Chateau of Echoes

island. I bent down to investigate and found myself nose to nose with a dog. A slobbering, pug-nosed Boxer. It was fawn-colored with a jaunty white blotch that covered its nose and curved into its muzzle. The sturdy chest was marked with a blaze of white.

“Ms. Farmer, Lucy.” Cranwell made the introduction with great aplomb.

Lucy was a dog! She licked my face with her large wet tongue, and I couldn’t help myself from grinning, but I managed to wipe it, and the slobber, off my face by the time I straightened to face Cranwell.

He was looking at me innocently, as if finding stray dogs in kitchens was a normal occurrence.

“If she barks-”

“She doesn’t bark.”

“If she tries to chew my furniture-”

“She won’t.”

“If she even starts to go-”

“She doesn’t. Not in the house.”

We stared at each other for a long moment before being distracted by Severine, who had climbed off her stool and was down on all fours making cooing sounds at Lucy. Dogs or babies-the French will go crazy for either. But apparently, Lucy wasn’t crazy about Severine. She growled and pushed herself farther beneath the island.

“Fine. She can stay.”

“She prefers beef.”

“Really.” I scowled at the beast. “I only make one meal. The rule for her is the same for you.” I fixed Cranwell with my most withering glare. “You eat what I cook, or you go hungry.” I gathered my dignity and stalked up the stairs to my room.

Severine’s voice floated up the stairs behind me. “You are not to worry. She is really very good cook.”

Severine knew enough about my routine to be able to find lunch for Cranwell in the refrigerator and warm it for him. My other two guests would be out of the chateau until the evening. For myself, I decided to skip the noon meal. I just didn’t feel hungry.

I did, however, feel like a run. I’ve never been accused of being wiry, but I’m slender. And running every other day ensured I stayed that way. I changed into a jogging top and shorts, cinched my shoes on, and galloped down the stairs and out the front door. I jogged slowly down the drive, my feet sliding slightly backward as I pushed off the gravel with every step. But as I turned right, toward the forest, onto my well-trod path, I found my stride. I ran, savoring the scent of the forest and the soil. I wound through the trees and then burst out into a meadow. Alix’s meadow. My halfway point. I’m an out-and-back runner. The meadow was at exactly 1.5 miles.

As I pushed through the grasses toward its middle, a sparrow-hawk streaked out of the forest from the opposite side. I saw its gray wings flap once. Twice. Its white and brown mottled body torpedoed toward the ground. It snapped up a mouse without even slowing its flight and rose, triumphant, into the cornflower blue sky.

Having jogged a wide loop in the middle of the meadow, I sped back toward the chateau. With a mind refreshed, I looked forward to an afternoon of working in my garden and cooking. As soon as I saw a glimpse of the drive, I increased my speed, breaking into a full sprint once I touched the gravel. At the front gate, I slowed down and did three circles around the chateau, gradually easing into a walk. On my last circle, I heard a call from above. I looked up to see Cranwell leaning out his window.

I waved and made sure I didn’t slow a step.

That was the third time the man had intruded upon my life that day.

It was a bad sign.

Without changing clothes, I went straight from my run to the garden. I was merciless with the weeds that afternoon. Just before 2:00, when I usually started working on dinner, I turned to my border of flowers to decide what to cut for the front entry. I had already taken several stalks of aster and was debating what to take next. Again, I sensed that irritating, gentle presence. I was hoping that at some point God would just give up and leave me alone. “Would you leave?”

He didn’t.

“Please?”

“Okay. Sorry to disturb you.”

I screamed, and the lavender blooms fell to the ground.

Lucy barked. Once.

“I’m sorry!” Cranwell bent to pick up the asters. “I was just trying to let you know I was here.”

Must the man surprise me every time he happened to be in my vicinity? “It’s just that sometimes…”

“I think the rudbeckias would look nice with these.” The suggestion was gently offered, so I rudely rebuffed it.

“Perovskia.” I hurriedly clipped three stems and grabbed the asters from his hands and began to speed-walk up the flagstone path.

“Don’t forget your spade,” Cranwell called from behind me.

Detouring back into the garden, I found it sunk into the earth beside a row of peas. I must really have been daydreaming to have left it like that. It didn’t occur to me until later to ask how Cranwell had seen it there, covered as it was by the leaves and tendrils of the plant.

Cranwell and Lucy sauntered to the chateau behind me and watched as I arranged the flowers in the vase. He was right. The rudbeckias really would have been the best choice.

Later that afternoon, as I climbed the stairs to my room to rest before dinner, I noticed that someone had added several stalks of Lythrum and a branch or two of spirea. It looked much better than it had before.

Cranwell and Lucy appeared as I was setting the table in the dining hall. He silently armed himself with the forks and knives I’d brought out and followed me as I laid out three plates. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not eat up here.”

That comment surprised me. “Why?”

“It seems as if the other couple staying here is rather…” He grinned.

“Rather.” I nodded in agreement. “I’ll have Severine bring your dinner up to your room.” I couldn’t blame the man for feeling like a third wheel.

“We-Lucy and I-could always just eat with you.” He looked at me from under his dark eyebrows, imploring.

How come brown eyes can’t be just brown? Why do they have to include such fascinating shades of honey and amber, fawn and walnut?

“In the kitchen?”

“Isn’t that where you eat?”

“Yes.” But it’s also where I unwind. I put on a CD, read a book, enjoy my food. I have a routine. A routine that I like. Even Severine eats in her own room.

“You could explain to me what the chateau was like when she lived here.”

She. Alix. It defied explanation how a centuries-dead person could have continued to cause so many complications in my life.

“I need to know so that I can start to write.”

Anything to get him out of my life as quickly as possible. “Of course. Come down at seven.”

My reward for surrender was a wink.

I hate men who wink.

Cranwell and Lucy appeared promptly at seven. He’d just taken a shower: His hair was slicked back and he emanated a masculine scent of soap and woodsy aftershave. In spite of myself, I breathed it in as hungrily as the scent of fresh-baked bread.

He smiled what I might have labeled a shy smile had I not been better informed of his character.

On a stool, at the island, he watched as I took plates of eggplant bruschetta out of the oven, and napped them with Mediterranean vinaigrette.

Bending down, I set a bowl of raw cubes of steak in front of Lucy. She eyed me, then leaned toward the bowl and swallowed them whole. She must have, because she could not have chewed them in the thirty seconds it took the meat to disappear.