Chapter eighteen
“Would Madame prefer Loire valley Sauvignon blanc or Normandy cider?” Gabriel asked, holding up a bottle in either hand. “They aren’t chilled but it’s so cool down here that they’re at about drinking temperature anyway.” They were in the sub-ground floor kitchen, which appeared to have been cleaned by the Swiss army since Darcy’s last visit. Every surface shone.
“I’ll try the local product, thanks,” Darcy replied. She was sitting at a long kitchen table that looked as if wars had been fought on and around it. Every face of the timber was scratched, worn or indented in a way that only long years of regular service to humanity could produce.
Gabriel noted her delicate tapered fingers running over the surface, as if she were reading braille, as she felt the nicks and hollows of the tabletop. “My mother rang to say she was sending me this -It arrived while I was away. She said, and I quote: ‘that I needed it as a reminder of what a real life, well-lived looked like instead of the gilded cage that I had created for myself with my global business empire.”
“Ouch, from a mother, that’s harsh.”
“That’s somewhere along the same lines that I was thinking in response as well,” he spoke dryly, as he set two champagne flutes of effervescent amber-tinted cider on the tabletop in front of her. He placed a wooden chopping board replete with a round of brie, a long baguette and a mound of walnuts still in their shells beside the glasses before dumping a nut-cracker and knives next to them and taking the seat nearest her on the corner of the table, allowing him to watch her face as they talked. “If you look just down there on the side by that leg nearest you you’ll see where I carved my initials when I was thirteen,” he remarked, “I couldn’t sit down for several days afterwards when my mother found it.”
“Ouch again.” Darcy commiserated, eying the initials CFD jaggedly etched into the upper table leg. If she thought the punishment a little severe for the crime, she didn’t say. Parenting styles differed, after all and she didn’t feel she had always made the right choices when it came to discipline herself, particularly since being left to parent alone.
His next words echoed her unspoken thoughts. “Yes. She has been heard to say that abolishing corporal punishment was for wimps who were not solo-parenting nine children. And it certainly cured me from future vandalism. Personally, I think giving me the table might well be a tangible reminder of what she is capable of if I don’t do as she says.”
“I like the sound of your mother,” Darcy said, her wide grin veering towards malicious.
“You would like her. A very fair-minded woman but not one that you ever want to cross swords with, if you know what I mean,” Gabriel replied, gently touching his glass to Darcy’s before taking a long swig of his own drink. “Oh, that’s sublime,” he spoke with evident pleasure, leaning back comfortably in his chair and closing his eyes.
Why was it, thought Darcy, her mind going off on a random track as she stared at his ridiculously long dark lashes set against flawless skin and those high prominent cheekbones, that males always got the lions-share of eyelashes? First, he had the advantage of those big dark jersey-cow eyes …or maybe it was more jersey-bull? then he got mile-long lashes to go with them. No fair. And why was she sitting here thinking about his eyes when she shouldn’t be? She felt at a loss for something to say and searched around in her mind for a conversation-starter to take her mind off his facial features or any other of his physical attributes she might fancy. Rummaging around, she hit upon a topic that was safe, although even she knew it bordered on staid. After taking a healthy swig of her own drink she cleared her throat. “You haven’t given me a clear figure for a budget for the landscape work yet. Do you have an amount in mind?” She didn’t want to over-design only to be told at some future date that she’d exceeded the budget.
“Nope. Work is over for the day so we can’t discuss business. I’m taking my mother’s words to heart. We’ll have to talk about something else,” he opened his eyes and looked directly at her, “How about you, for example.”
“Me?”
“Hmmm, it occurs to me that you know considerably more about me than I do you, so now’s a good time to remedy that.”
“There’s not much to tell,” and she was wary of sharing. She drank again, finishing half the glass in one long draught. The bubbles tickled as they ran down her throat. “You already know that I’m from a big,” she caught his disparaging look, “biggish family,’ she corrected, resisting the urge to burp from drinking too quickly, “I grew up like any other good ol’ southern gal …school, left home, college, post-grad., pregnant, married, had babies, got ditched. Same old, same old.” She hoped that her casual manner had masked the pain she felt.
“Tell me about the ditcher then,” he wondered just how ‘ex’ the ex was. “What was he like? Shall we send my mother after him?” He cut a generous segment of creamy cheese and spread it on a piece of torn-off bread, handing it to her. From the way she was drinking, he surmised that she was unaware of the alcohol content of Normandy cider. If she continued consuming it as if it were apple juice the effects might be interesting.
“As much as I’d love that, I think not,” she replied, accepting the food. The ripe cheese tasted of buttery mushrooms and the bread, bought fresh from a boulangerie in Varengeville sur Mer, the village where Bois des Moutiers was located, had a perfectly crunchy crust and was still whisper-soft white inside. The combination was simply delicious. “Hmm –nomnom, that’s so good,” she spoke around the mouthful, her voice slightly muffled, “He’s skipped the country to go and live in sunny Brazil with his baby-mama, or at least I think he has –I haven’t heard from him in weeks," she didn’t add that he’d stopped support payments for the children around the same time. Without her savings they’d have all been up a certain creek without a paddle. At least she was well-paid now that she had started work again. She swilled another large mouthful of her drink and swallowed, burping genteelly behind her closed fist.
“Your Patrick was a bit of a skunk really, wasn’t he,” Gabriel observed appraisingly, reaching behind himself to snag the half-full bottle of cider off the bench. He placed it within Darcy’s easy reach. While he was not aiming at taking advantage of her, the drink did seem to have the added benefit of loosening her tongue.
“Ah, not a description I’d have thought of,” Darcy countered, “I might have gone more for slimy slug if I was thinking of a comparison with the animal kingdom …but smelly skunk is fairly apt. He did turn out to be a stinker,” she agreed, finishing the glass of cider and refilling it from the bottle. “Is it getting warm in here?” she asked as she took her cardigan off and dumped it on the table.
“Just how big a stinker was he?” Gabriel enquired. “Do I detect a note of bitterness in your tone that suggests something deeper than mere sexual betrayal?”
“Since when did sexual betrayal become merely ‘mere’?” Darcy snapped indignantly, starting on the second glass. “I must have missed that memo.” Gabriel merely raised an eyebrow and passed her a handful of walnuts he’d been cracking open with the nutcracker as they talked. She popped one in her mouth. Fresh nuts were so much better than the bitter old pre-packaged things she’d been buying if she were still in London, she thought, tasting their sweet flesh. As she crunched another nut it occurred to her, was she becoming like one of those bitter old nuts she so disliked that it was now so evident to others? She’d thought she had her anger well enough under control that it didn’t show.
“It wasn’t the first time he’d cheated on me,” she admitted, her words ever so slightly slurred, “and it wasn’t even the second,” and those were just the previous two that she’d known about –Patrick had been good about leaving hints that way …he liked her to know that she wasn’t enough for him. She had briefly gone back home to her mother with the children after the second affair, hoping for moral support. What was it her mother had said? “If it’s good enough for Hilary Clinton to stand by her man after he cheated m
ore than once, it’s good enough for too you, my girl. Get your sorry ass back to London.” Yeah –really supportive on the family-front.
“Anything else?” Gabriel felt he was becoming something of a father-confessor, but figured it would do her no harm to get things off her chest. He passed a glance at said chest –Darcy might be feeling over-warm from the alcohol but the cool temperature in the kitchen was having an interesting effect on her nipples through the thin fabric of her dress. He supposed he should advise her to slow down with the cider but was loath to either do that or go and turn the heating on, not just yet. She needed to talk. It was justification enough for him to sit still and listen.
The cider must be going to her head, thought Darcy a little muzzily, she felt slightly out-of-touch with her body otherwise she’d never have shared either the previous admissions or what she said next, “He hit me.” She announced baldly, “Patrick hit me, and I let him away with it.” It had started after they been married a few years and hadn’t happened often, maybe only once or twice a year when Patrick got completely wasted at his office Christmas party or some shindig with his old mates then picked a fight with her as an excuse to lash out. He was never particularly sorry afterwards and she’d always just let it go for the sake of the children. She had kidded herself that she wasn’t an abused wife because it didn’t happen every second weekend. “I wasn’t completely stupid,” she added defensively, “I did take photos of the bruises when he hurt me and they’re all time-stamped –not that it’s much proof really, this far on,” she concluded miserably.
“Ah, so that’s it,” the alcohol had done its work. He reached across and plucked the glass from her slack fingers, getting up to pour the last of the cider down the sink before refilling the glass with cold water. He returned the flute to her hands and sat down again.
Darcy played with the glass, turning it this way and that but not drinking, “I guess I’m just not much good at picking men,” she said gloomily.
“I’d say there’s some room for improvement,” Gabriel agreed, nodding sagely. “But there’s still time,” he smiled roguishly as he spoke, knowing it would irritate her out of her funk, “French men like older women,”
“I’m not old! I’m only thirty-one.” Darcy yelped as she threw a walnut at him. He batted it away easily. “You’re lucky that wasn’t still in the shell,” she warned.
“So scared, so very scared,” he taunted, handing her several more shelled nuts. “You need to eat some more to help soak up that alcohol that you’ve just poured down your throat as if it was soft drink.” He spread more Brie on another segment of baguette. “I’ve never seen anyone get drunk so fast on cider. French children can drink more than that - talk about fastest drunk in the west,”
“I’m not drunk,” she objected, the words slurring. “Well, maybe a teeny little bit,” she held up her thumb and forefinger half and inch apart, “’Bout this much,”
Gabriel held his hands aloft either side of his body, “’bout that much, more likely.”
“I don’t usually drink … at all,” Darcy announced in a sing-song voice.
“C'est chouette! Great! Now you tell me,” he rose to his feet. “Drink that water and I’ll make some coffee. Let’s hope you sober up as fast as you get drunk …and since you’re not in any state to do it now, how about I cook dinner?” he suggested, adding “I’ll call Bertrand and tell him to deliver the children here rather than to the stable cottage,” Gabriel had his phone out and was making the call before Darcy could respond in the negative.
Forty minutes later Gabriel was chopping cucumbers and putting the finishing touches to a fresh green salad that he’d made to go with pasta and sauce. Darcy had offered to help but had been instructed to sit and watch as he hadn’t trusted her to wield a knife in her current condition. She had drunk two glasses of water, a strong coffee and finished off the last piece of the baguette while he cooked at the enormous stove, and was feeling more in control of her senses than before. The room was now comfortably warm as Gabriel had gone down the hall to switch the heating on after a last lingering look at her chest.
Frodo barked. Darcy heard the outer door slam and feet tromping loudly on the stone stairs that led down to the sub-ground floor. The door to the kitchen burst open, “Hey Mom! We had Croque Monsieur!” the children chorused happily by way of greeting. “We’ve got the recipe so we can show you how to make it for us again,” they smiled helpfully.
“French ham-and-cheese-on-toast,” explained Gabriel over the mêlée of dog and children, “not so very difficult. Now, shall we eat?”
“I have an idea,” Gabriel announced over dinner, as he refilled Darcy’s water glass. “The workmen tell me that they’ll be using jackhammers in the chateau on Friday and I do not want to be here for that so how about we all take the day off and head for Disneyland Paris?”
“But what about the children’s schools?” asked Darcy, “I thought that French schools took a very dim view of parents taking their children out for anything less than Armageddon?”
“Leave that to me,” advised Gabriel, “I’ll sort it. There’s too much bureaucracy in France these days anyway –we’re drowning in it. Perhaps it’s time for another revolution. I know children, we could start one. After-all, freedom, La Liberté was supposed to be part of what we were fighting for. I say freedom from school on Friday! Vive la revolution!” he raised his fork above his head. Connor and Rosie were quick to follow his example, shouting “Vive la Revolution!” with childish enthusiasm although they had no idea what the words meant. Frodo joined the fray, barking loudly and jumping around the group at the table. Darcy covered her ears.
“Sterling idea,” their mother spoke in withering tones to Gabriel as the din abated, “I thought you said you spent time with your nieces and nephews. You should know better than to incite the population to revolution. Considering that the last began with people starving and ended with the guillotine,” she refrained from mentioning beheadings outright in front of the children. “We are hardly starving here,” she said pointedly, indicating all the left-over food on the table.
“Ah, but you are wrong Madame, we are starving …for fun, not food, and it’s time we all had some. Fun, that is. As for the coming revolution …we’ll change a few of the details this time around,” he insisted, “but the principle is still the same; Freedom from authority.” The last was announced in stentorian tones which had the children and dog dancing excitedly round the table once more.
“Sound more like anarchy than freedom to me,” she called over the ruckus before shushing her children. The dog was beyond her control and continued barking.
“Ah well, perhaps a little of both,” he said loudly over Frodo’s yapping. “We French are only ever a heartbeat away from anarchy anyway. Wouldn’t take much to push us over.” He flicked his fingers in a negligent gesture, then noting her less than impressed gaze he put a finger to his lips and called Frodo to sit at his feet. The dog obeyed instantly.
“Awfully compliant for an untrainable anarchist,” Darcy couldn’t resist teasing.
“If only I could get you to comply to my wishes so easily,” he countered softly, getting the last word in.
“Time we went home, Connor, Rosie,” Darcy felt a sudden urgency to leave. “Grab your things. We have school tomorrow.”
“But not on Friday!” the pair chorused together.
“No, not on Friday,” Darcy sighed, giving in. “Now say ‘Thank you’ to Gabriel for dinner and let’s go.”
“Thank you for an enjoyable and informative day,” Gabriel returned. Darcy had spent much of her time throughout the day with him discussing the pros and cons of each of the gardens they had visited and fleshing out her ideas for de Belagnac. If it hadn’t been quite the conversation that Gabriel would have preferred, it was, at least, conversation. Progress had been made towards his end goal. He was satisfied that the early morning start had been worthwhile. Now his bed was calling.
After his offer to
walk them to their door was politely declined, he said goodnight to the trio at the turret door, reminding Connor that they had their first archery lesson in the morning as the boy had a later start for school. Then, yawning hugely, he called Frodo and turned back down the stairs and along the lower hallway to what he had dubbed his ‘dragon’s den’ in homage to Connor’s bat cave –the almost windowless room he intended to inhabit for the duration of the renovation and landscape improvements was larger than Connor’s but equally dim. It was furnished with little more than two beds, one human, one dog and a small wardrobe but it would suffice for the interim. His elegant well-appointed Paris apartment was too far distant to commute on a daily basis and he wanted to be around for the buildings works, and, he was happy to admit to himself but to no one else, to continue his pursuit of the lovely Darcy.
Blissfully unaware of the level of organisation that was being put into her chase, Darcy strolled along happily in the moonlit night with her children skipping alongside. Walking past a huge old oak that grew alongside the lane they were astounded to see a tawny owl drop silently from a thick branch to grab a mouse in its sharp claws, extending its mottled buff-coloured wings over the unfortunate creature to prevent its escape before delivering a killing blow and returning to a dark hole high up in the tree’s trunk to consume its supper. Darcy was interested to see that neither of the children found this sight abhorrent but seemed to accept nature for what it was, quietly observing the spectacle before moving on.
Bertrand had left a post-it note, -one of her own judging by the bright pink colour- stuck to the outside of the cottage door informing her that the kitten had been fed, as per Gabriel’s instructions. Darcy, who had completely forgotten Napoleon’s evening feed-time, was thankful that someone else had remembered. Guiltily, she thought her lack of memory might have had its source in a certain bottle of Normandy cider.
She unlocked the door, prepared to make much of the kitten in reparation for her sins but Napoleon was sound asleep on her bed so she decided that leaving him there and contorting her body around his little form, lying smack in the centre of her bed was penance enough. She woke at around two in the morning to a kitten purring loudly in her ear but a gentle shove put him at a better distance from her ears and they both dropped back to sleep.