Page 57 of Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure
“He’s a banker. He likes making money.”
“So he has made a generous settlement on you?”
“Not generous enough.” She smiled. “But enough for me to live comfortably, especially here, where the cost of living is low.”
“Unless you like champagne and foie gras as I do,” he said. “Then they charge me a devil of a price to ship to me here.”
Antoine came in, bearing a tray with a silver coffeepot and hot milk jug, two delicate little cups, sugar cubes and a plate of dainty biscuits. Without being asked, he poured and handed cups to both of them. The viscount took silver tongs and dropped in several sugar lumps.
“What brought you to Saint-Benet?” he asked after taking a sip. “Why not Saint-Tropez? Antibes? This is where the fashionable English go for the winter.”
“As you can see from my dress, I am hardly fashionable,” she said, smiling at him. “But in answer to your question, it was fate that brought us here. My motor car developed a problem. This was the first human habitation we came to. And once we were here, we liked the ambiance.When we heard about the abandoned villa, I wanted to see it for myself. I saw it and fell in love with it instantly. It is hardly like this, but it’s charming. And I felt ... it may sound silly ... I felt it wanted to be brought back to life.”
“So you are a woman of sensibility?”
“Not before this. I was always efficient, practical, although I did enjoy playing romantic music on my piano.” She glanced out of the window in the direction of her villa. “There was a grand piano in the window. I pictured the opera singer sitting there, singing and playing. I presume she was here before your time?”
“I don’t think I ever met her. I was at home in Paris with my nursemaid in those days, but I remember my father speaking of her. I was told she was very beautiful. And of course my father was a good friend of her lover, the duke. Which was how they first came upon the property where you now reside. My father suggested it to his friend.”
“Ah,” Ellie said. “Then do you know what happened? Why she never came back here?”
“I suppose he grew tired of her, found another woman, and she did not like to be reminded of the happiness she knew here. Or ... she found another protector, who bought her a bigger and better villa in a more fashionable resort.”
That made sense. “I just thought she meant to come back,” Ellie said. “Her belongings were all here. I just wondered if some kind of incident or tragedy had happened. The house felt sad.”
“Sad?” he laughed. “I expect the tragedy was discovering another woman. It usually is.”
Ellie finished her coffee. “I shouldn’t keep you any longer,” she said.
“Not at all. I have enjoyed your company, which I can’t say for any of the other people in this place. I don’t know why my father chose such a remote spot to build his villa. There are none of our kind of people to converse with. But you must come again. I have the most skilled chef. We will have lunch or dinner.”
“That’s most kind of you. I also share my villa with three other women. One is an elderly lady from a very good family. I am not sure the other two would feel comfortable at a house like yours.”
“They are your servants? Why would I invite a servant?”
“Not exactly servants,” Ellie said awkwardly, telling herself that neither Mavis nor Yvette would want to dine in such circumstances. “You should come to us first and meet them.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But perhaps I shall return to Paris. It is always as the whim takes me. If I am invited to a good party, I pack up and go. If not, then I will come to visit you, but not the dreadful English tea, I beg of you.”
“Luncheon, then,” Ellie said, laughing.
“That is better.”
“I look forward to it, and my ladies will also look forward to meeting you,” Ellie said. “I take my leave, then, monsieur le vicomte.”
He held out his hand to her. “My name is Roland,” he said. “That is what my friends call me.”
“Ellie,” she replied. “My name is Eleanor. My friends call me Ellie.”
He repeated the name. “Sometimes,” he said, “it is good to have a friend.”
She was smiling to herself as the butler let her out. He considered her a friend. She wasn’t sure that she liked him. She could tell, as she had been told, that he was spoiled, but there was something of a little-boy-lost about him that finally charmed her.
As she drove away, she had a revelation: What if Roland was the actual heir to her villa? He did say his father had had something to do with choosing the site for the opera singer’s villa. What if she had actually been his father’s mistress, and his father had built the villa for her but never made her the owner? When he tired of her, she had to leave, and when he died, the villa came to Roland. Of course that made sense. Rumour had it that the aristocrat was a duke, but perhaps Roland was the younger son. Maybe there was an older son who had inherited the title, the château or Paris property, and Roland had been given thismore humble place. The younger son of a duke would not inherit the dukedom but a lesser title.
Ellie was pleased with herself as she turned into her own driveway. She had solved the mystery, but she would keep Roland’s secret if he didn’t want anybody to know. Then her thoughts went one step further. Perhaps he was really the love child of the duke and his mistress, not the rightful heir. That was why he kept silent. Aha.
Chapter 23
