Chapter Sixteen
Their days in Clive’s lovely, quaint cottage were quiet, peaceful—and tense. Their nights, sleeping separately in the alcove off the great room, were a torment. He would lie on his side facing her, his gray eyes upon her until she fell asleep, his eyes open and staring at her when she awakened.
They spoke rarely, only out of necessity.
Did he want her to cook him oats for breakfast?
Did she wish to go with him down to the sea for a stroll or a swim?
Would she like another cognac?
Could she have his small things, please, to do the wash?
Giselle wished for more ease between them. It came one night when Clive began to laugh at a book he read.
“Will you read aloud to me?” she asked him, eager for the mellifluous sound of his deep voice to fill the soft night air and calm her weary heart.
When he did, she fell asleep in her chair. The next morning, she awoke in her bed, snuggled in blankets, fully dressed.
Clive Davenport was an ethical man who filled her soul with longing.
She covered her desires with activity.
When she wasn’t at her easel, she was in the kitchen.
Each morning, Mrs. Campbell brought them beautiful baskets of fresh-picked winter turnips, potatoes, spring lettuces, radishes, cucumbers, and a few early tomatoes.
Admiring the wealth of vegetables in the wicker basket, Giselle let her memory fly back to her youth, when she spent hours in her parents’ kitchen.
And later in her own, she had continued when she sought solitude and safety from her demanding and often cruel husband.
Just as in art, she controlled what she created.
She could walk into a fantastical cloud of transforming simple ingredients into mouth-watering delicacies—and get lost.
With flour, eggs, and cream, Giselle made flan. With cherries, she made a cake so light and sweet, she had tears in her eyes at the memory of such a cake she’d made for her father.
She whipped eggs to a froth as if she stirred the winds over the earth.
She molded pie shells into elegant shapes of flowers and animals, baked them to a pretty golden brown with apples or pears or raisins and dates melding together in heady aromas and sinfully tasty treats. They had honey cakes and smooth breads.
One day she decided to tackle her favorite pastry.
Years ago in Blois, she had devoted herself to making a confection of a thousand layers dripping with thick cream and ganache.
It had taken her months of trial and error, remeasuring and calculations, but she had triumphed and conquered the pastry.
Now, with success in hand from the simpler dishes she made, she tried again on the millefeuille.
It took her eleven days to get it right. Finished with her work for the day, she would take up the recipe. Her hair slipping from her pins, her cheeks dotted with flour, her lips covered in sugars, she was happy to serve Clive her wares each night, even if she’d not yet perfected the recipe.
Clive—good man, his mouth full, eyes widened or rolling in ecstasy—could barely find words to describe how he loved the various forms of the delicacy. She would preen, tickled that she progressed in its creation, thrilled at his delight in it.
She did justice, too, to other treats that Mrs. Campbell brought them.
A leg of lamb Giselle studded with garlic and fresh herbs.
The roast filled the little cottage with the aromas that denoted springtime and renewal.
She made potato fritters and pork cutlets.
Cabbage slaws with carrots. Stews of beans and onions with beef or chicken.
Each new dish filled her with pride. Clive filled her with compliments.
He became her assistant. Taking instruction from her, he’d wash the vegetables, measure flour and sugar, and even learned how to slice on the diagonal to preserve flavor. What she produced stunned him with the flavors and variety—and he told her so without end.
One week later, Mrs. Campbell, cheery soul, had brought round the morning’s freshly picked lettuce, spinach, and onions.
Bright-red strawberries too came from somewhere close by.
Giselle did not ask for details. She settled her hands on her hips and thought of how she could make a meal from the produce.
“A feast,” Clive said as he came to stand behind her in the little alcove that served as their small kitchen. His warmth flowed into her from his attitude and his words. The fragrance of his cologne filled her lungs with a desire to turn and kiss their conflict away.
“I think so,” she told him, and wished to give him in return the peace he engendered. What little she had to offer was another of her skills in the art of cooking. “A salad for lunch. For dinner, the potatoes and onions, a bit of cream to make a pie.”
“I can peel the potatoes for you.”
She had taught him how yesterday. He was always ready to help, but at this, he was all thumbs.
She had teased him that he might well use his long, sharp Italian blade and do a better job.
He’d given her a sidelong glance and said he’d use it better to stick a potato on the end and roast it.
She had to smile at that, and he noticed, his mellow gaze dropping to her lips.
She licked her lower lip.
He imitated her.
She spun away. “Mr. Campbell is late this morning.” The man usually came around ten. The sun had long been up. “You don’t suppose something is wrong, do you?”
“We are secluded here, Giselle. Campbell probably has an errand. He will come and I will go out for my patrol.”
He went three to four times a day, taking his pistol and his nasty stiletto.
Mr. Campbell stayed with Giselle as Clive did his rounds.
But at all other times, the man kept watch from his and his wife’s cottage down the lane.
Clive and his man had devised a schedule so that each saw the other pass in view at least once an hour.
Giselle felt the security like a balm to her fears. She was succumbing to the charms of ordinary pleasures. And of Clive.
*
Despite never having anyone to talk with about what she did or why, she still did not wish to start now.
Except to share her thoughts with Clive.
That, she recognized, was how her love for him changed her.
But she ignored it and turned to her work and her cooking.
Clive said little to disturb her or distract her.
She held her tongue. Held her breath. Soon she would be finished with her work. Finished here with him. And leave.
The prospect began to tear at her. No drawing, no cooking could tame her anxiety.
She feared for her contact, Jacques Durand’s man.
She did not sleep well. During the day, she kept in constant motion.
Her work, her cooking, her obsession with contemplating whatever had happened to the various men who had tracked her or those who had protected her.
Then one day, worn to a frazzle by her fruitless worry, it vanished.
She let it all go.
She still wished for a way to communicate with the Ashleys or Ramseys from here. She could not risk the mail. Did not have enough coin to hire a messenger. Nor could she even find one. No one came to their cottage but the Campbells.
From the beginning of her work here along the Channel, she’d understood she worked alone.
Never afraid for her safety until Durand’s man had not appeared outside the Old Ship and other, more devious-looking men began to pop up, she was grateful for the protection Clive offered.
Another reason to appreciate his spontaneity with her cooking; another reason to marvel at his generosity. Another reason to love him.
And because she had to leave him, those were also good reasons why she must never tell him so.
*
Precious.
That was the only word she could think of to describe her days and nights with him.
He lured her with quiet acquiescence to her needs.
With his easy offer to help her cook or clean, his hearty laugh, or his recognition that here in this cottage they were friends, walking around each other carefully.
By her preoccupation with all else, save him, she told him they could not sleep together.
That she would not approach him to make it so.
They were here for a reason that had a beginning and an ending, as chilling as it was dispassionate.
By keeping his distance, he seemed to have silently agreed that their desire for each other was an emotion from another time, another place, another realm.
None of which would ever be theirs again.
Yet between them in the quiet hours, when she sat opposite him after dinner and before she retired to her bed alone, she knew she could claim him as hers forever if she just crossed to him and forgot her purpose and lived for the moment.
Despite her devotion to her own cause, she felt the promise of what might have been as, throughout each new day, her gaze drifted toward him.
She would watch him read, his firm lips pressed into an appealing line.
She could trace the outline of his jaw, square and strong, his beard heavy.
From that night they’d spent entangled in each other, she recalled his whiskers against her cheek.
They were soft, brushing her senses with his heat.
She’d shake her head and go back to her book of poetry.
But heavens. She knew the lines by heart.
There were few books in this cottage, and the poetry seemed the only one upon the shelf that could entertain her.
Except when it didn’t. And Clive Davenport was the only person she ever wished to read.
Bored as she was with the bad poems, pretending fascination was not her skill.
Her eyes, rebellious and needy, would close, open, and seek out the beauty of him.
He filled her gaze, her mind, her heart tumbling over with praise for what he was. What he did for her.