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I rolled my eyes. “The curse of living in a small community. What else does your mother tell you?”
“That she hardly ever sees you smile, and that last month in London you walked straight past the fountains in Trafalgar Square without tossing in so much as tuppence.”
I looked down. “Yes, well. Only tourists throw coins in fountains.”
“That never used to stop you.” He set his empty teacup on the table at his knees. “Which reminds me, may I have my King John coin back? Thanks. You might have stopped believing in good luck pieces, Emily Braden, but I haven’t. I’d rather lose my right arm than this little chap. So,” he said brightly, tucking the silver coin safely back into his pocket, “that’s settled, then. You’re coming with me to Chinon.”
I shook my head. “Harry…”
“Cheap flights right now, out of Heathrow, but you’ll have to book this week I think. Dad says the end of September would be fine with him, just so he knows…”
“Harry…”
“And I’ve found the most wonderful hotel, sixteenth-century and right on the main square, with a view of the castle.”
“Harry,” I tried again, but he’d already pulled out the brochures. The photographs made Chinon look like something from a childhood dream—pale turreted houses and winding cobbled streets, with the castle rising like a guardian from the cliffs against a lavender sky, and the river Vienne gleaming like a ribbon of light at its feet.
“There’s the tower where Isabelle would have waited out the siege,” Harry said, pointing out a narrow crumbling column at the castle’s furthest edge. “The Moulin Tower.”
I looked, and shook my head with an effort. “I can’t come with you.”
“Of course you can.”
I sighed. My cousin had the rare ability to solve the whole world’s problems single-handed. My father did that too, sometimes, and my Uncle Alan. At the moment, I sensed I was the victim of a triumvirate of conspiracy. I hadn’t changed that much, I reasoned… had I? It was just that when one’s parents, after thirty years of marriage, chose to go their separate ways, it made one view life rather more realistically. So what, I asked myself, was wrong with that? So my parents’ happy marriage hadn’t been so happy after all. So love was never meant to last forever. It was better that I’d learned that lesson young, instead of making their mistakes all over again.
And I didn’t carry any bitterness toward my parents. A little disappointment maybe, but no bitterness. My mother was… well, she was just my mother—vibrant, headstrong, independent. Every now and then she sent me postcards from Greek ports or Turkish hotels or wherever she and her latest boyfriend were at large. And Daddy… Daddy went on working as he always had before, only now instead of his London office he had his office at the British Legation in Montevideo. He’d hardly seemed to notice the divorce.
But then, he’d never really grown up, my father. Like all the Braden men, my father had a child’s innocence and simple faith and depthless well of energy. My Uncle Alan was the same, and Harry too. It made them all three rather charming, and I loved them for it, but it put them on a plane of life one couldn’t always reach, or share.
Harry was the worst of them, come to that. Though I was terribly fond of my only cousin, he’d driven me to the brink of murder more times than I cared to remember. Unreliable, my mother called him. I might instead have termed him “easily distracted,” but it amounted to much the same thing when one was left stranded at the airport because Harry had gone off exploring, somewhere. The memory made me smile suddenly, and I looked across at him with affection.
“I’d be a proper idiot to go on holiday with you,” I said. “God alone knows what trouble you might lead me into.”
He grinned at that. “Maybe that’s what you need, a good adventure. Bring you back to life.”
“I’m perfectly alive, thanks very much.”
“No you’re not.” His eyes were serious behind the smile. “Not really. I miss the old Emily.”
I looked down at the spreading tangle of colored brochures. It was a trick of light, I knew, that made me see the shadow of a woman waiting still within that tower at the ruined castle’s edge, yet for a moment she was plainly there. A young woman, staring blankly out across the years, waiting, wanting, hoping… For what, I wondered?
Brave Prince Charming on his pure white charger, riding to the rescue? More fool her, I thought—he wouldn’t come. You’re on your own, my girl, I told the shadowed figure silently, you’d best accept the fact. Those happy-ever-afters never stand the test of time. The shadow faded and I looked away, to where the raindrops were still dancing down my window panes.
Harry poured the final cup of cooled tea from the pot, and settled back in his chair, his blue eyes oddly gentle as he tapped my thoughts with maddening precision. “If you don’t believe in fairy tales in Chinon,” said my cousin, “then there’s no hope left for any of us.”
Chapter 2
Arriving all confused…
I should have known better. Experience, as everyone kept pointing out, had taught me nothing. Even my Aunt Jane had raised her eyebrows when I’d told her I was going on holiday with Harry.
“My Harry? Whatever for?”
“He thinks I need a holiday,” had been my answer. “He’s promised me adventure.”
“How much adventure,” she had asked me, drily, “were you planning on?”
I’d shrugged aside the warning. “I’m sure we’ll do just fine. Besides, I do like Harry.”
