“So today’s going to be a blast. Have you ever heard of Simone Allard?” Kate said, shifting the subject.
The name didn’t ring any bells. “I don’t think so.”
“Me either,” she joked, “but she’s supposed to be one of the best interior designers in Provence, specializing in château restorations. She’ll be here filming the next couple of days.”
“Interior design? Shouldn’t we be worried about the state of the estate first? The château’s a mess. Half the rooms are missing walls and the other half, floors.”
“Don’t worry about that. I made it clear to René that he needs to make sure the facades of the library, kitchen, drawing room, two bedrooms, and the grand salon are complete by the end of this month. The magic of television will take care of the rest.”
The magic of television. I’d heard that phrase before. Bastien said the very same thing to me the first day he showed me around the house. “Filming wraps in what, eight weeks? There’s no way the house is going to be anywhere near habitable by then.”
“Either way, the publicity Château Mirabelle generates from the show should help it sell in no time, and then you can use that money toward a down payment on a house in the Valley complete with walls, floors, and flushing toilets.” Kate glanced down at her phone. “Simone’s here. Want to walk to the front of the house with me to meet her?”
“Sure, let me grab a cup of coffee first, and then I’ll be right there.”
I set off for craft services hoping I’d spot Bastien somewhere along the route, but he was nowhere to be found. I took a paper cup from a large stack on the edge of the table and filled it all the way to the top. Just as I put the steaming brim to my mouth, Bastien came up behind me, his lips settling firmly at the base of my neck.
“Bonjour, ma chérie,” he purred.
I turned around to face him. “Hey, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“I asked Madame Archambeau if she would open her shop early for me.” He pulled a gorgeous bouquet of red poppies, white peonies, lavender wisteria, and bright-yellow sunflowers out from behind his back and pushed a stray hair behind my ear. “You know, the other morning when you were asleep in my arms, you looked like an absolute angel. If Kate wasn’t in town, I would have tried to convince you to play hockey with me.”
“Hockey? You wanted to play hockey? Ohhhhh, do you mean hooky?” I giggled.
His cheeks streaked an adorable beet red. “Ah yes, hooky,” he said, giving an especially cute ooh sound when he pronounced hooky.
I pushed up on my toes and kissed him softly on the mouth.
Bastien’s name came crackling through his walkie-talkie. He unclipped it from his belt and answered the page in rapid, unintelligible French. “Les poutres en bois ne supporteront pas le poids. Nous avons besoin des poutres en acier.” He lowered the walkie-talkie to his side. “I have to go, duty calls.”
“Maybe I can convince you to stay, just a little while longer?” I pleaded.
“There’s no maybe about it, you could convince me with the tiniest crook of a finger,” he said, kissing each of mine. “But I really should get going. I have a big, beautiful house to finish building for you. I’ll find you later, I promise.”
I set out for the front of the château and found Kate and a woman I assumed was Simone Allard standing in the foyer, deep in conversation. Kate spotted me and waved me over to them. Simone was the epitome of boho chic, pairing a multicolored peasant skirt with a high-end denim crop top I was pretty sure I’d spotted hanging in the Dior section of Le Bon Marché. She jutted a perfectly manicured hand forward, her bouncy beach waves landing softly on her delicate shoulders.
“I’m Simone. Lovely to meet you,” she said in a surprising British accent.
“You’re not . . .”
“French? I am but spent most of my childhood in England at Mayfield, a boarding school in Sussex. I only came home on holidays, and sometimes not even then, depending on whether or not my parents could afford the train fare after paying for tuition that semester.”
“So where’s home, then?”
“Cabrières-d’Avignon, about five kilometers from here. It’s not perched on a hill like many of the other towns in Provence. It has no real natural beauty to speak of. I think that’s why I fell in love with all the other villages and their grand châteaus.” She looked up at the incredible arched entranceway. “And Château Mirabelle, she is one of my favorites.”
I smiled. “Mine too.”
“Great, so let’s talk about what we can do to spruce the old girl up a bit. I have some ideas.”
For the next several hours, Simone and I walked through each and every room of the château discussing the interior design and decor, finally landing back in the grand salon where we started the house tour.
“And finally for this room,” she said, spinning around on her heels. “You see those dark spots on the walls? That’s where the crystal girandoles once hung. I know we’re repairing all the electricity in the home, but I think there’s just something about these cavernous rooms that calls out for candlelight, don’t you? Here, let me show you what I did on another project.”
Simone zipped open an oversize leather portfolio and carefully slid out a large photograph affixed to a Styrofoam backing. She carried it over to the side of the room and leaned it up against the wall so we could take it all in. “This is from a home I worked on not too far from here that’s been converted to a luxury hotel. Perhaps you’ve heard of it, Château du Val d’Été?”
“Yes! I actually spent an afternoon there not too long ago. It’s absolutely gorgeous. You worked on that renovation? Then you must know Bastien Munier?”
She looked up. “I’m sorry, who?”
I grew self-conscious about my pronunciation and gave a bit more flourish to the vowel sounds as Pascal had been teaching me. “Bastien Mun-i-er? He worked on the renovation there. For a few years, I think.”
She packed the photograph back into the portfolio. “I don’t really recall, but to be fair, it was a while ago now. All these restoration projects start to blend together after a while.”
“Well, I’ll try to find him later, that way the two of you can catch up.”
“I’d like that.”
Elliott poked his head into the salon. “Kate said I’d find you both here.”
“We’re just wrapping up for the day,” Simone said.
He handed each of us the filming schedule. I scanned it and looked up from the paper. “We’re not filming at the château tomorrow?”
“René wants everyone out of the château the next couple of days. He needs to deal with some mold removal on the second floor. It’s pretty toxic stuff.”
“And Bastien?”
