Chateau of Echoes

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 Severine.

We have an arrangement, she and I. Severine 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.

“Frederique. 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 Severine. 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 bete.” I am stupid. That’s the first thing Severine 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 Severine: 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 Severine 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 Frederique Farmer, please.”

There were two choices: I could admit to being me, or I could pretend that Severine 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 Frederique. 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.”

Severine 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 Severine 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.

Severine 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 Severine. 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