by Alix Nichols
“Which is?”
Darcy lifts a hand, palm up, as if to say, hang on. He turns to Greg, who has just parked the Prius between Raphael’s flashy red Ferrari and another sports car and now bounds toward us.
“Madame Bruel will show you to your room,” he says to Greg. “You’re free until Sunday evening.”
“Merci, Sebastian. I have some friends in Auxerre. It’ll be great to see them.”
“Take the Prius—I’ll be driving the Lamborghini.” Darcy turns back to me. “What’s unique about this castle is that it’s never changed hands. It was built by Chevalier Henri d’Arcy du Grand-Thouars at the end of the sixteenth century.”
“Oh, my God!” I clap my hand to my mouth. “And he still owns it? Is he a ghost? Does he have chains? Can I meet him?”
Darcy’s lips twitch and form that crooked, unpracticed smile of his that I hate because of what it does to my insides.
“What I meant,” he says, “is that the castle has remained in the family. Its current owner is my brother Noah.”
“Is he here? Am I finally going to meet him?”
“No. He—”
“Couldn’t make it,” I finish for Darcy.
Noah never makes it to any party or event organized by his older brothers—not even when said event is held at his own castle. Neither does Darcy’s mother, by the way. But she, at least, has the excuse of living in Nepal.
Darcy’s expression hardens.
“Let me get this straight,” I say to lighten things up. “You don’t own the island, you only co-own the jet and the club, and now you tell me the castle isn’t yours, either.”
“That’s correct.”
I arch an eyebrow. “And here I thought I was snatching a real billionaire.”
“You are.” He smiles again. “I inherited Parfums d’Arcy, which is worth well over a billion. It’s one of Europe’s largest individually owned businesses. Not to mention the trinkets such as the Paris town house and apartments in London and New York.”
The expression of genuine pride on his face is the same as the one I saw on Liviu—Jeanne’s friend’s nine-year-old—last Wednesday. He’d dragged his mom to La Bohème so he could show everyone his new remote control drone.
As the saying goes, the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.
“Oh, good.” I exhale in feigned relief. “I was almost about to call the whole marriage thingy off.”
As we reach the top of the stairs and step inside, a skinny woman in her fifties holds her hand out. “I’m Jacqueline Bruel, the housekeeper.”
I shake her hand. “Diane. Very pleased to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” she says with a sincere smile before pointing to a wide wooden staircase across the foyer. “My office is on the first floor, second door on the left. Knock if you need anything. Or give me a call.”
She turns to Darcy, raising an eyebrow in half question.
“I’ll make sure Diane has your number, Jacqueline,” he says, leading me upstairs.
Unlike the sleek villa on Ninossos and the impeccably kept town house, the castle looks as if it has seen better days. Everything in here is authentic and beautiful—but also threatening to collapse at any moment.
The antique ceiling fixtures will be the first, I’m sure, followed by the creaky floorboards under our feet.
“Needs work, huh?” Darcy says, following my gaze.
I nod.
“I almost approached Chloe a month ago, seeing how tastefully and respectfully she rehabbed La Bohème, but…” He sighs. “This chateau is Noah’s. He needs to at least confirm he wants it restored.”
When we reach the second floor, Darcy opens a door, which groans and nearly unhinges itself in protest, to a spacious room.
“The lord and lady’s chamber,” he says. “Aka our bedroom. The bathroom is two doors to the right.”
I step inside and take in the large four-poster, the exquisite Art Nouveau wardrobes and chests of drawers, and the mildew stains on the walls. The wood floor is covered with beautiful rugs, their blue flower patterns in perfect harmony with the rest of the decor.
I look around for the couch area like the one in the town house, but don’t find one.
Darcy points to a small door between the wardrobes. “There’s an adjacent room right there. Grandpapa Bernard and Grandmaman Colette, who were the last ones to refurbish the castle, slept in separate bedrooms.”
“How clever of them,” I say, my shoulders slacking with relief. “So, who’s around? I saw Raphael’s car outside. Anyone else I know?”
“Genevieve—you met her at his birthday party. We’re also hosting Dr. Muller, the archeologist who manages the Grotto, and the mayor of the village with his spouse. You’ll meet everyone at dinner tonight.”
Ah, I see. The cream of the local society.
What a shame Elorie couldn’t be here today! She had to stay in Paris for her dad’s fiftieth birthday party. But she’s coming over tomorrow morning, and Darcy and I will fetch her from the train station.
I can’t wait.
“The dinner will be served at eight in the great hall, but at four, we all meet in the front yard to visit the cave.” Darcy heads for the little door. “I’ll let you freshen up.”
“What’s the dress code?”
The dos and don’ts of high society go over my head, so I always prefer to ask.
“Casual.” He hesitates for a second and adds, “My casual.”
Ha!
This is Darcy’s way of admitting that what passes for casual in his circles, normal people call dolled up. My casual for midseason consists of well-worn baggy jeans and a roomy sweater. I wore the combo to a couple of informal outings with Darcy’s friends. Only everyone else looked as if they’d read the wrong memo and had dressed for a job interview at Vogue.
When Darcy raised the matter of buying me clothes again a couple of weeks ago, I promised I’d make an effort. And I did. I bought a pair of jeans and two sweaters from a low-cost supermarket.
At least they were new.
In regards to the formal events that require gowns, I’ve found a solution that eliminates an extra expenditure from Darcy or me.
I borrow.
Elorie and I are the same size, and my initial idea was to ask for one or two of her little black dresses that would be perfect for any occasion. But something stopped me. It may have to do with the way Darcy looks at me, especially when I show some skin or wear pants that are a notch tighter than my norm.
It may also have to do with the way my stupid body reacts to those looks.
So instead of Elorie’s sexy LBDs, I picked a few of Manon’s formless gowns she’s kept from her XL days as a reminder of what awaits her if she puts on weight again. Those gowns swallow me up, their thick material creating a shield-like barrier between me and Darcy. They’re my chastity belts of sorts. And while it annoys and saddens me that I need one around Darcy, I’m not taking any risks. I haven’t even moved in with him yet, for crying out loud.
Hmm, I wonder if there’s an online shop that carries a high-tech twenty-first-century version of a real chastity belt… Perhaps I should order one.
Just in case.
Chapter 12
Diane
Dr. Muller, whom I imagined to be an old gentleman with a white beard and a cane, is in fact a pretty woman in her early thirties. With a powerful flashlight in her hand, she gives us a private tour of the Darcy Grotto, a large complex of interconnected caves just a fifteen-minute walk from the castle.
Under normal circumstances, anyone can visit the Grotto even if, like most caves in France, it’s on private land. We follow Dr. Muller through stalactite galleries and halls. Here and there, icicle-like stalactites meet with stalagmite mounds in passionate embraces. They’re called columns, Dr. Muller explains.
We’re headed to the Mammoth Hall, which hosts the oldest prehistoric rock paintings in France.
Dr. Muller says they’
re forty thousand years old.
As we trek behind her, I can’t help thinking she looks like someone you’d expect to tread catwalks, rather than cave galleries, for a living. Her knee-length trench coat and snug little boots do a great job of drawing the eye to her slender and exceptionally well-shaped legs. I bet Darcy is ogling them right now.
Even I—a one hundred percent heterosexual woman—am ogling them right now.
There’s no denying Dr. Muller is the bomb. She’s smart, good-looking, and classy. Unlike the perky me, who doesn’t have a nanogram of class, according to my future ex-husband.
Why didn’t he ask her to be his fake girlfriend?
Maybe he’s reserving her for when the coast is clear of his nemesis and he can have a real relationship with a suitable woman.
“Et voilà,” Dr. Muller says, turning around. “We’ve reached the Mammoth Hall. I invite everyone to study the ceiling and the walls.”
Striking images of mammoths, lions, and reindeer painted in ochre and charcoal adorn the cave. They’re simple and yet perfectly drawn, the animals full of grace and easy to recognize despite minimal detail.
“I don’t see any rabbits or foxes,” Raphael says. “Why’s that?”
Dr. Muller smiles. “The Paleolithic Man didn’t draw the animals he hunted.”
“So these paintings had a ritualistic function?” Genevieve asks.
“We believe so.” Dr. Muller brushes a strand of hair from her face with the elegance of a ballerina. “But the truth is we don’t really know.”
I raise my hand. “Did you find any paintings of people?”
“We found a few representations of women. But no men. That is, no complete men.”
“What do you mean?” Raphael asks.
“I mean this.” She points her torchlight to a familiar-looking drawing on the ceiling.
I peer and realize it’s an erect penis. Or, should I say in this context, a phallus.
I give Darcy a wink. “A forty-thousand-year-old cock and balls graffiti, huh? Some things never change.”
Just before we climb out of the cave, I spot a distinctly Asian sculpture submerged up to its neck in a small pond formed by water dripping from the ceiling. It looks completely out of place in this prehistoric cave.
“Oh, it’s a Buddha,” Dr. Muller says matter-of-factly, following my gaze.
I stare into her eyes. “A Buddha.”
She nods.
I clap my hand to my forehead. “But of course—stupid me! It’s the famous Ice Age Bathing Buddha of Burgundy.”
Darcy grins.
He actually stretches his lips and opens his mouth wide enough for this smile to qualify as a full-fledged grin, the first one I’ve ever seen on him.
It nukes me to a pile of rubble.
“I can explain,” he says. “The Buddha is on loan from Le Louvre. The curators there wanted to see what the special variety of bacteria in this pool will do to him.”
“He’s been here for fifteen years now,” Dr. Muller says.
I turn to her. “And?”
“Nothing.” She spreads her hands. “No effect whatsoever.”
“You need to have a word with your bacteria,” I say to my beau. “Le Louvre counts on them.”
“Oh, that reminds me!” Dr. Muller scurries over to Darcy. “I must discuss an urgent matter with you.”
“Of course,” he says. “We’ll talk after dinner.”
She adds something in a hushed voice, clearly unwilling for anyone to overhear. Must be business related, I tell myself. And confidential. Maybe she caught someone on the team cheating or she wants to negotiate an additional guide position.
Regardless, I’m rattled… and annoyed for being rattled.
But then I catch Genevieve watching me watch Dr. Muller talking with Darcy. Am I being prejudiced and way off the mark to read her expression as gloating?
Elorie can’t come here soon enough.
Chapter 13
Diane
At dinner, I meet the mayor, who’s adorable with his seventies mustache and a polo shirt tucked into his old-fashioned jeans. His wife wears a pink tweed jacket and has an easy laugh. We get on immediately and chat away for most of the meal.
Just as I begin to tell myself this evening isn’t as bad as I’d expected, Darcy invites the guests to move to the drawing room for a more relaxed second part of the soirée. Darcy and Dr. Muller walk over to the window and launch into a long conversation. Genevieve expertly maneuvers the mayor’s wife away from me to the other sofa across a ginormous coffee table.
“Did you like the cave?” she asks.
Something tells me she doesn’t really care. Her question is just an opener for something else.
“It was impressive,” I say honestly. “I loved the paintings and I learned a lot.”
She inches a little closer. “Isn’t Penelope—that’s Dr. Muller’s first name—amazing?”
Et voilà. “She sure is.”
“Such competence, such drive! You know, she comes from a long pedigree of writers and academics.”
“Good for her.”
“Penelope and I are very close,” she says. “I have so much respect for her achievement. In my eyes, it’s more important than money or titles.”
She gives me a long, intense stare as if trying to gauge if the penny has dropped.
I’m itching to say, Hey, I get it, despite my limited education. You’re reminding me I have neither merit nor money, not to mention a title. You’re suggesting I’m the odd one out in this room. But you know what? We’re in agreement. I don’t belong here, and I sure as hell don’t want to belong. If I weren’t bound by a contract, I’d be hanging out with Elorie and Manon at La Bohème instead of wasting precious minutes of my life listening to your aristocratic farts. They stink just the same as everyone else’s.
Unfortunately, I can’t say any of it.
Damn that contract!
This is the hardest I’ve bitten my tongue in the past two months. There’ve been other temptations, but none of them this strong. Genevieve has been cold and indifferent, but not mean. Neither have any of Darcy’s other acquaintances. Most of them just try to be friendly without realizing they’re patronizing me. When we chat, they avoid long words. They find me “cute.” In their eyes, I’m Darcy’s long-overdue fling with a plebeian. They consider our amourette as his rite of passage, his brave—and brief—exploration of the world of commoners.
And I’m forced to put up with that shit.
If there’s one reason I look forward to Darcy’s announcement of our betrothal, it’s to see the look on their faces at that moment. Especially on Genevieve’s.
My peripheral vision catches Darcy’s shape looming next to us.
“Can I steal my girlfriend for a moment?” he asks Genevieve.
“Of course.” She gives him a canned smile. “You can sit here—I was going to go chat with Raphael, anyway.”
Darcy puts his glass on the coffee table and sits next to me. “I hope you enjoyed your first day at the castle.”
“I did,” I say. “Up until ten minutes ago.”
He doesn’t ask why. Instead, he takes my hand and holds it with both his. I lift my gaze to his face. He’s staring at me with an intensity that would’ve stopped my heart under different circumstances. Wow. Anyone looking at him right now would say he’s crazy for me. Even I have to remind myself he’s just playing a part.
And he’s damn good at it, just like everything he does.
Hmm, let’s see if I can match his skill. I peer into his dark brown eyes, remarking a hue in them I hadn’t noticed before. It’s amber gold. In fact, it’s the exact color of the Scotch he was sipping before he sat down.
Will I taste it on his tongue if we kiss?
Right on cue, he leans in for a smooch, and I whisper “extra hot” before I can stop myself. Surprise flickers in his eyes. A split second later, he angles his head and slants his mouth over mine. His evening stubble grates against
my chin in a most pleasant way. He runs his tongue over my lips and nips gently. I open up. His tongue penetrates deep inside between my teeth, against my palate and my cheeks, pushing against my own tongue.
He thrusts, strokes and suckles, giving my mouth the most sensual, shameless treatment it’s ever had.
He’s making love to it.
Desire shoots to my core in a lightning bolt of unspeakable sweetness. I find myself leaning into him, opening up more, asking for more. Me, who despises couples who can’t restrain their ardor in public—I can’t get enough of him at this moment, public opinion be damned.
He tastes of whisky and of something quintessentially male. That taste, combined with his head-turning scent, is nudging me into an unfamiliar territory that borders on total abandon. My breasts ache for his hand to cup and fondle them. As for his other hand, I want it between my legs.
I need it between my legs.
There’s only one word to qualify the effect of this kiss—madness.
I’m losing my fucking mind.
And I don’t even care.
Just as abruptly as he started the kiss, Darcy stops and draws away.
I gasp for air and open my eyes.
He’s watching me. There’s no more playfulness nor the slightest shade of amber left in his eyes. His gaze is dark, and his lips are red from our kiss.
He turns away and says something to the person on his right.
I blink to clear the haze from my eyes and focus on the man he’s talking to.
It’s Raphael.
My hearing returns next, and with it, a profound sense of embarrassment.
“I’ll talk to him first thing Monday morning,” Raphael says.
Darcy nods. “Be sure that you do.”
Next to Raphael, Genevieve studies my face, barely pretending to listen to what her “very close” friend Penelope is saying to her.
Penelope glances at her watch and stands. “I should be going.”
“You should stay,” Darcy says. “It’s late, and there are plenty of empty bedrooms in this castle.”