Chateau of Secrets: A Novel

by Melanie Dobson

  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.

  — CHAPTER 32 —

  Someone 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.

  When I looked back toward Riley, he had his camera out now, filming the château above me. Then he lowered the camera. “You ready to do this?” he asked.

  I put my paddle on my lap. “As ready as I’ll ever be . . .”

  I clipped on the microphone he gave me, and then he lifted the camera again, training it on my face. I pretended I was back in my classroom, ten hands raised to ask questions. This time I would pick Riley.

  “What do you know about the history of your family’s château?”

  I glanced up at the house and then looked back at Riley.

  Olivia had put me through hours and hours of exhaustive media training. For my interviews, presentation was more important than content, the trainer had said. I’d memorized the campaign talking points in about an hour, and then the trainer had worked with me on the position of my shoulders and legs, the tilting of my head, the tone of my voice. In front of a mirror, he showed me the differences between a comfortable, warm smile and a strained one.

  But there was no studio around me now. No chair.

  I flashed what I hoped was a warm smile and began. “The first walls were probably built about a thousand years after Christ, during the reign of William the Conqueror. They named the area Agneaux because legend has it that Saint Martin of Tours prayed for the dead sons of the first Norman family who lived here. After the twins were restored to life, they were known as the Lambs—les agneaux—of St. Martin.

  “The house probably harbored knights at one time, but three hundred years ago, King Louis XV gave the property to the Duchant family as a reward for fighting alongside him.” I pointed toward the river. “Before the French Revolution, our property stretched all the way down to Saint-Lô.”

  “Did your family live here during World War II?” he asked.

  “My grandmother was only twenty-two when the war started. Her mother had already passed away, but her father died during the war and her first husband was killed during a battle.”

  “Was your father born here?”

  “He was, but he moved to the United States when he was six.”

  The current pushed us away from the château, and he put down his camera. “Should we continue onshore?”

  “Sure.” I dipped my paddle back into the water, and when I reached the edge, I pulled my kayak onto the grassy bank. We were at the base of the trees and cliff, and Riley set up his tripod and had me stand where he could capture the trees and river behind me. I readjusted my microphone and he began filming again.

  “You said your grandmother was a widow at the end of the war,” he said, prompting me.

  I nodded. “My father was a young boy in 1944 and Mémé was a widow. A friend introduced her to Henri Sauver right after the Allies defeated the Germans in Saint-Lô, and they married about a month later. Henri adopted my father, and their family immigrated to the United States that same year.”

  “What did your grandfather do during the war?” he asked.

  “At first, he fought with the French army as a captain until the Germans defeated them. Then he joined the French resistance. My grandmother said he used to travel all over Normandy and wreak havoc on the Germans.”

  Riley crossed his arms. “What sort of havoc?”

  “He and his men disrupted the German phone service and telegrams and other means of communication.”

  “With bombs?”

  “No, they snipped the lines.”

  “Did he bomb the railways?”

  Mémé once said he did, but I wasn’t sure she would want me to broadcast that on national television. Nor was I sure what the resistance had to do with a documentary profiling German soldiers.

  I decided to redirect the conversation, a skill I’d acquired both from my media training and in negotiating disputes among third graders. “My grandfather was good at accounting and record keeping. My grandmother said he kept their records in a way no German could decipher, in order to protect all the men in their cell.”

  “What did your grandfather say about the resistance?” Riley asked.

  My own questions resurfaced. I wished Grandpa had told me his stories before he passed away.

  But I didn’t have to prove anything to Riley or the reporter in Richmond or to anyone else. Mémé was proud of Henri Sauver’s military and then resistance record, and so was I. “My grandfather didn’t like to talk about the war.”

  “I wonder why not,” he said.

  He waited for me to respond. Defend my grandfather perhaps.

  I wanted to cross my arms like Riley, but instead I smile
d at the camera. My media trainer had shown me dozens of clips from people who’d screwed up their interviews, usually by getting defensive with their body language. Others by stomping off in a huff. “Do you have any other questions for me?” I asked, even though I wanted to stomp off as well.

  “How did you say your grandmother met Henri Sauver?”

  “On a blind date, at a café in Saint-Lô.”

  “But after the war . . .” He tilted his head. “There were no cafés left in Saint-Lô.”

  I’d read about the bombing of the city but had never thought to question Mémé’s story. Perhaps I’d heard wrong. “It might have been near the end of the war instead.”

  He watched me for a moment, and I expected him to ask why a member of the French resistance would be on a blind date, at a public café, while the Germans still occupied the town. Instead, he asked, “Was your grandmother part of the resistance?”

  My lips pressed together for a moment before I remembered to smile. “The Germans stayed at the château during the war,” I said. “I’m sure she resisted them in her own way.”

  “Did she ever talk about the German soldiers in her house?”

  My smile widened, hoping to engage him along with the camera as I spoke. “Can I ask you a quick question?”

  “Of course.”

  I nodded casually toward the tripod. “Off camera.”

  His eyes on me, he turned the camera off. My smile collapsed, hardening into a grimace. This time I crossed my arms. “What are you keeping from me?”

  “I’m trying to put together a documentary.”

  “But you know something I don’t . . .”

  He glanced up at the rocky cliffs towering above us and then looked back at me. “My grandfather flew a B-24 during World War II. He hid in a tunnel under the Château d’Epines with some members of the resistance.”

  My heart quickened. I didn’t know any of the old tunnels had remained through the war. Or that the resistance had hidden in them.

  “His plane crashed near a river outside Saint-Lô.” Riley glanced back to the fields across the Vire. “He said Gisèle rescued him and brought him into the tunnel.”