Leap of Faith by Danielle Steel

Author:Danielle Steel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Castles, Americans - France, Iowa, Orphans, Contemporary, General, Romance, Romantic suspense fiction, Married women, Americans, France, Fiction
ISBN: 9780440236993
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2002-05-28T06:19:16.732000+00:00

Chapter 8

When Marie-Ange came down for breakfast the next day, after making her bed, she looked tired.

“How did you sleep?” he asked with a look of concern. He was drinking café au lait, and reading the paper Alain had bought him in town.

“Oh … I have a lot of memories here, I guess,” she said thoughtfully, thinking that she shouldn't disturb him more than she had, and that she could get breakfast in town.

“I was afraid of that. I thought about it last night,” he said, as he poured her a huge cup of café au lait. “These things take time.”

“It's been ten years,” she said, sipping the coffee, and thinking of Robert's clandestine canards.

“But you've never come back here,” he said sensibly. “That is bound to be hard. Would you like to go for a walk in the woods today, or visit the farm?”

“No, you're very kind,” she smiled, “I should drive back to Paris today.” There was no point staying here anymore. She had had one night to touch her memories, but it was his house now, and time for her to move on.

“Do you have appointments in Paris?” he asked comfortably. “Or do you simply feel you ought to go?”

She smiled as she nodded, as he silently admired her long blond hair, but she saw nothing frightening in his eyes. The idea that she had spent a night alone in the house with him would have shocked most people, she knew, but it had been so chaste, and so harmless, and so polite.

“I think you ought to have time to enjoy your house, without a stranger camping out in your master suite,” she said with serious eyes as she looked at him. ‘You've been very kind, Monsieur le Comte, but I have no right to be here anymore.”

“You have every right to be here, as my guest. In fact, if you have the time, I would love your advice, and the benefit of your memory, to tell me exactly how the house was before. Do you have time for that?” In fact, she had nothing but time on her hands, and she couldn't believe his enormous kindness to her, in inviting her to stay on.

“Are you sure?” she asked him honestly.

“Very sure. And I would much prefer it if you called me Bernard.”

Before lunch, they took a walk in the fields, and she told him precisely how everything had been, as they walked all the way to the farm, and then he called Alain to pick them up, so he didn't wear her out walking back.

She went into town to buy groceries and bought several excellent bottles of wine for him, to thank him for his incredible hospitality. And this time, when she suggested she cook dinner for them, he offered to take her out. That night he took her to a cozy bistro nearby, which hadn't been there ten years before, and they had a very good time. He had a thousand tales to tell, and an easy way of speaking to her, as though they were old friends.

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