She returned the smile. “Forgive my rudeness, Madame Badeau. Thomas has not remarked upon many Americans.”
“What did he say?”
The couple shared a glance and a small smile.
“Very little, actually,” Peter said. “Like I said. Circumspect.”
“I noticed your accent. Is Thomas your son?”
He chortled. “Oh goodness, no. Thomas is solid upper-crust British merchant wealth. My father was a tailor. I was a gentleman’s gentleman.”
Claire examined the room, her eyes seeking out open doorways, counting rooms in her mind. It was going to take a while to find Grey’s room or rooms, before she could even hope to search them. She noticed their stares. “This is an amazing house.”
Yvette smiled. “You are kind to say.”
Peter coughed and wiped his mouth. “This château was in Yvette’s family since it was built in the sixteen hundreds. Marie Antoinette walked these dusty halls.”
Yvette glanced around the room, her expression fond. “This place has seen better days.”
Claire looked around at the furniture. Obviously well cared for, it was a bit worn and faded. “Haven’t we all.”
Peter coughed, his thin form twisting in the chair.
Yvette stood. “Peter must retire to his room to rest. If you’d like, afterward, I will offer you a tour and we might speak.”
“That would be wonderful,” Claire said with a warmth she didn’t feel.
Yvette sturdied Peter as he pushed himself off the chair, said his good-byes and shuffled on her arm from the room.
“Please, finish your tea,” Yvette said. “I will only be a moment. I need to get him settled. He had a difficult summer.”
The sound of shuffling feet faded down a corridor. At the click of a door lock, Claire stood and peered down the long hall. She crept down the corridor, silently opening and closing doors. The rooms were musty with high ceilings, lightly furnished, the walls heavy with old paintings of landscapes and portraits. She heard voices and hurried back to the salon, returning to face the windows. Yvette joined her a moment later.
The estate was laid out like a dramatic painting framed by the château’s windows. They overlooked a grand parterre, coiling evergreen hedges inside two basins on either side of an extended central axis that led the eye all the way to the Marne River.
Yvette looked over to Claire. “You are interested in the gardens. You share Thomas’ passion?”
At Claire’s questioning glance, she continued. “For gardens?”
Claire remembered the long walks lost in Luxembourg garden. “Of course. I do. I am a florist myself.”
“How appropriate.”
Claire nodded, but her face must have shown her confusion.
“You don’t know what he does?” Yvette looked doubtful.
“Well.” Claire smiled. “It seems Grey learned everything about me, but you know how secretive he can be when it suits him.”
“Yes, he can be maddening.” She turned to the window. “Thomas is a noted landscape architect. He has been commissioned to create gardens in Britain, New York and here in France. His expertise is in French gardens of a certain era.”
“Le Nôtre,” said Claire, without thinking.
Yvette smiled. “Yes, gardens based on André Le Nôtre’s designs in the eighteenth century. He has told you more than you thought.”
Claire turned away from Yvette and stared out over the landscape. Her chest ached. No wonder he loved meeting her in the Parisian gardens. It was the Paris he loved and he had shared it with her.
Yvette gestured toward the gardens. “It’s a bit overgrown now, with Thomas traveling.”
Claire’s mind churned, her heart anxious. She had to search the place. If there was evidence, and she did not find it, people, including herself, would be captured, tortured and likely killed. Yvette and Peter may be in great danger. But she ached to know what this place was to Grey. What he had said about the American. She turned to Yvette. “I can’t imagine growing up in a place like this. It must have been like living in a fairy tale.”
“I had a privileged youth, although I didn’t realize it at the time.”
“How did Grey—Thomas—come to live here?”
Yvette gazed over the landscape, her attention far away. “My family was once considered important. As befitted my status, I was sent to the finest schools, traveled across Europe, associated with the best families. Then my grandfather, the Baron de Langon died. We learned, as did all of France, that the family was completely impoverished. The servants were sent away. I was sixteen and brought home from school. All that was left to the de Langon name was this château. Nothing more.”
“What did you do?” Claire asked.
“I became a governess, employed by a family in England. An upper-class family with a young boy. The parents were cold, but Thomas—he was kind, warmhearted and so curious. When he turned nine, I got permission to bring him and his family’s gentleman on a trip to the château for the summer. His gentleman was Peter.” Yvette stopped, lost in the memories.
Claire stared at Yvette. A boy of a priggish family, destined to be more of the same. Into his young life saunters a beautiful, sophisticated Frenchwoman. Of course he was enchanted. Of course he changed his life. She was suddenly grateful to old de Langon for losing the family’s wealth.
“These gardens were designed by Claude Desgotz, the nephew and pupil of Le Nôtre. But for years, this looked nothing like what you see today. My parents, then myself, hadn’t the means to keep this up. By the time Thomas was grown, the château had fallen rather badly into disrepair.”
Claire shrugged. “It looks amazing now.”
“Thomas restored much of the gardens to their original state. He also created his own private gardens near the château. I believe Le Nôtre himself would enjoy this view.” She turned to Claire, her schooled voice charged. “Of course, the last couple of years Thomas has been gone. To Paris. Other places. Perhaps, you know more about that than I?” Yvette’s expression was polite, but her eyes searched Claire’s.
“A bit,” Claire said, her mind working.
“I would enjoy hearing about Thomas’ life away from here.” Yvette smiled, but Claire saw the worry in her eyes.
“I think Grey should tell you that.”
Yvette sighed; she turned back toward the window. “It is impossible to get back to Noisiel this evening. There will be no train until morning. You will stay tonight.”
“You are so kind,” Claire said.
C
laire helped Yvette prepare a simple dinner. Potatoes, a piece of beef from a neighbor down the road. For Peter, a broth. They ate in the salon; the small table pulled close to the fire crackling in the hearth. Yvette and Peter regaled her with stories about Thomas when he was a boy. The summer he decided to be a farmer and secretly bought a goat from a boy down the road. He kept it hidden and fed it grass and apples for nearly a month. His secret was discovered when they woke up one morning with the goat standing in the fountain on Neptune’s head.
Claire soaked up the gentle stories and laughed alongside the pair. The warmth of their affection was like a fire on a cold night. “Grey was lucky to have you,” Claire said as she mopped up the last bite of potato with a slice of bread.
Peter gazed at his wife, a smile in his eyes. “Yvette certainly did brighten up a number of lives. Before that, well, the Greys were cold fish. Then his father died and left Thomas to deal with the finances and help raise his baby sister.”
“Mary Jane,” Yvette said. “She was born when Tommy was nine.”
“Did she come to France?”
Yvette stood. Stepping behind Peter, she repositioned the blanket wrapped around his waist. She squeezed his shoulders, her face tender. “No. Peter and I married in ’21. Mrs. Grey didn’t approve. We came back to live here year-round. Mary Jane was still too young to know us.”
“And how is Mary Jane now?”
“She is well, we understand. She and her daughter, Abigail, have a nice home now outside of London. Away from the bulk of the bombing,” Yvette said.
Abigail. A burst of warmth flowed up Claire’s body. Grey’s silence had been discretion for his sister’s sake. The conversation flowed around her as she soaked up the information. A wartime indiscretion wasn’t unheard of. But in that sort of family, it just might take a protective older brother across the channel to help.
He hadn’t been untrue. The glow in her chest turned into an ache.
After dinner, Claire followed Yvette up the grand staircase to a small room, simple and spare. A bed and nightstand were tucked next to a compact marble hearth set with logs.
Yvette kneeled and coaxed the fire to life. “I apologize for the simple quarters. Thomas stays mostly in Paris now. Except for his rooms, we closed up this floor last winter. Heating . . .” She shrugged.
“I understand. Your home is magnificent. Thank you for letting me stay.”
Yvette moved to leave then stopped. “It is Thomas who lets
us
stay. We couldn’t pay; we would’ve lost this place. Thomas bought it. He couldn’t bear to let it go.” Yvette faced Claire. “He did mention
un femme américaine
. Not by name and without details. But when he spoke of her, he could not help but smile. He said her eyes were blue, like the ocean. Made to be drowned in. I know you are more than a friend.” She reached for Claire, laid a warm hand on her arm. “Please, I must know. Where is he?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t say.”
Yvette’s expression hardened. “Thomas is a good man. Whatever he is doing, it is because it is the right thing to do for us. For France. Tell me, do you do the right thing for Thomas? Will you?”
Claire held her gaze and forced herself to nod. But inside she felt her chest begin to throb.
Yvette exited the room. Claire leaned against the door, listening as the woman descended the stairs. After a moment, the faint light shining under her door faded to black and the only sounds were the creaks of the ancient house settling in for the night. She took the lit candle from her bedside and crept outside.
The hallway was black. Claire could see no more than the faint area surrounding the flickering flame. She remembered doors evenly spaced along the wall; hers was closest to the stairs. She felt her way along. A few steps later, her hand connected with the cold metal of a doorknob. The hinges squeaked as she peered in with the candle brandished high in front of her. Dust. A near-empty room. The furniture sold or burned for warmth. The next three doors opened more easily, but the contents were the same.
She found Grey’s study behind the fourth door. Heavy velvet curtains thrown open, a full moon lit the room. It was a man’s library. A leather chair waited behind a heavy wooden desk. Stacks of books lined the shelves that extended well above Claire’s head. She walked over to his desk. On top, a silverframed photo of woman. Blond, pretty in a perky way. She had Grey’s steel-colored eyes but her sunny smile promised fun. She was hugging a soldier in uniform. Mary Jane, Claire presumed.
Claire searched through the contents of each drawer then slid her fingertips underneath the wooden frames. On the shelf there was a stack of thumbed-over volumes of the
Journal of Garden History
. She picked up a thick book, its pages stuffed with neatly written notes. She read the title,
Architecture de Jardins
. Nothing more than the normal everyday sort of clutter a cultured landscape architect might have in his library.
Claire padded to an oversized table near the window. Large sheets of vellum paper half the size of the tabletop were stacked on the hardwood surface. Ink pens stuck out from the top of a silver cup. Straight and arced rulers were shoved against the back corner. The bright moonlight illuminated garden layouts that had been painstakingly hand drawn with black ink. Large swoops and swirls, long straight lines, Claire imagined the gardens dreamed on these pages were beautiful but she couldn’t make any sense of them. She needed her dreams to be flesh and blood, leaf and stone.
She walked through the door separating his study from his bedroom. His wardrobe was sparse with worn work clothes and a few conservative wool suits. Muddy work boots slumped on the wardrobe floor.
A large four-poster bed. She pictured him in it, with her in his arms. It would feel so luxurious after their stolen moments on the farm, soft sheets pulled up over them. She sat on the bed, ran her hand over the blankets.
“Tell me your secrets, Grey,” she whispered and willed her mind to clear. Facing the room, she dropped to her knees, candle in hand. The small flame next to her face, she searched an inch at a time across the bedroom to the study.
She found the box an hour later. It was under loose bricks in the floor of the fireplace, beneath a coating of cinders. She blew ashes from the top and cracked open the lid as she settled back on the wood floor.
Sitting on top was a thin paper with three columns. Holding it close to the flame, Claire saw it was names of officers, ranks, the date they got to Paris, where they worked, and where they stayed. Most were in hotels, some had street addresses. Her eyes skimmed the page to the bottom. Von Richter—Sturmbannführer—SD—13.02.43—84, avenue Foch/Paris Ritz.
Her stomach churned as she realized the near misses she must have had with von Richter in the Ritz. Rolling the paper into a tube, Claire held it over the candle until it caught, tossed it in the fireplace and watched it burn.
The rest were snapshots. Claire riffled through, examining each in the candlelight. A worn photo of Laurent and Grey in graduation robes. They had serious, reserved mouths, but their young faces beamed. A later photo of Grey with a grin, his arm slung over a woman’s shoulder, her face turned away from the camera. Claire felt a stab of jealousy, then recognized Odette’s profile. Jacques, Odette and a dark-haired boy sat on a fountain’s low limestone wall.
These were photos taken before the war. Too dangerous to expose but too precious for Grey to lose. She sat back and held the photos to her chest. These were a part of who Grey really was. The same as this house and the couple sleeping below.