Chateau of Secrets: A Novel

by Melanie Dobson

  She sighed. Just because she wanted to help didn’t mean she was able to do it.

  Opening up the refrigerator door, she removed a pint of milk and trickled it into a bowl for—

  She looked back down at the kitten as he lapped up the milk. “What should I call you?”

  There were too many silly pet names—Fluffy, Tiger, Smudge. But this kitten was smart, hiding from the Germans. Shadow—that’s what she would call him.

  Then she scanned the contents in the refrigerator. There was a tub of butter, along with salami and cheese. On the counter was a half loaf of pain noir, the hardy black bread their cook liked to bake. It wasn’t much food, but she hoped it would sustain her brother until the Germans left.

  She set the flashlight on the counter and reached for a glass goblet to fill with water when the door to the kitchen swung open. Shadow leapt up on the counter, and she dropped the goblet as she whirled around, glass shattering across the floor.

  Someone stood at the door, but she couldn’t see their face. Sweeping the flashlight off the counter, she shined it toward the door.

  “Émilie,” she said with a sigh, her heart calming. “What are you doing here?”

  The older woman tossed her valise onto the wooden table that stood before the fireplace. “I tried to walk to Cahagnes, but didn’t get far.”

  Gisèle sank back against the counter. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s no matter,” Émilie said, eyeing the salami and cheese on the counter. “I don’t know what is to become of us, but in the meantime, I can help you and your father.”

  “I need you, but . . .”

  Her gaze fell to the kitten lapping milk on the floor. “You better take that cat outside before Vicomte Duchant sees it.”

  “Papa’s not here.”

  Émilie’s eyes welled up with worry. “Where is he?”

  Gisèle swallowed hard, trying to calm the fear that sparked fresh inside her. She didn’t tell Émilie about the soldiers she’d seen marching toward the château. “He was planning to head south, after Philippe and I left, but we didn’t get past Saint-Lô. I spent the night at the Batiers.”

  Émilie glanced back toward the door. “Is his automobile still here?”

  “I haven’t checked the carriage house yet.”

  “What about Philippe?”

  “I don’t know.” She couldn’t consider the possibility that he’d been injured, but the bombs had been falling and people stampeded in their frantic attempt to escape them.

  “It will not be safe for you here,” Émilie said.

  “I’m afraid no place is safe in France.”

  “Perhaps I could stay and help you find your father?”

  “I will go check the carriage house.” Gisèle rapped her knuckles on the stovetop, the loneliness beginning to fade away. “Can you bake some bread tonight?”

  “It doesn’t seem right to bake . . .”

  “I want to take it to those who are hungry.” She paused. “Like my mother used to do.”

  Émilie tilted her head slightly, studying Gisèle’s face. “Your mother used to take food every week to the children in the orphanage.”

  Gisèle nodded. When she was younger, she’d sometimes joined her mother to deliver the baskets of fresh vegetables and bread. “I’m not going to the orphanage.”

  Émilie opened the refrigerator. “But we can pretend you are.”

  Gisèle picked up Shadow. The world outside might be spiraling, but here inside the château, perhaps she and Émilie would find peace. Until Papa or Philippe returned, it would be their refuge in the storm.

  — CHAPTER 8 —

  Saturday night’s dinner was supposed to be a casual affair, but Austin’s mother wore pearls with her ivory cocktail dress and coral cardigan. The table was set with antique silver and crystal goblets and folded napkins on the china plates. I wore the same yellow sundress I’d worn at today’s luncheon, but still I felt underdressed.

  Mr. and Mrs. Vale anchored each end of their dining room table. On one side, Mrs. Vale sipped a mint julep with shaved ice. On the other, Mr. Vale drank his bourbon straight up. I sat across from Austin’s older sister, Lisa, and Austin faced his brother—a sixteen-year-old skateboarder officially named Lawrence, though for some reason unknown to me, everyone called him Vos.

  Lisa’s husband, Wyatt, was absent from the meal. I’d only seen Wyatt twice in the year since I began dating Austin, but in his absence Mrs. Vale touted his successes as a busy executive, as if the family could somehow take credit for his accolades.

  Marissa had tried to talk me out of coming tonight, tempting me with an evening out at Tarrant’s instead to celebrate the end of the school year. Marissa thought I spent way too much time pandering to Austin and his campaign. Before he proposed, she’d tried to talk me into breaking up with him, saying I should be with someone who loved me much more than Austin ever could. Now that we were engaged, she tolerated him, but sometimes I wondered if an undercurrent of jealousy drove her to dislike him. Still I missed hanging out with my best friend. I’d asked her to celebrate at the gala with me last night, but she declined. Even though we were on the phone, I knew the exact moment she’d rolled her eyes.

  “A gala is work,” she informed me. “You need an official ‘Hooray—summer is finally here’ party that doesn’t involve politics.”

  I promised to celebrate with her next week, but now I’d have to reschedule. I didn’t need a coordinator for my wedding. I needed one for my life.

  Mrs. Vale cupped her manicured hands and held them out to her daughter. “Please pass the green beans.”

  Lisa reached for the bowl on the sideboard behind her and passed it along. The beans were followed by Virginia ham, rosemary potatoes, and French bread from Patty Wilson’s chain of boutique bakeries.

  Lisa began buttering her bread. “I wish I could go to New York with you on Tuesday.”

  I glanced up at her and then over at Austin, confused. Just an hour ago, after a conversation with both Austin and Olivia, I’d texted my mom with the go-ahead to buy plane tickets. She’d booked me on the first flight out on Tuesday, through New York, but I hadn’t even told Austin it was a done deal.

  Lisa smiled at me as if she was conspiring. “We could storm Fifth Avenue together in search of your trousseau.”

  “I won’t have time . . .”

  Lisa glanced at Austin. “Does Starla still own a shop in Manhattan?”

  He choked on his bite of ham.

  I poked my fork into a potato. “Who’s Starla?”

  Austin took a long sip of water, recovering before he replied. “An old family friend.”

  I turned back to Lisa. “I’m only flying through New York.”

  Now Lisa seemed confused. “Aren’t you going with Austin to the fund-raiser?”

  I put down my fork—I didn’t know anything about a fund-raiser.

  Austin lifted his glass of sweet tea. “Chloe’s leaving for France on Tuesday.”

  In his ambiguity, it sounded as if I were going on vacation.

  Mrs. Vale took the potatoes from Lisa. “Why in the world are you going to France?”

  “I think it’s fantastic,” Lisa said. “You can storm the shops in Paris instead.”

  Austin winked at me. “An excellent idea.”

  “Perhaps I will,” I said, trying to match my voice with the lightness in his, but I wasn’t letting him off the hook. I’d wait and ask about the fund-raiser when we were alone—there was no sense in pointing out my ignorance in front of his entire family.

  Mrs. Vale dished a small serving of potatoes onto her plate. “Austin tells us the wedding plans are going well.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

  Vos snorted at my formality, but even after a year of dating Austin, I wasn’t quite sure what to call her. Mrs. Vale didn’t sound right. Neither did Katherine. Austin and Lisa called her Mother, but I figured I needed an invite to use that title. And even if she suggested it, I wasn’t sur
e I could say the word. Katherine Vale was nothing like my mother. For the moment, I was sticking with ma’am.

  “Lisa can help you finalize the décor for your reception. She has excellent taste.”

  “Mother!” Lisa sputtered. “Chloe has wonderful taste too.”

  If Mrs. Vale had been sitting beside me, I was certain she would have patted my hand, but instead she indulged me with a strained smile. “I’m sure you do, dear, but it’s good to rely on the experts for something as big as this.”

  Austin reached for my hand instead, as if his touch would erase her insult.

  “Patty Wilson told me she will make your cake,” Mrs. Vale said.

  I glanced at Austin. “But my mother was planning—”

  “For heaven’s sake, Katherine,” Mr. Vale interrupted, “it’s her wedding. Let her choose who makes the cake.”

  Austin looked at his dad. “Patty and Robert are some of our largest contributors.”

  “And they will continue to contribute, even if Patty doesn’t bake your damn cake,” Mr. Vale said. “Robert has much bigger reasons to have you in office than to secure business for his wife.”

  Mrs. Vale stabbed one of her potatoes. “But Patty makes the best cakes in Richmond.”

  Heat rose to my face. It was one thing to insult me, quite another to insult my mother. “I don’t think—”

  Austin squeezed my hand a bit harder than necessary. “Perhaps this isn’t the right time to have this discussion.”

  “It’s only a cake,” Vos said as he rolled his eyes. “I’ll make it.”

  I slowly chewed a piece of the ham. While I loved Austin, dinners like these might drive me mad. Perhaps after the wedding I could use whatever excuse Wyatt had contrived to go AWOL. In my absence, perhaps Mrs. Vale would begin to sing my praises.

  The doorbell rang, and the housekeeper bustled down the hall to the door. Seconds later, the former runner-up for Miss Virginia—Megan Browning—stepped onto a different kind of stage, the theater of the Vale family dining room. Her blond hair was smoothed back into a neat ponytail and she wore a fitted shirt over black leggings. Even though she was almost twice his age, Vos gawked at her.

  Megan shifted her briefcase into her left hand, breaking the awkward silence. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner.”

  Mr. Vale threw his napkin onto the table and pushed back his chair. “Megan’s helping me write an opinion for Monday morning.”

  “But you’ve hardly eaten . . . ,” Mrs. Vale said.

  He lifted his plate from the table. “I’ll finish in my office.”

  Vos leaned slightly to watch Megan’s backside as she disappeared down the hall.

  “Lawrence,” Mrs. Vale snapped from the other end of the table. “Pass the potatoes.”

  Vos glanced away long enough to retrieve the silver platter in front of him and pass it along to his mother. Mrs. Vale added another spoonful of potatoes to the pile already on her plate.

  I shifted uncomfortably on the hard seat. The family liked to pretend Justice Vale wasn’t sleeping with his law clerk, and I tried to ignore this fact with the rest of them. The thought made me queasy. Megan had graduated from George Mason University two years ago with her degree in law, but I doubted Justice Vale had hired her for the degree. Silently I wondered how much he paid her to assist him.

  I glanced over at Mrs. Vale and her lips were pressed into a tight line. How could she live like this? How could they all continue to pretend? My parents had been married for thirty-two years, but if my mom thought Dad was cheating, she would never let him—and certainly not the woman he was sleeping with—back into our home.

  Mrs. Vale stood and clapped her hands. “Who’s ready for dessert?”

  I looked down at my plate. Like the rest of the family, I’d barely begun to eat, but she left us no choice. “I’ll help you clear the dishes,” I said as I stood.

  Twenty minutes later, Austin and I leaned against the banister of their deck, looking down at the lights of Richmond.

  He reached for my hand. “You know I love you.”

  “I do, but I wish you’d told me about the fund-raiser in New York.”

  He covered my hand with his. “I thought I did.”

  “I would have remembered—”

  “I’m sorry, Chloe. It’s been so crazy.” He squeezed my hand. “I wish you could go with me. It’s a formal dinner and dance at the Plaza.”

  “Are you leaving Tuesday morning?”

  He nodded.

  I smiled at the thought of the two of us indulging in first class together, dreaming about where the future might take us. “Perhaps we can fly together. It would be like stealing away for a whole hour.”

  “I wish we could,” he said, squeezing my hand again. “But my flight’s going into LaGuardia.”

  I sighed. I had to go through John F. Kennedy for my connection to Paris.

  “We’ll drive to the airport together,” he promised. “Just the two of us.”

  I heard Megan’s laughter below the patio, and my stomach churned. I inched my hand away from his. “How can you tolerate your father’s—behavior?”

  Austin leaned forward, his arms resting on the banister, his voice low. “Dad will do what he wants to do.”

  “But he’s cheating on your mom,” I said, my voice clipped. I didn’t care if Megan or Justice Vale or anyone else in the family heard me.

  “It’s not really cheating if Mom knows.”

  “That’s disgusting, Austin. He’s on Virginia’s supreme court, for heaven’s sake. He’s supposed to be a pillar of all that is right.”

  He stood up, pulling me close. “It’s how they do their marriage.”

  “It’s not how we will do our marriage,” I said, melting into him.

  “We’ll be more like your parents.” He stroked my arm. “I need you, Chloe. You know that, don’t you?”

  “You just need a wife . . . ,” I said, teasing him.

  He kissed the top of my head. “You’re stuck with me for life, for better or worse.”

  “Mostly better, I hope.”

  He pulled me in front of him, and I leaned back against his chest. “It will be the best,” he promised.

  And I believed him.

  Chapter 9

  Rain pecked at the dozen panes on Gisèle’s bedroom window, and she pressed her nose to the glass, trying to spot any Germans patrolling the river valley below, but the valley was still. Her gaze went up to the gray sky and then to the tower of Saint-Lô’s cathedral.

  She’d slept little last night. The family’s Delahaye was sitting in the old carriage house that had been remodeled as a garage, but there was no sign of her father. She tried to cling to the hope that Philippe had returned after the bombing and taken Papa away with him. Perhaps they were both searching for her. Once the telephone lines were restored, she told herself, both Papa and Philippe would call.

  Still, she felt scattered, not knowing whether she should stay and wait for Papa and Philippe or go look for them. Life, it seemed, had tipped over on its side, cracking into tiny pieces. Somehow she had to fit it back together again.

  After she went to the carriage house, she visited the chapelle—both to pray and to leave the black bread and a letter for Michel on the ledge, telling him all that had transpired. If he hadn’t left yet, she would take him Émilie’s food this morning.

  Last night she’d taken a hot bath with lavender bath salts, cleaned her wounds, and washed her hair with the honey-scented shampoo her mother had loved before setting her hair with curlers. She had blue eyes, like her mother, but the skin under her eyes was tinted purple from her restless night.

  This morning she splashed water on her face and quickly powdered her nose and cheeks before studying herself in the washroom mirror. It seemed trivial to be concerned with her appearance, but her mother would have told her to face this day—and any Germans in it—with dignity. She’d been born into an aristocratic family, Mother would have said, and the enemy would ne
ver respect the lineage of her family if she didn’t respect herself.

  She powdered her face again.

  Émilie was already bustling in the kitchen, and Gisèle drank a cup of coffee before eating the last slice of bread, slathered with jelly made from the hawthorn berries. As the rain drizzled down the window, the two women kneaded the rye and wheat flour together to make four more loaves of bread.

  It felt strange to be in the kitchen, working alongside the woman who’d been her mother’s favorite servant. The camaraderie eased the loneliness in her heart, and Émilie seemed to be enjoying her company as well.

  Émilie talked about her father, who’d worked at the PalaisRoyal until his death in 1934, and about her sister and nephews, who lived in Cahagnes. They both talked of the family members they’d lost a little more than twenty years ago, when France defeated Germany during the Great War.

  Gisèle had been born only three months before the Great War ended, so she only knew the stories her parents told her, but Émilie remembered well the horrors of that war, the millions of young men France lost to the battles, the blood of their countrymen spilling over French soil.

  “We must defeat the Germans quickly this time,” Émilie said as she pounded the dough in front of her.

  Gisèle mimicked the way Émilie pounded her bread. “What will happen if we don’t defeat them?”

  She sighed. “I fear this Hitler will make us pay dearly for the past.”

  “Half of France wasn’t even alive during the Great War.”

  “It won’t matter to him.”

  Gisèle had read the first part of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf when she was at the university. One of her professors extolled the honesty of Hitler’s struggle, the fervor of his words, but the hatred in the man’s writing—his soul—appalled her. Hitler asserted that the Aryan race—the blond-haired and blue-eyed men and women—was elite. The Jews were parasites, dirty, wily, repulsive, liars. The mortal enemy of the master race.

  She couldn’t finish reading the book.

  Hitler might make the French pay for the Great War, but there was something more sinister about the man than revenge.