Chateau of Secrets: A Novel

by Melanie Dobson

  She pointed left. “There’s a small lake over there, but the path is overgrown.”

  I heaved my suitcase out of the back of the station wagon and set it upright on the gravel. The pewter-colored cover seemed to be made of titanium, and in my rush to get to France, I’d brought a hodgepodge of stuff—shorts and T-shirts, skirts, dress pants for the interview, even an evening dress, just in case I had a night out in Paris.

  When I arrived at the train station in Carentan, a fellow passenger took pity on me and my mammoth bag, carrying it down to the platform. Rolling it to Marguerite’s waiting car had been a simple affair, but it had taken both of us to lift it into her car. Now I eyed the three floors of the château, wondering on which floor I would find my room.

  “Are you certain you don’t want to stay with us in the farmhouse?” Marguerite asked.

  I thanked her and then reassured her that I wanted to sleep in the house where my grandmother had lived.

  “I don’t think anyone has slept here in several years, but I’ve cleaned the main rooms for you.”

  A new thought flashed into my head, one I should have considered before I insisted on staying in the house. “What about the utilities?”

  “We’ve kept on the water and electricity, but there’s nothing fancy like Wi-Fi.”

  “That’s okay.” I had Internet access on my phone and iPad, but the less connection I had to the outside world, probably the better.

  Marguerite glanced down at the behemoth of a suitcase. “My husband can carry that up the stairs for you.”

  “There’s no need for him to help—” I started to say. Her eyebrows rose in question as she slid her cell phone out of her purse, and I realized the ridiculousness of my words. “I would be grateful for it.”

  When she lifted her phone to her ear, I leaned back against the car. I was supposed to be here two full days before the arrival of Riley Holtz to overcome my jet lag and acquaint myself with the château, but with the delay in my flight, it was already Thursday. He would be here tomorrow.

  My body was exhausted. My broken heart felt numb. How was I supposed to smile for his camera?

  Being here, though, was much better than being at home. My phone hummed and I pulled it out of my purse. This time Olivia was texting me.

  Call me, Chloe! We will work this out before the wedding.

  My harsh laugh earned me a look of concern from Marguerite, as if she were trying to determine my mental capabilities. I mustered a smile. Olivia was a campaign manager, not a counselor, and there was nothing for her or us to work out.

  I texted back. The wedding is off!

  A flood of texts followed, begging me to call her, telling me the wedding could be postponed, not canceled. But standing outside Austin’s room at the Plaza, my fingers pressed against my phone, I had made my decision not to overlook Austin’s liaisons now or in the future. No matter what Olivia said, I would never marry Austin. The publicity might be messy, but I had no doubt that she had cleaned up bigger messes in the past.

  If only Olivia would insist Austin clean this mess up on his own. Perhaps he would change his behavior.

  Marguerite closed her flip phone, and I powered mine down. “You need to get some rest,” she said.

  I reached for the handle of my suitcase. “I’d like to sleep in my grandmother’s room.”

  “I don’t know which room was hers, but we’ve set you up in the master suite for tonight.” She pointed at my bag. “Pierre said he will carry it up to the second floor.”

  Seconds later, a man came rushing toward us, a grasshopper sort of fellow—tall and thin with a white button-down shirt streaked with dirt and underarms soaked with perspiration. The grin spread across his thin lips was so friendly, I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

  Marguerite introduced us, and Pierre pumped my hand with enthusiasm. “It is a pleasure to meet you. A real pleasure.”

  “You as well.”

  He kept shaking my hand. “I hope you find the house to your liking.”

  “I’m sure I will like it very much.”

  Pierre’s smile started to fade when he looked down at my suitcase and then it dissolved altogether when he tried to pick it up. He set it back on the gravel. “Did you pack a refrigerator?”

  I smiled again. “I thought it might come in handy . . .”

  He tried to lift it again. “Perhaps you packed two.”

  Marguerite scolded him. “Stop harassing her.”

  He wiped the sweat from his brow and heaved the suitcase off the ground before he lugged it across the stone pavers. Marguerite reached for the iron handle on the front door and opened it for him.

  I hadn’t known what to expect, but my mouth gaped open when I stepped into the entryway of the house. The home might have been vacant, but the elaborate décor remained in residence. In front of me, the hall rose three stories, with a giant tapestry draped over an arched doorway on my right. Beside it, a staircase spiraled up to balconies on the second and then third landing. The marble floors were adorned with oriental rugs of rich indigo, blood red, and deep evergreen.

  For a moment, it felt as if I were back in the Plaza.

  Marguerite flipped a switch and light cascaded down from a wrought-iron chandelier with electric candles. “The salon is through the arch,” she said before pointing left. “And the kitchen is stocked—”

  “The woman doesn’t need food,” Pierre teased. “She carries a refrigerator with her.”

  Marguerite ignored him. “I’ll bring you up a dinner tray.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  While Pierre fiddled with something in the kitchen, Marguerite gave me a quick tour of the rest of the house. There were a total of ten bedrooms on the upper levels, some with furnishings, others filled with boxes, two completely empty. Almost all of them were covered with a layer of dust.

  On the main floor, the windows in the salon overlooked a lush valley and river. On the other side was a grassy hill topped with trees.

  The salon, Marguerite said, could be transformed into a ballroom or a dining hall, and then she showed me the library, an office tucked into a turret, the drawing room, and a kitchen with a medieval fireplace. I asked Marguerite if I could try my hand at cooking over the fireplace. She said she didn’t know—I would have to ask my dad.

  Behind the kitchen was a small door, and I followed her downstairs into a wine cellar. There were circular brick bins on the walls that reminded me of a red-flecked honeycomb and large casks of wine stacked on the far end of the wall.

  “It used to be a prison,” Marguerite said. “Until the Duchants turned it into a wine cellar.”

  I rubbed my arms. “It feels strange down here.”

  She flicked off the lights. “The ghosts refuse to leave this place.”

  I hurried back up the stairs. That’s just what I needed in the middle of the night, to be thinking about the ghosts.

  Pierre pulled and I pushed my suitcase up the winding stairs of the turret. Then I followed him into a large room in one of the turrets, complete with a sofa, desk, and canopied bed with wrought-iron posts. Exposed rafters lined the ceiling and a dozen narrow windows lined the walls. Pierre set my suitcase near the armoire, and with a quick nod, he scurried back through the door as if he was worried I might ask him to lift something else. When he was gone, I stepped toward one of the windows to see the view, but all I saw were tree limbs and gray shadows from the fleeing sun.

  Sinking back into the cushions of the sofa, I stared up at the rafters. The past twenty-four hours had been torture—trying to keep myself from melting down as I traveled across the ocean. Now I had no plane to catch, no taxi to find, no train to ride. And no one around to see me cry.

  Tears drenched my cheeks.

  I hated this feeling, this not knowing who I was without Austin Vale. I had no idea where I was going. For an entire year, my identity had been entwined with his, and now—now I felt like a lost soul.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t
have gotten on the plane to France—I could have gone to my parents’ house on the lake and hidden away for a few weeks. But Austin would have found me there in days, if not hours, and I couldn’t face him or my family or friends yet. My family would be kind, telling me things like Austin didn’t deserve me or someone better would come along, but I didn’t want to hear that. The problem was, I had no idea what I wanted.

  The aching in my heart returned, and I lay on the bed, my arms splayed out on both sides.

  Austin swooped into my life last summer with an intensity that swept me away, a handsome, charming politician who seemed to be as fascinated by me as I’d been by him.

  Perhaps he had found me attractive early on. He certainly acted as if he had, though he rarely pushed the limits of the boundaries we’d set for our physical relationship. I thought he was respecting my desire to wait until we married, but really he hadn’t needed to be physical with me. Instead he needed the other assets I brought to the table as his fiancée and wife.

  The daughter of a wealthy businessman who contributed heavily to his campaign and would pass along a considerable inheritance to his only daughter and son-in-law.

  The granddaughter of a World War II hero.

  The elementary schoolteacher willing to give up her career to tout his education reform and raise his children.

  The woman who would dote on Austin and smile at dinners and dances and golf tournaments for decades to come.

  The wife who would entertain herself while her husband took weekend trips to New York.

  I felt sick.

  Had Austin seen dollar signs when he looked into my eyes? Had he and Olivia compiled lists of single women in Richmond and narrowed it down to the final three? The morning we’d met in the coffee shop, when he’d spilled my latte . . .

  The memory pricked my mind, clearing the fog.

  That was why our engagement had been so swift. He and Olivia must have orchestrated our meeting.

  A single man his age would probably never be voted in as governor, especially when he was running against an older, much wiser family man. The past year had been a façade concocted by him and Olivia and maybe even Starla to make the media think he was a mature man committed to government and family, and I—

  I was nothing but a campaign pawn in order to get him elected.

  When I’d agreed to his proposal of marriage, Olivia had rolled me out with great fanfare to the media, and I’d been blinded by all the lights, painfully ignorant of the casting call for a governor’s wife. It was as if I were a contestant on The Bachelor but no one bothered to tell me about the invisible strings pulling my arms and legs and even my mouth.

  What was Austin planning to do with me postelection? Show me off like a horse in an arena? Olivia could braid my hair and decorate my tail with ribbons and parade me around for everyone to see. Then they’d probably put me back in the stall until the next show.

  Whether or not he won the governor’s house—and whether or not he married another Virginia girl—I suspected Austin would continue to indulge in his trips to New York.

  A light blinked outside the window, and it took me a moment to realize that stars had appeared. The château, in all its glory, was a lonely place, and I felt the pangs of loneliness along with the ghosts of the past.

  But I couldn’t wallow in my pain. I had to press through it.

  My eyes grew heavy.

  This trip was no longer a favor for Austin—I didn’t care one bit about the documentary and its benefit to his campaign. But I was in France and curious about my roots, curious about the echo of stories in the château, curious about the girl Mémé thought she’d left behind.

  I had intended to stay awake until Marguerite brought up a tray of food, but if she knocked, I never heard her. Exhaustion won out over my hunger, and I drifted off into blessed sleep.

  Tomorrow I would search for answers.

  Chapter 21

  Gisèle and the boy scuttled through a pair of lofty iron gates, into a grassy courtyard. Three children played on a metal merry-go-round, but when she and the boy approached, the children raced inside the manor.

  It didn’t deter Gisèle. With the boy’s hand cocooned inside hers, she led him to the back of the house and knocked on the wooden door. The curtain lifted in a window by the door, and the eyes of a little girl looked back at her. Gisèle waved at the girl, and moments later, the curtain fell back into place, the lock on the door sliding back.

  A nun in a black habit and white veil answered Gisèle’s knock. She looked like she was in her midthirties, her face pale without any makeup, her smile kind. Behind her, dozens of children crowded around roughly hewn tables, eating from tin bowls.

  The nun’s gaze rested on the little boy. “My name is Sister Beatrice.”

  He gave her a slight nod.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  When he didn’t respond, Gisèle inched him forward. “He’s hungry.”

  The nun put her hand on his shoulder. “One of my sisters will get you some stew.”

  The boy hesitated until another child came forward and led him to a table.

  “Where did you find him?” Sister Beatrice whispered.

  “He was in Saint-Lô. His parents . . .” She stepped into the house beside Sister Beatrice. “They can no longer care for him.”

  The nun watched him sit with the others. “He is one of God’s children,” she said, resolute.

  “He is,” Gisèle whispered. Though he no longer wore his star. Gisèle looked back at Sister Beatrice. “My mother was Vicomtesse Duchant from the Château d’Epines. She used to bring food for the children here.”

  Sister Beatrice smiled. “I remember your mother well. You are blessed with her eyes . . . and her heart.”

  The nun’s words warmed her, but the woman had no idea of the fear that clutched at—poisoned—her heart as well.

  “Can this child stay with the others, until his parents return for him?”

  Sister Beatrice stepped closer to her. “Why don’t you take him home?”

  The gunshots from the forest seemed to echo in her mind. The soldiers were prowling the town and the countryside, searching for members of the resistance. If the Germans found the cell hiding under her house, they might kill all of them, including the child.

  “I fear it won’t be safe for him, so close to town.” She looked across the great room again, at the children finishing their stew. The boy picked up his spoon and began to eat. “All he needs is a place to sleep and something nourishing to eat.”

  Sister Beatrice gently touched her arm. “A child needs more than that.”

  “That’s part of the problem, she said with a sigh. “I don’t know what a child needs.”

  “If his parents were part of the roundup, the police may come looking for him here. And if they find him—” Sister Beatrice’s voice cracked. “The French think it is admirable to keep families together when they send them away, but if his parents are gone, they would send him away by himself.”

  The thought made Gisèle tremble, for André and Nadine and the little girl they adored. “Where are they sending these families?”

  “I’m not certain. Perhaps to one of the work camps.”

  “He is too small. He’d be of no use to them—”

  Sister Beatrice’s voice dipped so low that Gisèle had to strain to hear her. “The Nazis have no patience for people who aren’t useful, especially the Jewish people.”

  Gisèle thought back to some of the bitter reflections she’d read in Mein Kampf, to the deep loathing in the author’s heart. “I don’t understand why Hitler hates the Jews—”

  “It isn’t just Hitler,” Sister Beatrice said. “He is only unifying all those in Europe who think the Jewish people flaunt their wealth.”

  The only Jewish people she knew well weren’t wealthy, nor could she imagine Nadine or her parents flaunting the little they did have, but Gisèle understood the misperception. Since childhood, she had borne the
brunt of meanness from people who’d thought the Duchants needed a good dose of humility. “But there aren’t many wealthy Jews in France . . .”

  Sister Beatrice folded one of her hands over the crucifix that hung from her neck. “Others hate the Jewish people because they claim to be God’s chosen people and then others, I’m told, have hatred in their hearts because Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.”

  Gisèle leaned back against the wall. “It’s strange to think that an event that happened almost two thousand years ago could breed such hatred today.”

  This time a whisper of a smile crept up on Sister Beatrice’s lips. “Almost as strange as an event that happened almost two thousand years ago healing lives today.”

  Gisèle rubbed her hands together. “Can I leave this boy with you?”

  Sister Beatrice glanced back at the children.

  “I will bring you food and—”

  Sister Beatrice interrupted her. “You mustn’t bring us any food. In fact, you mustn’t come here anymore, at all. Someone may follow you.”

  “You will take him?’

  “We will take him,” Sister Beatrice replied. “But we aren’t able to care for any more children.”

  A little girl with blond pigtails stepped up beside her, a bowl of stew in her hands. She held it out to Gisèle.

  “Thank you,” Gisèle said, smiling at the child. She ate rapidly, the broth warming her, the vegetables giving her strength. She would need it to pedal back to André and Nadine’s.

  Before Gisèle left, Sister Beatrice took both her hands, and the nun prayed with fervency, pleading with Jesus to protect Saint-Lô’s children from the evil in their midst.

  But Gisèle feared the Spirit of God had already fled Saint-Lô.

  — CHAPTER 22 —

  A breakfast tray fit for the queen of England arrived at my door, a few minutes before eight. This time I heard the knock, and I would have answered it except I was in the midst of trying to wash my long hair under the bathtub’s finicky spigot. The water did indeed work, and for that I was grateful, but it fluctuated from cold to hot as quickly as the polls in Virginia swung between Austin and his opponent.