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She should not have brought up skiing.
“Workaholic, as the Americans say?”
“Something like that.”
“There’s some architecture of note in the village, particularly St. Matthew’s church.”
“Oh! Is there a Catholic church in Witten?” That had come out a little too vehemently. She’d been thinking that maybe she’d try to find one on Thursday. It wasn’t Thanksgiving here, of course,but she could still go and light a candle, do a little dorky, transatlantic communing with her mom. “If you can’t tell by my very Irish name, I’m Catholic. But not really.”
“Cara Delaney,” he said slowly, letting the syllables stretch out. It felt like his voice was caressing her name. Which was absurd. “How does one manage to be Catholic but not really?”
“By having extremely Catholic parents you love. By finding the traditions of the Catholic Church comforting, even if you don’t agree with all—or most—of their takes.” By having had her elementary Catholic school tuition paid for via scholarships that, unlike her high school scholarships, had enabled a good, solid education without marking her as the poor kid.
“I see. I’m sorry to report, then, that St. Matthew’s is Lutheran. There is, however, a small Catholic congregation in Witten. I’ll get you details on location and service times, though it’s a French-speaking parish. Regardless, might I suggest that St. Matthew’s is worth a visit? It’s a rare example of modern architecture in the village, and it’s really quite striking.”
She continued to question him, not because she cared about what there was to do on the weekends in Witten, but because it felt as if he were starting to thaw a bit. She was starting to sense a pride of place in him, a streak of nationalism. Getting Mr. Benz talking might help her understand both him and the place that would be her home for the next month.
“There are a few restaurants in the village,” he said, after she’d asked about local food, “the best being Imogen’s, which serves pub fare, but impeccably done. There is a more upscale restaurant, which is usually of interest to expense-account types. But the food isn’t any better than at Imogen’s.”
Expense-account types.That was rich coming from Mr. Pocket-Watch-Fancy-Pants. “Is Imogen the name of the proprietor or the pub?”
“Proprietor. The pub is called the Owl and Spruce. She’s called Imogen O’Connor.”
“Imogen O’Connor!” Cara exclaimed, and immediately regretted the girlish enthusiasm in her tone. She didn’t do girlish enthusiasm on the job. Or in front of men. Or in front of men on the job. She tried again, more sedately. “That’s a proper Irish name.”
“Yes. Her father was Irish.”
Somehow, though Mr. Benz answered all Cara’s questions cordially enough, they didn’t have the effect she’d been going for—getting him to relax. Maybe even start trusting her. Was a two-way conversation too much to ask for? Yes, apparently. Every time she asked a question, he answered, and they lapsed into silence until she asked the next one.
Fine. She gave up. For now. Silence was better than invading armies or whatever they’d been doing before.
But then, after a good ten minutes, he suddenly spoke. “Witten is in a valley, and the palace sits atop a hill next to the village proper. When we clear this peak”—he leaned over and pointed out the window on her side—“we’ll make our way down the other side of the mountain on a series of switchbacks. That will be your best view of the palace.” He retreated to his side, but his scent lingered. He smelled . . . minty? Well, minty but with a darker, deeper undertone she couldn’t quite place. She wondered if his minty aroma was a seasonal thing. He seemed like the kind of guy who might have seasonally rotating cologne. Mint for Eldovianwinter. What would summer be? Alpine wildflowers? Edelweiss, maybe! Ha!
“Should you care about such things,” he added, looking at her quizzically.
Right.Get it together, Delaney.Shedidcare about such things. She’d worked in a lot of places, mostly pedestrian but occasionally glamorous—the Barbados gig, for example, had been for a company that owned resorts. But an actual palace? That was new. Like a lot of people raised on modern, Disney-inflected culture, she’d undergone a serious princess phase as a girl, in parallel with her still-going-strong Star Trek phase. She still remembered the day her mom brought home a hand-me-down Belle costume from one of her housecleaning clients. It had been one of those cheap, packaged, polyester Halloween costumes, but it might as well have been a priceless, hand-beaded gown, as much as her seven-year-old self loved it.
But Mr. Benz did not need to know any of that. She twisted to look out the window. The castle was something to see. It was indeed perched on the top of what she supposed counted as a hill here—that’s what Mr. Benz had called it—nestled as it was against the backdrop of much bigger snow-capped peaks. But it was orders of magnitude bigger than any hill she’d ever seen. The castle itself was cream-colored with a dark roof studded with circular turrets. It looked like someone had dropped a castle-shaped meringue on the tip of a miniature mountain.
“It is rather lovely, isn’t it?” Mr. Benz said with the hint of a smile that actually seemed genuine.
She was pretty sure her latest theory was correct. Mr. Benzwas house proud—country proud. So she would keep hammering away on that front. “What a beautiful castle. How old is it?”
“It’s not a castle; it’s a palace.”
Well, la-di-da. “And if I ask you what the difference is, will you think me a boorish American?”
“A castle is a defensive structure.”
“Ah, meaning castles have moats and drawbridges and those little holes to shoot arrows through?”
“Those ‘little holes’ are called embrasures, but yes. A castle might be home to royalty, but it needn’t be. Regardless, its original purpose would always have been fortification.”
“So this joint isn’t fortified.”
“This...jointis not fortified.” Mr. Benz’s poker face was slipping in favor of that nostril-flaring thing again. It was like a sniff of disapproval that stopped short of being an actual sniff. It wasn’t audible, and he didn’t stick his nose in the air or anything, but somehow he was doing an internal sniff.
God help her, this man was a lot.
