Chateau of Secrets: A Novel (9 page)

I sat down on the stool beside her bed. I had been glad to skip the golf tournament this afternoon to visit my grandmother. On the table beside her was a black-and-white photograph of our entire family, a small jewelry box, and a glass of water. “Guess where I’m going this week?”

“Who are you?” she asked.

I kissed her forehead. “Someone who loves you.”

She looked over my shoulder like she didn’t see me, toward the front door of her apartment at Meadow Glen. “I’m thirsty.”

I held the water glass up to her, and her hands shook as she took a sip. Then she patted my arm. “Much better. Thank you, dear.”

Pamela stepped toward the door. “I’ll get her some lemonade.”

I leaned toward my grandmother, whispering as if I had a secret. Like she used to do with me when I was in grade school. “I’m going to Normandy.”

“Normandy?” Her eyes grew wide, and I could see the lucidity battle her confusion. “The Château d’Epines . . .”

Relief filled me with her words. For that fleeting moment, her mind was with me.

“There’s a man meeting me in France.” She was watching me closely, so I continued. “He wants to know what happened at the château during the war.”

“The château is such a lovely place,” she mused. “You must
take your friend down to the lake. Most people don’t even know it’s there—”

“Did you meet Grandpa at the château?” I asked, trying to help her focus.

Her stiff fingers tugged at the blanket over her chest. “We used to swim in it.”

“You and Grandpa used to swim?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Me and Michel.”

I smiled as I imagined her, years younger than me, splashing in a lake with the younger brother she adored. They probably jumped off logs and paddled in a canoe and hunted for frogs and perhaps even snakes on the shores. It seemed to me that Mémé wasn’t afraid of anything.

“And Nadine used to swim with us too—before they took her away.”

I leaned closer. “Who is Nadine?”

Her gaze wandered to the wall in front of her, to the cards and artwork drawn by the grandchildren of the many students and colleagues she’d befriended over the years, and her fingers began the familiar rhythm of moving the amber rosary beads that hung around her neck. “No one knows what happened at the lake.”

Mémé began to rock against her pillow, and I reached for her hand. I wanted to offer her comfort, not distress, but something I said had upset her. This was why we couldn’t talk about the past. The memories confused her.

Tears began to fill her eyes. “Poor Papa. He . . .”

I wanted to probe, but the pain in her eyes pressed me to stop. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“There was nothing but good in him,” she said, rocking faster now. “Nothing but good . . .”

Pamela shuffled through the door, and I turned around. Worry creased her eyes.

I gently stroked my grandmother’s hand. “It will be okay, Mémé.”

She jerked her hand away and threw off the blanket. Then her gaze found my face. “We must find her.”

I looked up at Pamela again, wondering who we must find, but she seemed just as confused as me.

I tucked the blanket back across Mémé’s chest. “Do we need to find your friend?”

“No.” Her small hand reached out and took my arm, the strength in it surprising me. “We must find Adeline.”

I swallowed hard. “Who is Adeline?”

“The girl.” Her voice grew more insistent. “You must find the girl.”

“Where should I look for her?” I asked.

Her blue eyes seemed to pierce me. “In the hawthorn trees.”

Her head fell back against the pillow, and she swept her hand from mine, bracing it on her chest as the fire in her eyes began to dull. Her eyes closed, and I watched the blanket slowly rise and fall. Then her eyes fluttered open again, and her gaze darted back and forth between Pamela and me before it settled on my face.

She tilted her head. “I’m sorry, dear. Who are you?”

I picked my handbag off the floor. “Michael’s daughter.”

She looked over at Pamela again, confusion wrinkling her forehead. Pamela leaned down and pulled the blanket back over her chest. “You must rest, Mrs. Sauver.”

She threw the blanket off her chest again. “But it’s time for us to ride.”

I kissed her cheek, blinking back my tears. “Perhaps you can go riding tomorrow.”

Chapter 11

T
he ring of the doorbell startled Gisèle, and she almost sliced her finger with the paring knife. Across the table, Émilie was chopping leeks, and Gisèle saw the fear mirrored in her eyes. But perhaps the news wasn’t bad this time. It could be the Polins or even Nadine with good news for them.

“Be careful,” Émilie warned her, as if Gisèle could somehow ward off the Germans with her caution.

Shadow trailed her to the window beside the door. There wasn’t an automobile in the courtyard, but she saw a bicycle. And the blond curls of a young woman standing on the flagstone outside.

Opening the door, she hurried the woman inside. Lisette was barely seventeen, but she had stolen Michel’s heart two years ago. When Michel left with the Armée de Terre, Lisette began coming by often to visit her.

Gisèle kissed Lisette on both of her cheeks and then escorted her into the salon.

“Have you heard any news of Michel?” Lisette begged as she sat on the couch across from Gisèle.

She wished she could offer her the comfort of the truth. Instead she shook her head.

Lisette dabbed her cheeks with a white handkerchief. “I wish he would send a letter.”

“We haven’t received a letter from England in months,” Gisèle said.

“Surely the Germans will let us get mail.”

Gisèle hated the resignation in Lisette’s voice, as if the Germans would bring an end to their problems. “The Germans will be gone soon,” she insisted.

“I don’t think so.” Lisette folded the handkerchief on her lap. “They’ve begun moving men into the courthouse in Saint-Lô. They want to make it their headquarters for all of La Manche.”

Gisèle shuddered at the thought of all those soldiers she’d seen remaining in the city. “How do you know?”

“Someone told them my uncle had been a translator during the Great War so they knocked on our door. He was too ill to leave the apartment, but I could translate for them.”

The telephone rang out from her father’s office. For a moment, Gisèle ignored it, as if Papa would answer the call. Then she leapt to her feet.

The telephone lines had been restored.

She excused herself and hurried toward the office.

Trepidation filled her along with a bit of excitement as she reached for the black receiver. “Hello?”

“Gisèle?” It was Philippe on the other end of the line.

“It’s me!” she exclaimed, so glad to hear his voice. “Is Papa with you?”

“Are you safe?”

“Yes, but I—”

“I’ve been trying to call.” His words rushed out. “I searched all over for you.”

“I went to the Batiers’ house.”

The line clicked. “Who?”

“My friends’ home. Is Papa with you?”

There was a scratching sound on the line and then she heard a muffled voice. The Germans may have restored their telephone lines, but it seemed they might be listening to their calls as well.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“Papa,” she repeated again. “Is he with you?”

“No,” he said. “I haven’t seen him.”

Her excitement leached out of her. “Are you in Lyon?”

“Yes.”

She fell back into her father’s chair, and Shadow jumped on her lap. If Papa wasn’t with Philippe, where had he gone?

Lisette stepped into the office. “Is it Michel?” she mouthed.

When Gisèle shook her head, Lisette retreated back into the salon, leaving her alone with her cat and Philippe’s voice.

“Did the Germans bomb the château?”

“No, the house and property are safe.”

“Good,” he said. “Quite good.”

“Is your mother safe?” she asked.

“She’s right beside me.” Another crackling sound on the line interrupted his words. “We’re trying to figure out how to get you here as well. We could marry—”

“I can’t leave the château,” she interrupted. Her stomach coiled again at the thought of marrying him. “Not until I find Papa.”

Then her heart began to beat faster. What if her father was trying to call her right now? “I must get off the line.”

He pressed through her retort. “The Germans aren’t marching toward the south of France,” he said, and she wondered how well those who listened to their conversation understood French. “You will be safe here.”

“Papa and I will come soon.”

“Gisèle—”

“I must go,” she said. “In case he’s trying to call.”

After she hung up the receiver, she waited by the phone. How could Philippe talk of marriage when her father was missing? He didn’t seem to care . . .

Lisette wandered back into the room and sat down across from her. “Was that Philippe?”

She nodded her head, stroking Shadow’s fur.

“Michel doesn’t like him,” Lisette said.

She managed a weak smile. “He and Michel used to fight as children.”

“Michel said his cousin will do anything to get ownership of this château.”

It was ludicrous to consider Philippe obtaining their property. Papa wasn’t even fifty yet, and even when he was gone, Michel would inherit the place, and Lisette would be the new vicomtesse. Decades and decades from now.

And she would come regularly from Paris to visit them and their children, long after the Germans were gone.

L
ight dappled the ripples in the murky lake water, twinkling like a thousand fireflies at twilight. I dipped my paddle into the sea of lights and pushed the kayak smoothly through it, the steady motion soothing my nerves. For the first time in weeks, I was free—liberated from responsibilities and obligations and all that was required of me.

A small catamaran sailed across the lake from me, its red-and-blue-striped sail fluttering in the wind. The city had been sweltering today, but the breeze drifting over Lake Kendall felt blissfully cool.

Perhaps I should have felt guilty for my desire to escape, but I beat away the guilt with every stroke of my paddle. For this rare hour, I wasn’t the fiancée of Austin Vale or the daughter of the Sauvers or even a third-grade teacher at Washington Elementary. For this hour, I could simply be.

When we met, Austin had captured me with his vision of the future—our future—but
somewhere along the line, I’d forgotten exactly who I was, silhouetted by those with greater dreams than my own.

Chaos—in the best sense of the word—had been the backbone of my family life growing up. My dad was raised by parents who loved him but struggled to survive in the United States. He
had always been fascinated with numbers. When he was twenty-five, he started his first business—a coin-operated Laundromat that quickly turned a profit. He used the flood of revenue to purchase a second Laundromat a few months later, and then for the next decade, he bought another business each year. When he turned forty, he sold everything and launched a company to invest in other people’s businesses.

My parents met when Dad was forty-three. And a multimillionaire.

Growing up, it seemed as if my father was as old as some of my friends’ grandfathers. He spoiled me as a child, but thankfully my mother, as she liked to say, kept me from going rotten.

When my parents married, they both were already business owners. Even though their ventures were polar opposites, the world of self-employment required them to work nights and weekends, when they were eating, and practically when they were sleeping. The results of their enslavement were ridiculously successful careers. And a life with few memories outside their work.

Instead of a hectic life like my parents, I’d craved a more simple one, time to enjoy the water and my family and my students. For as long as I could remember, I’d wanted to teach children, discovering ways to make learning stick for a lifetime. Teaching invigorated me, the opportunity to help provide a foundation of education for the kids in my community. Then each summer, I traveled someplace new, steeping myself in history and culture and local food.