Invitation to Provence(65)



As they walked through the big old house he’d glanced around him, stopping to admire the old silver candelabra on the polished rosewood dining table. He touched it, loving it with his eyes and his hands. “I’ve never been anywhere like this before,” he said. “This house has a history. It’s wonderful. It feels happy here. Alive.”

Rafaella nodded. “That’s the way I’ve always felt about the chateau. Later I’ll tell you its story. Then I’ll show you the winery and explain how we make wine and I’ll show you the stables, and we’ll get you a horse because I think perhaps the ones we have, except for your father’s own horse, might not be up to your standards. And then you will meet my sons.”

She had turned to look at him and he’d gazed back into her eyes. He had that same intense, unsettling look his father had, and she knew that one day he too would have the ability to be a heartbreaker.

“You make me very welcome,” he said awkwardly.

She reached up—he was a tall young man—and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You will always be welcome, Jake,” she’d said.

Of course Rafaella knew that Jake had fallen in love with her. How could she not, when his eyes followed her everywhere and he somehow always seemed to be where she was, lurking within sight, throwing the ball for the dogs, grooming his horse, hanging about on the terrace? Rafaella thought he was as adorable as a puppy.

Alain, home for a couple of months for the holidays, made no bones about the fact that he resented Jake, but then he also resented Lucas. Rafaella understood, but as always, Alain lived his own life. On the other hand, Felix liked Jake. He went out of his way to make him feel at home, though not exactly his “friend” because Felix did not have friends, and besides he considered Jake just a kid. But he didn’t talk down to him and he took him around the winery and explained how the vendange worked. He even allowed him into his room to see his collection of model race cars. Jake and Felix always respected each other, even though they did not understand each other, and Rafaella had appreciated that.

Jake never asked Rafaella about her relationship with his father. He never asked whether they would marry, but then Rafaella had never asked that question, either. She thought now, as she fell asleep, that perhaps she’d been too afraid to find out the answer.



AND NOW LIFE HAD come full circle. Jake was “home” again, and the filigree white gazebo was welcoming a new pair of lovers.





50





CLARE WAS FIRST UP the next morning. She threw on a short denim skirt, a white shirt, and sneakers then stepped outside into the corridor. Both Franny and Little Blue’s doors were shut and she decided she’d better not wake them.

Downstairs everything was silent, though she suspected Haigh was up, after all it was after ten o’clock. She decided against disturbing him too, figuring he’d be in one of his huffy moods after the late night, and headed outside instead.

She ambled down the long straight driveway, her sneakered feet crunching on the gravel, sniffing the sharp cypressy scent that reminded her of the pinewoods back home. Soon she was out in the narrow lane that followed the perimeter wall of the chateau’s grounds. The banks were high with wildflowers whose names she did not know, blue and purple and the yellow of the sun itself and she picked a few, feeling like a kid again, when she would pick field flowers and put them in a jam jar of water and watch them rapidly wilt. Birds sang and the morning air was clean and winey, the way city air never was.

She told herself it was mere coincidence that she ended up in the village square, waving good morning to Monsieur Allier who was busy attaching hand-chalked price tags to his courgettes and melons. “B’jour, mademoiselle,” he called, “?a va bien?” Smiling, she called back, “Bien, merci, Monsieur Allier, et vous?”

She headed purposefully across the cobblestones to the Café des Colombes. A good strong cup of coffee was what she needed, and also, hopefully this morning, a couple of croissants. A chat with Laurent Jarré would be kind of amusing too, or was he the real reason she was there?

Putting that stray thought to the back of her mind, Clare bounced up the steps onto the terrace and strode into the café, a smile already on her face. But Jarré wasn’t there. She walked around the back of the zinc counter, inspected the coffee machine and poured herself a cup. She helped herself to sugar which came wrapped as tiny sausages in fancy pink and white paper and strode back onto the terrace, picking up a well-thumbed copy of yesterday’s French newspaper as she went. Installed at a shady table under the awning with her feet propped on a chair, she sipped the coffee, flicking through the incomprehensible newspaper, waiting.

She didn’t have to wait long. Jarré appeared from the garden behind the café carrying a straw basket piled with greenery. He stopped in his tracks and his dark eyes grew even darker when he saw her. Clare leaned back in her chair, looking over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow cocked.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Jarré,” she said, but there was an impish curl to her lips as she emphasized the Monsieur. “That is, if I can still call the man I danced with so many times last night ‘Monsieur’ ” .

Flustered, he said quickly in French. “It is the polite way in our village, mademoiselle.”

Clare unraveled herself from the chair. “Well then, we’ll just have to change that, won’t we? How about I call you Jarré? I like it better than Laurent. And you can call me Clare. Okay?”

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