Chateau of Secrets: A Novel (21 page)

The Frenchman hesitated. It seemed as if he was unclear as to whether or not he was supposed to speak again. As she waited, a hundred questions raced through her mind. What did it mean for the German officer to visit? And how long did he plan to stay?

“Tell her,” the officer demanded.

The thought of having them in her house for even a moment revolted her. She didn’t want to let them inside the front door—their stench, she feared, would linger long after. And how could she entertain the Germans as she cared for Michel?

“You have no choice,” Lucien said after he relayed the officer’s words.

She stood tall again. Perhaps if she played hostess instead of victim, they would treat her as such. “Tell him if they intend to spend the night, there are empty rooms on the third floor of the servants’ quarters and in the west wing of the house.”

They would probably take whatever rooms they wanted, but the thought of them sleeping in Papa’s room or even Michel’s room made her skin crawl. And she didn’t want them anywhere near her chamber.

She pointed toward the house. “My servant and I will need an hour to prepare your rooms.”

The officer ignored Lucien’s words, marching across the courtyard instead.

She kissed Adeline’s head as the child played with her sleeve. She didn’t have any choice, did she? Not if she wanted to remain alive to care for Michel and the child in her arms. But what would Papa say to her allowing German officers inside?

He would probably tell her to do what she could to survive. Her mother would tell her to demand respect. If they respected her, they wouldn’t harm her or Adeline.

She rushed around the officer and put her hand on the doorknob before he touched it.

Then she opened the front door and let the Germans inside.

G
UBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE DUMPS FIANCÉE.

I wanted to hurl my iPad across the room, but instead of throwing it, I clenched it in my hands, stared at the lie of a headline on the news site and the picture of Austin and me in front of the Byrd Theatre this past spring. His arm was around me, communicating to the world that we belonged together. Or at least that I belonged to him.

Austin and Olivia and the rest of his staff had probably huddled together in his war room for hours, trying to concoct the best way to announce the end of our engagement. I could almost hear the indifference in their discussion—was it better for Austin to be the victim of a breakup or the instigator? Would he seem cruel to break up with me prior to an election? If he was a victim, it would make him look weak, though some might take pity on him.

Austin wouldn’t want pity.

Switching over to Austin’s campaign site, I read the statement on his front page, and it was much more nuanced than the news headline.

Due to unforeseeable differences, my fiancée and I have mutually decided to postpone our wedding until after the election. A campaign is a rigorous affair and I am focusing my attentions on preparing to
become the best governor for Virginia. This is a private matter between Miss Sauver and me, and we both respectfully ask that you allow us time and space to focus first on the election.

Mutual postponement, my foot.

Austin and Olivia had gambled that I wouldn’t retaliate by dragging his reputation through the mud on the talk shows. And even if I decided to tell the truth, it seemed these days that even the career of a married politician survived an affair or two. My story might only benefit Austin in the end and pigeonhole me as a lunatic. A jealous lover’s rage over her handsome fiancé’s last fling. Some might even cheer him on.

I skimmed the statement again. Ironic that he had used the word
affair
.

Swiveling in the chair, I faced the dark windows. I needed to do something, anything, other than surf for news about the end of my engagement.

Riley had researched me before he came to France, so it was fair game, I supposed, for me to search for more information on him as well. Hundreds of results came up on my screen. My mother was right—Riley had won a bunch of awards for his work, including an Oscar a few years ago. It seemed that he had a fascination for documenting the secrets of World War II, and an even greater fascination for the women he met along the way.

I groaned as the first image filled my screen: Riley cradling a beer bottle in one hand, his arm wrapped around a blonde in a skimpy dress.

I skipped to the next picture. And then the next. Multiple pictures showed him partying with women in various states of undress. A slightly older version, it seemed, of Austin’s brother. Or the secret life of my former fiancé.

Riley might have come across as charming, but like Austin,
Riley was hiding his true self from me. And, I suspected, he was hiding the real reason he was doing this documentary.

I turned off my iPad and tossed it onto the bed.

I was tired of people trying to hide things from me. Tired of lies.

Instead of being angry at Austin’s deception, perhaps I should be thankful that he showed his true self before we married. I should be grateful that he had gotten careless—or cocky—and I caught a glimpse of the destruction of my future before we proceeded with our marriage.

But right now I wasn’t feeling very thankful.

Closing my eyes, I replayed the conversation I’d had with Riley tonight. He had hinted at my engagement, but I supposed I hadn’t been honest with him either. I was so frustrated about my suspicions that I’d never stopped to consider that I was hiding information from him as well.

I rolled over on my pillow. It was the second time I’d gone to bed and still I wasn’t able to sleep. In contrast to Riley’s determination to fight jet lag, I had taken a long nap to fight the change in time, so now, long past midnight, I was wide awake.

It was a good time, perhaps, to explore. Before the interview tomorrow morning.

Pulling on a pair of socks, I padded out into the hallway in my long T-shirt. The light bulb in the hallway had burned out, but in the faint beam of my cell phone’s flashlight, I puttered across the second floor, trying to locate my grandmother’s bedroom.

I opened two doors, and in each room was a time capsule from the past—some of the décor seemed to be from the past twenty years, while some of the pictures looked as if they hadn’t been updated in hundreds of years. Portraits of both men and women hung on the walls, some of them with ruffled collars and powdered wigs. Other pictures were of men and horses alongside their hunting dogs. As I stared
into their faces, I wondered which of these people were my ancestors. It was a bit unnerving to see the people who’d gone before me all hanging on the wall, as if they were keeping tabs on their descendants.

As I crept to the third door, I imagined myself to be Mary Lennox in
The Secret Garden
, a stranger to the mysterious Misselthwaite Manor, walking down the dark corridor. Since Mémé couldn’t tell me her stories tonight, I pretended she was here, sharing her favorite memories. The wonder of Christmas mornings in the château. The ornery escapades of her brother. The weekend parties her mother used to throw with their friends from Paris. The walls might have wanted to whisper more stories to me, but I couldn’t hear them.

“The ghosts refuse to leave this place.”

Marguerite had said it so matter-of-factly, as if the talk of ghosts was normal, but in these dark corridors, under the scrutiny of the portraits, my imagination raged. What if the ghosts of the past really were here? What would they say?

I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I could almost imagine them watching me here. Perhaps they too were each clamoring to tell their own stories.

The door in front of me creaked open, and my inadequate cell phone light faded out in the vast space of the room. I flipped on the light switch by the door, and the bulb in here worked.

To my right was a canopied bed, and as I stepped left, I saw an antique dresser with rounded edges and a painting of faded flowers on the drawers. On top of the dresser were two tarnished candlesticks and a black-and-white photo of two young women smiling atop their horses. The woman in a light, button-down blouse looked like Mémé.

This must have been my grandmother’s room. It seemed untouched, as if Stéphane and his father never stepped inside when they’d occupied the château.

I picked up the wooden frame from the dresser, examining the other woman. Could it be Isabelle’s great-grandmother with her? As I studied the photo, their laughter captured on film, I was glad they had no idea about the destruction that awaited France.

But if this was Madame Calvez, playing with my grandmother, why wouldn’t she welcome me into her home now?

Opening the armoire, I discovered a dozen colorful hatboxes in two neat stacks. I opened several of them, and spread the hats across the bed—there were felt hats with bows and flowers, a chic black velvet hat, one with netting in the front and daisies on the side. Mémé was always elegant in my eyes, even in these twilight days of her life. I could imagine her sporting any of these hats with a tailored suit or evening gown.

I picked up an ivory hat with a scalloped trim and copper-colored ribbons plaited in the front. Putting it on my head, I posed in the mirror, pretending I was a vicomtesse from long ago, preparing for a visit from a French king and queen. Then I opened another box and found a smart little navy hat. As I lifted it, I realized there was something underneath. A photo album.

The house creaked, and I jumped. I could almost hear the German soldiers shuffling on the floors above and below me.

Was Mémé alone in this house with the soldiers? She had always seemed strong, but with the Nazis under her roof, she must have been terrified.

Shivering, I snagged the photo album and bolted back to the master suite, locking the door. I opened the album and began flipping through the black-and-white pictures, each one secured by faded white corners. There were cursive captions below many of them.

Mother bringing me home from the hospital.

Papa holding me in his arms.

Michel and I collecting Easter eggs on the front lawn.

Nadine and I diving into the lake.

Riding Papillon Bleu
.

I held up a picture of Michel beside an old roadster. My great-uncle was a handsome fellow when he was young, his curly hair dipping over his eyes. Mémé said he’d died during the war, but like so many of the other stories, the end of his story was lost, at least to me.

I put down the photo album and opened up my iPad again, to the notes Olivia had compiled for my interview. She’d detailed the German occupation in Normandy and then the destruction of Saint-Lô. Once the Allied troops landed on the Norman beaches, she wrote, Hitler and his men knew defeat was inevitable, yet he refused to surrender. Until he took his life—if he took his life—Hitler had refused to be wrong.

The Nazis wouldn’t relinquish Saint-Lô. The Allies initially tried to chase them out of the area from the air, but they ended up fighting a bloody battle in the hedgerows that surrounded the city. Even as the French rejoiced that their enemy had been defeated, thousands of their civilians lost their lives in this final fight.

The darkness of what men could do to one another disturbed me deep in my soul. I had no desire to even try to understand a man like Hitler, but I was intrigued by Riley’s idea to document the stories of some of the German soldiers. What if some of them hadn’t wanted to fight? What if some of them tried to run?

I turned to the last pages of Mémé’s photo album and several colored papers flitted out, falling onto the floor.

I picked up the top one and scanned it. Then I picked up the next one.

Chapter 29

T
he German officer with the golden stick—Major von Kluge—toured the Château d’Epines as if he were the owner surveying his property. He flipped light switches, opened closets, prodded the carpets with his walking stick, all while telling three soldiers about his exploits in the Great War. The soldiers swarmed around him like mosquitoes on a horse’s rear, and Gisèle wished she could swat them all away from him and from her house.