Invitation to Provence(53)
“Hummph.” Haigh went back to arranging triangles of phyllo pastry on a wooden chopping board. “You interested in her, then?”
“Let’s say we have some unresolved issues.”
Haigh snorted again. “Call it what you will, the result is the same. Anyhow, she’s taking a stroll around the garden. You might find her out by the lake.”
Jake gave Haigh a hearty slap on his back that sent his bits of pastry flying and brought irritated curses down on his head, but he was smiling as he jogged down the grassy path to the lake. The sun was high in the sky by now and the sweeping chestnut branches cast fluttering shadows at his feet. At the end of the shady tunnel the lake glittered green, and he recalled when he was a boy, running down here to catch a glimpse of Rafaella, hoping to spend time in her company, to listen to her stories of the Marten family, to hear her silvery laugh, to bask in her life-giving glow, and to melt inside when her Mediterranean-blue eyes looked into his.
Yet the woman he had married had been completely different from Rafaella. Amanda was a shy girl, quiet and delicately pretty, an academic with aims to become a professor of English, preferably at someplace like Princeton.
Jake stopped. He put his hands against a massive tree, stretching his tight hamstrings. He was a good runner, could still do a marathon with ease, though he no longer finished in the first dozen. Still, not bad for forty-four.
He straightened up and saw Franny on the red bridge, leaning over the rail, gazing into the greenish water. He walked the last few yards and stood beside her. She glanced over her shoulder at him, then went back to studying the carp darting under the bridge. For a long minute neither of them spoke.
Finally he said, “I’m sorry, Franny. I know what you think, but I was caught in a dilemma. I couldn’t tell you the real reason I wanted to meet you because I would have been breaking Rafaella’s trust. The invitation was to be her surprise.” Franny turned her shoulder away from him. “I apologize,” he added humbly. “I know what you must be thinking, that I used you, took advantage of you, but that’s not the way it was. I liked you, Franny Marten, the minute I saw you telling off Marmalade’s owner. I liked your spirit, I liked your independence. I knew how tough your life had been, how dedicated you were. And when I found out how deeply you cared about your animals, I liked you even more.”
He sighed, not knowing if she was even listening. “When you took such good care of my ankle, I felt just like the German shepherd whose life you saved. And I liked it, I like the way you were concerned about me, the way you cared.”
He put his hand on her shoulder but Franny shrugged it away. She moved two steps along the bridge. He followed. She frowned and walked briskly over the bridge to the gazebo, where she slumped onto the old blue sofa, twisting her head round so she could gaze at the water.
Jake pulled up a chair. He sat opposite, leaning forward elbows on his knees. He held a white rose he’d picked from the bushes that grew so lavishly around the gazebo.
“Franny,” he said after a few minutes of tense silence, “are you ever going to speak to me again?”
“No,” she said.
Baffled, Jake stared at the back of her blond head. He couldn’t blame her. After all, she barely knew him, and certainly knew nothing about him, except what he’d told her about the cabin and about Criminal. To her, he was a man who’d conned his way into her life and into her bed. He thought he’d better do something about it, even though he hated talking about himself. He’d never revealed his wounds and his fears to anyone, but if he wanted her, that was what he had to do.
42
HE SAT QUIETLY looking at her, wanting to stroke her long hair back so he could look into her face, but he knew she wouldn’t allow it. All he could do was try to explain who he was. “When I was sixteen,” he said, “I came to live here at the chateau and met Rafaella. She was my father’s lover and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I was the most bitterly lonely kid you’d ever meet, living in my dreams and hopes of escape from the hacienda, rekindled every time Lucas, my father, came home. But he didn’t come to be with me, he only came to rustle up some fresh polo ponies for his rich customers.
“Then when I was sixteen, Lucas finally realized I was ignorant. I guess he thought he’d better do something about me, and typically he dumped me on Rafaella, then left us both to get on with it while he traveled the world playing polo. And he played well, a ten scorer, the highest, one of the best in the world. Of course I can’t blame him for wanting to pursue his career, but I do blame him for forgetting he had a son, and also for what he did to Rafaella.”
Jake eyed Franny’s indifferent back. He wasn’t even sure if she was listening, but he needed to tell her. And he was telling her things he had never told anyone else, not even Rafaella, who knew who he was in his soul. Nor Amanda, whose personal philosophy had been that the past was the past, never to be retold, and they should live for the moment.
“Rafaella saw a lonely boy who didn’t know who he was or where he was going in life,” he said, speaking quietly. “The first time she saw me, she opened her arms and kissed me. I tell you, Franny, I thought I would die from that kiss, though it was nothing more than a gentle, affectionate embrace. I was in love with her from that moment on. I would have done anything for her, died for her, even. And I still would. Which is why I kept secret about her invitation and also why I had to let her know the truth about Alain and finally get him out of her life.”