made it warm enough to eat outside.
Then we drove to Pointe du Raz.
Cranwell parked his Jaguar at the far side of the parking lot. Can’t say that I blamed him; with a car like that, I would have been worried about bumps and scratches too.
We walked together past the gift shops and snack bars and then began the hike over the hills and up toward the rocks until we could see the surf break now and then over the tops of jagged, jumbled stone.
When we reached an abandoned concrete slab at the start of the point, I crossed my arms and hugged myself, trying to trap some body heat inside my pea coat. “So how did you know they weren’t married?”
“I know them.”
“Know them?!”
“Not personally. But I know of them. Enough to know that Sophie has never been married.”
Although I sent forth a fist to punch him, he captured it before it reached his arm and took it and tucked it into his coat pocket. Then he turned to me and smiled the most self-satisfied smile I’d ever seen him make.
And rascal that he was, I had to smile back.
Inside his pocket, he worked my fist apart and then entwined his fingers with mine.
I began to berate myself for not putting up a defense against him, but with the wind whipping my hair and the waves breaking far above the rocks, I decided that I didn’t care anymore. Apparently he was like this with everyone. If flirting didn’t mean anything to him, then why should it mean anything to me? Besides, it felt good to have my hand held; I had missed my companionship with Peter.
To cement my decision, I gave Cranwell’s hand a squeeze.
He tightened his hand around mine for an instant, pulling it close.
Thinking he wanted to say something, I turned toward him and in doing so, my hair blew between us.
He backed away from the stinging strands, releasing my hand.
After using it to tuck my hair inside my coat, I turned back to him, but he was already several yards away, staring seaward.
Suddenly, he turned to me and yelled across the wind, “Come on!” grabbing my hand and yanking me forward. He wasn’t content to just look at the edge of Continental Europe. He wanted to stand on it.
“Cranwell, I don’t think-”
“Nothing says we can’t climb out there.”
Of course nothing said we couldn’t climb out there. The French don’t care if you’re an idiot, risking your life scrambling over slippery, slime-covered rocks. And should you die, any French court of law would say it’s your own fault for being stupid.
“Cranwell…” I dug my heels into those rocks just as far as they would go.
“Freddie!” He let go of my hand in exasperation. “What are you afraid of?”
“Heights. Drowning. Strong tidal currents. Undertows. Hypothermia. Breaking my head open and having to watch my brains leak out.”
He broke into laughter, placed a hand behind my head, and pulled it close so he could kiss my forehead. “Is that all?” Then he pulled the tips of my coat collar up around my neck. “I’ll take care of you.”
And in that instant, he sounded so much like Peter that I couldn’t help but offer my hand when he extended his.
He was able to push and pull me over a trash heap of huge tumbled boulders before I balked at the sight of what lay ahead.
“Don’t look, Freddie.” The words were whispered in my ear.
Grasping at Cranwell’s hand, I gave it a violent squeeze. “If I don’t look, I’ll fall.”
“I mean don’t look at the waves, just look at the rocks below your feet. They’re not going anywhere.”
Ahead of us, the rocks abruptly gave way to the ocean, plunging downward at ninety degrees. In between the tip of the point and where I was standing was a half-cauldron filled with angry sea that crashed into the rocks sixty feet below us to send spray shooting up. Relentlessly, it fell back, gathered strength, to begin another assault. I could feel the vibrations of those onslaughts in my chest. The only way forward was to skirt the semicircle of the cliff. One misstep meant certain death or dismemberment… maybe both.
“Step where I step.”
“Cranwell-” Before I could stop him, he’d jumped forward onto another rock.
I looked back from where we’d come. Forward toward Cranwell. He was looking still forward to that beckoning jut of rock at the very tip of the point. Then his shoulders dropped and he hopped his way back to me. “Never mind.”
“Go. I’ll wait here.” I sat down, leaning back against the rock above me. “I’ll be fine.”
He helped me up by the elbow. “Let’s go back.”
As he raised me to my feet, I looked up into his eyes, and instantly, I knew I couldn’t, wouldn’t, turn back. So I let him help me up and then ducked around him and started picking my way forward along the edge of the cliff.
How I did it, I’ll never know, but the image of the top of my boots is indelibly etched in my memory. As I crested that final rock, a spray of salt water came spurting up from the sea.
Caught off guard, I threw up my hands against the cold wetness and teetered on the spine of the rock.
I felt strong hands grip my shoulders.
Turning, I saw Cranwell beside me. He slipped an arm around my waist to steady me. “We did it.”
“We did.”
We stayed there, enjoying the reward of our labor. Before us, beyond a lonely lighthouse, the sea stretched, endless, and merged with the mist. Somewhere out there was the Ile de Seine, portal to druidic paradise, but according to my eyes, before and beside us was nothing. We were truly standing on the last piece of continental soil. The last stanchion against the ocean. Several times we were drenched by spray, but the sensation of being the last two people in the world was so strong that we were powerless to turn back. And when the spell had finally dissipated, I found myself bound much tighter in Cranwell’s clasp than I would have chosen to be.
We turned around and headed back toward the mainland. The return seemed much easier than the hike out to the point had been.
When we’d passed the worst of the slippery boulders and when the danger of falling into the ocean had passed, Cranwell stepped up onto a boulder beside me and gave me a half hug. “Thanks.”
Not needing him to know that I’d almost had a heart attack from fear of heights, I shrugged as if it were nothing. Still, it had felt exhilarating to stand on the edge of the continent. If I’d had to decide right then, I would have said I was glad I’d done it.
As we sped back to the hotel, I began working on my hair. I figured it would take at least an hour to pull all the knots from it. Much as I had enjoyed the sea spray, it had only served to lacquer the tangles together.
Cranwell glanced over at me. “Don’t comb them out. Let’s go back tonight.”
Working on a particularly stubborn knot, I frowned. “I’m sure the park closes at sunset.”
“It doesn’t matter. We can hike in.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Nonsense.”
Although I was proud of myself, as far as hiking out to the point went, once was definitely enough. “Why can’t we just go out for dinner like normal people?”
“Because there’s nothing to be gained by living an ordinary life.”
The knot wouldn’t budge. “I’m not hiking back out to the tip of the point.”
“I’m not asking you to. I just want to see what it looks like in the moonlight.”
Oh, please. I threw him a sharp glance. He wasn’t usually so cheesy.
Finally, I jabbed my fingers into the knot and pulled downward in desperation. It didn’t even budge. Cranwell had a point; if we went back out, it would be a waste of time to untangle everything.
“What do you say?”
“Fine. Let’s do it.”
Dressing warmly for our evening adventure, I wore nearly everything I’d brought: a cotton turtleneck under a jewel-toned wool crew neck. It was one Peter had bought for me in Peru. I pulled tights on before I slipped into wool flannel pants, then tugged on the same lug-soled leather boots I’d worn earlier that day. Gloves and a hat were tucked into the pockets of my pea coat.
Cranwell met up with me in the hallway. He had a wool scarf tossed around his neck and underneath his black coat, he wore a roll-neck sweater and those tight-fitting jeans.
“Don’t you think you’ll slip and slide in those?” I was looking pointedly at his black loafers.
He held up a pair of well-worn hiking boots he’d kept hidden behind his back. Smiling, he gestured me ahead of him and down the stairs.
We ate dinner at a crêperie. Defying logic, this crêperie, like all the others I’d visited in France, took forever to serve our dinner. I can make a crêpe in three minutes; two crêpes take me ten minutes at the most. And between the two of us, two crêpes are all that we’d ordered.
Did I mention that we were the only customers in the restaurant?
It felt very naughty to step over the chain that roped off the park from the main road.
“Do you think there’s a guard?” His question might have sounded cautious, but Cranwell was already out in front, leading the way at a quick pace.
“No. This is Europe. If you want to be stupid and kill yourself, they don’t care.”
Cranwell broke his stride to look over his shoulder at me. “Then come on.”
At his prodding I started moving again, grabbing onto the hand he was holding out to me. It made me feel more safe. “Can’t we walk in the shadows?”
“Why? You just said there’s probably no one here.”
“Just in case.”
Cranwell relented, and we walked to the left toward the shade offered by the shelter of the restrooms. As we were engulfed by the shadows, I began to feel better. It was a beautiful night. We could hear the surf pounding the distant rocks, the full moon shone bright, and the stars were out in scores.
But then I heard something. Stopping suddenly, I pulled his hand to my side. Then I dragged him toward the building. “Someone’s coming.”
He stopped for a moment and listened, his eyes directed toward the left.
My loose hand found a fistful of his jacket.
He placed me behind his back, sheltering me against the wall.
Involuntarily, my hands wended themselves through his arms and around his waist. My eyes tightly shut, I tried to distinguish human sounds from the relentless assault of the surf. I could hear nothing but the beating of my heart.
His hand gripped one of my arms, stopping it, keeping me still. His body went tense with the effort it took to listen.
The sounds of the night became deafening: the surf, the wind, the sound of my heartbeat in my ears, Cranwell’s breathing, the sound of a footfall on the concrete path.
My hands flew up toward Cranwell’s chest, and I hid my head between his shoulders. I couldn’t stand to look.
Cranwell covered my hands with his own and it was then, when I felt the warmth of his skin on mine, that I realized how cold my own hands were.
He noticed too, for he pulled my arms forward, bringing me closer to his back, and then he cupped my hands and began to blow into them.
The warmth of his breath spread from my fingers to the rest of my body as if a furnace had suddenly fired. It took the sound of another footfall to steer my focus from Cranwell to the precarious situation we were in.
“Freddie-”
Before he could say another word, I clamped a hand over his mouth.
Another footstep fell.
Cranwell gently pried my hand from his mouth.
I buried my head deeper between his shoulder blades.
He began to kiss my fingers. My knees sagged, and I leaned into his back.
Another footstep fell.
It sounded as if it were almost opposite us, but my eyes were screwed so tightly shut I couldn’t see. Didn’t want to see. I was flying, I was soaring. What could possibly interest me on earth?
The next footfall sounded like it had passed us. And by that time, it was all I could do to keep standing. Cranwell had worked his way to my ring finger.
And then he came to my ring. Peter’s ring.
He slowly released my hand and walked away down the path through the hills.
The sudden lack of support made me pitch forward, but I caught myself before falling. Sliding down the wall, I shivered from the sudden absence of his warmth. I sat there for a full five minutes, trying to recover my breath and put my thoughts in order.
Robert Cranwell was a very dangerous man.