Siri Mitchell - Chateau of Echoes

He looked at me. Looked at the book, flipped back through some of the pages. Looked at me again. “Studying fireplace and ceiling construction.” He rose from my bed, shoved something into the pocket of his cognac-colored plants, and sauntered out, reading all the while.

I bolted my door behind him. The man was a menace to polite society.

Except at dinner.

It was as if he worked from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. and then flipped a switch and became the Cranwell I had known in August. An enjoyable, if flirtatious, companion.

“Where did you grow up, Freddie?”

“California.”

“Really? Me too.”

This I already knew from my Internet research.

“Where?”

“Near Hollywood.”

“Me too.”

I smiled. “On the other side from you. Toward the west.”

“You lived there all your life?”

“Until I was old enough to escape.”

“You didn’t like it.”

“Not particularly. Did you?”

“Loved it.”

That figured.

“Only child?”

I nodded.

“I have one sister.”

I knew that too. Her name is Laura. She is a dental hygienist.

“What did your family do?”

“My father was a senator.”

“Which one?”

“Howard.”

“Duke Howard? No kidding! I knew him well. I was sorry to hear of his death. Of your mother’s too. It was just, when?-’98?”

I nodded.

“That must have been a hard year for you.”

A renegade tear sprung to my eye. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never been that close to my parents, but being around someone who knew them opened the floodgate of my memories. It had been comforting to know that somewhere in the world, I had belonged to someone. And someone had belonged to me.

“They threw the best parties.”

Smiling was difficult with my chin beginning to tremble.

“I never knew they had children. How come I never met you?”

I shrugged. “I was never really a party girl.”

“But when they had a party, everyone would come.”

Pulling my hands inside my arctic blue sweater, I wrapped my arms around my waist. “I wasn’t presentable, Cranwell. I was pudgy, I was covered with zits. My hair was stringy, and I was introverted in the extreme. I wasn’t the kind of daughter Duke needed.” I didn’t compare favorably with my parents’ glamorous clique.

“It’s hard for me to imagine he ever would have thought that.”

My shoulders tipped up in a shrug.

He leaned between our stools and lifted my chin with a finger. “Freddie, you’re lovely.”

To avoid having to look at him, I closed my eyes, but I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. I had no power to stop it. I was reliving my childhood in front of one of those very same beautiful people. It was my fate to live my life in a purgatory of humiliation.

Cranwell let go of my chin and then reached an arm around my shoulders, hugging me to his side.

I turned my head into his chest. My fists clutched handfuls of his wool polo as my anguish found voice in my sobs. They were deep and ugly sounding. I was embarrassed; I was mortified, but the hurt of those years was so deep I could not control them.

Cranwell smoothed my hair while his arm offered firm support for my back.

Eventually, my sobs quieted, my hands slackened their grip, and my arms found their way around his waist. I attempted a deep, quivering breath.

Cranwell never stopped smoothing my hair.

I stayed there, with my cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

“Freddie, I wasn’t lying. You really are lovely.”

“Thanks, Cranwell.”

Gathering what strength was left in me, I made a move to turn away, trying to hide my face from his eyes. I knew how hideous I looked when I cried. My face swells up, and the ice blue color of my eyes only accentuates how bloodshot they are.

Cranwell stopped me.

He cupped my face with gentle hands and turned it toward himself. I thought for a moment that he was going to kiss me, but then he used his thumbs to press away the last traces of my tears.

He let me move away and then offered to help me do the dishes.

A man after my own heart.

I spent several hours that night tossing in my bed, remembering my childhood. My self-imposed exile from my parents’ life. Maybe Cranwell was right; maybe my feelings of inferiority originated in me rather than my parents.

Summoning a vision of myself as a teen, I subjected that person to an honest examination. That appraisal revealed exactly what I had told Cranwell-but did that mean no one would have wanted to talk to me? That I wouldn’t have been interesting? That my parents weren’t proud to call me their daughter? Maybe what I had perceived as rejection was only their attempt to shelter me, to keep me from situations they knew I wasn’t comfortable with. To protect my privacy. My anonymity.

In the final analysis, the problem had been my self-esteem. I couldn’t imagine anyone being interested in knowing me. And the thought of meeting new people terrified me. I was so self-absorbed I was incapable of directing my focus from myself to others. That’s what college, and Peter, had helped me to do.

Although I still wasn’t comfortable at parties, and given a choice, I would rather read a book, at least I no longer thought of myself as a social pariah.

I was an interesting person.

I was well traveled. I was an expert in my field. I was intelligent; I could hold my own in any conversation. I was an excellent hostess; I threw fabulous dinner parties… at least while Peter had been alive.

I had achievable goals for my future and considered myself successful.

I was not beautiful, but I was pleasant looking. I would never be a model. I didn’t care to be one. I knew my best features, my eyes and hair, and I accentuated them. I kept my weight under control.

In fact my life seemed perfect. But why didn’t it feel that way? I could almost sense the spectre of God hovering at the edge of my thoughts. I wrestled with Him. Tried to push Him away. Why did He always keep popping up? Like a spiritual jack-in-the-box? Would I ever be able to push him back down? Put a definitive latch on the box?

Staring up at the ceiling, I let go of the rein I had on my thoughts and let them gallop away. I closed my eyes, hoping for sleep, but Cranwell’s brown eyes haunted me.

What if I had met him at my parents’ house?

My thoughts had veered off in a completely unforeseen direction. I kept thinking of his thumbs wiping away my tears. Of those brown eyes, looking into the depths of my soul. He was the type of person I’d always worked hard at staying away from. He was the type of person I had never allowed myself to trust. The type of person I’d listened to from the safety of my room while my parents had entertained. And yet…

And yet, he was forty-five with a whole life full of people and places and experiences that I’d never known and frankly never wanted to. I decided, in a searing flash of insight, that I had developed a crush on Cranwell.

But crushes were something I had experience with. As long as I didn’t feed the fascination, didn’t fixate on the object of my affection, I knew it would go away. Especially when it lacked encouragement from him. Which it did.

Which it would.

The only reason he paid me any attention was because of my position. If he were kind to me, it was only because he wanted me to let him stay longer. If he flirted with me, it was only because he flirted with everyone; I knew his type. And if he had an interest in anyone in the house, it would be Sévérine.

And that proved to be the happy thought to which I fell asleep.

C ranwell and Lucy found me one afternoon on my third run-recovery lap around the chateau. It was one of the rare times I’d seen him without a book.