On Friday evening my guests arrived from Paris. They splattered around the loop of my drive in a Bentley and parked it right in front of the door. Why not? They were my only guests for the weekend.
Except, I reminded myself, for Cranwell.
The driver, a gentleman, got out, popped up an umbrella, and opened the passenger door for a woman. He helped her climb out, kissing her before releasing her. Then he adjusted the sweater that was flung around his neck, she adjusted the scarf that was around hers, and hand in hand, they climbed the stairs.
As they approached, I pulled the door open wide in welcome.
The gentleman was well known in France; the woman, not known but very beautiful. I’d lived long enough in this country to realize that she was probably not his wife. I sternly lectured my puritan conscience to mind its own business as I led them toward the reception hall and then up the winding central stairs. Their second-floor room was already glowing from the fire I’d lit to counter the chill of the evening. She kicked off her brown Gucci loafers, unwound her blue and brown-colored Hermès scarf, and dropped it over the back of a chair before I closed the door behind me. They requested breakfast in the dining hall at 10:00 the next morning.
By 10:15 that next morning, my sole staff member had failed to appear. “Monsieur is probably becoming very hungry,” I muttered while I arranged the serving tray yet again. I would have delivered it myself, except for the way that I was dressed. I mix all the breads the evening before, then shape and bake them in the morning before I serve breakfast. It’s a job that makes for sweaty work, so I’ve eliminated most of the traditional chef’s wardrobe. I’ve kept the classic baggy white and black micro-checked pants and comfortable shoes. I tossed the oversized white jacket and replaced it with a simple white tank top.
And though I look good in my modified outfit, I don’t look good enough to appear in front of a French cabinet member who expects a lot more for his money. I don’t know what I’d do without Sévérine.
We have an arrangement, she and I. Sévérine has been with me for two months and has another ten to go. I provide room and board, and she provides wait service and cleaning for my guests. It’s a perfect arrangement. Except for the fact that she’s chronically late. But she has such classic French beauty that everyone-including me-forgives her. I turned the dial on the espresso machine as soon as I heard her shuffle down the stairs.
“Frédérique. I am so sorry.” She appeared, breathless, at the bottom of the staircase. Her short black skirt and high-heeled pumps accentuated her long legs, and her deep red V-neck sweater managed to make her lips look even more red and her long black hair even more shiny.
“C’est partie!” I shoved a basket full of freshly baked pains au chocolat into her hands, and turned her around back toward the stairs. No one stays mad at Sévérine. She started off with a slow ascent that would have been maddening had she not been so elegant. I knew the moment she entered the dining room, the French cabinet minister and his friend would be completely charmed.
“Je suis bête.” I am stupid. That’s the first thing Sévérine says to any of my guests, and it’s offered by way of apology: for being late in answering the door, for being late in serving breakfast, for being late in picking them up at the nearest train station. My guests would see what everyone saw in Sévérine: long, graceful French legs, a handful of wavy dark hair pulled back into a twist, random strands of that hair pulling out of the twist to frame an animated face, and impish green eyes.
Just as long as they were never subject to the schizophrenic moods that swept over her like tidal waves. I blamed it on her work. She was more passionate about her research than any academic I’d ever met. She’d never yet snarled at one of my guests, but if she ever did, I would have to reconsider our arrangement.
It was after I had turned back to the counter to begin cutting fruit that I realized I had left the sugar bowl off the coffee tray. Quelle horreur! No self-respecting Frenchman drinks an espresso without sugar. I grabbed the bowl and took the stairs two at a time, hoping to catch up with Sévérine before she made it to the dining hall.
After taking two tight twists of the spiral staircase at a fast pace, I was dizzy when I emerged on the ground floor. I meant, of course, to sprint through the narrow door into the front hall and then past the big staircase into the reception hall. As it was, I dashed right through the archway and into Robert Cranwell.
If I hadn’t dropped the sugar bowl to grab a fistful of his sweater, I would have tumbled backward and down the stairs into the kitchen. If he hadn’t dropped his briefcase to grab me around the waist, he would have been propelled back into the table holding the flower arrangement. We wobbled back and forth for a moment until we obtained a collective balance; then I released his sweater and had the chance to look up into his face. I’d have to say that at first glance, I found him even more attractive than the picture that appears on all the jacket covers of his novels.
But he’s exactly the kind of man I don’t trust. If I hadn’t known his age, I would have guessed him five years short of forty-five. He had dark wavy hair, cut short on the sides and slicked back on top. It was graying at the temples, which gave him a look of distinction I was almost certain he didn’t deserve. At least he had a sense of humor; his dark eyes were sparkling. They were probably brown. I didn’t spend time looking. To top it off, he seemed the type that has a perpetual tan, and I could see a handful of chest hairs peeking through the open collar of his long-sleeved carbon-colored polo sweater. In certain circumstances, that has the ability to drive me crazy.
His tan wouldn’t last the week in Brittany.
An apology had almost formed on the tip of my tongue, but then I realized he still had an arm around my waist. I slid out of his grasp, trying to pull myself together and be professional.
“Welcome to Chateau de Kertanuan.” At that exact moment, my hair inexplicably spun out of its knot, and cascaded down around my shoulders. “May I help you?”
“I’m Robert Cranwell. I’d like to see Frédérique Farmer, please.”
There were two choices: I could admit to being me, or I could pretend that Sévérine was me. But I couldn’t go through with the lie. He’d find out the truth sooner or later. It was better to choose humiliation and get it over with. I’d dealt with worse situations.
I held out my hand. “I am Frédérique. Pleased to meet you.”
Something flashed in his eyes that I couldn’t interpret. He clasped my hand in his. “The pleasure is mine.” Then he bent down to the ground and started collecting pieces of the broken Quimper bowl. “I’m really sorry about this.”
Kneeling on the stone floor beside him, I placed a hand on his arm. “Please. Let me. It’s not a problem.” Only two hundred dollars worth of antique ceramics. I cupped my hands and he emptied his shards into them. “If you’d like to have a seat in the reception hall,” I indicated the general direction with my chin, “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Sévérine walked into the entrance hall just then. She and Cranwell exchanged glances as she sailed past me and spiraled down the stairs. She always makes me feel as if I’m a klutzy teenager.
Taking a deep breath, I turned on my heel, leaving Cranwell to find the reception hall on his own. I trudged down the stairs shaking my head. At some point, I had to take on the persona of a professional hotel manager, preferably at some point before Sévérine left the following June. She was my face to the outside world, and I depended on her completely. I tossed the pieces of the bowl into the trash.
Sévérine hooked her foot around the leg of a stool and pulled it out for me as she filled another bowl with sugar cubes. “I will take this up, yes?”
“Please.” I buried my face in my hands as she ascended toward the dining hall. It wasn’t that I wanted to impress Robert Cranwell. I didn’t care a thing about him. In fact, he was already becoming a nuisance. It’s just that I didn’t want to have one more person assume that I was twenty-one years old. When I lived in Paris, I made a conscious effort to look my age. With my even features and round face, I’ll probably still look twenty-one when I’m fifty. As the proprietor of an inn, a well-renowned inn at that, I should have commanded more respect. I put a hand up to my hair and thought once more about cutting it, but then my hand glided down its length and I thought how much I’d miss it. It was probably my best feature. I sighed and threw my upper body across the marble-topped island, my arms flung out, my palms accepting the coolness of the stone. I turned my head so that my cheek rested on the tabletop. It felt like ice to my burning cheeks.
A small movement at the bottom of the staircase drew my attention, but I realized it had to be Sévérine. She knew her way around my kitchen well enough to be able to take the fruit from the cutting board and arrange it on a small platter. I closed my eyes and let my body melt into the marble.
A suspiciously male-sounding cough made my eyes fly open. “Cranwell?” His name leaped from my lips before I could stop it.
“Ms. Farmer?”
How dare he invade my space. Reluctantly, I scraped myself off the marble and turned on my stool to face him. “What can I do for you?”
He held a large Louis Vuitton suitcase out in front of him. “I was just wondering…”
“Your room. Follow me.”
I have to confess that I bypassed the formal stairs and led him up to the second floor straight from the kitchen. I might also have taken the coiled steps two at a time, leaving him gasping for breath and struggling to keep the rough stone walls from marring the leather of his suitcase. But then again, chateaux were not made for modern convenience.
The chateau has a tower at each corner. This gives both the dining hall and the Council Room a round area at both ends. On the three floors above the ground floor, there are four or five rooms on each floor, with central, tapestry-hung halls that provide access to the central staircase. On each floor, the towers have been converted into bathrooms, turning each of the guest rooms into suites. Seven of the rooms have been renovated for guests. One of the larger rooms, I turned into a library; another smaller room, next to my own bedroom on the fourth floor, I turned into a lounge. The remaining space on the fourth floor, I had renovated into an apartment for staff.
I had opened the door to Cranwell’s room and drawn the dark rust velvet curtains from the windows by the time he had joined me.
The olive brocade curtains enclosing the bed had been whisked back and secured to the posters, exposing the rich rust and olive tones of the duvet. I walked across the stone floor toward the tower end of the room. “Bathroom,” I announced, indicating a small door in the stone wall. “If you’d like a fire in the evenings, and if you’re responsible enough to tend it, I’ll have some wood delivered.”
“I’d like that.” He was making a tour of the room, touching a corner of the sixteenth-century tapestry that hung on one wall, fingering the key to the armoire that stood beside it. “This is very nice.”
“Thank you.” The room’s deep autumn tones fit him. I’d decorated specifically with those colors, thinking it would make a man feel at ease.
He half-bowed in an oddly endearing manner as if by way of compliment.
I found myself smiling before I could think not to.
When he straightened and saw me, he smiled too. He pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket. Raising them to the light, he frowned, polished them against his sweater, and then perched them on his nose. Then he bent to look more closely at a small painting that sat on an easel on a rectangular table.
“You’re welcome to move that if you’d like to do your writing there.”
He turned to look at me, his left eyebrow raised.
“I assumed you’d want to work on the table. There’s an outlet right beside it and a plug-in for a laptop.”
“Oh. Thank you. Yes.”
“Once you’ve settled, come downstairs, and I’ll make you coffee.”
“Espresso. Thanks.” He cleared his throat and looked at me over the top of his glasses. “I didn’t mention it in my letter, but I’ll be having someone stay with me.”
Someone else? Two people were a lot different than one person in the language of innkeeping. So now not only would I have to cater to a famous author, I’d also have to deal with his groupie.
“Lucy is…”
Holding up a hand, I put a stop to his explanation. “As long as you pay, you may do whatever you’d like with whomever you want. No explanation required.” I didn’t want to hear about it. One of the most pleasant things about living overseas was being disconnected from the Hollywood scene. Cranwell’s personal life was nothing I cared to investigate.
But I don’t like it when plans change.
When I left Cranwell’s room, I headed up the stairs instead of down. It was probably too late to change an impression, but I wanted Cranwell to see me in something besides my tank top and baggy pants. It was always possible I’d make him leave before the month was up, so establishing myself as a figure of authority was necessary. I spent two minutes in the shower to freshen up and then about fifteen minutes in front of the armoire trying to figure out what to wear. I finally settled on trim black Capri pants and a light blue sleeveless ballet-neck sweater. My arms get a workout from kneading bread dough and stirring pots of soups and sauces for myself or for my guests. They’ve become muscular, so I like to show them off when I can.
As I made my way back to the kitchen, I lectured myself. Cranwell was here because of the chateau. No matter his thoughts of me, he could hardly fail to be impressed by it.
I had decorated with furniture that spanned five hundred years of French history. Most family-owned chateaux are furnished in that fashion. Each new generation would make their mark on the structure by redecorating. I had tried to stay with a single period or theme in each room. The dining hall is Louis XIV: The chairs have crossed, curved supports connecting their legs. The backs are tall and broken by a horizontal rectangle of upholstered material, hung with a fringe. The colors are deep red and wheat gold. The table is more narrow than its modern counterpart, but is considerably longer. It is simply made with no ornamentation save along the legs.
The reception hall is a showcase of high medieval period furniture. The settee, on which I choose most often to sit, is softened with a moss green velvet cushion. The chairs that line the walls are of basic shapes and basic construction. The walnut dressoir, however, is a masterpiece of medieval skill: Its dark wood is carved and shaped into a procession of panels decorated with repeating vegetal designs.
The guest rooms of the chateau run the gamut from Louis XV to art deco styles and are decorated in colors as varied as canary yellow and deep plum. When I have time and the weather isn’t cold, I scour flea markets to pick up accessories to fill them: books, candelabras, linens, timepieces. French furniture styles fascinate me. Each epoch has its own look, its own colors, its own politics, and its own expression. The only period for which I do not care is postmodern.
Medieval and Renaissance period pieces are difficult to find, outside of chests and trunks, so I purchase reproduction furniture at a fraction of the cost. At least with the sturdy fakes, I could be certain that no one would fall through a chair or lift a door off an armoire.
All the guest beds are also reproduction. Antique beds are generally so short and narrow that my guests would have been sleeping with their knees pulled up to their ears. But at least I draped and hung and canopied them in an authentic style. Though sleeping enclosed by curtains or swathed in material makes me claustrophobic, I find the look romantic and knew my guests would too.
When I started decorating, I made a conscious decision to try to divide the decoration of the guest rooms evenly between feminine frills and masculine scrolls. If I took a reservation from a woman, I would give her the Louis XV room with its pink and baby blue upholstered furniture or the Napoléon III room filled with gold-plated, crystal-dripping glitz. If a man booked a reservation, I would reserve the Roman-looking Napoleon I with its colors of avocado and aubergine or the Louis XVI room with its simple straight-lined, columned shapes.
Do I name my rooms? Do I have a Marie Antoinette? A Blaise Pascal?
No.
The French have particular sensitivities and often choose their furniture styles based on their political and philosophical preferences. I might have a guest request the Revolution Room, but the Marie-Antoinette? Never.
Do I collect English or German antiques?
No.
In my opinion, the former are often clunky, of awkward shapes and oddly colored wood. The latter are usually rubbed with finishes so dark and heavy the artistry can’t be seen.
I’m both a Francophile and a snob, and I feel absolutely no remorse.
Besides, it’s my chateau.