Chateau of Secrets: A Novel (24 page)

Her fingers tightened over the bottle. Her only weapon. What would the major do if she killed one of his men?

Before she could lift the bottle, the man stepped forward and grabbed her arm. The bottle shattered on the floor. Wine splashed across her stockings and shoes.

She shoved him away, commanding him to halt, but he
ignored her, pressing his body into hers, pinning her against the jagged edges of the bricks. When he reached for her blouse, she screamed.

He pressed his hand over her mouth. “You scream again, and I will kill you.”

She held her breath.

He slid a knife from his sheath and pressed it against her neck. The blade piercing her skin, she began to pray again—to Saint Michel, to the Virgin Mary, to God Himself if He was listening.

“Defend me,” she whispered in French. “Protect me against the wickedness.”

He pushed the knife deeper into her skin. “Shut up.”

Her lips silenced, her eyes closed, she continued mouthing the words. And she pretended that she was far, far away, on the fields behind their house, cantering with Papillon Bleu along a stream. She was far from this madman who wanted to destroy what she’d saved for her wedding night. And probably take her life with it.

His knife slit open her blouse before the blade clattered against the brick floor. She gagged as he groped her skin. The stream—she could see it in her mind’s eye. The breeze fluttered over her face and comforted her. She was transported in her mind, hidden in her place of refuge. Secure with her mother and her father and all who had gone before her.

“Halt!”

The command was so powerful, so loud, she thought for a moment that it had escaped her own lips, but she hadn’t spoken a word. The man who had assaulted her shoved her to the ground, and she snapped back into the present, her hands sticky with wine, glass cutting her left palm as she hovered over the floor like a dog, her blouse in tatters, her breasts bruised.

In the doorway stood another man. A fellow German officer. Would he join his comrade in humiliating her?

Her mind began to wander again.

The enemy pressed his hand into her hair, her chin digging into her neck. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“The major said not to harm her.”

“He does not care—”

“He wants her to make dinner tonight, and he will care very much if you detain her.” The officer’s voice was hard.

Her neck screamed in pain as the men argued, her knees and palms ached, but she didn’t dare make a sound. Then her attacker picked up his knife and shoved it back into the sheath before his footsteps echoed up the stairs.

She hesitated for a moment, uncertain if he would return, but then she reached for a bin and pulled herself off the floor. Mortified, she wrapped her arms across her bare chest. The officer before her—her rescuer—looked down at his boots.

He could have ignored her scream, could have looked the other way like she’d done in the forest. So many of them had to look away. The other man could have raped her—killed her even—and she doubted the major would care.

Her body trembled as she stood before him. “
Merci.
”

“Are you injured?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You must stay away from the cellar until we are gone.” The officer stepped back toward the exit. “I will have your housekeeper bring you another shirt.”

“Will he bring you trouble?” Too late, she realized she had spoken in German.

“I’m not concerned about him,” he said. “As long as you are useful to Major von Kluge, you will be safe.”

Safe.

It was a strange word to use. She doubted she would ever feel safe again, at least not in her home.

She switched back to French. “What is your name?”

Instead of answering, the man bowed his head to her one more time. And then he disappeared.

S
omeone pelted pieces of gravel at my window five minutes before eight. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and crossed the room to reopen the window. Fog settled over the driveway and Riley stood in the midst of it, a backpack slung over his shoulder.

I leaned against the windowsill. “What are you doing?”

He grinned. “Waking you up.”

I rubbed my eyes, the images flashing through my mind of him with his arm around multiple women. And his bottles of beer. His smile irritated me even more, as if I would swoon under his charms like the women in the pictures.

I crossed my arms. “Why do you feel compelled to wake me?”

“I thought we could get a jump-start on the interview.”

“I’ll be ready at nine,” I insisted.

He glanced down at his watch. “How about eight thirty?”

“Nine!” I shut the window, refusing to be disarmed.

Slowly I took a bath and washed my hair. The cool temperature of the bathwater revived me, and I dressed in a black skirt and a teal blouse. Then I checked my voicemail messages—eleven of them from friends and fellow teachers who’d read the news. Some offered sympathy while others, it seemed, called
mainly out of curiosity. Later I would return the calls to those who cared.

At 9:10, I sauntered down the staircase.

Riley was waiting on the bottom step, wearing jeans and a dark brown T-shirt under his bomber jacket. He seemed like such a different person from what I’d seen in the pictures, but I knew well that appearances could be deceiving.

He held out a white paper bag. “I thought you might be hungry.”

I peeked inside to see a chocolate croissant. “Where did you get this?”

He shrugged. “I walked to the village while you were getting ready.”

With a quick thank-you, I focused my attention on the pastry he brought. The flavors melted in my mouth—warm chocolate and melted butter and the flaky sweet crust. This was what I loved about France. A keen appreciation for the simplicity and sweetness of life. The French seemed to savor their minutes along with their food.

I leaned back against the railing as I ate. A few moments passed before I realized Riley was studying me. “What?”

“I asked if you wanted me to make some coffee.”

“I’m sorry—”

He balled up his bag. “Is everything okay?”

I was so tired of people refusing to tell me the truth. As much as I wanted to tell him nothing was wrong, I would have been doing exactly what was frustrating me. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

He leaned back against the steps. “All night?”

“Until about two.” I paused. “I decided to hunt around online a bit to uncover your story, since you’ve already uncovered mine.”

His smile faded. “I hate to think of what you found.”

“A man who likes to party.”

The intensity of his eyes unnerved me. “I’m not that man anymore—”

“You don’t have to explain,” I said.

He stood up and smiled again, but his smile had lost a bit of its charm. “Grace is a gift I don’t take lightly.”

He was baiting me, but still I asked. “Why do you need grace, Riley?”

Instead of answering, he picked up his backpack off the ground. “What do you like to do, Chloe?”

“What do you mean?”

He slung the strap of the backpack over his shoulder. “I mean what do you enjoy doing, more than anything in the world?”

I leaned back against the banister. “I like to kayak.”

The green in his eyes shone. “If I can drum up two kayaks, will you paddle the river with me?”

I crossed my arms. “You’re supposed to be interviewing me.”

“I will,” he said before stepping toward the front door.

I followed him. “From a chair.”

He shrugged. “Chairs usually make for dull interviews.”

I wanted to give a decent interview to honor my grandparents. And I wanted to kayak. So I changed my clothes again, this time into my paddling shorts and an REI T-shirt.

A friend of Pierre’s loaned us two kayaks, and Riley and Pierre transported them in the station wagon from Agneaux to the river. After Riley stored his camera in a dry bag at his feet and his aluminum tripod in the storage hatch, we began to paddle.

Geese scattered as Riley and I kayaked under a stone bridge, the river meandering through the still morning. Fog swayed in front of us like a sheer veil hiding the pristine valley and the promise of warmth.

I didn’t mind the coolness. Sometimes it was easy to settle into comfort, like a lobster swimming in a pot of warm water, minutes before it begins to boil. The bite in the air breathed life into me. I was made for this, the strain on my arms, the pounding of my heart as I cut through the water.

The château was hidden by the fog, but we paddled past the jagged cliffs underneath. As the river cut through farmland on the other side, Riley pulled up his sleeves, and I saw an odd mix of scribblings tattooed under his forearm.

I pointed at the tattoo. “What does that say?”

“It’s a word from the Hebrew Scriptures. It means ‘revelation’ or ‘unveiling.’ ”

“Very mysterious,” I replied, but didn’t probe.

It was an odd amalgam—a man tattooed with a Hebrew scripture, doing a documentary on German soldiers.

“I have a few questions for you,” he said.

I glanced over at the waterproof bag at his feet. “Aren’t you supposed to be filming?”

“In a bit.”

I shrugged. It was his documentary. “Where do you want me to begin?”

He placed his paddle across his lap and floated beside me. “What do you love about kayaking?”

A bird trilled in the nearby trees and shards of sunshine cut through the mist as I leaned back to savor the morning again, the promise of a slate wiped clean, new beginnings. I stole a glance back over at him. “Being outside on the water and enjoying each minute as I paddle instead of striving to accomplish something new.”

“Does your fiancé enjoy these minutes with you?” he asked.

He must not have read the news in the States today—at least not political news. Or were Austin and my breakup considered entertainment?

“Not particularly.” I took a deep breath. “And Austin and I aren’t getting married after all.”

Silence was his response, and I wanted to flee. I’d poured out just a drop of my story, and he was letting it spill all over the ground.

He dipped his paddle back into the water, moving closer to me. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “Ending a relationship with someone you love is gut-wrenching.”

We floated past crisscrossed wooden fence posts, and I wanted to run and hide behind them, not from Riley as much as from the torment of the emotions that crashed within me. “It’s not so hard when you find the man you planned to marry sleeping with another woman.”

His mouth dropped open and then he caught himself. “Chloe, I’m sor—”

I lifted my paddle and waved it slightly to stop him. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m really not angry at all men—just Austin.”

I shuddered as we floated through another curtain of mist.

“Let’s not talk about Austin Vale,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me about your life pre-Austin?”

I dipped my paddle back into the water and flowed with the current. What was my life like before I met Austin? It had only been a year since the coffee shop fiasco and yet it seemed like a decade ago. I had enjoyed my freedom during those single years, but as my friends began to marry, I’d longed for a husband and children of my own. A part of me had felt like I was in a holding pattern since college, like life wouldn’t begin until I met my Prince Charming.

Like Riley, I had once dreamed of the power of story—of using stories in the lives of children to inspire them—but I’d lost my dreams to someone else. To an opportunity that seemed too good to be true, with a man who’d swept me off my feet.

Riley paddled again. “I’m not going to let you off the hook about your story.”

I dug my paddle into the slow-moving water and the motion calmed my nerves. I didn’t want to tell him my story and yet I was spending these weeks trying to delve into the story of someone I loved who kept her story locked inside her. I didn’t want to share my story with a man I didn’t trust, but I didn’t want to hide either.

“Until last week I was a third-grade teacher and I loved helping children learn new things,” I said. “I loved watching when that proverbial light bulb went off and their eyes grew wide as they mastered a hard concept or learned something that ignited their world. In the summers, I used to travel with my best friend and sometimes by myself so I could learn as well, but when I was home, I spent most of my free time kayaking in Virginia.”

“I read that your dad owns the top investment company in Virginia.”

So many people knew
about
me but few actually knew me. It was easy to read a profile online, but that hardly told you what a person was like. “My parents are both successful because they love to work and they both do what they enjoy. Not because they want to be wealthy.”

“There is nothing wrong with being wealthy, Chloe.”

And yet there was. Even though my parents never flaunted the money they’d made through their successes, there was a stigma attached to it. They might have been oblivious to it or so wrapped up in their careers that they didn’t care, but I felt it when I was in school. It seemed people were either criticizing me or
judging me or holding me up to impossible standards. I never wanted the attention, good or bad. When I moved out of our home, I was comfortable in my modest condo by the river and in the steady pace of my work.

A tiny village lay to our right, the stone houses clustered together above the riverbank, and a grove of tall trees stood on the far side of the town, the branches barren except for giant balls of leaves that ornamented them. I pointed toward one of the trees with my paddle. “What do you think that is?”

“Mistletoe,” he said. “Should we paddle under them?”

I turned back to him and saw his wide grin. Then I splashed him with my paddle before turning my kayak around. Laughing, he returned the favor.

After today, I would never see Riley Holtz again and I was glad about it.

Together we kayaked back toward the château. The fog had lifted, and we peered up at the castle on the cliff, surrounded by trees. It looked so majestic, like a gateway to the heavens. There were clusters of trees below the house as well.