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“But I don’t think that deflects from its beauty.” Rosie spoke sincerely as she looked round the cool, lofty hall.
“Thank you, my dear, you are too kind. I adore it, of course, but it is like me — an ageing relic.”
“But like you, madame, it also has perfect bone structure.”
Madame raised a hand and laid her fingers on her high cheekbone. “Someone said that to me once before — an age ago. I was so young that I really didn’t understand. I’m not sure I do now — but thank you anyway. Tell me, do you have this perfect bone structure?” She laughed, her dark eyes sparkling with humour.
“Probably not!” Rosie said, smiling. “But now I can see where Jean-Michel gets his dark brown eyes from too.”
“Do you think so? My goodness, I’ve never thought about that either! I shall have to take a good look at him if he ever returns to us.”
They both laughed and at that moment Jean-Michel came back into the hall carrying Rosie’s bag. As he drew near Madame de Fleurenne rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Let me take a good look at you, Jean-Michel!”
She peered into his eyes and then turned to Rosie.
“I do believe you’re right!” They both laughed again and Jean-Michel turned from one to the other.
“Is this some sort of ‘female bonding togetherness’ joke or can I be included?”
“Yes and no!” The two women spoke as one and this made them laugh even more.
“Well, I’m pleased you two seem to be getting on so well!” Jean-Michel raised his hands in the air again — half laughing now. “Here comes Celine — and here is your bag, Rosie. Have I carried out both your commands successfully, mesdames?” he added with an exaggerated flourish and a low bow.
Madame de Fleurenne smiled sweetly and took Jean-Michel by the arm.
“Mais oui, you can be a good boy if only you try… Now perhaps you would accompany me to the terrace, if you don’t think it will be too frightfully hot. We can sit in the shade and await your beautiful fiancée to join us.”
Celine moved forward and almost snatched the bag from Jean-Michel, then, turning her back on Rosie, she muttered over her shoulder, “Suivez-moi!”
Rosie raised her eyebrows at Jean-Michel and then flashed a wide smile to show she was happy to ignore the rudeness. She followed Celine up the staircase, smiling to herself. It was easy to imagine that Celine’s attitude was down to jealousy. Jean-Michel obviously held a special place in her heart and now this foreigner had come along and stolen it. Rosie regarded the firmly set shoulders and rigid neck muscles of the small woman in front of her — there was an almost visible violent green aura. Yes, well, she didn’t have the language skills to win her over — not yet. Rosie had already been planning a crash course in French the minute she hit London.
She drew in her breath sharply as her mind raced ahead — could it really be possible that she would be back at her desk tomorrow afternoon? It seemed a world away from the peace of this elegant old mansion, languishing in the hot Provençal sunshine. Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted as Celine flung open a door at the end of the long corridor and held it open for Rosie. Celine dropped the bag down on a chair and spoke so rapidly in French that Rosie didn’t understand a word. She decided to smile anyway, guessing that Celine had asked if she could find her own way back. “Merci bien, Celine — thank you. I’ll find my own way back!”
“Very well, mademoiselle.” The reply came back in heavily accented English.
“You speak English!” said Rosie in surprise.
“And why not, mademoiselle?” Celine answered coldly and left the room, closing the door a little too firmly.
Yes, well, she had asked for that. Not a good start but she had no time to worry about it now. She needed to apply herself to a quick Cinderella act without the aid of a godmother’s fairy wand. Rosie peeled off the enormous leather trousers, leaving them in a pile on the floor. She picked up her bag, a Prada bowling bag that she relied on for hand luggage, and tipped the entire contents into the middle of the small, high double bed. Her make-up bag, a large hairbrush, a small jewellery case, a camera, a battery pack, a wallet, a pale turquoise pleated silk Issey Miyake dress and a pair of Jimmy Choo sandals of exactly the same colour — a successful impulse buy in the January sales. Yes, this was definitely the moment to abandon the loafers.
Rosie quickly shook out the dress and draped it over the end of the wroughtiron bed. She looked round the shadowy room and saw a door on the far side. She opened it and, voilà — the bathroom. An immense bathroom, in fact, of flaking gilt and pink marble. There was a small fizz of electricity in the switch as she turned on the crystal chandelier high above her head. It gave out an uncertain dark glow for a brief moment, flickered and then went out. The room was so dim that Rosie could hardly see her reflection in the dark glass of the antique mirror that hung above the mantelpiece. She turned on the taps and waited whilst some rusty water spluttered and then ran clear and cold. She splashed her face and neck and washed her hands with the luxurious soap. The scent was as elusive as it was heavenly. This family certainly knew about perfume even if the plumbing and wiring was last century.
She went back into the bedroom and across to the heavily shuttered windows where thin shafts of sunlight splintered the gloom. She wrestled with the metal handle, trying to open them, but they were sealed firm with the paint and rust of ages. Not worth breaking a fingernail over. She tipped out the contents of her make-up bag. Thank goodness she had packed her old magnifying mirror. She looked at it fondly, seeing for a moment her childhood reflected in its glass. It had been her father’s shaving mirror — the one he had always packed in his case whenever he went away. And he had certainly done that often enough throughout her childhood… Maybe that was why the marriage had fallen apart. When he had finally gone, never to return, he had left the mirror behind.
She sighed, feeling a pang of sadness as she remembered her father’s wide smile, so like her own. But Cinderella had no time to behave like Alice through the looking glass. Rosie smiled determinedly at herself in the mirror and, kneeling under the window in a beam of sunshine, she began to carefully apply the lightest of make-up. She angled the mirror from side to side until she was satisfied that the look was totally natural. Jewellery — she needed just something. She unzipped her jewellery case and selected a favourite pair of pale jade earrings that she had bought in India. Finally she scooped everything except her camera back into the bowling bag and carefully closed it. She stepped into the silk dress and sandals and stood for a moment quite still. Yes, she decided, now Cinderella shall go to the ball.
She left the room and made her way back down the long corridor towards the stairs. This time she took more notice of the paintings and furniture. The de Fleurenne family was hardly impoverished. The heavy planked floor was covered in long runners of beautiful oriental design, worn but still glowing with silky colour. The wide staircase, divided in two by a curved landing, swept down to the hall under the gaze of several family portraits. Rosie could feel the ancestral eyes following her. She hoped they approved of her transformation. In her heart she knew she looked good. Her freshly washed hair was shiny with health and a quick spray of shine. Her skin glowed with yesterday’s sun and Estée Lauder. The dress was always a perfect travelling companion, a sheath of silk that caressed her body and swished around her bare knees as she descended the marble stairs, her sandals clicking expensively. Most of all, she walked clad in the magic radiance of love. How could such a young woman suspect that she walked towards anything other than happiness?
CHAPTER SIX
Jean-Michel jumped to his feet and came to meet her as she walked out onto the terrace. Her transformation was not wasted on him.
“Rosie…stunning! You look as though you have walked off a magazine page.”
“Funnily enough, that’s what I thought about you when I first saw you!” Rosie replied.
“You’re joking…” Jean-Michel looked down at his white T-shirt and brushed some dry red earth from his jeans. She realised he was quite disconcerted. It was unusual to find such a good-looking man unaware of or embarrassed by his own charisma. It made him even more attractive to her and she watched him with a throb of desire and some amusement as he quickly changed the subject.
“Actually I thought you’d be much longer than you were. I don’t know if I shall ever get used to how good you are at rushing around.”
His eyes met hers for a long moment and she read the subdued passion burning in him too. He continued huskily, “Anyway, I went for a quick walk through the fields. We’re coming up to harvest time. I told you it was like The Archers up here. Come and sit down in the shade — the midday heat is building up now.”
He took her hand and squeezed it and then drew it to his lips. Her eyes smiled into his before she answered.
“The warmth feels wonderful on my skin but I mustn’t burn. I’m so pale and I swam and lazed a while on the beach yesterday so that’s my quota for a while.”
“That was before your life went haywire — before you met me — when you actually had a life of your own.”
He smiled but looked at her anxiously.
“I hope you don’t mind spending a day up here?”
“Mind! How could I possibly mind? It’s like being invited to lunch in heaven — just look out there!”
They walked to the edge of the terrace and surveyed the wide panorama spread in front of them. Field after field of lavender stretched away to a horizon of hazy blue hills. The sun burnt down on the shimmering mauve flowers and silver green leaves. She breathed the scented air deeply and stood very still for a moment, holding Jean-Michel’s hand lightly in her own. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, as though to share the moment, and then they turned together and walked the length of the stone-flagged terrace to where Grandmère sat, cool and elegant, under the shade of a fig tree. Beside her was a small wrought-iron table laid with a cream lace cloth, a dish of shiny olives, three crystal glasses and an ice bucket with a tall bottle of wine.
“Sit down, both of you, where I can see you. I must say you look very well together. Rosie, you look absolutely wonderful. Quite a metamorphosis from the waif in leathers! Jean-Michel has told me all about you — or rather all that he feels for you, as surely he can know very little about you in such a short time.”
“You must think we’re very impetuous,” said Rosie cautiously.
“Yes, I think that is what I like best about the story. Just because I am ancient you mustn’t assume that I am a prude. I find that the older one gets, the more shock-proof one becomes. I don’t think I have ever told Jean-Michel that I married his grandpère just three weeks after we met. Un vrai coup de foudre! Indeed…we eloped! Our parents would never have given consent. It was quite the Romeo and Juliet affair of the time — with a happier ending, I’m pleased to say. We were perfectly devoted to each other. Sadly he died ten years ago and I have to live on without him. But why some marriages work and some don’t is a complete mystery to me.”
“I’m afraid my own parents divorced when I was thirteen so I don’t have a family with a good track record.”
Rosie looked out across the fields as though she could find the answer to why her parents’ love had not endured in the pattern of the landscape. How could she ever understand why her father had walked away from her and her mother? But the quiet voice of Grandmère interrupted her sad reverie.
“Then you mustn’t dwell on it. There is nothing to say that we have to be like our parents — successful or otherwise. I am a great believer in being responsible for one’s own actions.”
Rosie looked at Madame de Fleurenne with gratitude and a certain amount of surprise. Before she had time to think of how to reply Madame de Fleurenne continued.
“And talking of being a great believer — do you have any religious beliefs?”
Rosie drew in her breath sharply. Jean-Michel’s grandmother was a skilful interviewer. Rosie had handled plenty of tough presentations in the course of her work and she realised she was now facing a subtle and clever woman. Well, she thought quickly, better cut to the chase and attack the Catholic versus non-Catholic issue straight away.
“None at all.” She looked Madame de Fleurenne straight in the eye. “But I have strong moral beliefs that I rigorously uphold.”
Madame de Fleurenne clapped her hands and threw her head back in laughter.
“Brava, bravissima! You are truly a girl after my own heart. Except that you have found out whilst you are very young what it took me most of my life to come to terms with. As you can imagine, I was born into the Catholic faith but I just couldn’t accept the doctrines that I was educated, or indeed indoctrinated, to believe. Only last year, when my only son and daughter-in-law were tragically killed, I thought about becoming a Buddhist. Yes, I went all the way to India and stayed three months in a remote village. Can you believe it? What a silly old woman I was. I’m sure the peace and meditation helped me, but one day I suddenly thought that I really didn’t understand what on earth it was all about. Anyway, I had drunk quite enough yak milk to last me several lifetimes, so I flew home — first class! I haven’t been anywhere since and I don’t think I will… Well, I hope not to anyway.”
Her lively face clouded over briefly but she continued.
“You are right, my dear, strong ethics are enough for people like you and me. Jean-Michel, you are very, very fortunate to have found this remarkable girl. No wonder you proposed to her immediately! Now, all this philosophic discourse has made me extremely thirsty.”
Jean-Michel looked at both women in delight and amazement. Then, filling the glasses with pale rosé wine, he stood, outlined against the backdrop of the flower fields, and raised his glass.
“To the two most beautiful and remarkable women in this wonderful world. A votre santé!”
The conversation over lunch was light-hearted. Grandmère amused them both with stories of her wild youth on the Côte d’Azur. Rosie described something of her public relations work in the crazy fashion scene of London. Jean-Michel talked of his childhood in Eze and, eventually, as coffee was served, he brought the conversation round to business.
“I’m sorry to discuss business whilst we are still at the lunch table, Grandmère, but it won’t take long.”
Rosie stood up quickly.
“Please, I know this is private. I’m very happy to go for a walk around the estate.” She waited hesitantly.
Madame de Fleurenne reached out and laid a cool, dry hand on Rosie’s arm. “Please stay, my dear. Jean-Michel has the most atrocious table manners. He knows I detest talking business at meal times but I am sure he is anxious to get you back on that wicked black bike and to his ridiculous old loft in Nice. Why don’t we take coffee out onto the terrace? You are very welcome to listen to anything he has to say. You are to be one of the family and you should know how impoverished we are. Unless it is too boring — running out of money is certainly very tedious indeed. I should quite understand if you would prefer to take in some good clean air.”
“Not at all!” Rosie answered hastily. “If you’re sure I’m not intruding on your privacy?”
“On the contrary, maybe you can help me persuade Jean-Michel that there must be some way we can hang onto all this beautiful decadence!”
She waved her graceful hand around her head and smiled wistfully.
Rosie sat silent whilst Jean-Michel gave a full account of his meeting with the Beauroma executives in Eze. When he finally said that he had once again turned down the generous takeover offer, Madame de Fleurenne sat back in her chair with a smile of satisfaction.
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