Cady had forgotten this sensation: the wildness, the wantonness, the yearning. How long since she had felt such reckless ardor? The stolen moments of that long ago one-night stand, fueled by alcohol, didn’t count. This was liquid, uninhibited passion, desire coursing through her veins. This was the feeling of Jean-Paul’s chest under her palms, his whiskers tickling her cheek, his mouth moving down to nibble her neck.
She wanted this. She wanted Jean-Paul. She wantedmore.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
PRESENT DAY
CHÂTEAU CLEMENT
Cady
Afterward, Jean-Paul had to leave for a commitment with his mother. They had spoken little as they picked up their discarded clothing and dressed, both apparently avoiding discussion of what had just happened, not to mention the future.
Her body felt deliciously sated, but her mind was frenetic. Unable to shake her restlessness, Cady went back outside to the carousel.
She had to run a cord from the nearby garage to power a work lamp, but she liked the feeling of being with the carousel at night, alone. The shadows somehow seemed part of it. She could practically hear thetinksandclanksof the workers she had seen in the photographs earlier in the day; again, she wondered about the lone woman in the group, working alongside the men.
Souviens-toi de moi.
And Cady envisioned Josephine, riding her custom carousel alone at night. Round and round.
“Paulette was sitting right there, on that horse,” said Fabrice, appearing in the doorway, looking a bit like a ghost himself.
“Oh! You startled me.”
“Sorry,” Fabrice replied, though he didn’t look particularly sorry. His eyes never left the carousel horse.
“I thought you said you never found her.”
“I didn’t find her—she found me. The war was over, but it was a... difficult time for everyone. We were overjoyed at first, of course. But the repercussions were cruel.”
“The country was devastated.”
He nodded. “Rationing went on for years afterward. But it was more than that. It’s... it’s a terrible thing to be invaded. I suppose it’s only natural, only human, that alliances are formed, betrayals made, revenge taken.”
Cady remained silent, running her hands over the curves and divots of the horse’s mane.
“It turned out she had given me her real name, after all: Paulette Olivier,” Fabrice continued. “But she wasn’t from Fontaine-de-Vaucluse per se; she was from a little farm in the countryside.”
“You found her?”
“More than that. I killed her.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
1945
CHÂTEAU CLEMENT
Fabrice
Fabrice had been staying in the château, derelict as it was, for several days. His many cousins in town, to whom he had introduced himself for the first time, didn’t have much after the war. Still, they had offered him a warm bed to sleep in, and a place at their tables, but Fabrice declined their offers. He had heard too many stories from his father about their vicious rumors against his grandparents.
They appeared to be generous, but if there was one thing Fabrice had learned from the war, it was the wretched sting of betrayal.
Besides, he preferred the desolation of his father’s once-beautiful childhood home. It suited his own bleak interior. The remnants of old leather-bound books and Turkish rugs underfoot—marred by rodent droppings and mold—seemed to embody the faded aspirations of his soul. The useless ticking of the massive grandfather clock, missing its hands, reflected the crooked, rancid beating of his heart.
The château had been looted, anything of value that was portable having long since been stolen. Still, many papers and photos remained. Fabrice spent untold hours looking through old wooden toys in what had been his father’s boyhood room; reading his grandfather Yves’sjournals; and examining stacks of his grandmother Josephine’s correspondence, bound together with tattered blue silk ribbon.
