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 Severine 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
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.
21
They were festive, but they made me wince. Holidays hurt. Holidays were markers, days that occurred each year in which thoughts turned to how you celebrated in years past, and with whom. For a person like me, holidays were a point in time at which you were forced to reconcile the life you used to have with the life you now lived.
Christmas with Peter had been cozy. Christmas
