The Butler(40)

    After they had seen the house and the stables, they walked around for a little while in the overgrown grass. She stumbled over a few hidden rocks.

“The gardening alone will cost a fortune here,” Joachim said from experience. “They’ll need a dozen gardeners, or at least ten good ones. The Cheshire property in Sussex is about this size, which is why the children don’t want to keep it. It’s too much upkeep and expense for them. It would break my heart if a Russian winds up buying that too. The marquess kept it in such good order for his heirs. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that his children might sell it. I always thought they would. They never had the passion for the land that he did. His family had worked for generations to keep the estate intact. That will all change now. Only billionaires and foreigners want these properties now, and can afford them.” Some of the British families gave tours of their homes, and treated them as paying tourist attractions in order to be able to maintain them, but the French had allowed almost anyone to buy them, and often had no choice. Americans had bought them for a while. Then the buyers from Russia and the Middle East moved in, with unlimited money to spend, and more recently Chinese buyers.

    “What are you thinking?” he asked her, as they walked slowly back to the car.

“That it’s a huge project. Audrey was smart not to take it on.”

“And you?” He could see a gleam in her eye, and a distant look as she mulled it over, trying to remember everything they’d just seen, and he had taken dozens of photographs for her to study when she got home.

“I don’t know,” she said, as she got into the car. “I’m tempted to do it. It’s such a challenge and I have nothing else to do here.”

“It could take you two or three years, if the workers run into roadblocks or hidden problems.”

“Money is no object to the owner, but he wants it done fast.”

“I suppose if you pay enough, you can get people to work faster,” Joachim said cautiously, but that wasn’t always true. And the quality of the workmanship might suffer as a result. “It’s a huge commitment, of your time and his money.” She nodded agreement and they left the property in silence. She thought about it all the way back to Paris, and called Audrey when she got home.

“So? What do you think?” Audrey asked her.

“It’s not beautiful now, but it could be.”

“I thought that too,” Audrey confirmed. “Most people can’t see it. He probably got it for a fairly decent price because of that. He wants an answer,” she told Olivia. “And just for the record, my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t do it. I gave you the opportunity, but I have no investment in whether you do it or not.”

    “I love the challenge,” Olivia said in an under-voice, and before she could stop them, like unruly birds, the words flew out on their own. “I’ll do it,” she almost whispered, and then said it with more conviction. “I’ll do it. I’m probably crazy and I might regret it, but I would love to try to make it into something wonderful.”

“I can understand that,” Audrey said. “You’re a lot younger than I am. It makes a difference. A project like that would probably kill me, especially with everything else I’m doing. My hat’s off to you, if you take it on. You could never have done it if you still had the magazine to run,” she reminded her, which made her freedom now seem like more of a gift than a defeat.

“I know. And right now, I’m between jobs or careers or whatever I’m going to do. If I’m ever going to try my hand at something like this, now is the time.”

“You could try your hand at something smaller,” Audrey reminded her. “Something more bite-size. That chateau is one hell of a big bite. But it could launch you on a new and very lucrative career.” She liked Olivia and wanted to help her.

“That’s what makes it exciting,” Olivia said, and thanked her for the referral.

“I’ll pass the word on to Moscow. He has a designer now. He’ll be very pleased.”

“I am too,” Olivia said simply. She was still glowing when she went to the kitchen to find Joachim. He knew the moment he saw her. Her eyes were alight and looked like emeralds, and she was smiling.

“I smell trouble coming,” he said, laughing. “In the form of a three-hundred-year-old chateau. Am I right?”

    She nodded with an impish, mischievous look that made him laugh harder. “I think I can really make it into something beautiful.”

“You probably can,” he said. He had great faith in her, even after the little he’d seen. She had vision and talent, and energy, but he wondered if she had any idea how much work would be involved. She shocked him then with a question she hadn’t dared ask him so far.

“If they hire me to do the project, will you help me?” He stood very still when she asked him. He wanted to turn her down flat, but he didn’t. He just stood there, looking shocked.

He didn’t know what to say at first. There was the obvious answer, and the one she wanted to hear, that he would. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll help you until I get a real job as a butler and go back to England.”

She mulled it over and then nodded. “That’s fair enough. Then I’ll just have to finish it before you find a job. Or keep you locked in the dungeon. There must be one.”