Siri Mitchell - Chateau of Echoes

We heard the sound of Sophie’s heels clicking down the hall.

M. Duroc clamped his hand around mine fiercely. “You have made happy the heart of an old man.”

And he had disabused mine of some rose-colored sentiments that had begun an insidious creep around my heartstrings. Cranwell had been right. I don’t know why I’d bothered to wager against him. After all, he was the expert in affairs of the heart. To see a couple like the Durocs had given me… what? Encouragement? Hope? Inspiration? To see a couple like Monsieur Duroc and Sophie had left me disillusioned. Sharing a passion is not the same as sharing a life. Anyone could have an affair. Not everyone could use that passion to build a life in common; it was an emotion that existed within a glass dome. Marriage removed the dome, letting that emotion become tempered by life. Anything can exist in a controlled environment. But in the wilderness of life? Only those with the most fortitude. While the sentiment my guests shared was beautiful, I feared it was, in fact, rather ordinary after all.

M. Duroc and Sophie left late the next day. It was as if they wanted to squeeze all the time they could out of their tryst together.

That evening, Cranwell and Lucy sauntered downstairs for dinner. Cranwell finished setting the table and propped himself on a stool at the island. He fiddled with the buttons on his black cashmere cardigan for a while and then with the collar of his black turtleneck.

“So, how about the Pointe du Raz?” Cranwell tried to look innocent, but failed.

“What about it?”

“When do you want to go?”

“It was your bet. Your choice.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?!”

“Do you have something going on?”

I sputtered around the kitchen for a few minutes before I gave in to him. What could I do? We’d made an honest bet. I’d just have to put off running errands until the weekend.

We had mushrooms with thick cream and cassoulet stew, and then tamped it into our stomachs with a citrusy sorbet des agrumes . It was during the espresso that the conversation got more serious.

“You know, Freddie, I have been wanted and needed, but I don’t think I’ve ever been loved.” He plunked two cubes of sugar into his espresso and pursued them around the bottom of the cup with a spoon. “By anyone but God, of course. And my mother. And father.”

“That can’t be true.” After spending hours on the Internet piecing together his love life, I knew he’d had more opportunity than most to find his soul mate.

“Believe me. It’s true.”

“Frankly, I can’t. It’s not like…”

He tilted his eyes toward me and crooked his mouth in a wry smile. “… it’s not like I haven’t had every opportunity.” He played with the wrapper on the chocolate tablet I’d tucked on top of his saucer. Folded it up into a tiny square and then unfolded it. Smoothed it against the island’s top.

Still not buying it, I shrugged. If there’s one thing I’d learned how to do in France, it was shrug.

“There must be something I haven’t figured out yet. Something I’m not doing right.”

“How many dates do you usually go on before you sleep with someone?”

His brow wrinkled. “I don’t know. It depends.” He colored slightly. “Depended.”

“On what?”

He took a sip of espresso, then stirred it around, again, with the spoon. “I don’t know.”

“You must know.” He’d mentioned this before, and for someone so introspective, he was having a difficult time getting his thoughts together.

He took another sip.

“Personality? Common interests? Life goals?”

He refused to look at me.

“Cranwell?”

He snuck a look at me from under his eyebrows. “What about you?”

“What about me what?”

“Wanted, needed, loved?”

“Loved. I was definitely loved by Peter. Loved first, then needed and wanted.” I popped a square of chocolate into my mouth and let it begin to melt. Absorbed its flavor. “I think we’re opposites, Cranwell. You might never have been loved, but I’ve never been the object of anyone’s desire… besides Peter’s.”

At that, he finally lifted his gaze from his espresso. But it settled on me with such intensity that my cheeks were instantly enflamed. “I find that extremely hard to believe.”

The smoke in his eyes was doing strange things to my stomach. And when he shifted his attention from my eyes to my lips, I couldn’t help it: I swallowed the rest of my chocolate in one long gulp. I could hardly find the voice to say, “It’s true.” And after I had said it, my mouth went dry.

So I moistened my lips.

At that, Cranwell’s eyes imploded, and I felt myself drawn with them into his soul.

“I-” I was having difficulty forming a coherent thought.

“In fact, I know it to be false.”

My scalp began to tingle, and I could feel my ears flush. Like a person in quicksand, I grasped at any branch to keep myself from drowning. I did not need, want, a relationship with Cranwell. And why on earth would he be interested in me? It was just more of his flirting. Anyway, he had Sévérine.

He cleared his throat, but his words were still husky. “It depended on how long it took.”

When I blinked, it broke whatever spell he had cast over me. And I noticed then that we were leaning so far toward each other that we were practically falling off our stools.

Straightening, I pushed my demitasse in between us at some attempt of defense. “How long what took?”

“At what point I slept with a woman depended on how long it took her to say yes.”

My mouth must have dropped open because I found myself closing it. I’d heard about people like him, been warned about people like him, but I’d never actually met one. Known one. Been friends with one.

He settled back onto his stool. “And they usually did.”

“What?”

“Say yes.”

To his credit, he didn’t look very proud of his past behavior. His slouching shoulders and hanging head actually indicated embarrassment.

But how do you respond to something so egotistical? So far was it from my way of thinking that he might have been speaking in Swahili.

“Well then let me give you a tip, Cranwell: The nice girls, the kind you didn’t used to date but now want to marry? They generally look for love before they succumb to want or need. It seems to me you need to look for a woman who’ll say no.”

He shrugged. “I like women. Liked them. Like them still. I just don’t know how to relate without trying… well…” He finally gave up.

My answer wasn’t immediate because I couldn’t tell how earnest he was. Thinking of his sheepish looks, his lack of usual confidence, I decided to offer my opinion. “That’s the problem. You’ll have to give up women if you ever want to find a woman.” I looked in his eyes once more, impervious to the danger. “Maybe you’re just scared.”

The doors to his soul slammed shut. “Maybe.” He drained the rest of his espresso and called to Lucy.

As she rose to her feet, he slid off the stool. “See you in the morning.” He turned around as he reached the stairs. “Freddie?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you sleep with me?”

“No!” My indignation mounted as I heard him chuckle. Evidently the familiar Cranwell had resurfaced.

“Maybe there’s something to that advice you gave.”

T he next morning, I decided practical clothes were the order of the day. Especially if we’d be hiking over the jagged rocks of the Pointe du Raz. I wore jeans with a fuzzy fleece turtleneck. The hiking boots I laced on were a burnished brown.

Cranwell wore a thyme-colored wool polo-neck sweater over a pair of nice fitting jeans. He’d folded a heavy coat over his arm and had squatted to rub Lucy’s stomach when I reached the bottom of the stairs. Sévérine was leaning against the front door watching Cranwell. Considering the way Lucy always snarled at her, I didn’t blame her for keeping her distance.