Dreaming of Manderley by Leah Marie Brown (25)

Chapter Thirty

This is a joke, right? Seriously. Who is that man? Why were you wearing an old wedding dress in that picture? Why aren’t you answering your phone?

 

Not joking. The man is my husband, Xavier. I got married in that beautiful old dress. I will call to explain soon.

 

Have you lost your damned mind? You’re supposed to be the responsible one. What am I going to say to Emma Lee?

 

Tell her being the responsible one is overrated.

 

Please, pretty please with a mess of sugar on it, tell me you aren’t joking. Tell me you really eloped with some smokin’ hot, hot, hottie. Tara has been pinging so hard since we got your email with the pic, she hasn’t said a word about my move to England.

 

Not joking. I am now Madame de Maloret, wife of the smokin’ hot, hot, hottie. Go after your dreams, darlin’ Emma Lee. Move to England and become a matchmaker, if that’s what you truly want. Tara will be just fine. Daddy would want you to follow your dreams.

 

Since the drive from Lake Como to Xavier’s home on the western coast of France takes fourteen hours, we divided the journey into two days, stopping for lunch the first day at a quaint fondue restaurant on the shores of Lake Geneva. We dip crusty bread into bubbling cheese, sip chilled white wine, and walk along the shores of the lake, skipping rocks, and learning more about each other. We make love on a blanket beneath a pine tree beside the lake. Xavier holds me in his arms after, whispering promises in my ear. We will travel to La Trinité-sur-Mer each April, where I will watch him sail a single-hull in the Spi Ouest-France regatta. We will visit Switzerland in the winter and wander through Christmas markets, drink hot spiced wine, eat Chräbeli cookies flavored with anise seeds, and go skiing down alpine covered mountains. He is surprised when he learns I can ski.

“South Carolina isn’t exactly known for its white winters, ma bichette,” he says, chuckling. “Forgive me if I doubted your proficiency on a slope.”

“You forget I went to boarding school in Vermont and college in New York. Besides”—I boldly slide my hand under his shirt and teasingly run my fingers over his rippled abs—“you will soon learn I am proficient at many, many things.”

He laughs and heat flushes my cheeks.

“Who is this brazen woman I suddenly find myself married to?”

I start to pull my hand out from underneath his waistband, suddenly shy again, but he grabs my wrist and pushes it back until I feel his manhood against my fingers.

“Finish it, Madame de Maloret,” he says, reaching his free hand under my blouse and cupping my breast. “Finish what you started. I promise, you will enjoy the journey.”

“We just . . .” My breath catches in my throat as I feel him stirring under my hand, growing hard with rekindled arousal. “Aren’t you tired?”

“I am a Frenchman, mon amour. I am never too tired for lovemaking, especially when I am married to a beautiful, proficient woman.”

* * *

We are driving through the heart of France the next day, only hours from his home near Saint-Maturinus-sur-Mer, when I notice the shift in his mood. Animated and charming, the perfect travel companion becomes quiet, broody, his long, lean fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, gaze fixed intently on some distant point on the horizon.

The abundant sunshine we enjoyed in the South of France and Lake Como has been replaced by flannel-gray skies thick with clouds. When fat raindrops begin pattering the windshield, I untie the cardigan knotted at my neck and wrap it around my shoulders. I am trying not to view the change in weather as a bad omen. I don’t want to believe the gloomy clouds portend darker, less cheerful times, but the dreary weather combined with Xavier’s bleak mood make it difficult.

I remember the slinky woman at La Grotte and wonder if Xavier is used to women whose conversation sparkles as bright as their diamonds. He seems content to drive in silence—his eyes hidden behind a pair of expensive sunglasses, but I worry . . .

I am anxious. I can feel the nervous energy building inside, the quivery, twitching muscles, and I know it won’t be long before hot, itchy hives erupt on my chest and spread up my neck. Some of what I am feeling is natural. I have married a man I met on holiday and he is taking me home to meet his family, friends, and neighbors for the first time. They will be curious, perhaps even angry at having been excluded from sharing our wedding day. What if they take one look at me, the drab little American with the drab dishwater-blond hair, in the drab little sundress, and wonder what Xavier was thinking when he married me? If the roles were reversed and I was taking Xavier back to Charleston to meet my loved ones, he would feel the same amount of tension I am feeling now, wouldn’t he?

I look at the man I promised to love, honor, and obey, and swallow a hysterical burble of laughter. Girard Fortune Xavier de Maloret wouldn’t know a panic attack if it crept up and choked the confidence out of him.

He looks over his shoulder and catches me staring at him. “Do you regret marrying me?”

“What?” The question takes me as much by surprise as his sudden mood change. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

He stretches his arms, locks his elbows, and grips the steering wheel tighter. “Answer me.”

“No, I don’t regret marrying you.”

He stares at me, his face pale, drawn, his lips pressed together in a grimace, the half smile, half frown skeptics wear upon hearing something they believe outrageous. The rain is coming down harder now, the drops graduating from patters to pounds. I want to urge Xavier to return his attention to the road, but I am afraid he will perceive it as subterfuge or evasion.

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely.”

He stares a second longer before returning his attention to the road. My mind begins whirling as it searches for a reason for his question. Did I say something to make him think I don’t want to be his wife? Have I not been affectionate enough? Is it because I haven’t told him I love him since our wedding night? But then, he hasn’t ever told me he loves me . . .

When we first met, I likened Xavier to a sleek jungle cat because of his dark looks and intense gazes. Now, I wonder if he might be a jungle cat with a thorn stuck in his paw, something too sharp and too painful to discuss. I inhale, but his next question knocks the breath from my lungs and the reason from my hypothesis.

“Why did you cry the other night?”

“What? When?”

“The night you had the bad dream—before you had the bad dream. You cried when I made love to you.”

“I was overcome with emotions.”

“Regret?”

“Fear.”

“Fear?” He pierces me with a look far sharper than a thorn. “You are afraid of me? Why?”

I shrug, feeling suddenly foolish.

“Have you heard something to make you believe I would harm you?”

“No,” I whisper. “Fear I will lose you. That I will wake up one day and this will all have been a wonderful dream. I will be back in Los Angeles wishing someone noticed me, wishing I had someone like you in my life.”

His face softens, his grip relaxes. “I hope you always feel that way.”

“I will always love you.”

He makes a noise in his throat that people make when they don’t believe what you are saying but have decided to humor you. “One day you might wake up and realize your life with me is not the dream you imagined . . . that it is something else, something mundane and . . . lacking.”

“Lacking?” What an odd word.

“If you ever start to feel that way”—he reaches for my hand without taking his gaze from the road, lifts it to his lips, and kisses my knuckles–“bored, disillusioned, restless, I hope you will tell me. If, after some time together, you decide I am not the man you want to spend the rest of your life with, tell me, just as I will tell you if I begin to question our compatibility.”

We drive for several miles before he speaks again, and when he does, the clouds that hung like a pall over our previous conversation seem to have evaporated. The animated, charming travel companion has returned.

I, on the other hand, feel as if the life has drained out of my body. My aunt Patricia went big-game hunting in Zimbabwe once, a fifty-thousand-dollar, ten-day safari that promised the opportunity to “bag a trophy lion.” When the moment to pull the trigger finally arrived, my aunt found she didn’t have the fortitude. She said she would have fallen to the ground if not for the marrow keeping her upright. She said she looked into the beast’s eyes and realized it was a special type of insanity that made anyone believe they could encounter such a wild, magnificent creature and walk away unscathed.

That’s how I feel now, sitting beside Xavier. Only my marrow is keeping me from collapsing on his leather seat and sliding down into the wheel well. I will tell you if I begin to question our compatibility. Why? Why did he give words to a vague feeling, a fear that should have remained unspoken? For I do not believe every thought, every emotion, should be shared, not even with one’s spouse. Some feelings should be kept private, kept secreted in the basement of your heart, until they fade away.

He tells me about the village near his home, the whitewashed shops lining the wharf, the chapel with the Celtic cross in the yard, the small fishing museum with a Gauguin drawing of women in traditional Breton dress. The closer we get, the more sites he points out.

I only half listen because in my head I hear a continuous loop of him saying I will tell you if I begin to question our compatibility.

“Manderley?”

“I am sorry. What did you say?”

“I reminded you I will be leaving for Dubai next week, but you won’t be alone. Madame Deniau will be there if you need anything.”

“Madame Deniau?”

He frowns. “My housekeeper. She doesn’t speak English and she can come off as a little strange, but she has been at the château since the first stone was pushed in place and is terribly proud of her connection to the de Malorets. She will see to your needs.” He shifts into a higher gear. “I will introduce you to my family when I return from Dubai. My sister will be annoyed I didn’t drive you to her home before leaving on my trip, but she is usually annoyed with me about something or other.”

We have turned off the autoroute and are traveling on a rural two-lane road, zipping by a dizzying succession of white, red, and black signs announcing villages with strange names like Bénodet, Combrit, Plomeur. The air inside the Jaguar is colder, heavier with moisture, and I realize we must be close to the sea.

“Your family doesn’t live near the château?”

“Non. Amice has an apartment over the old kitchens, but her work makes it difficult for her to visit the château as much as she might like. She lives in Paris. She is an avocat d’entreprise with a large multinational firm.” He notices my confusion and explains that an avocat d’enterprise is a corporate lawyer. “My uncles are scattered around Brittany, close enough to visit when they wish, but not so close that you will see them while I am gone.

“It would be easier if you spoke French, but, never mind. There is a language institute in Quimper. I will ask my assistant to enroll you in the next class.”

I consider reminding him that I graduated from Columbia University and worked as an assistant to a successful Hollywood screenwriter, that I am quite capable of making my arrangements for an immersion class, but we are minutes from arriving at his home and I don’t want to spoil the moment with my petulant indignations.

“Yes, Xavier.”

I close my eyes and rest my head against the headrest. My stomach is twisted in an intricate macramé of knots. I wish I could turn the clock back a day, to that moment when we were lying in each other’s arms on the banks of Lake Geneva, the scent of pine needles heavy in the air, and the taste of Chardonnay on our breath and each other’s lips.

“We’re here,” Xavier says, grabbing my hand. “Bienvenue à Château de Maloret, ma bichette.”