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“No, but—”
“Then please, you must dine with me, tonight. François always cooks far more than I can eat alone. Do you like veal?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good. You can leave your coat there, if you like, beside the door. Here, let me help you.”
I hesitated, and he smiled again. It was a damnably persuasive smile. “Please,” he said again. “I’ve upset you, and my daughter has dragged you across half of Chinon. The least that I can do is give you dinner.”
It would be harmless enough, I thought, to accept the offer. I was rather hungry, and the fact that he was flirting with me openly convinced me just how harmless it would be. Flirtatious men I could handle. It was the serious ones, like Neil, who made me nervous—the ones who looked straight at you and spoke simply and had no use for games. Men like Neil, I thought, might talk of love and mean it, while flirtatious men demanded nothing, promised less, and never disappointed. There could be no danger, I decided, in a dinner with Armand Valcourt.
“Of course,” he said, “if there is someone waiting for you back at your hotel…”
I shook my head. “No, I’m all on my own.”
“Good,” he murmured, cryptically, as I followed him from the foyer into a long, expansive room half shadow and half light, its understated elegance both soothing and surreal. It had been decorated with an eye to detail—the artistic arrangement of chairs and sofa, the graceful antique writing-desk, the swan-like pair of table lamps… but it looked more like a stage set than a sitting room. A place where no one really lived. The image was compounded by the fact that one whole wall seemed made of windows, black as pitch at this late hour. As we moved, the glass threw back our images, distorted.
“I eat in here,” he told me. “It’s my habit, when I’m alone. Unless you would prefer the dining room?”
I shook my head. “Here is fine.”
He must have already been sitting down to dinner when François had interrupted him. A table at the far end of the room was set for one, its polished surface scattered with an odd assortment of china bowls and chafing dishes.
I’d seen so many films about the rich that I was half expecting serving maids in starched white caps, but it was Armand Valcourt himself who fetched me an extra plate and cutlery, and filled my wine glass from the open bottle on the table.
“It’s last year’s vintage,” he explained, as he poured. “Not a great wine, I’m afraid, but sufficient for François’s cooking. The real cook is off this evening.”
He took the chair across from me and raised his own glass in a toast. “To small deceptions,” he said, with a slow deliberate smile.
The wine, to my untrained palate at least, proved excellent, as did the meal itself. I thought François a smashing cook, and said so.
“François has many talents,” my host told me. “He’s a good man and a loyal one. But you will learn this for yourself, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve made a friend of him tonight, make no mistake. He does not forget a kindness, and he’s very fond of my daughter.”
“Oh, I see.” I nodded. “Well, that’s understandable, Monsieur. She is a charming child.”
He smiled a little, lowering his eyes to the food on his plate. “Her mother’s doing, and not mine. Brigitte was much more sociable than I am.”
I thought it impolite to ask the question, so I didn’t, but he answered it for me anyway. “My wife had a weak heart, Mademoiselle. She died three years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
; He was still looking down, and I couldn’t see his eyes. “Life moves us onwards, does it not? More wine?”
I held my glass out while he poured. “How many children do you have?”
“Just Lucie. I think it must be lonely for her, sometimes.”
“I rather enjoyed being an only child, myself,” I confessed. “I was spoiled rotten.”
Briefly, his enigmatic gaze touched mine. “François tells me I’m not to be angry with my daughter. Your words, I think.”
“Yes, well… I did rather promise her that you wouldn’t be.” I suddenly developed an intense interest in my own plate, pushing my vegetables round with the fork. “I shouldn’t have interfered, perhaps, but if you’d seen her you’d have understood. She looked so small, and so unhappy, I thought surely no parent would want to…” My voice trailed off and I speared a carrot with my fork. “Besides, she wouldn’t have come with me, otherwise. She was afraid.”
