Page 64 of Duke, Actually

“Daniela is staying with you at the cottage?” Sebastien asked, and if Dani wasn’t mistaken, he was surprised, though there hadn’t been censure in his tone.

“She is,” Max said mildly. “We’ll come up to the house and have dinner with you, though. I’ve already made arrangements with Frau Bittner.”

They said goodbye to Sebastien, and Max turned the car down a gravel-lined road that led away from the house, which was an enormous, multi-winged, imposing stone thing with red tiled roofs. “Max, does your brother think we...” She waved her hand back and forth between them.

“Oh, probably. I would have corrected him, but I didn’t want to give away the surprise.”

“What surprise?”

“He’ll come over later and see it and be assured that nothing is happening between us,” Max said, ignoring her question. He waggled his eyebrows. “Your fruitcake is safe under my roof.”

“Why is itmyfruitcake that’s safe fromyou? I thought you and I were about equal-opportunity slutting around.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Touché.” He looked at her for a beat too long—she was about to tell him to keep his eyes on the road—and said, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

She was, too.

Max’s cottage was perfect. There was no other word for it. Itwas small and made of the same stone as the main house, and it was crisscrossed with vines. Max led her to a big, weathered wooden door with an oxidized knocker shaped like a lion’s head and unlocked it with a long, skinny key that looked like a prop from a haunted house more than an actual functional key.

“Here we are,” he said with obvious pleasure as he took her coat. “This was originally what I think English speakers would call a dower house, but it hasn’t been occupied by a dowager since my father’s mother died—before I was born.”

“Your grandmother the Nazi-resister!”

“Mm,” Max said in a way that struck Dani as evasive, but she didn’t have time to parse his response, because she was too busy looking at everything. She was in Max’s home! In Eldovia!

The place looked like Max—it had an air of old-money ease but not of the stuffy variety. There were Persian rugs everywhere that were probably priceless heirlooms, but they were worn and mismatched. His living room looked like the genuine version of the aesthetic that “shabby-chic” Instagrammers spent their lives chasing. He led her through a small kitchen outfitted with modern appliances but that also contained an actual fireplace with a pot hanging next to it and a deep sink with both a modern faucet and an ancient pump handle on it.

In the back corner there was a trapdoor in the ceiling with a rope handle dangling down. He pulled it, and a narrow, steep staircase fell, startling Dani. He gestured for her to go ahead of him, and she climbed the rickety staircase, which was really more like a ladder.

And emerged into the garret of her dreams.

“Are youkiddingme?”

“I am not. Remember that first night in New York? I asked you what you would do if you could do anything, and you said hole up in in a garret and write. You won’t tell me about the mystery project, but I assume it’s something that needs to be written.”

Oh, Max. Max who listened and remembered. Max who coaxed her to make snow angels and doDirty Dancinglifts. Max who conjured ballet tickets and garrets.

“Perhaps you don’t remember.” He grinned. “That was two negronis in.”

“I remember,” she said, her voice a little squeaky as she took it all in. The open space spanned the top of the cottage and featured slanting walls that created cozy nooks. The ceiling was crisscrossed by wooden support beams, the unfinished nature of which contributed to the same worn-luxury look of the rooms downstairs. There were more timeworn Persian rugs on top of rustic, sightly uneven whitewashed wooden floors. There was a queen-size bed in the middle of the space piled high with white bedding of the sort you saw in rich-people advertisements, expensive but wrinkly because it was one-million-thread-count linen. On one side of the bed was an armoire and a full-length mirror on a stand. On the other, nestled against a large stone chimney, was a little sitting area with a love seat and coffee table.

And of course on the far end of the space was a desk perfectly sized to nestle in a dormer with a window that overlooked the mountain.

“There are a few drawbacks,” Max said, “namely no bathroom. You’ll have to come downstairs and share with me.” He crossed to the desk and picked up the end of an extension cord draped over it. Dani followed it with her gaze to see that it lined the edge ofthe floor until it disappeared under the bed. “The only outlet is on the other side of the bed,” he said. “And it’s going to be dark in here at night. And cold. It’s suboptimal, but—”

“Max.” She hated to interrupt him, but honestly. “This isamazing.” She spun in a slow circle to take it all in once more. “Amazing.” And she wasn’t just talking about the room.

“There’s more,” he said with a grin as he beckoned her over to the desk. “This attic used to be storage. I was under the impression that it was all my mother’s old equestrian things—she used to be quite the rider, and all her old saddles and trophies and the like were stored up here. And indeed, when I started clearing the place out, that’s mostly what I found. But...” He pointed to a stack of wrinkled, yellowed papers.

“Oh my god!” She knew, without him saying anything. “Oh my god!”

He produced a pair of white cotton gloves from his pocket, the kind you’d use to handle fragile artifacts, and handed them to her. “These are going to the exhibition design firm tomorrow, but I wanted to show them to you first.”

She pulled the gloves on, her hands shaking with vicarious excitement. “I don’t read German.”

“Look at the names, the opening and closing salutations.”

“‘Liebe Karlotta,’” she read.

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