Invitation to Provence (25 page)

Clare glanced at Scott, sitting next to her. There was no doubt he was an attractive man, plus he had that old salt-of-the-earth allure she was looking for. She sighed as a waiter put a salad in front of her, a delicate mix of tiny leaves with an ethereally light lemony dressing. “Can I
really
eat
more?”
she asked Scott. He grinned and said, “You’d better. Haigh is heading our way on an inspection tour.”

Clare looked up at him under her lashes. “Do people in Provence eat like this every night of the week?”

“Certainly not me. A ham and cheese sandwich is all I get
in the evening. Sometimes I have lunch at the Café des Colombes, though. Jarré’s a good cook. He knows what he’s doing. Straightforward and yet not so simple.”

“Hmm,” Clare said thoughtfully. “Like the man himself.”

Scott gave her a surprised glance. “You know Jarré?”

“We met this morning. He told me his life story and I told

him part of mine.” Scott’s brows raised and she added, “Mine

was a little more complicated. Besides my French wasn’t up

to it, nor was his English.”

Scott refilled her wineglass. “I didn’t meet you in San Francisco,” he said quietly, “but I saw your photograph.”

Clare swirled the deep red wine in her glass. “And?”

“I think you are even more beautiful in person.”

She met his eyes. “And I think
you
are a very nice man.”

“A man who’s just met a very nice woman.”

“Always an interesting situation,” she agreed demurely. They heard Juliette’s roar of laughter and glanced down the table to see the guitarist was serenading her. Then Juliette was on her feet and immediately Jarré was up and she was in his arms as they swung away in a perfect waltz.

Haigh frowned. Dinner was not yet over. Dancing should come later, but it was a lost cause, because by now most of the guests were on their feet and the band had revved things up another decibel.

Allier waltzed by clutching Mademoiselle Doritée, whose beatific look Haigh suspected had as much to do with the amount of wine she’d consumed as the fact that she was dancing with her neighbor. Then Scott bowed to Clare and she slipped into his arms as easily as a melting snowflake in her white dress. Jake was dancing with Franny, holding her
lightly, not crushing her as close as he wanted because this was not the moment. “I need to see you alone,” he murmured in her ear, and she nodded.

Rafaella held out her hand. “Shall we,” she said to Haigh, and they danced together, smiling into each other’s eyes.

“This is wonderful,” she said.

“Of course it’s wonderful. I’ve been working at it for weeks.” Haigh laughed. “And it is all going to be wonderful for you from now on, Rafaella.”

He only called her Rafaella when he was deeply emotional, and she squeezed his hand gratefully. “I know.”

The waiters had replaced the salads with platters of cheeses and the dancers flocked back to the table. Chairs were pushed back and new groups formed, the women on one side of the table, the men on the other. The women clustered around Rafaella, complimenting her on the fine meal and on the beauty of the illuminated château. “It’s just like in the old days,” they said, their eyes gleaming with pleasure. And they praised her beautiful grandchild, and the charming and clever veterinarian. And of course many of them remembered Juliette and said it was so good to see her here again, and they asked after her children.

After that came dessert, a sweet pastry tart crammed with wild strawberries and raspberries with two sauces, one a melting swirl of vanilla crème, the other bitter chocolate. With this Haigh poured a very special pink champagne, a Piper-Heidsieck Rosé Sauvage, in honor of the Château des Roses Sauvages. Then the toasts began, with everyone complimenting Rafaella and her new family and the château, and Rafaella complimenting her “family” and her guests.

By now, Little Blue was drooping in her chair and Franny was so full she could hardly move, but Clare still sat upright, the perfect lady, not a hair out of place. Juliette was merry, but her blue mascara had smudged. Rafaella was beautiful and still smiling, her long emerald earrings swinging as she bowed her head to the tributes and the applause.

Then the music started up for real and people got up to dance again. Haigh broke out the
Marc,
the good stuff scouted from the very back of Great-Grandfather Marten’s cellar. “When else would we get a chance to share it with so many friends?” he said, pouring liberally.

Jarré did not drink the
Marc.
Instead, he straightened his bow tie, buttoned his jacket, and smoothed back his hair. Fortified by the wine, mustache bristling, he strode over to Clare.

“Mademoiselle Clare, will you please dance with me?” he said. Clare said of course, and excused herself from Scott and slipped into Jarré’s big arms with a sigh that sounded very much like contentment.

The moon lifted higher over the château, lightening the sky to a milky dark blue that almost matched Rafaella’s dress. Her granddaughter came and sat on her knee, and she felt herself melting with tenderness. She looked around at her friends, true friends all of them, dancing and enjoying themselves, at her lovely niece and at Jake, who was obviously falling for her. And at Scott, whom she’d been so lucky to find, and whose eyes followed Clare a little jealously as she danced with Jarré. She looked around for Haigh, smiling when she saw him. He’d taken off the
smoking
and was sitting with a group of the local men whom he’d known as long as she had, sipping the good brandy and recalling
old times. And then she looked at Juliette, twinkling with diamonds and complaining loudly that her feet were killing her—until she just slipped off her shoes and danced barefoot. The Pomeranians, released from their luxury prison, yapped and snapped and Mimi and Louis watched them adoringly, while Criminal surveyed the scene with an air of disdain, then slunk off down the driveway on business of his own.

Rafaella could remember many nights like this, when the Lover was still here, but she pushed those memories away and hugged her sleepy grandchild closer. Tonight she would only live for the moment.

It was almost two o’clock before the last of the stragglers wound their way back down the driveway, depositing many kisses as they went, assuring Rafaella this was the best party of their lives.

And a while later, standing at her bedroom window, Rafaella saw Franny and Jake walking down the chesnut allée. Jake’s arm was around Franny’s shoulders, and her body inclined instinctively into his. Rafaella sighed. She could not imagine anything more perfect than the young man she’d loved as a son falling for the young woman she had just acquired as a niece. It was the perfect ending to a perfect night. Even if, like Juliette, her feet were killing her and even though Mimi and Louis were already snoring on her bed, accompanied by a couple of traitorous Pomeranians, too exhausted even to wait for her to climb in next to them.

T
HE LIGHTS
illuminating the château dimmed, then went out. The lanterns and the strings of fairy lights were extinguished in a sequence of receding stars, leaving only the moon, low now in the midnight blue sky. It shed a softly filtered light onto the trellised gazebo where Franny sat with Jake.

Crickets chirped, quieter now that it was so late, and the birds disturbed by the lights and noise finally retreated to their nests and settled down. The château was a dark silhouette against the sky. Everyone was asleep and they were the only two people left in the world. The night air was thick with the perfumes of the garden and the reedy green smell of the lake. Breathing it in, Franny thought it was like the Marten wine, sensual, alive, delicious.

“Franny?” Jake was holding her hand in both of his.

She turned her hand palm up in his, trustingly. “What is it?”

“It may sound ridiculous,” he said, “I mean, we hardly know each other… .”

“But I
know
you,” she said, “I know who you are. That night at my house, I warned myself against you. I told myself I was already having trouble with another man. I said all the proper things to stop myself from falling for you. And then you didn’t call me and I knew it was too late. I’d already done it.”

Jake studied her palm as though he were reading his future there. “I’ve made some decisions these past few weeks,” he said in a low voice, and Franny bent her head to catch his words. “After Amanda died, I used my work as a way to stop from thinking about what had happened. It kept my mind occupied. I always had to be alert, always one move ahead. Not only did I have to think for myself, but I had to put myself in the bad guys’ heads, know how they would make their next moves. Sometimes, it was a dance with death but I didn’t care—live or die, it was all the same to me. I even enjoyed that dance. Other times I couldn’t stand it and then I’d take off for the cabin, collect my dog and my horse and hole up for a few weeks, talking to no one, thinking of nothing except about one day maybe buying a real ranch, having miles of nothing but pasture and woodlands between me and the nearest human being. I enjoyed my isolation. I wanted to share it with no one. And then I met you, Franny, and my life changed.”

She put her hands on either side of his lean, tanned face, feeling the early-morning stubble under her fingers. She looked into his gray eyes, pale in the moonlight, then leaned closer and slowly, softly traced his lips with her tongue. She lifted her mouth just long enough to say, “I know. And I love you.” And then she kissed him.

He caught her to him. “God, oh god,” he whispered, “I thought you were going to tell me you couldn’t take the responsibility of a man like me, a man with a wounded past.”

“Remember at dinner, the night I first met you? You asked me who I saw. And I told you I saw a
good man.
It was the truth, Jake. That’s why I was so hurt when you didn’t call. That night I slept with my face on the pillow you’d used, like
a dopey teen in the throes of first love. And you know what? It
was
first love. Nothing else counts.”

“About Amanda,” he began, wanting her to understand how he felt about his late wife, but she silenced him with a raised finger.

“You’ll always love and remember Amanda and the baby you never got to see. You
must.
You have to face up to the fact that life goes on.”

She lay back against the cushions and opened her arms and took him to her. His body trembled over hers. “Franny,” he said, and there was that tremor of desire in his voice, “I want to make love to you.”

Her long, narrow eyes widened as they met his. “I know,” she said as he stopped her mouth with kisses, and at last, naked as those earlier lovers in the gazebo, they made love.

L
YING IN BED,
Rafaella thought the old gazebo was a fine place for making love on a soft late-summer night. She remembered the first time Lucas kissed her on the red Japanese bridge, how her knees had turned to jelly and nothing else in the world had mattered.

It was strange how destiny worked, she thought. If she had not been overcome by loneliness that afternoon in the silent château with its sad, shuttered rooms with the furniture
covered in dust sheets, she would never have dreamed up the family reunion, never have got in touch with Jake. Then he would not have met Franny and their lives would have taken a different path. She thought how wonderful fate could be sometimes, when it played into your hands.

And she also thought of how, if she had not been in Cap d’Antibes on that beautiful summer evening, more years ago than she cared to remember, she would never have met Lucas Bronson, and her own life would have been different, too.

She was forty-one years old and alone that day at the Hôtel du Cap when she noticed the handsome man by the deserted pool overlooking the Mediterranean. It was a warm summer evening when all the world seemed to have been tinted blue; a blue haze hung over the indigo sea and the sun had hidden itself behind a blue-black cloud. Perhaps she should have recognized that dark cloud as an omen, but of course she didn’t. She just heard the thump of her own heart as she sat watching him.

He was the most graceful man she’d ever seen, long-limbed with a tight, hard body. His skin was tanned a light gold and his too-long black hair was still wet from his swim and tucked back behind his ears. Tiny rivulets of sweat trickled into his dark springy chest hair and of course she noticed—what woman wouldn’t—he was wearing one of those skimpy bathing suits that left little to the imagination.

She had been married for half her life to an older man who didn’t give a damn about her. Other men had flitted in and out of her life, nothing serious, just a fling here and there, but now her heart gave an unfamiliar leap. Behind her in the bar, a man was playing the white baby grand and singing a soft love song, “A kiss is just a kiss” … and she
knew she would remember that tune, “As Time Goes By,” and that soft, husky voice for the rest of her life.

The man turned and gave her a long, lazy look over the top of the chaise. She smoothed her red skirt guiltily and sat up straighter, giving him a haughty glare that said she certainly had not been staring at him.

“I knew somebody had their eye on me,” he said.

“You were right,” she admitted, blushing, “I did,” and they both laughed.

He came over to her table. “I’m Lucas Bronson,” he said, “and I’m happy to meet you. Did you know your eyes match the blue of the day?”

She thanked him for his compliment, feeling strangely lightheaded, as though somehow she knew fate had come calling on her. His hand was firm as he took hers and still cool from his swim, and he did not let go. He just looked at her for a long moment, taking her in. He was so close she could smell the salty sea on his skin.

Finally he said, “I like you Rafaella Marten, and I like your wine. It is yours, isn’t it, the Domaine Marten?” She nodded and he said, “I’ve heard all about you, someone told me you would be here and that we should meet each other.”

He let go of her hand and returned to his chair, picked up his towel, and slung it around his neck. “I’ll see you again,” he said, looking at her the way no man had ever looked at her before, a deep, dark look full of sensual promise that turned her to jelly. Then he sauntered off down the path to the hotel, leaving her feeling as though Zeus himself had descended from the heavens.