Collecting Thoughts by Irene Davidson
Chapter thirteen
The episode in the woods had faded slightly by the following afternoon when Gabriel rapped lightly on the living room window to get Darcy’s attention. Startled by his sudden appearance, she dropped the list she’d been studying.
Having spent a trying morning in Bourg-Montfort, the closest town that had a school that would be suitable for Connor, enrolling him at Collège; she had been sitting at the table with the kitten asleep on her lap while reading over a lengthy list of required books and associated paraphernalia that her son would need to start school later in the week and making a ‘To do’ list. She had ticked off several items they had managed to pick up at the local Carrefour supermarket on their way home but it looked as if another trip to a bigger shopping centre was going to be necessary for the remainder of the materials. At least she wouldn’t need to buy a uniform; something she was thankful for, since they still weren’t regulation in most French schools. Then, there was the rental car, which was due to be returned by the end of the week and she wanted to check out car dealers and showrooms in Rouen for a new car. She had an idea of what she wanted but was keen to test-drive the cars on her short-list before making up her mind. She rose, trying to look less ruffled than she felt; tucking the sound-asleep kitten into one of the oversized pockets of her loose cardigan before walking the few steps through the tiny kitchen to open the outer door.
“It’s unlocked, you know,” she said by way of greeting, trying to disguise the nervousness in her voice with the casual phrase and standing back to allow him room to walk into the narrow hall. “The butler’s quit and run away so next time you can just let yourself in.”
Gabriel smiled. “Thanks, I’ll remember that,” as he noticed her edging back against the wall, his smile deepened, “Good afternoon, Darcy.” He walked towards her, placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed her cheeks before she had time to respond by backing any further away. Given the small space in the hallway, that hadn’t really been an option anyway. Darcy coloured up instantly; the previous days’ encounter hadn’t faded nearly as much as she would have liked and now those sensations she had experienced came flooding back with the force of a tidal wave. Frodo, who had come in behind his master, stepped forwards as well, massive tail wagging while sniffing her cardigan pocket appreciatively, causing Darcy to place a hand protectively between the dog’s large black nose and the sleeping kitten. She was concerned that he might take too much interest in the tiny feline, who would be little more than a snack-sized morsel to a dog of his size. But there was little need for concern –Frodo did the doggie equivalent of a nonchalant shrug, backed away and turned with some difficulty in the tight confines of the hall before heading in the direction of Connor’s room.
“Do you mind him being inside the house?” Gabriel asked, knowing that not all foreigners regarded pets with the equanimity of the French.
“Not at all,” Darcy replied jauntily, attempting to cover her embarrassment, “he’s Connor’s new best buddy.” From the jubilant noises emanating from the direction of the boy’s bedroom the two were happily reacquainting themselves to one another. “See,” she emulated the dog’s nonchalance, “and if he sheds, well, that’s what vacuum cleaners are for.”
“Okay,” Gabriel grinned, “I’ll remind you of that the next time he comes in with his huge muddy feet.”
“Hmmm,” having seen the size of Frodo’s paws, Darcy’s enthusiasm for the dog dimmed slightly. “Did you come over for something in particular?”
“Yes, I did. I’m away early tomorrow for a week. I have some business I need to wrap up before I start on this project and I wondered if you would like a guided tour of the chateau before I go. There are great views of the park from the top floors and I hoped that we could discuss some ideas for the landscape.”
“Good idea,” she replied, keen to complete the tour of the chateau she had cut short when she had been searching for the ladder. “I’ve already wandered around some of the grounds but it would be useful to get an overview from up high.” Then she eyeballed him with something close to a glare, “This had better not be some version of ‘come up see my French etchings,’ she said suspiciously.
He held up a hand in protest, “Purely business, I assure you,” pointing towards the children’s room, “I did think that Connor might like to come too. Between him and Frodo I’m sure we’ll have ample chaperones to keep us in order.”
“There is no ‘us’ that require being kept in order,” she retorted crisply.
“But who’s to say there won’t be if we don’t have a chaperone?” he challenged. His tone was so reasonable that it irritated her beyond speech so Darcy chose to ignore him. Instead, she turned her back to head into the living room, where she removed her cardigan with some care, setting the garment and its precious cargo on the soft sofa cushions. She tucked the sleeves around the still somnolent furball that was Napoleon. The kitten’s response to being relocated was to open one eye and stretch out a single clawed paw before curling back up in his woolly nest. Thinking of the dog, and still not feeling absolutely sure if he liked kittens or liked kittens …as in ‘I like kittens with a béarnaise sauce…’, she closed the door as she left the room before taking coats for herself and Connor off hooks on the wall opposite the outer door. While she had been busy putting the kitten to bed, Gabriel had informed Connor of their plans and the boy and dog were already standing on the doorstep, boots on in the case of Connor and tail furiously wagging in anticipation of an adventure for the dog.
The view from the heights of the chateau’s uppermost windows was fabulous. Struggling to regain her breath from climbing the last of the four flights of steep stairs Darcy’s chest heaved. That she was clinging a little tightly to the window rail of the open central tower’s largest window was something Gabriel noted but didn’t pursue. It was, after all, a long uninterrupted drop down to the ground below.
The sight of her heaving bosom in a slightly too-tight tee was doing him the world of good, he thought smugly. She had removed her thick duffle-jacket after climbing the second floor stairs, complaining of overheating. If he’d known that was what it took to get her to take off clothing he’d have suggested this earlier, he mused privately. Given the effect climbing the stairs had on her, he was wishing they had more floors to climb but as the only steps left were up to the windowless attics there was no real excuse to suggest they go any further upwards.
They had toured the chateau floor by floor, starting with the sub-ground-floor kitchen and utility rooms. Connor had been fascinated by the place from the moment of his first peek into the lowest floor’s boiler room, set under the chateau’s northern outdoor steps where the behemoth monster of the chateau’s gas-fuelled furnace sat waiting to be fired up.
This room had an access door allowing servicing from the outside that opened to one side of the wide cascade of steps that led down to the drive. Gabriel mentioned to Darcy that the service company would be arriving later the following week to check and reinstate the boiler, but there was little point, he said at this stage, in firing it up before the construction and redecoration work was complete in the chateau. He also cleared up Darcy’s question as to the purpose of the strange room she had noted on her previous visit to the chateau’s cavernous sub-ground level. It had functioned, he explained as the ironing and mending room, used at a time when the chateau would have had numerous staff and copious amounts of linen and cotton to iron. He planned to repurpose the large room and several others on the eastern end of the basement level into a smaller kitchen and living suite, more in keeping with his future plans for the chateau, he said.
He expanded upon his ideas as they continued their tour of the rooms. They had climbed from the basement to the above-ground floor, the rez-de-chaussée, he said to Connor, mindful that his two guests would need to expand their French vocabularies if they were to stay for any length of time. Darcy was both surprised and delighted to discover that Gabriel had no intention of turning the chatea
Darcy, thinking of the brief personal history he’d shared with her the day at Tourville could understand some of his motivation to provide such a place. If she was privately amazed at his philanthropy, given his much-reported wealth, she didn’t say but she did note the prick from her conscience that she had automatically assumed a more selfish scenario. It hadn’t helped, she thought a trifle defensively that she had been hired by an agent and not given the full story at her interview.
The rooms of the rez-de-chaussée were far more glamorous than those of the lower floor. The four had exited the western turret stairs to double doors that opened onto a wide hallway. This ran the entire length of the chateau, west to east, ending at another set of doors leading to the spiral staircase of the far turret. From this hall, rooms opened either side; smaller chambers that might have once been bedrooms to the south with larger, dramatically-proportioned salons to the north. Connor and Frodo raced the length of the hall and back before Connor breathlessly asked to carry on up the grand central staircase that led from this floor, which Gabriel said accessed the two floors above. He was given permission, provided he didn’t open any windows or go up the final narrower stairs to the central tower. With a quick nod of agreement, he and the dog were gone. As Frodo’s fluffy tail disappeared up the staircase to the accompaniment of Connor’s noisy footfalls on the bare timber stair treads; -there went her chaperones, thought Darcy uneasily.
Gabriel opened a heavy door from the hall to the first of the salons; although dirty and a bit drab the room would require little more than floor to ceiling cleaning, repainting and re-oiling of the floorboards to be exquisitely lovely once more, he optimistically envisaged.
Darcy could see potential that improved even more when Gabriel opened several of the louvered shutters that had been blocking the light from the rooms’ three tall elegant windows. A delicately carved white veined-marble fireplace featured centrally on the wall to the west; with double doors set centrally in the opposite wall leading directly to the next room and on the walls between relief-work plaster mouldings depicted a cornucopia of hunting trophies and regalia set in decorative panels at regular intervals. The floor was constructed of classic French diamond-patterned timber parquet, which would be handsome, she thought when it was cleaned and re-oiled instead of being obscured by the thick blanket of dust and grime coating the boards.
“Nice space,” Darcy’s voice echoed eerily in the empty room a she spoke, looking upwards to a ceiling that was at least three times her height. “Glad I don’t have to clean it.”
Gabriel’s resonant laugh echoed off the walls as he threw open the first of several sets of tall double doors. These were panelled and decorated with a raised design of curlicues and vases of flowers and led to a central room that was part entrance foyer, part salon. Wide glazed doors with windows either side opened to the north terrace and balustraded stone steps. These took up the entire expanse of the central third of the chateau and dropped directly to the gravel driveway. To the south, through doors that were already partly opened Darcy could see a second foyer that the long hallway bisected. This showcased the more formal staircase that Connor and his canine companion had disappeared up and hid a set of doors that Gabriel opened to show Darcy a smaller terrace to the south. In contrast to the northern steps this terrace had divided stairs that dropped to the ground with curved Italianate balustrades sweeping downwards in either direction.
“Wow,” Darcy breathed, “there were no worries about doubling up on grand entrances or wasting space just for a good first impression back when this was built were there?”
“This is the formal part of the chateau,” Gabriel agreed, “and they were frequently constructed with the prime purpose of impressing visitors. It does get more practical, if a chateau can ever be called ‘practical’ on the upper floors.”
They progressed to the eastern-most rooms through an identical set of doors to those of the first salon; entering a prettily-detailed room of similar proportions to the earlier salon, this one decorated with gilded cherubs and garlands of plaster-cast flowers. Instead of smaller rooms to the southern side, as there had been off the hall to the west, here there was another set of double doors leading to a comfortably-sized room that Gabriel said he hoped to turn into a library for his guests.
Up the stairs to the second floor they climbed, to the premier étage, Gabriel said; where, as he had promised, the rooms became more regular and less ostentatiously decorated, although there were still some finely-wrought mouldings, detailed cornicing and decoratively patterned ceilings to be seen as well as several lovely marble fireplaces in different hues in the larger bedrooms. Darcy thought the richly veined deep green stonework of one of the western bedrooms the most dramatic, although the rosy pink shade she saw in another room would make for a delightfully feminine suite as well.
This was where the construction crew would start, Gabriel explained; adding ensuite bathrooms and basic kitchen facilities for individual families so there would be a certain amount of privacy and autonomy for each group, although anyone would be welcome to cook and eat in the large sub-ground kitchen should they so desire. The individual suites would be generously proportioned, no more than two per floor and there would be a smaller apartment created from the rooms on the rez de chausee’s north-western side as well for a live-in concierge-cum-house-mother who would be available to help with babysitting, cooking or whatever was required to make resident’s stays more relaxed.
This overall concept had been aided, he explained, by the chateau’s layout –the three stairwells might seem ostentatious but made it possible to divide the floors into private suites, all with their own access. Lift access to the upper floors on the west would be added, he went on to say, with a shaft rising from the existing oversized dumb-waiter service elevator which already operated between the lower and upper-ground floors. Gabriel and his architect had, after much discussion, agreed that a lift was essential for their clientele, and they would not be compromising the architectural integrity of the original building with the addition. The single lift would provide for anyone with disabilities that prohibited them being able to climb the stairs while also solving the problem of guests from all but one suite struggling with heavy luggage up multiple flights of stairs.
He added that the new below-ground suite would be accessible from the lower hallway without guests needing to infringe on another private area and he didn’t mind that his own suite of rooms would be without lift access –the stairs, he said, were good exercise. It could all be done fairly easily without diminishing the character of the interior as the only rooms affected were one small bedroom on the premier étage and a bathroom on the floor above. The pipework would have to redone anyway to turn the old communal ablution rooms into more personable bathrooms and there was ample space in the attics under the roof to accommodate the necessary lift machinery.
There was no sign of Connor or the dog on the second floor, so after a quick inspection Darcy was quite keen to continue up the stairs to the higher level. She puffed her way up the next flights, vowing to get out more often for her morning runs, tugging her thick jacket off on the landing and looping it over one arm. When Gabriel held out a hand for the jacket she gave it up without protest, happy to get rid of the additional weight.
To the east and western ends the rooms on this floor were let into the chateau’s roof space, which was still sufficiently high that these rooms had ceilings much higher than an average house. Two round dormer windows sat either side of a rectangle –not as tall as the windows of the floors below but still not small by normal standards. The central third of t
They found Connor and Frodo waiting as requested, sitting at the base of a final stretch of narrow steps that led upwards in the centre of the room. Noting the boy’s obvious impatience at the slower adults, Gabriel suggested that they leave the inspection of the rooms on this floor for another time and waved the pair upwards.
The steps were more steeply inclined than those of the grand stair and walled in on either side, resulting in a feeling of enclosure and a sense of the unknown as to what might be at the end. Gabriel and Darcy followed in the wake of Frodo’s frothy plume-like tail until they all exited into a single large room with a footprint that filled the whole of the central high tower of the chateau. This had once been a children’s schoolroom, Gabriel explained, it dated from the chateau’s most recent use as a private school holiday camp; child-sized desks and chairs which littered the room and chalkboards still attached to the walls gave testimony to his statement. Ah, thought Darcy; as Gabriel spoke of the chateau’s most recent occupants; that went a long way to explaining the oversized semi-industrial kitchen and the bathrooms with multiple shower stalls, toilets and hand basins that she had seen on the middle floor.
This wasn’t the charming sort of schoolroom that one might have imagined finding up in such a romantic attic space as this but rather quite dull and plain, although well-lit from more dormered windows facing both to the north and south. As Gabriel levered one of the larger windows open, he described the children’s play space that would be created when the building renovation was done, with shelves full of books and board-games, media screens and bright, comfortable and durable furnishings functioning as a kids-only space. Thinking of children being up here unsupervised, Darcy hoped that the plan included safety bars on the windows.
The window Gabriel had opened gave an uninterrupted view to the south that produced a mild case of dizziness for Darcy. She wasn’t overly fond of being up this high, and staring down at the ground far below made her feel a little nauseous.
As an antidote to the nausea, rather than looking straight down she raised her gaze to concentrate on the view across the park; her eyes drawn to the unmown expanse of green grass that ran away for several hundred yards in a gentle slope directly south. It was slightly wider than the chateau building, bordered by magnificent oaks, alders, hazels and sycamores, and ran to the north also. In Darcy’s opinion, this southern view was the best of the two as it continued unbroken to greenwoods and rolling fields and hedges of typically pastoral Normandy countryside in the middle distance, whereas the northern vista was spoiled somewhat by an abrupt ending at the road. The same road she now knew that she should have taken on their arrival, which led directly from the village to the highway from Rouen and which was only partially obscured by a hedge and a few sparsely placed trees, these doing little to hide an intrusive line of modern power pylons on the far side of the road that marched off into the horizon towards Rouen and the Normandy coastline.
Darcy thought that, aside from the pretty chateau and outbuildings, two of Chateau de Belagnac’s best assets were the wonderful mature stands of trees that bordered both vistas and dotted the fields surrounding the buildings and the steeply banked, typically Norman hedgerows than bounded all sides of the grounds. These richly planted hedges and the double avenue of grand old chestnuts lining the old southern carriageway where she had met Gabriel so abruptly the day before were irreplaceable boons when it came to redeveloping the landscape as they were the kind of features that took many years to look their best.
Reflecting on the avenue, she knew too that she had been shying away from that memory and didn’t welcome the reminder of staring down over the tall trees that obscured the lane where she had so narrowly avoided being shot; and of the events which had followed. Marshalling her thoughts, she concentrated on herding them back to the subject at hand but it seemed her mind had a will of its own and she couldn’t rewind her memories to get the pictures of Gabriel’s lovemaking out of her head.
“What are your thoughts,” Gabriel enquired politely. He was leaning up against the wall next to the open window. He’d been watching her, rather than the view out the window and aside from the tightly-buttoned shirt, had been fascinated by the play of emotions flitting across her mobile features.
She jerked her head around and stared up at him uncomprehendingly. Surely he couldn’t know what she’d just been thinking about?
“Your thoughts on the garden design,” he prompted again, turning to point out the open window, “you know …what we came up here to discuss,”
“Oh, yes,” she nodded, relieved, “Landscaping.” She took a deep breath, which did interesting things, he noted, to the already stretched fabric across her breasts, “Of course.”
“And,” he spread his hands wide as if to give her the floor.
“And …I’ve only had time to walk a small part of the park but I’ve already come up with some ideas I hope you’ll like and some points for discussion.”
“Go on. I’m listening.” He leant on the wall once more and recrossed his arms over his chest, giving her his undivided attention.
“Well,” Darcy adopted a more professional demeanour, “You have several huge advantages to start with.”
A small smile hovered around Gabriel’s lips. Tempted as he was to respond, he kept the unintentional double-entendre to himself as Darcy continued speaking with earnest enthusiasm, “First, there’s a beautiful chateau to work around and showcase: Belagnac has great bones; the basics are all here … we just need to build upon them. There are the existing trees, which are superb by the way, there’s the nicely balanced symmetry of the north and south vistas, some lovely outbuildings like the carriage house and quaint countrified ones like the stables, and a few butt-ugly but historically important ones like the barracks.”
“But wait, there’s more,” Gabriel interjected, purposely sounding like a telemarketer.
Darcy gave him a withering look that would have quelled a lesser person.
“No, really, I mean there is at least one more building I think you’ll like. A lot, if I’m not mistaken. If you don’t believe me then when I return next week we’ll take a wander into the old walled gard…”
“There’s a walled garden!” she squealed excitedly. “Why didn’t you tell me that before? Where is it? Can I see it? How large is it? What state are the walls in?”
“Whoa there, I obviously underestimated the importance of a few brick walls to someone such as yourself,” he eyed her warily, “a mistake I will not make again if I wish to retain any sense of hearing.” He rubbed at one ear and took a deep breath, continuing, “to answer your multiple questions; Yes there is a walled garden, three walls to be precise. They mostly surround an old gardener’s cottage. That’s an old cottage for a gardener, not a cottage for an old gardener, by the way, …and that’s the building that I was trying to tell you about,” he could see that his small joke had missed its intended mark by the result that she was giving him that look again. He took another deep breath, counting off her questions one by one on his fingers, “let me see, in order of questioning, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know about it myself until recently and as you know we don’t currently have any drawings for the park. Something we will have to rectify shortly.” Another breath, “Where is it? It’s down there,” he pointed in a north-easterly direction, “Fifty to a hundred metres from the chateau, best exit from the east turret. It’s a bit hidden by the trees and a lot of overgrown shrubs, ivy and rubbish. Yes you can see it any time you want. Just watch out for the old well that’s lurking in the long grass between the end of the drive and the gate. I am not too sure how safe the cover is. Whew, I’m runni
“That is so brilliant,” Darcy’s eyes were shining and she did not even try to disguise her enthusiasm. “I’ve always wanted to design a walled garden. I’ll go and check it out first thing Wednesday morning after I take Connor to school. I can take some photos and measurements and get started on a design.
“Not forgetting the rest of the one hundred and twenty hectares that goes with the ‘walled garden’ of course,” Gabriel air-quoted the walled garden and couldn’t help but caution her, “I don’t want to rain on your parade but it’s just a patch of very long untidy grass and weeds at the moment with a few old brick walls and nothing much else.”
“A blank canvas,” crooned Darcy in almost orgasmic pleasure before she became aware of how intently he was watching her. His demeanour had changed to something approximating that of a big cat hunting prey. “Connor’s just over there,” she warned, alarmed at his altered expression.
“And the dog too, don’t forget. We wouldn’t want to ruin his naivety, would we?” he added with a sardonic twist to his mouth.
“Darcy ignored his comments, speaking more briskly now, “Okay, I’ll need to factor in a way of connecting the existing walled garden to the chateau.”
“Walled hay paddock,” he corrected.
“Quiet please. I’m thinking here,” she continued. He could all but see the cogs turning in her pretty head.
“Connections will be important. Otherwise you end up with all these disconnected bits and pieces that have no sense of mystery or delight involved in getting from one to the next. And it’s important too that the design acknowledges the past but plans for the future. Plus I’m thinking about new uses like, for instance, a nature-play area that could include a tree house.”
“And here I was thinking the whole park was a nature-play area,” he interposed.
“Yeah, but it would be good to have somewhere for children to play that’s close to the house and that can be supervised,” she explained. “Then there are the formal aspects to consider –it is after all, a French chateau but at the moment it reads more like an English park that has been done over by Capability Brown.”
“Done over? Interesting turn of phrase. I thought the English liked his style,” Gabriel commented.
“You forget, I’m not English. Personally, I think Capability Brown single-handedly destroyed a number of very important gardens and whilst he installed some nice lakes and trees he also over-simplified the landscape of some wonderful old English houses and parks, but that’s just me. Nobody listens to American landscape designers when it comes to these things.”
“Well, the English may not listen but we French bow to your greater knowledge,” he did just that with a very courtly effort that showed practice, adding, “We must like you: We did, after all, give you the Statue of Liberty, did we not?”
“Ha, You missed your calling; you should have been at Versailles.”
“Yes,” he replied, dead-panning it, “Louis would have loved me. But there was that whole guillotining thing going on back then,” he drew a finger across his throat in a sharp motion, flipping his head sharply to one side as if it had been severed from his neck as he did so, “so, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll pass.”
“Anyway, she continued on, smiling as she tried to ignore his antics, “Back to the subject of landscape. I had thought I’d plan for a formal garden with a sunken area to the immediate south of the chateau but now that I know about it, the walled garden might be a better location for that. I’d still plan for something a little more formal in layout to the south, -to provide an anchor for the building to the landscape that it currently lacks and a add a sense of that typical French primness, without being overpowering. We’re not trying to recreate the gardens of Versailles or Villandry here but I want a nod to design a-la-française. I was envisaging a central water feature, hedges, flower beds for colour and seating so that your guests can be out of the wind on a breezy day, but again those things would be better served within the shelter of the walled garden. Perhaps we should limit it to hedges and topiary. My thinking is that the design should look good viewed from any window of the chateau, especially from the upper floors. Then there’s the north aspect; it needs tidied up with a suitable edge-treatment and gravelled for car parking. Some oversized pots would look nice but that’s getting down to details.”
“And the devil’s in the details?” At her quelling look, “Hmmm, I like those ideas,” he nodded penitently, “please continue.”
She was on a roll now, “You need to realise that I haven’t thought any of these notions through completely but I see horse rides throughout out the park, and a reinstatement of the old main carriageway for horse-riding also,”
“Yes, we’ll need new stables. The existing block is, as you said, ‘quaint’ but not up to modern standards for horse-husbandry,”
“Have you considered redeveloping the existing carriage house? It would make a nice location for stables and it isn’t too far from the chateau.”
“Hmmm,” he thought, “I’ll think about it a little more and let you know. My architect has suggested repurposing either that building or what’s left of the barracks as an indoor swimming pool but I haven’t made up my mind yet. We’ll need to add a garage for several vehicles somewhere as well.”
“Okay,’ Darcy considered, “Then there are the two major vistas. They need a bit more raison d’etre, if you know what I mean. A focal point at the far end of each would give people an excuse to walk the length rather than just hanging around the chateau and looking out at things. It’s a good way of encouraging people to exercise; -a part of making designs work well comes down to good psychology …perhaps if there was a summerhouse for picnics, or an obelisk or something like a pagoda that guests could climb; that sort of thing. The north vista would definitely be improved with more trees at the road end to hide the views of trucks travelling along the road and I’d recommend some carefully placed trees to block out the power pylons - It’s a pity we can’t move them. I’ll check the sight lines from here in the chateau and come up with placements that will work best. Oh, and” she added as an afterthought, “That old dovecote would make a nice sort of half-way destination if it was restored.”
“I agree those pylons are an eyesore but I doubt we can move them,” he replied. “Neither the government nor the power companies would look kindly on us should we attempt to, –plus they are not on the chateau grounds.” Gabriel shrugged philosophically. “I will make sure that you have access to the chateau while I’m gone if that helps to check the visual lines. Hmm, as for the dovecote; I’ve had a cursory inspection and I’ll speak with my architect to see if he can come up with a practical reason to renovate it because I doubt that we’ll be keeping doves to include on the dinnertime menu anytime soon.”
“Thank you. Access to the chateau would be useful.” Darcy did not bother to mention that she had a set of keys already, compliments of her earlier visit. “Once I have an overall concept drawn up I’ll bring it to you and we can start working towards costing and detailed drawings.”
“Sounds like an excellent plan.” Gabriel glanced at his watch. “Now, if I’m to make it to Paris
They returned to the ground floor via the spiralling steps of the west turret. As they approached the top landing, Gabriel cautioned Connor to wait and commanded the dog to heel. “There has been a leak in the roof here,” he explained, pointing upwards to a large patch of mouldy and water-stained ceiling, “the top two steps are a little rotten but the rest are perfectly sound. I’ve checked. They’ll probably take our weight, but I don’t want to chance an accident.” He straddled the steps and took the dog in his arms, easily hefting Frodo’s considerable weight before setting him down on the steps below. Connor objected to being carried and leapt over the offending steps with a balancing hand from Gabriel.
Darcy stood on the landing, hesitating, “I could go back down the main staircase,” she took a step backwards.
“Don’t be a wus mom,” this from Connor. Gabriel still stood there, legs akimbo across the steps as he waited. The expression on his face plainly reiterated the words her son had just said.
Darcy steeled herself. As she felt Gabriel’s hands go around her waist and lift her with no apparent effort, she hissed quietly, “and don’t you be thinking that I don’t know that you planned this.” She concentrated hard on ignoring the drumming beat of her heart as she hung suspended in air, his warm hands touching her skin where her shirt had ridden up.
“Who? Little old me?” Gabriel, his face close to hers, appeared to be very pleased with himself, though she had to admit that he could do a pretty good southern belle accent when he tried. She huffed out her cheeks in exasperation. “Put me down. Now.”
“One can never be too careful,” Gabriel seemed to be moving in slow motion as he took his time depositing her on the lower step. Darcy was about to reply acerbically, when she was interrupted …,
“Wow, look you guys,” Connor’s voice, coming from the spiral below sounded as if he’d found something exciting, “there’s like gazillions of dead blowflies down here on the steps. They’re all scrunchy when you stand on them!”
Darcy let out a deep sigh and started down after her son. “And you, of course, just have to walk all over them ,” she called, shaking her head again at the behaviour of boys and grown men alike as she made her way down the steps to the exit door.