The Chateau by the River

by Chloé Duval

  The man seemed to fold in on himself, while Thomas drew himself to his full height.

  “Crystal clear,” he simpered, lips pressed together. “Please accept my apologies, young lady,” he added to Gabrielle. “My temper got the best of me.”

  She accepted his apology with a gracious nod.

  “I believe you have everything you need to begin your appraisal?” Thomas declared.

  “Indeed, Mr. D’Arcy.”

  “Very well. Begin, then.” He turned to Gabrielle. “Mademoiselle Villeneuve, if you would show me the book you spoke of…”

  “With pleasure, sir.”

  And they left Mr. Colin to his amusement and Mr. Choiseul to his frustration, fleeing toward the safety of the library. Blithely transgressing propriety, Thomas closed the door behind them and leaned against it.

  “Thank you for providing an excuse to leave. I did not know how to get rid of him.”

  “My pleasure. I wouldn’t wish him on my worst enemy.”

  “I am sorry you had to bear his disrespect.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. This is not the first time I have had to listen to such meaningless drivel, nor will it be the last.”

  She smiled impishly.

  “Thank you for standing ready to defend me. But I can manage on my own.”

  “Of that I have no doubt. You can stand your ground before anyone. You are the strongest person I know. But I could not bear to hear him insult you so. It was beyond me.”

  His words moved her, and she averted her gaze before glancing back at him.

  “My thanks, gallant knight,” she teased, curtsying to disguise her turmoil.

  Thomas smiled at her, their eyes catching each other’s for a fraction of a second. As she so often did, she felt as though she could lose herself in his gray gaze. Her heart swelled in her chest until it seemed to her that her body could not possibly be large enough to hold it.

  “Tell me, was there really a book you wanted to show me?” he asked.

  “You doubt me, my lord?” she mocked, falsely outraged. “Let it be known that there are actually several.”

  She strode toward the desk and seized the pile of books she had set aside a few hours earlier to show to her father, then retraced her steps, setting it down in the nearest armchair.

  Smiling, she waited for him to come close and opened the hardcover book at the top of the pile—Paradise Lost, from the English poet John Milton. Spreading the book flat, she fanned the pages so a magnificent fresco appeared on the edges where there had only been a golden gilt.

  “Incredible,” Thomas breathed. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “It’s called a fore-edge painting,” Gabrielle explained. “It’s common enough in Anglo-Saxon countries, but I’d never seen one before. It’s extraordinary to find one in a French library. Your ancestors must have been very widely traveled to acquire such beautiful books!”

  “They were.” He immediately changed topics, as he often did whenever Gabrielle brought up his ancestors. “How do you achieve such an effect?”

  Gabrielle did not insist. She explained how a very thin slice of the picture was painted just next to the actual edge of the page so that it would appear when the book was fanned open. Some books, she added, actually had a double fore-edge painting, each picture visible according to the way the pages were fanned.

  “And this is far from the only treasure in here!” she enthused, setting the first book aside to seize the one she had been examining earlier. “This one was printed in 1494. It’s the oldest book I’ve ever seen! I make discoveries like this every day.” She hesitated. “And…I found something else this morning.”

  She returned to the desk and picked up three thick volumes bound in brown leather. She went back to the armchair and held the first one out wordlessly to Thomas. He took it and read the title and author on the cover. For a long moment, he did not speak, gaze fixed on the golden letters.

  François Leroy de Saint-Armand.

  “I skimmed through it,” Gabrielle said gently. “These are the memoirs of your grandfather. He narrates his life, but also the history of the Saint-Armand family, from Louis XVI ascending the throne to the last years of the second empire. A piece of French history told through your family’s memories.”

  Thomas kept silent, his eyes on the book.

  She went on.

  “I wondered…if you wouldn’t want to keep it.”

  “No.” His reply was prompt. “Sell it with the rest.”

  Gabrielle hesitated.

  “I heard what you said about debts and about not wanting to keep anything of your father’s. I can understand you not wanting to know anything about him and refuse his legacy. But…Thomas… These books… They are the history of your family! Your ancestry!”

  He closed his eyes, but not before she caught a flash of pain. He suddenly seemed tense, and she almost regretted showing him the books. Yet she could not understand. Why forsake his entire lineage when it had been only his father he had been estranged from? Why not keep at least a memory of this place, of the castle, of his roots?

  She remained silent, keeping her questions to herself.

  After what seemed like an age, Thomas opened his eyes and looked straight at her.

  “They… They are not my ancestry.” His voice was tense. “It is not my history.”

  Gabrielle froze, uncomprehending.

  “What do you mean, it is not your history?”

  Thomas hesitated in the face of her reaction.

  “What I mean,” he said finally, “is that Victor de Saint-Armand was not my father.”

  Chapter 17

  Alexandra

  Angers

  Present day

  Rrrrriiiiiiiing!

  Rrrrriiiiiiiing!

  Rrrrriiiiiiiing!

  Huh? What?

  The earsplitting sound brought me back to earth so abruptly that I nearly fell off the bed upon which I had been reading Gabrielle’s diary.

  I blinked and looked around for the source of the noise.

  The hotel room was sparse enough; I quickly identified the wall phone next to the door as the culprit.

  Slightly dazed, my mind half in the past and half in the present, I rose and grimaced as my full weight came to rest on my sprained ankle. I cursed the person who dared disturb me in the middle of a confession worthy of a Dallas episode and limped toward the phone, still thinking of what I had read in Gabrielle’s diary.

  Not his father? Was that what the scratchings on his birth certificate meant, in the end? Who was Thomas’s father, then, if not Victor de Saint-Armand? It couldn’t be Andrew D’Arcy. I still needed to search the records in Plymouth to confirm my supposition, but my guess would be that Andrew D’Arcy was his uncle. So…was Thomas an illegitimate child, then? What was his story? Was that the reason why he was adopted by Andrew? Curiosity consumed me, and questions spun inside my head.

  This was the going to be one of the shortest phone calls in history.

  I barely had the time to pick up the phone before a male voice started screaming at me.

  “What the hell are you doing, princess?! I’ve been waiting for you for TWO HOURS! You think it’s funny to stand me up?!”

  I froze, suddenly noticing the crowd of details that had escaped me so far: the darkened room, my strangely empty stomach and my numb legs. I checked my watch. Nine p.m.

  Oh crap! Crappity, crappity crap!

  Éric and I had been supposed to meet at seven.

  “I’m…I’m sorry, Éric, I lost track of time,” I stammered. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Get moving. The cook’s not going to wait and neither am I. It’s been long enough already!”

  He hung up. I grabbed my mini makeup bag and rushed into the bathroom.

  * * * *


  Earlier, upon leaving the bookstore, Mr. Bourgeois had allowed me to make photocopies of some of the letters and, in a rush of generosity that had taken me completely by surprise, had offered to let me keep Gabrielle’s diary, explaining that it was too personal for him to expose in the store and that I would make better use of it. Touched, I had thanked him from the bottom of my heart, clutching the precious document to my chest like the Holy Grail.

  Éric had immediately suggested we go to the department archives. French administrations closed early, so if I wanted to have the time to rummage about we should go as soon as possible.

  In the end, we could have spared ourselves the trip. The manager, a very nice and polite lady, had let me use the computer available for visitors. I’d retraced my research from two days previously and found the document I wanted. A couple of clicks later, I had a printed copy that joined its little friends in my file. To my great satisfaction, the file was growing ever thicker.

  I’d taken advantage of another of Éric’s mysterious—and apparently unsuccessful—phone calls to keep researching. An hour later, Éric was still on the phone and I had managed to unearth copies of Gabrielle’s parents’ wedding certificate as well the birth and death certificates of Maurice. I was about to start tracking down Héloïse’s when Éric returned, looking embarrassed.

  “I need to go see someone,” he’d abruptly announced. “Can I borrow your car for a few hours? It’s really important.”

  “Uh… Sure. Of course. Can you drop me at the hotel first?”

  “If we leave right away, yes. I’m sorry, but I’m really in a hurry.”

  It must have been important for him to just abandon me without a car while I was on crutches in a town I didn’t know. I didn’t really mind. I would have time to read Gabrielle’s diary, and continue my research from my laptop. I didn’t actually need to be in the archives.

  “It’s fine.” I smiled. “This seems to be important.”

  “It is. I… It really is. Very important.”

  Éric had apologized again and dropped me in front of the hotel, holding my handbag and crutches. We’d agreed to meet in a nearby brasserie for dinner. He’d jotted down the address on a piece of paper for me.

  Once in my room, I had cautiously extracted Gabrielle’s diary from my handbag and settled comfortably on the bed to continue reading—with the aforementioned consequences.…

  In my defense, my ancestor’s story was fascinating. Her meeting with Thomas was epic, and the circumstances in which they had met again were both tragic and romantic, not to mention how they had drawn closer to each other by the firelight in the library.

  Gradually, as I deciphered as best I could without Éric’s help my ancestor’s sometimes untidy or crossed-out handwriting, a strange feeling had come over me. A certain something that made my heart go tight; there was something in Gabrielle and Thomas’s story that made me both very happy and deeply envious.

  When Thomas had asked Gabrielle if you could really love a monster, his manner so shy and fragile that Gabrielle had melted before him, I had stopped reading, my breath caught in my throat, tears in my eyes as a sudden and awful truth hit me hard.

  My own story with Spencer was nowhere near as romantic.

  Until now I had always been content with it. I knew, valued and loved Spencer deeply, for many reasons; he was my best friend, the one I could tell everything and who would give me the best advice. He was a very smart man, and I could rely on him to keep me cool when I was about to get carried away. He was my anchor to reality when my mind wandered too far into the clouds. But he was not one for grand gestures or romantic openings.

  Take his marriage proposal, for instance. We’d been living together for a year when one day, watching TV on the couch after our traditional Saturday night sushi, he’d asked me between two episodes of a show:

  “It would be a good idea to get married, don’t you think?”

  Taken aback, I had stammered something like: “Uh… Yeah… Uh, sure, yeah, it’d be neat.”

  Spencer had smiled one of his irresistible smiles. “Great!”

  And his attention had returned to the new episode just starting. I had leaned against him, not quite sure what had just happened. Had he proposed to me, or was it just a general question as to my opinion on marriage?

  “Of course it’s a proposal!” he’d confirmed later, kissing the tip of my nose. “We’ll choose a ring as soon as possible.”

  Eight months later, there was no ring in sight.

  The reason for that was simple—he’d been very busy with work, and I had been hesitant to bring it up, knowing he had concerns far more important than an engagement ring.

  It wasn’t that big a deal. It didn’t matter how he’d proposed so much as the fact that he had, and that he’d been sincere. He really wanted us to get married. The rest was secondary and could wait.

  Or so I had convinced myself.

  But I no longer knew what I believed. Maybe I was just tired. Maybe I missed him. I had no reason to feel slighted. I was happy with him. The rest would come in good time.

  As though to apologize for these dark thoughts, I had sent Spencer a cheerful message, telling him about finding Gabrielle’s diary and that I was thinking of him. I hadn’t waited for an answer—I knew there wouldn’t be one for several hours—before plunging back into my reading, losing all sense of time before the phone ring jarred me back to reality.

  * * * *

  The restaurant we had agreed to meet in was by the river, in an old building that dated back at least a century. The inside was both ancient and modern, gray stone walls decorated with a sepia-toned painting of Angers, black wooden furniture and steel lamps that gave off soft light. Because it was late, the restaurant was nearly empty.

  I found Éric sitting in a corner. He started without me, I thought as I caught sight of a half-full glass of wine in front of him. I couldn’t blame him if he’d been waiting for me for two hours.…

  “I’m really very, very sorry,” I apologized again as I sat across from him. “I was reading Gabrielle’s diary and I lost track of time. Please forgive me.”

  I dropped my crutches on the ground and smiled apologetically. He glared at me, but I thought I could detect something besides annoyance in his eyes.

  Had he been worried about me?

  “I hope you learned something interesting at least,” he grunted.

  “Apart from the fact that Thomas and Gabrielle had a love story that was as romantic as it was epic and so sweet it would probably give you a toothache, nothing that can save the castle just yet. But I discovered a momentous family secret right before you called.”

  “A secret?”

  “Apparently Thomas wasn’t Victor de Saint-Armand’s true son.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “So the baroness was unfaithful. What a surprise!” he commented sarcastically. “Who was his father, then?”

  “I don’t know yet. I was about to find out when you called.”

  The waiter approached.

  “Would you care for a drink, miss?”

  “A glass of white wine,” I answered. “What do you have that’s local? I haven’t had the chance to look at your wine list yet.”

  The waiter listed a few names from Loire valley domains, and I chose among them.

  “Very good choice, miss. Would you like to order or should I come back?”

  “Can I have a few minutes?” I asked.

  “Very well. I’ll be right back with your glass.”

  He departed, and I scanned the menu, feeling Éric’s gaze on me.

  “Do I have some parsley between my teeth or am I just that irresistible?”

  I looked up and met his eyes.

  “You chose a very good wine,” he said, surprised.

  “And you’re wondering whether I
knew what I was doing or if it was just luck.”

  “A little,” he admitted.

  “Is it because I’m a woman or because I’m an American?”

  “Because you’re American. I’m not sexist.”

  “Well that’s a start. But it’s really discriminating on your part to think that the French are the only people to know anything about wine. There is a life outside France; I’d have thought you’d know that, having traveled the way you have.”

  “Touché.”

  “And just so you know, I work for a Californian vineyard and I probably know more about wine than you do.”

  “I had no idea,” he confessed. “I don’t know anything about you, in fact. Apart from you being an incurable romantic and as bad-tempered as I am,” he added slyly, a surprising, teasing gleam in his eye.

  “Hey! I’ll have you know that I do not, in fact, have a temper.” I pretended outrage. “I am the soul of diplomacy. You just bring out everything bad in me. And the reason you didn’t know anything about me is that you never bothered to ask.”

  “Fair enough. So who are you, Alexandra Dawson?”

  Just then, the waiter came back with my glass, which he set in front of me. He asked again if we wanted to order.

  “Give me just a couple minutes more.”

  He inclined his head and left.

  “Have you chosen already?”

  Éric nodded.

  “I had more than enough time to learn the menu by heart while I was picturing you being mugged in some side alley,” he remarked.

  “Why didn’t you call earlier?”

  “I did. You didn’t answer.”

  I winced.

  “I didn’t leave the room, though.”

  “You have no idea what went through my mind. I didn’t dare leave the restaurant for fear of missing you.”

  “I’m really sorry for worrying you. I swear I didn’t hear the phone ring. Are you still mad at me?”

  “I’m not mad. I was just worried.” He glanced away then added, “Sorry for yelling at you.”

  “It’s okay. It was my fault really.” I reached across the table “Give me your cell.”