Keys to the Castle (14 page)

“Well, you'll certainly be able to afford it now.”

She said, “It was the house that Daniel and I lived in right after we got married.”

He put down his fork, the asparagus untasted. “But what will you
do
?”

She looked at her wine, but didn't taste it. “My sister has a bookstore. I used to help her out.”

He said absolutely nothing.

She felt defensive. “I liked it. It's good work.”

He picked up his fork again.

“What?” she demanded irritably.

“Nothing,” he replied. “Not a thing.”

She scowled briefly, recognizing the cavalier reply she had given him earlier. “You disapprove.”

“Why ever should I disapprove?” he returned blandly. “A house on the water, a quaint little bookstore . . . it all sounds perfectly lovely. For an afternoon.”

He lifted his glass to her in a small salute, his eyes revealing nothing except the clear blue color of the water below them, and she struggled to hide her smile. “I think we're very different people, Ash.”

“And I think we're more alike than you care to admit,” he returned easily. “But either way, I predict you'll soon grow bored in your tiny island bookstore.”

She hesitated, wanting to argue with him, but in the end simply said, lightly, “There are worse things.”

“Can't think of any, myself.”

And then he hesitated, the casualness leaving his face, and his tone. He glanced briefly into the distance, and then looked back at her. He said quietly, “No one remains broken forever, Sara. You either heal, or you die. And you are not going to die.”

She wanted to say something, but she couldn't. She felt her throat grow tight again, and she could not be certain whether it was from sorrow or gratitude. Ash gave her no time to dwell on it. He resumed his easy demeanor, and broke off a piece of bread.

“Have you ever been to Carcassonne? It's only an hour's drive. Talking of some marvelous examples of restored châteaux . . .”

She slowly relaxed as they finished their picnic, and he took her effortlessly from one harmless, entertaining topic of conversation to another. It had been a long time since she had been so comfortable with someone she didn't know. Even with Daniel, there had always been that underlying sense of urgency, of purpose and intent, that was as exciting as it was exhausting. She had never really felt comfortable with Daniel. There was too much passion, too much that was larger-than-life, and simply being in his presence would leave a person breathless, more often than not. Ash, as insincere as he no doubt was, knew how to offer exactly what was needed, no more and no less, to make whomever he was conversing with feel at ease. It was a rare talent, almost a gift. And what made it even more impressive was that he actually seemed to enjoy the process as much as she did.

It was late afternoon when they packed up the picnic basket and made their way back down the knoll to the boat. The bottle of wine was empty, and Sara held on to the arm he offered along the slippery parts of the slope. She said, “I hope the chef hasn't prepared another feast for tonight, because I don't think I can eat another bite.”

He chuckled. “Sorry, the chef 's banquet was for one night only. That very nice housekeeper—Madame Touron—tells me the remainders are all nicely put away in the fridge, though, if you get hungry later on. Careful, now. Don't get your feet wet. I'll go first.”

He placed the basket on the bottom of the boat and climbed inside, loosening the rope from the shrub around which he had looped it and then grasping her arms to swing her inside. She caught her foot against the rim of the boat and landed hard, causing the boat to rock violently. He scooped her against him, possibly to steady her, possibly to keep from falling himself, and when she looked up at him, half laughing, half gasping, his face was only inches from hers and she thought,
This is classic
.

She could see the pores of his skin and the soft, deep surprise in his eyes. She felt the heat of his thighs and his hands on her back and the warmth of his wine-scented breath across her lips, and she thought, distantly, that she must have had more to drink than she had realized because she did not pull away. His face moved, just fractionally, closer to hers and then he stopped, his eyes dark on hers, and he murmured, softly, almost to himself, “Now, that would be completely inappropriate, wouldn't it?”

Sara swallowed hard and broke his gaze, flooded suddenly with guilt and confusion. For a moment—just that moment when she was captured in his eyes—she had forgotten about Daniel. She had forgotten her grief, her loss, her emptiness. She had felt almost normal, for just a moment. How could that have happened? She was a widow. How could he have made her forget that?

His hands slid to her waist, lightly steadying her, and then to her arms as he guided her to the plank seat. By the time he took his place in the bow and handed her an oar, his smile was easy and his demeanor relaxed, and she could almost believe the moment hadn't occurred at all.

They parted in the entry hall of the castle, Ash to check his e-mail and Sara to retrieve the papers she had left on the terrace. After the warmth of the sun, the marble interior felt cool, and gooseflesh prickled on Sarah's sun-rouged arms. She said, “Thank you for the afternoon, Ash—and for not turning on your phone again. Don't think I didn't notice.”

There was again that familiar crinkle at the corners of his eyes; she was surprised to realize how much she enjoyed making him smile. “Actually, I rather enjoyed it myself. It's not often I get a holiday.”

She said, “I know it was hard for you to get away from your work, and I appreciate your coming here in person. But now that everything's settled, I'm going to try to get a flight back tomorrow. And you can get back to your life.”

He looked surprised. “I thought you planned to stay the weekend.”

“I did . . .” She shrugged, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “But there's no reason to, is there? I mean, everything can be handled by mail from now on out, can't it?”

“I suppose, if that's what you prefer.” And then he said, “But I wish you'd stay.”

He seemed as surprised to have said that as she was to hear it, and, almost as though to cover, he made a small grimace. “The truth is, I'm in France by way of avoiding one of my mother's dreadful house parties, and if you leave, I shall have no more excuses.”

She laughed. “How bad can your mother's party be?”

“My dear,” he said sincerely, “you simply cannot imagine. I beg of you, don't make me return to England this weekend. Stay a little longer.”

She considered this for a moment, trying not to show her amusement as she studied him. “Maybe,” she agreed. “On one condition.”

He winced. “Why do I think this has something to do with my mobile?”

She lifted one shoulder negligently. “I'm sure your mother won't mind at all if you check your messages every thirty seconds.”

His eyes narrowed marginally. “Lord preserve me from clever women. You sounded remarkably like my secretary just then.”

She chuckled. “Now, that's a compliment I can take. Do we have a deal?”

He thought for a moment. “Mobile telephone hours are from ten p.m. until ten a.m. Otherwise the bloody thing remains locked in my desk.”

“Fair enough,” she agreed. “You're not going to go into withdrawal, are you?”

He grinned and playfully tapped her nose with his forefinger. “We shall see, my dear, we shall see. I hope I don't live to regret this.”

And Sara thought, but did not say,
Me, too
.

Over the next few days Sara got to know a part of Ash that she never would have imagined existed before. “When I first met him,” Sara told Dixie when she called two days before her flight home, “I had a hard time picturing him as Daniel's best friend. He was nice enough, but you know Daniel—he never had a feeling he didn't express, or an impulse he didn't act on . . . Ash was so well rehearsed, so well thought out. He made it look easy, of course, but I have to say he seems a lot more real this way. And a lot easier to be around.”

They walked down to the village on market day, and Ash bought her a baseball cap to protect her face from the sun, because he could not find a sun hat. They filled cotton bags with fresh produce and cheese and slim baguettes, and brown farm eggs that were practically still warm from the hen. They laughed when they discovered neither one of them knew how to cook well enough to turn the bounty into an actual meal, and dined instead on cheese and fruit and wine and watched the sunset from the terrace.

Ash's Armani gave way to jeans and short-sleeved cotton shirts that buttoned midway up the chest, and, for their day trip to Carcassonne and a hike through the hills, Bermuda shorts and hiking shoes. He had the whitest legs Sara had ever seen, and when she had teased him about it he devised a deadpan thirty-minute lecture on the dangers of sun overexposure to peoples of, as he put it, “extreme Northern descent,” that had her holding her sides with laughter before he was finished.

“He drove a Fiat,” she told Dixie about the trip to Carcassonne, “with the top down. I didn't even know he could drive. But I guess he rented the Fiat in Paris and drove it down here. I never even knew it was here.”

They had hiked in the morning and paused at the top of a steep trail overlooking the ancient city to catch their breaths. He had put his arm around her shoulders for no reason at all, and she had leaned against him companionably. She did not tell Dixie about that. They visited a marvelous château that was open to the public and she snapped photographs like a tourist while Ash pretended not to know her. They had a two-hour lunch at an outdoor café, then strolled the streets, sampling the local wines and visiting the boutiques. Whenever Ash found a wine he liked, he ordered a case. Whenever Sara commented favorably on a wine she tasted, he ordered a case for her. She tried to warn Dixie about all the wine that would shortly be arriving on her doorstep.

“He's teaching me French,” Sara said. “Well, a little anyway. I guess it will take more than a couple of days to learn. He speaks five languages.”

He took her to visit a local cathedral and spoke with easy expertise on the architecture and history of the place. On another afternoon he arranged to take her to a reception at the château she had seen on the hillside across from the chapel, which wasn't as intimidating as she had thought it would be, because he knew the hosts personally, and there were four other American couples there.

“And get this,” Sara told Dixie, “they've
all
bought and restored ruins—that's what they call these broken-down old French mansions. None of them is as elaborate as Château Rondelais—they were all so jealous when they heard I'd inherited it—but they love living here in the valley. Apparently, everything we've heard about the French hating Americans doesn't apply when you pour tons of money into preserving their culture and settle down among them. Oh, and you should have
seen
the château! It was like something from a Hollywood set. It sits right smack in the middle of a vineyard, and everything smells like grapes. Of course, it was more of a palace than a château—big and white with lots of rooms and tall windows. Rondelais has a lot more character. All the Americans invited me to come visit them at their homes,” she added, and a touch of wistfulness in her voice surprised even her, “to see how they've restored them. But I won't be here long enough.”

“Why not?” Dixie demanded. “What do you have to rush back for? It sounds like you're enjoying yourself.”

“I am,” she admitted. “But I'm a little homesick, too. Besides, Ash has gone out of his way to make sure I had a good time. It won't be nearly as much fun without him.”

There was a note of teasing in Dixie's voice as she observed, “It sounds like you might have the teensiest bit of a crush on this guy.”

Sara's cheeks flamed, even though there was no one there to see it. “Don't be ridiculous.” Her voice was a little too sharp. “He's just being nice, that's all. Besides, I haven't even been widowed a year. What kind of person would I be if I could get interested in another man, just like that?”

“A human one,” said Dixie sincerely. “A
living
one.”

Sara scowled, extremely uncomfortable now. “This is a stupid conversation. I know the difference between charm and sincerity. He's not the kind of person I would ever get involved with. We're business partners, that's all.”

Dixie hesitated. “Sara . . . you're
sure
you trust him? That this deal he's set up is legitimate?”