Chapter Forty-one
We are back at the château. Olivia has moved to a guest apartment above the stables and I am sitting on the couch in the living room, Coco curled up on my lap, her tweed blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Xavier is leaning against the armoire, rolling a glass of scotch around in his hand. We showered as soon as we arrived home. I am wearing my nightgown and a pair of Xavier’s thick wool socks pulled up to my knees. Xavier is wearing a pair of dark jeans and a cashmere pullover, his wet black hair finger-combed off his forehead.
“How did you know where we were?”
It’s a lame way to begin what I am sure is going to be the most difficult confession I have ever had to make, and a pathetic attempt to stall.
“Caroline Gaveau.”
“Caro?”
“When I arrived home this afternoon, I discovered the burnt photograph of Marine in the liquor cabinet, beside my bottle of scotch.”
“I can explain.”
“Please do.”
“I found the photograph of Marine on the floor in the foyer shortly after you left for Dubai. I don’t know how it got there, but seeing it made me realize there was so much about you I didn’t know.”
“Like my marriage to Marine?”
Guilty heat suffuses my cheeks and I can’t meet his gaze. I look down at the little dog nestled in my lap and stroke her soft ears.
“Yes. She looked so happy in the photograph, with Coco curled up on the pillow behind her, so in love. I told myself a love like that does not simply disappear in a week, a month, even a year. Imagining you still had feelings for her made me jealous. It sounds silly, but I thought if I got rid of the picture it would help you to forget about her.”
“So you set it on fire?”
“Yes,” I say, stroking Coco’s curly fur. “But then I felt bad, so I rescued it from the fireplace, tossed it in the armoire, and tried to forget about it.”
“You didn’t leave it for me to find, then?”
“No.”
Xavier sighed. “Madame Deniau left the photograph for you to find.”
“Why?!”
“It was her strange, misguided attempt to communicate with you.”
“What was she trying to say?” My voice wavers. “That Marine was beautiful and happy and obviously well loved?”
“No.” I want him to tell me he never loved Marine, not the way he loves me, but he just gazes into his glass of scotch. “She wanted you to know Marine abandoned Coco. Madame Deniau loves that little dog, but she never cared for Marine.”
“What about the stationery? Why did she leave Marine’s personal stationery on the table?”
“She noticed you looked sad and thought perhaps you were homesick. She left the stationery in case you wanted to write to your family.” He looks at me and shrugs. “She is old-fashioned and doesn’t believe in emails. Too hurried and thoughtless, she says.”
“I see.”
“I did warn you she is a bit unusual.”
“I was wrong about Madame Deniau.”
“You are wrong about a great many things.”
As Xavier stares at me I think of the day he took me to visit Thierry Lambert’s farm, my fears he was involved in illegal activity or that he was a licentious playboy toying with the naïve American tourist, and how he looked when he handed me the bottle of jasmine oil. I had misjudged him. He isn’t a criminal, nor is he a playboy.
“Would it make you feel any better if I told you I didn’t take that photograph of Marine?”
“You didn’t?”
“Her lover took it right before I caught them in bed together.”
“Nicabar?”
“Oui.” He narrows his gaze. “How do you know Nicabar?”
“I met him today.”
“Where?”
“Olivia hired him to take us to the island. He promised he would wait until we came back from speaking to the Verites, but he took our money and left us stranded there.”
“Bâtard!” The venom in his voice frightens me. “I will deal with him when we pick up the McLaren tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry I drove the McLaren,” I say.
“Do you really think I give a damn about the McLaren right now?” He shakes his head. “You could have died tonight. You know that, right? You took a leaking rowboat out on the sea in a storm with eighteen-knot wind gusts.”
Xavier stares into the flames in the fireplace, a muscle working at his jaw. I close my eyes and listen to the crackling logs, Coco breathing softly, the rain pattering against the mansard roof, and pray he will forgive me for invading his privacy.
“Why did you go to see Madame and Monsieur Verite?”
I look at him and realize the moment I have been dreading is upon me. I can’t avoid it any longer. I pluck a fuzzy ball off the wool blanket.
“Stop fidgeting, please.” He finishes his scotch and returns the empty glass to the armoire. “Is it that difficult for you to tell me what you are thinking?”
“Yes,” I say, trying hard not to cry.
“Why?”
“Because I love you so, and I am afraid by visiting that island I ruined any chance I might have had for you to ever love me.” I look at Coco lying on my lap, so trusting and content, and am ashamed I didn’t give Xavier the same trust. “I heard rumors, terrible rumors, about your marriage to Marine. I went to speak with her grandparents because I wanted to prove the rumors false. I should have waited until you were home and asked you, instead. I am sorry, Xavier. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Can I forgive you?” He sits on the edge of the coffee table in front of me, his hands on my knees. “I am the one who should be asking for forgiveness. I might have spared you a lot of pain if I had just told you the truth about my first marriage. I was too proud and too afraid of what you might think if you learned the truth so early in our relationship. I intended to tell you one day, but I realize now I should have told you sooner. It wasn’t fair of me to bring you here, to Saint-Maturinus, without being completely honest. So, ma bichette, can you forgive me?” I am about to tell him that there is nothing to forgive when he holds up his hand. “Before you answer that, you should know everything.”
He has the look of a battle-fatigued soldier, dead-eyed, a part of him still lost in the conflict, as he tells me about his two-year marriage to Marine. I listen without interrupting, resisting the urge to massage the frown lines from his brow, when he tells me how Marine fooled him into believing she loved him and how devastated he was when it became clear she had married him for his wealth. An arrow of guilt lances my heart as I remember I still haven’t told Xavier about my father’s shameful financial situation. I haven’t told him before now because I didn’t really see how it mattered, but I don’t want him to think I married him for the same cold, avaricious reasons Marine married him.
“She married me for a lifestyle, not love, and she became very nasty when our reality did not match her fantasy. She thought we would be part of the idle jet set who spend their winters on the pistes at Klosters and their summers yachting around the Greek isles. It got to a point where I was spending more time at work than at home. Once I saw through her mask—that beautiful, manipulative, selfish mask—to the woman she truly was, I couldn’t bear to be around her. She could be breathtakingly calculating and cruel.” He takes a deep breath and exhales. “I didn’t want to divorce her because of the scandal I knew it would create. As you have already discovered, Saint-Maturinus is a small village. As the oldest and most venerated family in the area, we de Malorets are expected to be above reproach. And there was my family to consider. My uncles are devout Catholics. They think divorce as mortal a sin as murder. In fact, there’s never been a divorce in my family. So, I made an agreement with Marine: I would pay her bills, send her to Klosters each winter and Santorini each summer, if she promised to organize and host charitable and business functions here, at the château.”
“That sounds like a business transaction, not a marriage.”
“Oui.”
“So what happened?”
“It became too much. I grew tired of the charade and asked her for a divorce. That seemed to unleash something in her, something feral and reckless.”
“What did she do?”
“She told me she had been having affairs throughout our marriage—affairs, plural—but had been discreet out of respect for me”—he laughs, but it is a harsh sound, devoid of any real mirth—“and that she was through being discreet. I would come home to find her lingerie tossed on the floor, cologne that wasn’t mine left in the bathroom, empty wine bottles beside the bed.”
My heart aches for Xavier. I can only imagine the pain, the humiliation that comes from such a brutal betrayal.
“When she brought one of her lovers, Nicabar in fact, to the village festival, I thought I would lose my mind. If you could have seen her that day, flirting right in front of me, in front of our neighbors, my family. I grabbed her arm to leave, but . . .”
He shakes his head.
“Nicabar got involved and you broke his jaw.”
“Not my best moment, I will concede.” He turns his head, staring at the flames flickering in the fireplace, a twisted frown on his face, and I know he is reliving that dreadful night. “When we got back to the château, Marine threatened to destroy my reputation if I divorced her. She said she would accuse me of abuse and infidelity. She said one of her friends was prepared to lie for her and say that we had been having an affair for months. She said she would go to my business associates and tell them she thought I embezzled money from the company. A desperate, dangerous woman grasping at anything she could to hang on.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her to do her best. Then I went to bed with a bottle of scotch. In the morning, she was gone—along with my mother’s jewels and a sizable amount of money from my safe. I heard the rumors, of course, that she showed up in the village with bruises on her face, weeping and whispering her tale of abuse.”
“Why didn’t you tell everyone the truth? Why didn’t you defend yourself?”
“What was the point? Marine had already humiliated me with her behavior, and, I reasoned, anyone who believed those rumors wasn’t going to change their mind because I proclaimed my innocence. I thought it better to quietly divorce her and move on with my life.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
“Oui.”
“Where?”
“Mallorca.”
“How do you know?”
“Do you remember our night at La Grotte?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember the woman who approached us as we were leaving? The one who made a scene?”
“Jacqueline.”
“Oui.” He smiles sadly. “Jacqueline is Marine’s best friend. A few nights before our encounter at La Grotte, she ambushed me in the hotel parking lot. She said Marine was sorry for everything she had done to me, that she loved me, and wanted to come home. Apparently, her Spanish lover has tired of her.”
“Spanish lover? I thought Nicabar was her lover.”
“She had more than one. Marine always was greedy.”
“That’s what Monsieur Verite said.”
“Did he?” He reaches up, brushes a lock of hair off my cheek. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you all of this sooner. Omitting information is as bad as lying about it. Can you forgive me?”
“Of course I forgive you, but maybe you won’t be able to forgive and trust me after you have heard what I have to tell you.”
He inhales sharply and his hand drops back into his lap. “What is it?”
I take a deep breath and plunge right into the heart of the messy matter, before I lose my courage. I tell him about my daddy’s back taxes and the IRS seizing his assets.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“I didn’t think it mattered. You see, discovering my father died in deep debt didn’t change my way of life. Naturally, I was sad to learn we had lost Black Ash Plantation—a home that was built by my six times great-grandfather—but possessions have never really mattered that much to me. I was far more distressed when I realized the enormous burden my father must have been laboring under before his death, the shame that proud, honorable man surely felt knowing he had failed in his duty as caretaker of our ancestral home.” My hand trembles as I brush the tears from my cheek. “My momma left me an extremely generous trust fund, which I have carefully invested. I could have helped to alleviate some of my daddy’s burden, if only I had known.”
“You would have done that, sacrificed your personal security to bail your father out of debt?”
I frown. “Of course, wouldn’t you have done the same if your father found himself in such a distressing state? Sacrifices aren’t as painful when you are making them for someone you truly love.”
He reaches for my hand. “I once said that I had seen glimpses of your soul and that those glimpses were beautiful, that you were kind, honest, and selfless. I had no idea then how true those words were. You are special, Manderley. Truly.”
“Does that mean you forgive me?”
He chuckles and kisses my fingertips. “There is nothing to forgive.”
“Thank God!”
He chuckles again. “Does that mean you want to go on being Madame de Maloret?”
“I have never wanted anything more in my life. I would rather throw myself into a storm-tossed sea than live a day without you.”
“Well, you have already done that,” he says, grinning. “Fortunately, you are married to a fearless and heroic sailor who gladly risked his life to save you.”
“You are fearless and heroic.”
“You are biased.”
“If I am biased it is only because I love you.”
“I love you, Manderley, madly, deeply, desperately.”
“Do you know, this is the first time you have said you love me?”
“Is it?” He frowns.
“Yes.”
“Strange, I have thought it at least a thousand times since I found you standing on the edge of a cliff.”
“You have?”
“Oui.”
One of Xavier’s socks slides down my leg, bunching up around my ankle.
“Will you say it again?”
Xavier reaches down and pulls his sock up to my knee. “I will do better than that.”
He stands up, scoops me into his arms, and carries me out of the living room, down the hall to our bedroom.
“What are you doing?”
“Starting a new tradition.”
“What tradition?”
“Every time you steal a pair of my socks, I am going to carry you off to bed and make violent love to you.”
I look into his blue eyes, shining with happiness.
“Because you love me?”
“Oui,” he says, laughing. “Je t’aime, ma bichette. I love you very, very much.”