A Desperate Fortune (6 page)

My cousin, as ever, was flawlessly dressed with each hair in its place, but it heartened me to see that Claudine appeared to have hair that, like mine, had a mind of its own. Hers was graying attractively, silver strands glittering under the lamplight amid the black, looking like nothing so much as the tinsel that sparkled on the little Christmas tree out in the entry hall.

I could see that tree from where I sat—the twin set of doors to the entry hall had been propped open—and if I turned and looked past Claudine’s shoulder I had a straight view through an open arch into the dining room, clear to the back of the house where another door set at an angle led into the kitchen. Denise had been back and forth twice through that door, setting out our aperitifs: sherry and slices of thin bread spread with pink pâté.

Claudine told me now, “It’s a very unusual color.”

It took me a moment to realize she meant my skirt, not the pâté.

She asked, “Is it violet or blue?”

I glanced down at the fabric. “It’s indigo. Blue.” I could name nearly all shades of blue. It was my favorite color; the color that made me feel centered and calm.

“Yes, I see.” Claudine nodded. “It’s lovely.” Her English was polished, and she used contractions and idioms with so much ease that I wondered if she’d lived or studied in England, but I didn’t ask her. I tried not to ask people too many questions, in case I asked ones they considered too personal.

I simply returned her smile, noticing for the first time that her brown eyes were youthful. That didn’t surprise me. Although she’d told Jacqui she’d just celebrated her sixty-third birthday, she looked ten years younger, her face full and all but unlined.

She hadn’t asked me anything of consequence since we’d come down—no questions about ciphers, or my background, or my training—and there’d been no mention of the diary of Mary Dundas. Instead we’d talked of very minor things: the weather, and our flight from London, and the color of my skirt. I wasn’t sure what purpose this discussion had, and having spent the whole day planning how I could impress her, I was thrown a bit off balance now by being given no real chance to do so.

Jacqui kept the conversation going with, “That’s new.”

She nodded at Claudine’s piano. I’d admired it silently when we had first come in—an older upright, inlaid handsomely and gleaming in the lamplight.

“It wasn’t here,” said Jacqui, “when I visited before.”

“It was in the house, but not this room,” Claudine corrected her. “It was half-buried by the papers in my study, but Denise’s son takes lessons now and so we moved it here, where he could practice.”

Jacqui smiled. “He’s quite the little entertainer, that one. It was magic tricks when I was here in June.” My cousin had a soft spot when it came to children, and it showed in her tone as she said, “Sara, darling, be prepared. He likes to have an audience.”

Claudine agreed. “But now for his school holidays he’s gone to have a visit with Denise’s parents. So our days are quiet.”

I was privately relieved. I didn’t dislike children, but being around them made me feel tense and uncomfortable. They were so unpredictable, bundles of energy, frequently loud and demanding attention—and often affection—in ways that I just couldn’t give them. If Denise’s son was looking for an audience, he’d find me disappointing.

And Claudine would, too, unless I found a way to copy Jacqui’s easy way with small talk.

“Surely
that’s
new,” she was saying to Claudine, her gaze having moved to the painting above the piano, a street scene in winter. “You had a man’s portrait hanging there, before.”

“Yes, it is new.” Claudine smiled. “You have a good memory. The man in the portrait had eyes I wasn’t fond of. They would follow me. I sold him and bought this instead.” She lifted her sherry glass. “There are two more things I’ve changed in this room. Two more things that are new. Can you find them?”

A strange sort of challenge, I thought, till I noticed my cousin was smiling in her turn, and realized that it was a game. Not a game I could play, as I hadn’t been here before, but Jacqui’s keen gaze was already sweeping the salon expectantly.

“There,” she said finally. “The tapestried chair by the fireplace. That’s new.”

“Yes, and what else?”

Jacqui kept up her visual search of the room, but she seemed to be having more trouble with this final item, whatever it was.

Claudine asked her, “Give up?”

“No. Hang on, I’m still looking. I’ll find it. I—”

Her words were interrupted by the sound of the back door into the kitchen being opened and then closed again, while someone stepped into the house. A man’s voice called in French, “It’s only me.”

Claudine half turned. “Luc?” Speaking French herself, she told him, “Come and meet our guests.”

Still from the kitchen, he called, “That’s all right, I just came for my keys. I dropped my own set in the lane and I can’t find them, it’s too dark. I need the spare set from Denise. Is she not here?”

“If she’s not in the kitchen,” Claudine said, “she’ll only be upstairs a moment. Come and meet our guests.”

His voice was deep. Attractive. “I’m in no condition to meet guests. I’ve just got back. I need a shower.”

“Nonsense. You’ll look fine. Come, have a drink with us.”

He came through from the kitchen to the dining room and strode towards us, and my curiosity became a kind of self-conscious confusion.

He was beautiful. There was no other word for it. He wasn’t hugely tall, just average height and with a lean and normal build, but he was beautiful. His face had perfect symmetry, as though an artist had drawn half a face and held a mirror to the drawing—straight nose, level eyebrows, and the clean lines of his jaw and cheekbones, broken only by the fact his hair was parted to the side and fell across his forehead to the right. It was nice hair, light brown and cut in careless layers that half covered both his ears and angled down to brush the back of his shirt collar.

I was staring, and I knew it. I was half-aware Claudine was introducing us, in English, and I held my hand out when I was supposed to, and returned his handshake.

Luc Sabran.

I marked the name, not sure I would remember it because I was distracted by his smile. It was symmetrical, as well, both corners of his mouth turned up to the exact same level to reveal an even row of teeth. And then I saw his eyes.

His eyes were very French. They had the kind of heavy lids that made them look both weary and intensely interested at the same time. And they were blue. A clear and perfect blue.

Claudine was telling him, “And Sara will be staying with us for a few weeks.”

“In the winter? You are brave.” His English was less polished than Claudine’s, and had a stronger accent, but I didn’t mind. At all.

I wasn’t sure what I should answer back, though, and while I was sifting through the possibilities I heard the footsteps coming down the stairs from the first floor and we all turned to face Denise.

She said in French, “You’re back!” and greeted Luc Sabran with an unstudied double kiss that seemed both natural and warm. “And how was California?”

“Full of sunshine. But I’ve dropped my keys. You have the spare ones?”

“Yes, of course.”

She went through to the kitchen and he turned to take his leave of us.

Claudine reminded him, in French, he didn’t need to go. “Have an aperitif. Some dinner.”

But he shook his head. “Tomorrow,” was his promise, “when I’ve had a chance to rest and look presentable.” To us he said, in English, “It was very nice to meet you both. Enjoy your evening.”

Watching him walk off was very nearly as absorbing as observing his approach. He walked as all men ought to walk, with a decided swagger to his shoulders.

Whether Jacqui noticed I was watching him, I didn’t know, but after Luc Sabran had closed the kitchen door behind him and gone out with his spare keys in hand, my cousin leaned back in her chair and looked across at Claudine with her eyebrows slightly lifting in the way they often did when she was sure she’d won a contest, and she raised her glass. “
He’s
new.”

“Well, I couldn’t do it,” said Jacqui. She took out her hairbrush and sat on the edge of her bed, having dealt with the last button of her pajama top. “If either of my own ex-husbands bought the house next door to mine, I’d kill myself.”

“Denise seems not to mind.”

“I’m only saying.”

I was not about to try debating anything with Jacqui at this hour of the night, not after I’d had rather too much wine, and while I was myself still trying to make sense of what Claudine had told us over dinner about Luc Sabran and why he and Denise had this arrangement.

And my cousin wasn’t leaving any room for me to offer an opinion. “It’s not natural. You can’t be friends with someone you’ve divorced. Not really. I should know.”

I might have pointed out that neither of her exes was as gorgeous as Denise’s, but I only said, “I wonder why they got divorced.”

My cousin told me, “Men like that are rarely faithful.”

“Men like what?”

“You know. You saw him. He was…”

“Beautiful.”

The look she sent me was the one she always used when she was trying to instruct me. “Darling, that man was too masculine,” she said, “to be called beautiful.”

“What would you call him, then?”

“Hot.” Jacqui smiled. “But believe me, he knows it, and men like that aren’t worth your time or your trouble.”

I knew she was speaking from her own experience, and she was probably right. I’d had relative peace on that front since I’d left university, and I was in no way inclined to revisit the past or repeat my mistakes, but I privately doubted that I could have ever divorced any man who had eyes like that. Whether those doubts showed, I couldn’t be sure, but my cousin said, “Sara.”

“Yes?”

“Really, I’m serious. That’s not a rabbit hole you want to tumble down. Don’t get involved.”

“I don’t get involved. And anyway, I’m here to do a job. That is, I
think
I’m here to do a job.”

“Of course you are.” My cousin set her hairbrush down. “You’re never having second thoughts?”

“Not me. I’m fairly sure Claudine is, though.”

“Why would you say that?”

“You were there. I don’t think I impressed her much at dinner.”

“Nonsense. I thought you did really well at dinner.” Jacqui curled her feet beneath her on the bed and leaning back against her pillows said, “You kept up with the conversation and you didn’t monologue.”

Monologuing was a common habit among those of us with Asperger’s. We could, upon occasion, talk an endless stream without allowing anyone to get a word in edgewise, and not realize it.

“I only monologue when something interests me,” I pointed out. “We were talking about gardening for most of dinner, weren’t we? Not much fear that I would monologue on
that
.” I could kill plants at fifty paces just by looking at them. “I’d hoped we’d talk about the diary, or about the Jacobites, or something with a point to it. That’s why I’m here. I think she’s changed her mind. I think she—”

“Darling,” Jacqui cut me off, “you worry far too much. We’ve just arrived. I’m sure Claudine assumed you’d want to spend your first night getting settled in and rested up.”

If that had been the reason why Claudine had kept the conversation superficial, there had been no need. “I want to get to work.”

“You want to get some sleep,” my cousin countered with a yawn. And then, because she knew from long experience that I might otherwise stay there indefinitely keeping
her
from getting sleep, she reached to switch her bedside lamp off, letting the resulting darkness bring our conversation to a close. “Be patient.”

* * *

Patience had never been one of my strong points. The following morning I found myself pacing from wardrobe to bed and then back again, waiting for Jacqui to finish her shower. I’d showered already and dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a fairly conservative white cotton top and I’d tried four silk scarves till I’d found the best one and I’d tied and arranged it a few times until I was pleased with the final effect and I’d put on mascara and done what I could with my hair. And she
still
wasn’t ready.

The clock on the chest of drawers told me four minutes had passed since the last time I’d looked at it, meaning it was 7:47 now, and last night we’d been told that breakfast would be served at 8:00.

My whole life I’d been teased by some people and lauded by others for my fierce fixation on time, but it wasn’t a thing I could easily change. And in this instance, turning up late wouldn’t just bother
me
, it would also be rude to our hostess. I’d have to go down on my own.

I clenched both my hands and relaxed them, releasing the burst of adrenaline as I reminded myself that I needn’t be anxious. I’d only be facing Denise and Claudine, and I’d already met them. I focused on that as I went down the spiral of stairs and across the tiled entry hall. Scents of warm bread and fresh coffee swirled out from the brightly lit kitchen behind the half screen of the small tinseled Christmas tree. Ahead of me, the inward-swinging doors of the salon where we had sat for drinks last night stood open, and the lights had been left on. I went in and turned left through the tall arch in the wall between the salon and the dining room.

I truly loved the dining room. It had a charming shape, with angled corners, and because it was itself set at the rearmost corner of the house it had great rows of windows running all along the back wall and the angle of one corner and again along the side—tall casement windows set with tiny panes of leaded glass, small beveled diamond shapes set at the juncture of the squares, and all contained within a clean narrow double border in two colors, red and gold. I longed to see those windows in the daylight. Last night it had been dark outside while we’d been eating dinner, and this morning it was not yet sunrise and the world beyond the windows was deep blue.

The blue, at least, was calming. And the antique longcase clock that stood between the windows reassured me I had made it down here with six minutes left to spare, although it seemed that I was on my own. Well, nearly. Within the open doorway to the kitchen, sat a cat.

I guessed he was a tomcat from his size, which was impressive. Black all over, he sat fluffed in that particularly vain way tomcats did when they were showing off, and stared at me with contemplative eyes as though deciding what to make of me.

“Hello,” I said.

The black cat sat and blinked at me as though I’d spoken in a foreign language, which I realized that I had.

I said, in French this time, “Good morning. You are handsome, aren’t you?”

This earned me a faint twitch of one ear as if acknowledging the compliment. I smiled. I had forgotten, living for so long without a pet myself, just how much I liked cats. This one had turned his gaze now nonchalantly to the salon just behind me with a focus that assured me I was hardly worth the bother to investigate.

I laid a challenge down. “Come on, then. Come and say hello and be a proper host. I promise I won’t bite.”

“
He
might.” The man’s voice, coming from the salon, caught me unawares. Surprised, I turned but could see no one, not at first. Not till the one door that had been propped open in the farther corner by the entry hall was pushed a little from behind to change its angle, showing me the man who had been kneeling just behind it by a box of tools and working on the radiator. He hadn’t been purposely hiding there, he’d just been hidden by the door, and when I’d gone through the salon I’d walked straight past him without even knowing he was there.

Luc Sabran, in jeans and a gray-and-white striped cotton shirt, gave a nod towards the cat and warned me, “Don’t let him fool you. He’s not to be trusted.” He said it good-naturedly, then smiled and added, “Good morning. How are you, Ms. Thomas?”

I said I was well and returned his “Good morning,” determined this time not to stare. “And it’s Sara.”

“I’d come and shake hands, but I’m covered in rust,” he said, holding up one hand as proof. “Were you looking for breakfast? Denise just went round to the bakery for more croissants, because Diablo there sat on the ones she made earlier.”

Glaring, the black cat replied to this second attack on his honor by stalking indignantly forward and making a tidy leap onto the dining room chair nearest me, giving a short but imperious order that needed no translating. Smoothing the black hair and feeling his back muscles arch and twitch under my hand, I said, “Is that your name, then? Diablo?”

“It goes very well with his character.”

“Is he your cat?”

“No.” Luc Sabran put one final twist on a screw and sat back on his heels to inspect the results of whatever repairs he had made. “No, he lives with a neighbor just over the lane, but he visits. The food’s better here.” The radiator was evidently working to his satisfaction now, because he put the tools away and stood and flexed his shoulders and began to walk towards me with that easy stride I had admired last night. In motion, he was even more distracting, and I purposely looked down and concentrated on the cat.

“The treatment he gets here is better, too. Isn’t that right, boy?” Luc Sabran had stopped close beside me and his hand came into the line of my vision as he reached down to rumple the cat’s ears, his tone and his action affectionate.

Brisk footsteps sounded outside and the kitchen door opened and closed and Denise said, “Do
not
make a fuss of that cat. I still haven’t forgiven him.”

Diablo rather smugly pressed his head up into Luc Sabran’s cupped hand and closed his eyes as Luc said, “But you will. You always do. That’s why he still comes round.” He gave the cat’s head one last scratch and moved into the kitchen himself, past Denise to the sink where he turned on the taps and began to wash, scrubbing the cat hair and rust from his hands. “Did you get any chocolate ones?”

“And if I did?”

“Well, I did fix the radiator for you. And you won’t find many tradesmen who would come out on a Sunday before sunrise, no matter how nicely you ask them. And none,” he said, with certainty, “who’d do the work for coffee and croissants.”

“All right, then.” She was smiling. “But you’ll have to set an extra place. And be nice. Was he being nice?” she asked me.

Luc answered for himself, “Of course I was. What kind of a question is that?”

The dynamic of how they behaved with each other was more like good friends than ex-husband and wife, I thought. Nothing like how Jacqui and her own exes behaved. From where I stood in the dining room, the open arch of the door leading into the kitchen created a frame for them both as though they were performers and I was their audience, and I admittedly watched them with interest, searching for some sign that my first impression was wrong. I could usually spot tension, even if I didn’t always know its cause. Denise and Luc weren’t tense, they were relaxed—they joked and smiled without a trace of animosity. I found that very curious.

Denise told Luc, “With you, it’s never something that I take for granted.”

Luc grinned and took a tea towel in his hands to dry them as he looked to me for help. “Was I not being nice?”

“You were. He was,” I told Denise.

I couldn’t catch the nuance of the look he sent her then, but I assumed it held a hint of vindication or was smug, because she knocked him down a peg with, “Well, just see that it continues while she’s here.”

Again he looked to me. “You’re here how long?”

I didn’t know for certain. “It depends. A few weeks, probably. Perhaps a month.”

Luc told Denise, “I’m sure I can behave well that long. Noah, I’m not sure of. He’ll be after her to help him practice English all the time.”

“He’d do better,” said Denise, “to have her help him practice his own grammar. Sara speaks French really well.”

Luc’s smile was brief to match his nod. “Yes, I did notice.”

It surprised me just a little when he said that, because from the moment I’d addressed the cat in French I’d ceased to notice we were speaking in that language—I’d been more wrapped up in following the conversation. The cat himself had obviously tired of the attention I was showing him, and with a stretch he slipped down from the chair, rubbed past my legs to mark me as his new possession, then stalked off with purpose into the salon.

Denise said, “Now he’s had his breakfast, he’ll be off to have his morning nap. He likes the softer chairs.”

“And warm croissants,” Luc added, coming back again into the dining room with plate and cup in hand to set a place for himself at the table.

It was eight o’clock now, properly. The light was changing, brightening, the soft blue world beyond the leaded windows turning violet and then lavender with pink around its edges, very beautiful. It turned the little beveled shapes between the squares of window glass to diamond drops that glittered round the room like tiny jewels. It showed me, too, more details of the view of the back garden: bare-branched trees and what appeared to be a high hedge all around it, with the silhouettes of a small scattering of rooftops showing over that and close behind.

“Which house is yours?” I asked Luc without thinking what reason I might have for wanting to know.

“That one there, at the end of the lane.”

I could see little more than the peak of a roof and the bump of a chimney. It didn’t look large.

“I am two steps away,” he said. “And just behind, that’s the house where Diablo lives.”

“How does his owner mistreat him?”

He looked at me and raised one eyebrow slightly in a move that, while it spoiled his facial symmetry, was nonetheless attractive. “Pardon?”

“You said the treatment he got here was better.”

“Ah. Yes, well, he isn’t mistreated so much as neglected.”

“Neglect is a form of abuse, surely.”

Claudine Pelletier spoke up from the salon behind me as she made her way through from the entry hall. “I agree, but tell me, whom are you discussing?” She was simply dressed this morning in a finely knitted roll-neck sweater and a pair of jeans, but though her clothes were not much different from my own she looked more elegant. I put it down to how she moved, with easy unselfconscious grace.