As I walk through the garden, I sense the true elegance of allowing nature to take its own course. It is like being in a lost, secret garden. In some places the weeds are taking over, but, even then, there is rich beauty to it. Bushes and creepers have been deliberately allowed to become overgrown to help bury the vulgarity of superfluous statues and stone arches. A sort of balancing of scales.
I like it, but it makes me wonder why someone would buy a stupendously beautiful, but totally nouveau riche chateau like Saumur and allow the grounds to go their own wild way like this.
A fat, ash-gray cat with yellow eyes comes and meows by my feet. I reach down and tickle her behind her ears. She rubs her head against my legs before wandering away to curl up on an old, sunlit bench.
As I venture farther, I realize that some of the property is thickly planted with bushes and low-hanging trees, but that a great part of it is pure meadow. Not far away I can see a wide expanse of water glistening in the sun. There is a Moroccan style tent by the edge of the water. Inside there is a bed with lots of jewel-bright red and green cushions.
For a while I sit at the edge of the water and look out at the glinting surface. It is serene and peaceful, but my mind is in turmoil. I have never wanted anybody the way I want Shane, but I am not a free agent … yet. Lenny is still in the picture, and it would be wrong and ugly of me to betray him, and … yet, I want Shane. The desire is so strong I don’t think I will be able to resist it for much longer.
But, as I sit motionless and contemplate the silent beauty of the water, a profound transformation takes place in me. There are no mobile phones, no police sirens, no car horns, no emails, no birthdays to forget, no queues, no terrorists, no wars. All the stress, noise, fears and distractions that form part of my everyday life seem to belong to a different world.
The sun warms my skin and reflects off the water, and still beauty and peace in the air trigger ancient genes that humans must share with all the other creatures we have evolved with. My body relaxes, my pulse slows, my body feels charged, and I feel as if I have come home.
I hear my name being called and turn around to see Shane walking toward me. Freshly showered, he has changed into a clean T-shirt and blue jeans. His hair is still wet. With the sun behind him, I can’t see the expression on his face.
I stand and brush my bottom with my hands. ‘The lake is beautiful,’ I say.
‘Well, I like it.’
‘Why have you allowed the place to go to seed like this?’
He looks down at me. ‘I bought this place only because I heard of the sightings nearby of fireflies. And then I set about making the environment irresistible to them. They love moisture, tall grasses and low-hanging trees that they can hide in during the day, and an abundance of insects, slugs, and snails.’
‘Will we see them tonight?’
‘I’ll be very disappointed if we don’t. We’ll come out after dinner. They’re usually around about nine-ish.’
‘You really love them, don’t you?’
He grins. ‘My madness is I have no time for things that have no soul.’
‘Actually,’ I admit, ‘I like it wild and overgrown too.’
‘Then you’ll definitely like the owner of this place.’
‘Is he the one who’s built like a god?’ I ask cheekily. Being cheeky with a man is something I would never have done before I met him. I’m the boring one. Never say boo to a cat.
‘That’s the one,’ he says, and something in his eyes lights up.
I laugh, and in that moment I’m not the girl with the terrible past. I’m just a girl flirting with an irresistibly sexy man.
Thirteen
SNOW
We have breakfast at a rickety wooden table under the shade of a massive old oak tree. There are croissants, pastries, cold country butter, homemade jams, and slices of watermelon. An unsmiling Madam Chevalier pours thick, strong coffee into small cups for us. It is too bitter for me, but Shane has no trouble downing his. I decide to stick with orange juice. When she goes back into the house, I whisper to Shane, ‘Is she in a bad mood?’
‘Nope. She’s always like that,’ he says unconcernedly, and bites cleanly into a croissant.
‘Really? Why?’
He shrugs. ‘Fuck knows. Probably disapproves of what I’m doing to the grounds.’
I stare at him. ‘And you don’t mind?’
‘Snow,’ he explains patiently, ‘this woman cooks using a recipe book that is one hundred years old. As far as I’m concerned, she can be as sour as she likes. Don’t judge until you try her Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t care how good a cook she is; I don’t think I could ever live with disapproving staff.’
He grins roguishly. ‘Here’s something you might not yet have picked up: Madam secretly likes me.’
‘Shane Eden, you are incorrigible.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he says with a low chuckle.
After breakfast, the elderly man I had seen pruning the bushes ambles toward us with a hearty smile plastered to his ruddy face. Shane introduces us, then tells me that Monsieur Chevalier is taking us to Cannes’ indoor market. He is a much friendlier chap than his wife, and, because he doesn’t speak a word of English and Shane’s French seems to be pretty basic, he compensates with a lot of nodding and grinning. We get into his beat-up truck and he drives us to Forville Market.
It is a large red-brown building that oddly reminds me of the Red Fort in Delhi. Inside, it is vast and cool. Vibrant with shoppers and a seemingly inexhaustible array of produce, it is a treat for the senses. There are stalls dedicated just to mushrooms! All kinds, shapes, colors, and scents. Other stalls specialize in dried meats, fruit, flowers, vegetables, cheese, wine, olives, pastries, bread, spices, honey. And everything looks so fresh and clearly locally produced. It is the opposite of the sterile environment of the supermarket where everything is sanitized, homogenized, and sold under a plastic covering.
Shane buys the ingredients for our dinner: a rack of lamb, baguette sticks, onions, vegetables, pineapple. The sellers all seem to know and like him. One asks about the fireflies and says he wants to bring his son to see them during the week. He tells Shane mournfully that the fireflies have stopped coming to his land. He blames the pesticides.
When we get outside, Monsieur Chevalier packs everything into the back of his truck. The plan is for him to drop us off at Le Suquet, a quirky, hilly town overlooking a harbor, before setting off to Saumur to deposit the market produce with his wife.
Le Suquet is the old part of the city so it is full of quaint, narrow streets full of old-fashioned shops. It is charming, and I fall in love with it, but it is here that I notice that women simply can’t stop staring at Shane. Everywhere we go, he gets ogled at. And I mean really ogled at. When we stop at a little café with tables spilling out into the sideway and order pissaladière, a beautifully simple and delicious pizza with onion, olives, and anchovies, the waitress actually totally ignores me, and flirts outrageously with Shane.
‘Are you a model?’ she asks him in English.
He says something to her in French, which makes her glance at me, shrug, and start taking the order.
‘Well,’ I say when she walks away, ‘she certainly thinks you’re God’s gift.’
He crosses his arms. ‘Says the woman who’s got most of the population of Le Suquet staring at her like zombies with working dicks.’
I snort. ‘Zombies with working dicks? Excuse me? There were girls walking backwards after they passed us just to keep admiring the other side of you.’
‘Well, darling, while you were looking at the women walking backwards, I’ve had to endure the painful sight of men blatantly stripping you with their fucking eyes.’
I lean back. ‘You’re serious?’
‘Damn right I am. It’s fucking annoying.’
My eyes widen. Can it really be that Shane Eden is jealous? The thought is like a bolt of lightning in my heart. ‘Are you jealous?’ I ask incredulously.
‘Yes,’ he admits gloomily.
‘I love it when you look all brooding and moody. It’s kinda sexy.’
He perks up. ‘Did I just hear you describe me as sexy?’
‘Yeah, I think I might have.’
‘Well, that’s what’s called progress.’ His voice is warm and full of laughter.
‘By the way, what did you tell the waitress just now that made her look at me?’ I say casually, taking a sip of my perfectly chilled rosé.
‘I told her I was gay but that she was welcome to you.’
I almost choke on my drink. ‘What?’ I burst out.
He laughs.
‘You don’t care if people think you’re gay?’
‘Nope. It’s extremely useful in certain circumstances.’
‘Couldn’t you have just told her you weren’t interested?’
‘Girls like her don’t give up easy; she’d have been slipping her phone number into my hand as we left. And that would have just made you get all jealous and pissed off.’
‘I’m not jealous,’ I deny.
‘Oh, you’re jealous all right, Elizabeth Snow Dilshaw. You’re the kind of woman who would try to make a man wear a chastity belt.’