14. Roman
Four hours later I strolled to the north wing with a bottle of white wine from the Garnier estate in the Rhone Valley, France.
For all the gloominess that always permeated the house, I could almost sense a shift in the air. Or perhaps I was viewing the world differently, since something akin to happiness was coursing through my veins.
My father’s room had become a welcoming beacon of warmth, and if I wasn’t mistaken there were now even more fairy lights all over the room. Edith Piaf was crooning and there was a general atmosphere of cozy cheerfulness. I’d buy a ticket to see my father’s reaction if he had to wake up to fanfare like this.
A lunch table was set up by the windows. And Emily wasn’t there yet, but Isabel was stacking books neatly against her reading chair. For a few seconds I enjoyed watching her doing this simple task. Grace in motion.
I was almost in the middle of the room before she saw me. She stalked across the floor, lifted her face to mine and hissed through her teeth, adorably pissed. “Why are you doing this?”
I bent my head until my lips almost grazed her forehead, and bit a smile. “I heard you made lasagna.”
She stepped back, her beautiful face flushed. “You just left me in that library after you said that thing... And now this.”
“Oh is that why you’re breathing like you’ve been running a marathon, my sweet?”
“Shut up Roman, the last thing I need is for Emily to find out.”
“What did I say about you telling me to shut up?” I whispered, trying not to laugh.
Those big eyes bored into my soul, and her soft mouth pursed with a challenge as she whispered back casually. “You said if I told you to shut up you were going to fuck me until I begged you to stop.”
The jolt those words sent through me had me wondering if lunch with Isabel was such a bright idea after all. A minute in and I could already feel my groin stir in ways not suitable for public scrutiny.
Isabel measured the effect those words had on me and smiled. Satisfied that she could make this lunch as challenging for me as my presence here was making it for her. I had to concede. “Relax. I come in good faith. Besides I brought some wine you might like.”
A young woman pushed a serving trolley in with three plates covered in silver domes. Isabel pulled herself together and smiled. “Molte grazie, Sophia.”
There was a short conversation in Italian, and when Sophia left, I couldn’t help but stare in wonder at Isabel.
“And she speaks Italian.”
Isabel took the plates of food to the table, trying not to smile. “Fluently… Again, a French mother who prepared me for a cosmopolitan future.”
I had to make a concerted effort to stay back and not gather her into my arms and keep her there.
Emily entered the room with her gracious-hostess smile. “Look who joined us. Have you two met? Isabel this is Henry’s son, Roman. And Roman this is Isabel Le Roche, your father’s reader and the fabulous pastry chef.”
“I’ve heard wonderful things about you, Miss Le Roche, and I personally want to thank you for looking after my father so well.”
“Please call me Isabel… And I love keeping Henry company,” Isabel murmured. “We should eat while the lasagna is still hot.”
I waited for the ladies to be seated, Isabel sitting as far away from me as possible. Which to her credit was probably the more practical move. I pulled out my Victorinox Classic to open the wine bottle. Emily’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that the Swiss Army knife I gave you for your eighteenth birthday?”
Her surprise made me smile. “Yes, it is. I never go anywhere without it. Comes in very handy when I suddenly have to open a bottle of wine.”
“Wine, Roman? Emily teased good-naturedly. “It’s the middle of the day.”
“Oh, how many times do I show my face for lunch? Let’s celebrate. Besides, there’s quite the story behind this bottle of wine.”
“Well, the table was laid with wine glasses,” Isabel said in solidarity. “Might as well put them to good use.”
I poured everyone wine. “So, what brings a pastry chef to Belmont Manor?”
“I needed a job, and my friend Marguerite knew about the reading position and asked Nelson’s partner, Albert, to organize an interview,” Isabel said. “And Emily was kind enough to give me a chance.”
Emily unfolded a napkin on her lap with a little smile. “One of the better decisions I’ve ever made. It was Isabel’s biting opinion of Grapes of Wrath that saved your father the pain of having it read to him.”
“You have a problem with Grapes of Wrath?” I asked, on tenterhooks to hear the nymph’s critique of the Great American Novel.
Isabel pouted, which was a telltale sign I was in for a teensy lecture. “I don’t have a problem with Grapes of Wrath per se. The problem is reading it to Henry, who I think needs to be entertained rather than have his nerves ripped to rags as Steinbeck intended.”
It was the way she said it, in that opinionated little tone of hers, that had me wondering whether it was too soon to simply drag her to the closest empty bedroom and devour her from head to toe.
When Isabel met my gaze, she knew exactly what was going through my mind, because the smallest of trembles fluttered through her. And my insides clenched at the memory of feeling her quiver beneath my touch.
The nymph was the first to recover from our unguarded moment. She glanced nervously at Emily to see if she’d noticed anything improper. But Emily was concentrating on eating her lasagna between small sips of wine, before looking up. “So, what’s the story behind the wine, Roman?” she asked. “You have me curious now.”
I settled back in my chair, eager to see Isabel’s reaction. “I bought the letters exchanged between a French couple in the Second World War at an auction a few days ago.”
Isabel’s fork clattered to her plate and she stared at me expectantly. Her lips parted, and she barely suppressed a gasp. A rush of undulating memories eased into the air between us.
I continued, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Someone kindly translated them for me and unfortunately the letters ended abruptly, and it was unclear what happened to the couple. I had Kayla do some research. Apparently for all the lovely food and wine France has gifted the world, their government efficiency is terribly lacking. But I finally got the information about the French couple, Daphne and Pierre.”
Emily dabbed her mouth with the napkin. “Oh please, do tell us.”
I cleared my throat. “Pierre Lavigne married Daphne Garnier on May 20th 1939, when they were both nineteen years old. They lived with her parents on a small vineyard in Rhone Valley when World War II broke out. Pierre was deployed to Alsace on September 2, 1939. He remained there for two years and nine months before he was seriously wounded by shrapnel from an explosion. Daphne got word that Pierre had perished with the rest of his company, which was about two dozen men.”
Tears welled up in Isabel’s eyes, and she was biting into her lower lip. All I wanted to do was soothe her, and at that moment I didn’t care what Emily thought. “It’s going to be okay, Isabel,” I said softly. “It all ends well.”
She nodded, glancing at Emily who was watching us both serenely.
I continued. “A couple of weeks after that news, it was discovered that there was some confusion in identifying the dead and injured. And it turned out Pierre was in a hospital outside Alsace fighting for his life. So, as Pierre was hovering on the brink of death, Daphne pulled out all the stops to find him, which she eventually did. At the time, medical personnel were contemplating amputating his leg as infection had set in, but Pierre refused. Until Daphne convinced him she’d prefer him alive with one leg, rather than dead with two.”
Isabel wiped a tear, a breath caught in her throat, and I had to use all my restraint not to reach over and take her hand.
“Daphne stayed with Pierre for three months while he was in the hospital, and they finally went back to the small vineyard they inherited when her parents died. They continued producing wine and had three children, a son and two daughters. There were seven grandchildren, one of them now running the wine farm. Pierre died on January 19 2012 at the age of 92 and Daphne followed three days later on January 22. It appears Daphne and Pierre had a very sweet and long life together. If you’re curious about all the details, Kayla found it on the Garnier wine farm’s website. And that’s where this wine is from.”
Isabel hadn’t moved. Those big green eyes were welded to me as if any sense of doubt she had about us just ebbed away. And suddenly the world became bigger and the possibilities endless, and all the feelings I’d been forced to lock away found their way out.
“I made copies of the letters,” I added. “The originals are already on their way back to Daphne and Pierre’s family in France.”
Emily looked from me to Isabel with an agreeable smile. “What a lovely story. I must say the two of you seem to get along quite well. Better than I expected.”
“I figure it’s probably a good idea to stay on good terms with the woman who makes lasagna like this,” I said, smiling. “And let’s not forget the French pastries.”
A twinge of curiosity surfaced in Isabel’s eyes. “Why didn’t you expect us to get along, Emily? Roman seems…I don’t know, nice enough.”
For someone who rarely found any reason to laugh in the last decade, I had shamelessly fallen victim to Isabel’s scathing wit. I was barely able to keep from laughing.
“You have to know Roman to understand,” Emily said. “He’s not the most social man. Except for business, he keeps engagement to a minimum with anyone other than his immediate family.”
A ghost of a smile played over Isabel’s lips. “Could have fooled me. The man had me in tears ten minutes after we met with that sweet story of Daphne and Pierre.”
Emily dabbed her lips with the linen napkin. “I for one am pleasantly surprised that Roman would entertain us with such a sentimental story.”
“Oh really?” Isabel said with an innocent smile. “So, not the sentimental type, is he?”
Emily sighed. “Let me tell you something. When his father sent him off to that Swiss boarding school as a boy, it broke my heart. And when Roman came back a young man, he was so different from the boy I remembered. He’d become so aloof and serious. There was no breaking through to him.”
Isabel shared a secret smile with Emily. “Are we talking Heathcliff’s wrath, Edward Rochester’s torment, or perhaps Maximillian de Winter’s broodiness?”
Emily laughed. “Maybe a touch of de Winter and Rochester. I don’t see Roman as being cruel like Heathcliff.”
This drew a smile from me. “Hello, I’m right here, but feel free to discuss me among yourselves.”
Emily patted my cheek. “We’ve had too much sadness in this house. Seeing you like this makes me happy, Roman. Whatever is making you happy, I hope it never changes.”
My gaze locked with Isabel’s. “I hope so too,” I said, and for two eternal heartbeats, silence reigned. And as my eyes dipped to the hollow in her throat where her pulse was fluttering, we both knew it was just a matter of when and not if before we picked up where we left off.
It all depended on how long we were willing to stick to our self-imposed conditions, which seemed to be getting more irrelevant by the minute. Even though I was willing to work at it for as long as it took. Which I hoped wasn’t long at all.
Emily turned to Isabel, gracious as ever. “The lasagna was absolutely wonderful, Isabel. I hope the kitchen staff paid close attention.”
Isabel folded her hands on her lap like a good girl. “It’s my pleasure. I really don’t mind helping Mrs. Sheldon. We should do this more often. Henry definitely needs the company.”
I finished my wine. “After tasting your pastries, I think you should tell the chefs at the Belmont Hotels where they are going so spectacularly wrong with our dessert menu.”
“Why?” Isabel asked with wide-eyed innocence. “Do the pastries at the Belmont Hotel suck?”
“I have it on good authority that they’re not up to par,” I replied. “So yes, they suck.”
“Do you trust this authority?” Isabel asked softly.
Clearly, honesty was the best policy. “With my heart and my soul.”
You could power a city with the spark igniting between Isabel and me. She looked away ever-so-casually, her forefinger drifting down the arch of her neck and stopping in the hollow of her throat, where her pulse beat furiously against her silk skin.
I might have gaped a little as I battled all the blood in me from rushing south. Keeping up appearances was becoming more difficult by the second.
I should have known the minute she told me to shut up, that this lunch was a mistake. I should have known there was no number of billions in my portfolio large enough to stand up to the kind of power she had over me.
Emily smiled and sipped her wine. “As long as you don’t remove Isabel from this house, feel free to explore her talents. With her consent of course.”
“Naturally,” I answered, urgently trying to distract myself from Isabel’s sexy little smirk by pouring more wine.
Isabel gracefully covered the top of her glass. “No more for me, thank you. You’ll have to excuse me since I want to use the rest of my lunch hour to make use of the library.”
A blatant invitation if ever I’d heard one. Which I accepted silently and without hesitation.
“Well, Isabel,” Emily said. “I have to finish reading Henry the chapter we never got to finish last night. So please, take your time at the library. No need to rush.”
The luminous nymph rose from the table like a cat that had finished an entire bowl of cream. She had me scrambling to stand up like the gentleman I was, my napkin oh so casually hiding my swelling groin.
“It was so nice to meet you, Roman,” Isabel said, that sexy smirk still nagging the corners of her mouth. “I’ll be making chicken paella next Friday, so feel free to join us again. And Emily, thank you for giving me more time in the library. I treasure the time I spend there, I really do.”
And with that Isabel floated from the room. My willpower was sorely tested as I resisted the temptation to rush out the door after her. I sat down again and offered Emily more wine, which she declined.
Emily pushed her plate aside, settled back in her chair and gracefully clasped her hands on the table. She looked at me for a few suspended beats. “So,” she said. “How long have you and Isabel known each other?”
I nearly choked on my wine, prepared to dispute her observation, but then realized how futile that would be. “It’s that obvious?”
“From the moment I saw the two of you together in this room. And let’s not even talk about during lunch.”
“It’s an interesting story. Wildly unbelievable. Wholly improbable. I only discovered she was working her the night you told me someone named Isabel was baking the pastries.”
“And she didn’t know you lived here?”
“Strange I know. I’ll tell you the whole story when we have more time.”
There was no escaping Emily’s scrutiny. “Is that why you asked about your father and me?”
“Yes,” I said. “But I don’t want you to worry about it.”
“Of course I’m going to worry about it,” Emily said earnestly. “I love you, and I’ve come to care for Isabel. This is a complicated situation. I don’t want either one of you to get hurt. I saw the way you looked at each other, Roman. And I know that look. I also know how much sacrifice is going to be involved for her.”
“Yes, the elephant in the room,” I said. “The big sacrifice. Which I will address when I know where Isabel and I are going with this. There’s just so much for her to get used to, and I don’t want her to be overwhelmed.”
“I can’t imagine this affair will stay a secret for long in this house.”
“You’re the only one whose opinion I care about around here,” I said. “Although I’m not sure how comfortable Isabel would be with you knowing at this point.”
“Leave that to me. Isabel will be fine.”
“She really is something else, isn’t she? You should have heard her views on my Savile Row bespoke suits. It’s Italian or nothing for my honey badger, the delightful, opinionated creature that she is.”
“Honey badger?”
“Part of the insane and impossible story,” I explained. “But, yes, my honey badger.”
Emily stared at me with disbelief. “You really do care for her, don’t you?”
I hesitated. “There’s so much about this feeling I don’t understand. I have no experience, and of course I’ve already blundered. Believe me, Isabel has been nothing but very forgiving.”
“From what I’ve seen today, you’re doing fine. And I have to tell you that rarely have I seen two souls as well-matched as you and Isabel.”
“And yet we’re so different,” I said, still perplexed by it all. “She’s this live bundle of emotions, her heart open for all to see. And me, well, I’m the Belmont genes at their finest, rarely showing what I really feel inside.”
Emily looked over at my father, her gaze softening. “Something you’ll come to understand is that the heart wants what it wants. I have loved your father for decades and it’s still a mystery to me. We are fundamentally two people from opposite worlds, and it took me years to finally give up on trying to understand. One thing I do know is that once the Belmont men set their sights on one person, their loyalty and passion never falter. Even if they don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves.”
This observation wasn’t nearly as panic-inducing as I thought it should have been. “So this is the kind of feeling that doesn’t go away?”
“I’m afraid not,” Emily said, not at all sympathetic. “One day I’ll have to thank Isabel though.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“For making you happy and bringing back the Roman I remember.”
I put my hand on Emily’s. “I’m sorry, I had no idea I was such a miserable bastard all these years.”
“Oh please. You were not a miserable bastard. You just had this shield around you, and you allowed no one in. It could have been worse. But now that we have the cure, we’d better treasure her. Speaking of which, I’m sure she’s waiting for you in the library.”
I laughed. “She wasn’t too subtle about that, was she?”
“A bullhorn might have been more diplomatic,” Emily noted.
I kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for giving her more time. Now let me go and say hello to her. And I’ll see you here tonight.”