They should have been on the coast the following day for a visit to Cannes and the Cap d’Antibes but, instead, after a final swim in their pool and a leisurely room service breakfast of still-warm-from-the-oven croissants and enough coffee to make up for their shared lack of sleep, Tilly took Angus to see one of Vence’s small neighbouring villages. A bigger town like Cannes, with its glitz and noise and colour, could wait a little longer. She wanted to keep Angus to herself today. Somewhere that felt quiet and gentle and intimate. It wasn’t going to change how this time together was going to end, but she wanted to soak in that unique happiness that only being in love could bestow and that enhanced awareness that made colours brighter, tastes more exquisite and sensations so much more intense.
This was the ultimate in being really alive and it had been a very long time since Tilly had felt it. Angus was only going to be here for a couple more days, so she wanted to make every minute count.
‘This is Tourrettes-sur-Loup,’ she announced as they parked Alfie and walked towards the historic part of the medieval town. ‘Also known as the city of violets. I love Vence the most, of course, because it’s my home but this is my next favourite village.’
She led him through the main archway and past a shop that attracted tourists with almost every product it was possible to make using violets, from soap to syrup and candied flowers to household items like jars and rolling pins and hand towels, decorated with painted or embroidered violets.
Angus paused to look at the display in the window. ‘Violet wine? Really?’
‘The flavour is celebrated as much as the scent.’
‘What does it taste like?’
‘Exactly how it smells.’
‘Is it like lavender?’
‘It’s more delicate. We’ll walk in a loop that will take us to see the view from the ramparts and then come back up the hill past a famous shop called Tom’s. You can find out for yourself what violets taste like.’
Angus reached for her hand as she turned to the left fork of the pathway. Was his skin missing the feel of hers, the way hers was missing his? The warmth of his hand flowed into her body with a rush of something that felt like relief, and an astonishing dollop of joy. The day had just become infinitely better for Tilly.
The narrow cobbled streets, lined with shops and tall stone houses with steps and terracotta plant pots with lush greenery and beautiful old doors with ornate iron knockers, were typical of all medieval villages in the South of France, but there was aparticular charm about Tourrettes-sur-Loup. There were curves and corners that revealed hidden surprises, like a tiny square with a restaurant or a courtyard with just enough room for a small table and two chairs, a workshop where a craftsman was making things from olive wood and even a decrepit bicycle that was repurposed to provide a colourful display of potted summer flowers.
They stopped to admire the sweeping view from the dramatic point where this village reached the very edge of the clifftop it was built on and the ground dropped away into an enormous valley. They could see across endless forest right to the shimmer of the Mediterranean Sea in the distance.
It was only a short walk back up the hill from there to get to Tom’s shop, which had a sign outside shaped like an ice cream with a waffle cone and a candied flower on the top.
‘Violet ice cream is the same colour as Maeve,’ Tilly told Angus.
‘Whereisyour van?’
‘At my mother’s in Aix. I left her there when I used Mama’s car to pick you up from the airport.’
Just a few days ago but Tilly’s life had changed forever. Angus had shown her a physical connection to another human being that was so different to anything she had ever experienced that she had a growing, and disturbing, conviction she might never be satisfied with anything less.
‘How will you get it back? Don’t we need to return the car to the rental agency at the airport in Nice?’
‘Yes. But it’s not a problem. I can get the train. Or a bus.’ Tilly pointed to a small bench seat outside a shop on the other side of the street. ‘Sit there for a minute. I’ll join the queue and get our ice creams. The shop is too tiny for a lot of people.’
Angus eyed the cones suspiciously but Tilly knew to wait. She peeked sideways as she licked her ice cream to find that Anguswas watchingheras he licked his. There they were, their tongues out and their eyes locked, exchanging a look that felt like it was saying a thousand things and none of them had anything at all to do with ice cream.
Maybe that was why Tilly misjudged her next lick and ended up touching her chin. Angus’s smile was more of a grin as he reached to use his thumb to remove the splodge on her face but it faded when he put his thumb into his mouth to get rid of the drips.
‘Nice,’ he murmured. ‘I like violet ice cream much more than I thought I would.’
He cleared his throat and the breaking of eye contact felt very deliberate. Tilly hid her smile as she began walking uphill again. It was a delicious game, acknowledging the sexual tension and then pushing it away. It was like banking attraction so that it would be there waiting for them when they were alone and they could do so much more than toy with words and looks.
‘So how did this town come to be known as the city of violets?’
‘It’s all to do with the next village along this road. Grasse.’
‘I’ve heard of Grasse. It’s famous for perfume, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. But before that, in the Middle Ages, the main industry was tanning leather. It was because that process creates bad smells that they started to use flowers to make things like leather gloves smell nicer. The farmers in this town realised they had a reliable market right next door for a flower that grows very well in this climate and is one of only a few that bloom in winter.’
They had reached the main archway again and went out into the square. They sat in the shade of a plane tree to finish their ice creams. The day-to-day shops that serviced the village surrounded them, like the épicerie for fruit and vegetables, the boulangerie for bread, and a fromagerie for cheese. What was right in front of them, however, was the lovely old church.
‘My friend Ellie got married in that church,’ she told Angus. ‘It was long before I met her, though, so I didn’t see her as a bride but I wish I had. It must have been such a beautiful wedding. Her sister Laura’s wedding on the beach was probably my favourite of all the weddings that Sophie and I did together.’
