“That sounds like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. Do they still have orphanages in France? In the States it’s the foster system, usually.”
“You grew up in a foster home?”
“A series of foster homes. I was a bit of a handful. When I got older I was moved to a group home, until I met a woman who let me live with her my last few years of high school.”
“You never knew your parents?”
She shook her head, focusing on the passing landscape and concentrating on keeping the emotion out of her voice. “There was some kind of legal issue—one of my bio parents refused to sign the paperwork, or couldn’t be found, or something. In any event, when I was a baby Iwasn’t adoptable. And the older kids get, the harder it is to find adoptive parents. I never got that lucky.”
“So you are a woman without a history,” he said. Cady still hadn’t looked over at him, but his voice was soft, kind. Too kind.
“I have a history,” she said, her tone defensive. “I just don’t happen to know what it is.”
“Even families that know one another may not truly know their own history,” Jean-Paul said tactfully. “If you wish to know the truth, the rumor in my family is that Marc-Antoine, the only child of Yves and Josephine and heir to Château Clement, was not, in fact, Yves’s natural child.”
“You mean he was adopted?”
He shook his head. “Marc-Antoine was rumored to be illegitimate, the child of Josephine’s extramarital affair.”
“But if Yves was not Marc-Antoine’s biological father, then one of Yves’s brothers, or one of their sons, should have inherited the estate, not Marc-Antoine, right?”
“Exactly right. My grandfather’s grandfather, Thierry, was Yves’s brother. He insisted that Château Clement should have gone to him, and therefore to his eldest son, and then to Gerald, and then tohiseldest, Louise, who is my mother—Gerald had only girls. My grandfather Gerald is still alive, and he continues to insist that Fabrice has never had a legitimate claim to the château.”
“Ironic, then, that you’re inheriting it anyway.”
“Isn’t it, though?” He gave her a sideways glance. “Generations of bad blood in the family, and all for nothing. On the other hand, I suppose my grandfather, and his father, would have loved to preside over the château these past decades. Though with the world wars and the economic changes, I’m not sure they would have done anything more with it than Fabrice has. Probably would have bankrupted themselves trying. All things considered, it worked out for the best.”
“And you’ve been trying to stay out of the drama?”
He nodded and blew out a long breath. “It’s not easy. Every familygathering, every holiday, every event... It may have been beautiful at one time, but ever since I’ve known it, Château Clement has been a broken-down old place, and a source of contention. What is the phrase in English? An ‘albatross’ around the family’s neck?”
“How is it that you speak English so well?”
“I was at Cambridge, England, for a year. And English is the default language for international contracts. It was necessary that I become reasonably fluent.”
“Still, it’s impressive.”
“Hey, your French sounded very good when you were asking the waiter for the monkfish recipe at lunch.”
She sat back in her seat and patted her stomach. “Speaking of lunch, I can’t believe you convinced me to eat that meringue. Though I’ll be dreaming of it tonight.”
His eyes slid over to her, and lingered. “Perhaps you need asieste.”
“I thought that was a Spanish thing.”
“Close enough. In some ways this region has more in common with Spain than with the rest of France. We’re only a few hours from the border.”
“Get out of here!”
“Wait—what? Where?”
She laughed. “I think I just found an expression you don’t know. It means, ‘I don’t believe you.’ We’re only a few hours from Spain?”
“Maybe four to the border. About four and a half to Barcelona.”
“Europe amazes me. It takes six hours to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco—and that’s all still within a single state—but here you could drive from France to Barcelona in less than that.”
“Perhaps you should stay longer and explore.”
