Chapter 15
The original itinerary that had been created for Angus had started to go off-piste at around the same time as the hot-air balloon ride had had such an unfortunate ending, but Tilly was really winging it by the time they’d taken advantage of being able to have a second night in the gorgeous private villa at the Chateau Saint-Martin.
They should have been on the coast the following day for a visit to Cannes and the Cap d’Antibes but, instead, after a final swim in their pool and a leisurely room service breakfast of still-warm-from-the-oven croissants and enough coffee to make up for their shared lack of sleep, Tilly took Angus to see one of Vence’s small neighbouring villages.
A bigger town like Cannes, with its glitz and noise and colour, could wait a little longer.
She wanted to keep Angus to herself today.
Somewhere that felt quiet and gentle and intimate.
It wasn’t going to change how this time together was going to end, but she wanted to soak in that unique happiness that only being in love could bestow and that enhanced awareness that made colours brighter, tastes more exquisite and sensations so much more intense.
This was the ultimate in being really alive and it had been a very long time since Tilly had felt it. Angus was only going to be here for a couple more days, so she wanted to make every minute count.
‘This is Tourrettes-sur-Loup,’ she announced as they parked Alfie and walked towards the historic part of the medieval town. ‘Also known as the city of violets. I love Vence the most, of course, because it’s my home but this is my next favourite village.’
She led him through the main archway and past a shop that attracted tourists with almost every product it was possible to make using violets, from soap to syrup and candied flowers to household items like jars and rolling pins and hand towels, decorated with painted or embroidered violets.
Angus paused to look at the display in the window. ‘Violet wine? Really?’
‘The flavour is celebrated as much as the scent.’
‘What does it taste like?’
‘Exactly how it smells.’
‘Is it like lavender?’
‘It’s more delicate. We’ll walk in a loop that will take us to see the view from the ramparts and then come back up the hill past a famous shop called Tom’s. You can find out for yourself what violets taste like.’
Angus reached for her hand as she turned to the left fork of the pathway.
Was his skin missing the feel of hers, the way hers was missing his?
The warmth of his hand flowed into her body with a rush of something that felt like relief, and an astonishing dollop of joy.
The day had just become infinitely better for Tilly.
The narrow cobbled streets, lined with shops and tall stone houses with steps and terracotta plant pots with lush greenery and beautiful old doors with ornate iron knockers, were typical of all medieval villages in the South of France, but there was a particular charm about Tourrettes-sur-Loup.
There were curves and corners that revealed hidden surprises, like a tiny square with a restaurant or a courtyard with just enough room for a small table and two chairs, a workshop where a craftsman was making things from olive wood and even a decrepit bicycle that was repurposed to provide a colourful display of potted summer flowers.
They stopped to admire the sweeping view from the dramatic point where this village reached the very edge of the clifftop it was built on and the ground dropped away into an enormous valley. They could see across endless forest right to the shimmer of the Mediterranean Sea in the distance.
It was only a short walk back up the hill from there to get to Tom’s shop, which had a sign outside shaped like an ice cream with a waffle cone and a candied flower on the top.
‘Violet ice cream is the same colour as Maeve,’ Tilly told Angus.
‘Where is your van?’
‘At my mother’s in Aix. I left her there when I used Mama’s car to pick you up from the airport.’
Just a few days ago but Tilly’s life had changed forever. Angus had shown her a physical connection to another human being that was so different to anything she had ever experienced that she had a growing, and disturbing, conviction she might never be satisfied with anything less.
‘How will you get it back? Don’t we need to return the car to the rental agency at the airport in Nice?’
‘Yes. But it’s not a problem. I can get the train. Or a bus.’ Tilly pointed to a small bench seat outside a shop on the other side of the street. ‘Sit there for a minute. I’ll join the queue and get our ice creams. The shop is too tiny for a lot of people.’
Angus eyed the cones suspiciously but Tilly knew to wait.
She peeked sideways as she licked her ice cream to find that Angus was watching her as he licked his.
There they were, their tongues out and their eyes locked, exchanging a look that felt like it was saying a thousand things and none of them had anything at all to do with ice cream.
Maybe that was why Tilly misjudged her next lick and ended up touching her chin. Angus’s smile was more of a grin as he reached to use his thumb to remove the splodge on her face but it faded when he put his thumb into his mouth to get rid of the drips.
‘Nice,’ he murmured. ‘I like violet ice cream much more than I thought I would.’
He cleared his throat and the breaking of eye contact felt very deliberate.
Tilly hid her smile as she began walking uphill again.
It was a delicious game, acknowledging the sexual tension and then pushing it away.
It was like banking attraction so that it would be there waiting for them when they were alone and they could do so much more than toy with words and looks.
‘So how did this town come to be known as the city of violets?’
‘It’s all to do with the next village along this road. Grasse.’
‘I’ve heard of Grasse. It’s famous for perfume, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. But before that, in the Middle Ages, the main industry was tanning leather. It was because that process creates bad smells that they started to use flowers to make things like leather gloves smell nicer. The farmers in this town realised they had a reliable market right next door for a flower that grows very well in this climate and is one of only a few that bloom in winter.’
They had reached the main archway again and went out into the square.
They sat in the shade of a plane tree to finish their ice creams. The day-to-day shops that serviced the village surrounded them, like the épicerie for fruit and vegetables, the boulangerie for bread, and a fromagerie for cheese.
What was right in front of them, however, was the lovely old church.
‘My friend Ellie got married in that church,’ she told Angus.
‘It was long before I met her, though, so I didn’t see her as a bride but I wish I had.
It must have been such a beautiful wedding.
Her sister Laura’s wedding on the beach was probably my favourite of all the weddings that Sophie and I did together. ’
‘She’s a good friend, too, isn’t she? Your old boss?’
‘The best,’ Tilly agreed, warmly. ‘Friends are so important, aren’t they?’ Her smile was wry. ‘They last longer than a lot of relationships.’
‘Do they?’
Tilly gave him a startled glance. ‘Do you not think of your close friends as your chosen family?’
She should have been so used to seeing him frown by now but there was something different about the way the lines deepened around his eyes this time.
‘I have people that I call my friends but I’m not sure I have any close friends.’
Ohh…
A corner of Tilly’s heart was breaking. The thought that Angus might be a lonely man made her want to put her arms around him and hold him tight. Had he been a lonely child too – with just the company of his dog instead of siblings and school friends?
Was he afraid to let people too close because he’d witnessed his father’s pain when the love he offered others had been rejected? Perhaps it wasn’t that he didn’t believe in the power of romance but that he’d learned the risk was too great.
‘I was thinking about that not so long ago,’ he said quietly. ‘The night before I came to France, in fact. When Moira told me that she’d only considered us to be friends. I didn’t think a friendship included sex.’
Oh lá lá… The thought of Angus and Moira having sex sent a pang of a very unpleasant sensation through Tilly. Jealousy? When she had no right to be feeling possessive. She pushed it aside with a sharp mental shove.
‘I believe that’s known as a friendship with benefits,’ she said.
‘Is that what we have?’ Angus asked. ‘Are we friends, Tilly?’
It felt like she had a lump in her throat that needed to be swallowed before she could speak. But then she managed to find a smile as well. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think we’re friends. We enjoy each other’s company, yes?’
Angus nodded, smiling.
‘It’s easy to talk to each other and we like a lot of the same things and… and we can make each other laugh.’
That was possibly the thing that she found the most attractive about Angus.
Had the first time he’d made her laugh, and feel better about the disastrous end to that balloon ride, been the moment she’d started to fall in love with him?
Or was it the first time he’d kissed her in the wake of that laughter?
Tilly suspected there might be some kind of alchemy in the combination that had created something out of thin air.
If you already had the echoes of laughter in your heart when a man kissed you like he was drowning and only you could save him, surely the falling in love had been inevitable?
Tilly could feel a wash of emotion that she knew she had to hide.
‘And that means we like each other,’ she said crisply, as if it was no big deal. No romance included. Safe.
His eyes crinkled a little this time. ‘Aye,’ he said.
‘So yes, we’re friends,’ she added to finish the conversation. ‘With benefits. Close friends, even.’