Chateau of Echoes

Pointe du Raz? The rock-strewn westernmost tip of France at the opposite end of Brittany. It was a bit too far away to be labeled a day trip, but then I wasn’t planning on losing.

“I win, you prep my garden for spring. Deal?”

“Deal.”

We shook on it and then turned back to the couple, watching as they swayed down the drive, blurred into the forest, and disappeared.

That evening when they appeared in the dining room for dinner, Cranwell was building a fire for me. As before, Sophie was wearing a stunning gown.

M. Duroc pulled her chair out. As she moved to sit in it, her hand fluttered to her throat. “Le collier. J’ai ‘oublie.” She’d forgotten to put on her necklace.

“Ca ne fait rien, ma biche.”

She moved away from the chair and toward the entrance to the dining hall. “Un petit moment.”

“Laisse-le.”

“Un instant.”

We all watched her glide across the room.

“Your wife is an extraordinary woman.” Cranwell said what the three of us were thinking.

M. Duroc inclined his head. After a moment he spoke. “She is not my wife.”

Cranwell could have turned in that instant and smirked at me, but to his credit he didn’t.

The old man’s lips lifted in an ironic twist. “It is not that I have not asked. We encountered each other when we were eighteen. I knew within a week that I must marry her. We both did. But she was Jewish, and I was not, and so we needed time. To convince our families. That was 1939.”

M. Duroc sighed and played with his watch. “We should not have cared so much for what other people thought. We waited, but we waited too long. The next year, our government began collaborating with Germany. I begged Sophie to marry me so that I could protect her. My family was prominent in Paris; she would have been safe. But she refused. She was afraid she would ruin me. And then after the war, still she refused. She claimed there were too many who were anti-Semitic. She would not marry me, yet she picked my wife for me. I agree with you. Sophie is an extraordinary woman. And she is not my maitresse; she is the owner of my heart.”

We heard the sound of Sophie’s heels clicking down the hall.

M. Duroc clamped his hand around mine fiercely. “You have made happy the heart of an old man.”

And he had disabused mine of some rose-colored sentiments that had begun an insidious creep around my heartstrings. Cranwell had been right. I don’t know why I’d bothered to wager against him. After all, he was the expert in affairs of the heart. To see a couple like the Durocs had given me… what? Encouragement? Hope? Inspiration? To see a couple like Monsieur Duroc and Sophie had left me disillusioned. Sharing a passion is not the same as sharing a life. Anyone could have an affair. Not everyone could use that passion to build a life in common; it was an emotion that existed within a glass dome. Marriage removed the dome, letting that emotion become tempered by life. Anything can exist in a controlled environment. But in the wilderness of life? Only those with the most fortitude. While the sentiment my guests shared was beautiful, I feared it was, in fact, rather ordinary after all.

M. Duroc and Sophie left late the next day. It was as if they wanted to squeeze all the time they could out of their tryst together.

That evening, Cranwell and Lucy sauntered downstairs for dinner. Cranwell finished setting the table and propped himself on a stool at the island. He fiddled with the buttons on his black cashmere cardigan for a while and then with the collar of his black turtleneck.

“So, how about the Pointe du Raz?” Cranwell tried to look innocent, but failed.

“What about it?”

“When do you want to go?”

“It was your bet. Your choice.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?!”

“Do you have something going on?”

I sputtered around the kitchen for a few minutes before I gave in to him. What could I do? We’d made an honest bet. I’d just have to put off running errands until the weekend.

We had mushrooms with thick cream and cassoulet stew, and then tamped it into our stomachs with a citrusy sorbet des agrumes. It was during the espresso that the conversation got more serious.

“You know, Freddie, I have been wanted and needed, but I don’t think I’ve ever been loved.” He plunked two cubes of sugar into his espresso and pursued them around the bottom of the cup with a spoon. “By anyone but God, of course. And my mother. And father.”

“That can’t be true.” After spending hours on the Internet piecing together his love life, I knew he’d had more opportunity than most to find his soul mate.

“Believe me. It’s true.”

“Frankly, I can’t. It’s not like…”

He tilted his eyes toward me and crooked his mouth in a wry smile. “… it’s not like I haven’t had every opportunity.” He played with the wrapper on the chocolate tablet I’d tucked on top of his saucer. Folded it up into a tiny square and then unfolded it. Smoothed it against the island’s top.

Still not buying it, I shrugged. If there’s one thing I’d learned how to do in France, it was shrug.

“There must be something I haven’t figured out yet. Something I’m not doing right.”

“How many dates do you usually go on before you sleep with someone?”

His brow wrinkled. “I don’t know. It depends.” He colored slightly. “Depended.”

“On what?”

He took a sip of espresso, then stirred it around, again, with the spoon. “I don’t know.”

“You must know.” He’d mentioned this before, and for someone so introspective, he was having a difficult time getting his thoughts together.

He took another sip.

“Personality? Common interests? Life goals?”

He refused to look at me.

“Cranwell?”

He snuck a look at me from under his eyebrows. “What about you?”

“What about me what?”

“Wanted, needed, loved?”

“Loved. I was definitely loved by Peter. Loved first, then needed and wanted.” I popped a square of chocolate into my mouth and let it begin to melt. Absorbed its flavor. “I think we’re opposites, Cranwell. You might never have been loved, but I’ve never been the object of anyone’s desire… besides Peter’s.”

At that, he finally lifted his gaze from his espresso. But it settled on me with such intensity that my cheeks were instantly enflamed. “I find that extremely hard to believe.”

The smoke in his eyes was doing strange things to my stomach. And when he shifted his attention from my eyes to my lips, I couldn’t help it: I swallowed the rest of my chocolate in one long gulp. I could hardly find the voice to say, “It’s true.” And after I had said it, my mouth went dry.

So I moistened my lips.

At that, Cranwell’s eyes imploded, and I felt myself drawn with them into his soul.

“I-” I was having difficulty forming a coherent thought.

“In fact, I know it to be false.”

My scalp began to tingle, and I could feel my ears flush. Like a person in quicksand, I grasped at any branch to keep myself from drowning. I did not need, want, a relationship with Cranwell. And why on earth would he be interested in me? It was just more of his flirting. Anyway, he had Severine.

He cleared his throat, but his words were still husky. “It depended on how long it took.”

When I blinked, it broke whatever spell he had cast over me. And I noticed then that we were leaning so far