LITMIR.BIZ

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I stopped, reflecting for a minute, and finally put the receiver back in the cradle. My natural caution had taken over.

      There was no way I could call Kit. That would not be right, not fair to Jack, who had been my lifelong friend. We had grown up together and he was like a brother to me. And after all, it was only a suspicion on my part, nothing else. There was another consideration. Kit was not particularly kindly disposed toward the Lockes. He had taken an instant dislike to Jack the first time he had met him, and he frequently spoke of Sebastian in scathing tones.

      I sighed under my breath, thinking of Kit. He was an American painter of some renown, and about two years ago he had bought a property in the area where I lived in Provence. As we got to know each other better, we realized we had a lot in common and there was also a strong physical attraction between us. About a year ago we had become quite seriously involved with each other, and for some time now he had wanted me to marry him. I kept stalling. I loved Kit and we were compatible, but I wasn’t sure I could make the kind of commitment to him he needed and wanted. I suppose I balked at marriage: I had had my share of wedded bliss. Of course he was disappointed, but this did not alter our relationship.

      On several occasions, just before I had left for New York, Kit had made a couple of snide remarks about Sebastian, and he had even gone so far as to suggest that I was still in love with him. Foolish idea that was.

      Now, on further reflection, I realized I could never talk to Kit about Jack. He was a good man, and very fair, and I was confident he would keep an open mind. But unburdening my worries to him was not a solution to my dilemma, and it would be a rank betrayal of Jack. Nor could I take anyone else into my confidence.

      Better to keep my own counsel.

       CHAPTER SIX

      The night before the funeral I was restless. Sleep proved to be elusive. I tossed and turned for several hours before I finally got up in desperation and went downstairs.

      Glancing at the hall clock, I saw that it was already three in the morning. Nine o’clock in France, and for a split second I thought of calling Kit. Not to confide my worries, since I had decided against doing that, but simply to hear a friendly voice.

      In a way, I was a bit surprised he had not called me. He must have heard of Sebastian’s death, and it struck me that the least he could have done was pick up the phone to say a few kind words to me. After all, Sebastian had not only been my husband for five years but my guardian as well, and surely it was obvious to my friends that his passing would have a distressing effect on me.

      Marie-Laure de Roussillon, my closest girl friend in France, had phoned me yesterday to express her sympathy and ask if there was anything she could do, as had several other good friends in Paris and Provence.

      On the other hand, to be fair and to give Kit the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he did not know.

      Right now he was painting day and night in preparation for his next show, to be held in Paris in November. The last time we talked, about ten days ago, he had been hell-bent on finishing a huge canvas that was the last of his works for the current exhibition.

      When Kit painted in this singleminded and dedicated way, he did so in total isolation. The only people he saw were the French couple who looked after him and his house. He never read a newspaper, watched television, or listened to the radio. He followed a simple but extremely disciplined routine: paint, eat, sleep; eat, paint, sleep, paint. Sometimes he painted eighteen hours a day, almost nonstop, and he continued like this for as long as it was necessary, until he had put the very last brushstroke on the canvas.

      I suppose I could have phoned, given him the news myself, but I was reluctant to interrupt him. I was also conscious of his mild dislike of the Lockes. I didn’t want to get a flea in my ear for intruding, disturbing his routine; nor did I wish to expose myself to some of his sarcastic remarks.

      For a moment I toyed with the idea of calling Marie-Laure, just to chat for a while, and then decided against it. She ran the family château and vast estate near Ansouis, and early mornings were generally excessively busy for her.

      Meandering through into the kitchen, I boiled a pan of hot milk, filled a mug with it, added a spoonful of sugar, and went into the library.

      Turning on a lamp, I sat down on the sofa and slowly sipped the hot beverage. It had been Gran Rosalie’s cure-all for almost everything when I was growing up, and now I took great comfort from this childhood remedy. Perhaps it would help me fall asleep when I went back upstairs to bed.

      I knew why I was restless, filled with such unprecedented unease. It was the thought of tomorrow. I was dreading the funeral; dealing with Jack and Luciana was not going to be easy, nor did I look forward to coping with Cyrus Locke and Madeleine Connors.

      In my experience, families seemed to behave badly at large gatherings like funerals and weddings; I was absolutely certain Sebastian’s funeral was not going to be an exception to this rule.

      In an effort to relax I purposefully shifted my thoughts away from tomorrow, focused on my own immediate plans. And after only a few minutes I made a sudden decision. I was not going to hang around here any longer than was necessary. There was no real reason for me to do so. Once the memorial service had taken place in New York next Wednesday, I would leave. I would book myself a flight to Paris for that night.

      I longed to be back in France, back at my quaint old olive mill situated between the ancient villages of Lourmarin and Ansouis in the Vaucluse. There, under the shadows of the Lubéron mountains, amidst my gardens, olive trees, and endless fields of lavender I knew peace and tranquility. It was a world apart.

      Certainly I am my happiest there. It was the one spot where I worked best over long periods of time, where I could truly concentrate on my writing. For some weeks I had wanted to get back to the biography of the Brontë sisters I was writing. Actually, it was vital that I did so; the manuscript was due at my publishers at the beginning of March, and I had only four months to finish it.

      The thought of a long stretch of work over an unbroken period of time was suddenly rather appealing to me, and I found myself filling with that special kind of excitement which usually precedes a creative period for me.

      As I settled back against the antique needlepoint cushions, feeling happier, thinking lovingly of my home in Provence, my eye caught the large photograph album on a bookshelf next to the fireplace. There were pictures of Vieux Moulin in it, and I had a sudden desire to look at them.

      I rose and went to get it. Returning to the sofa, I opened the album, but instead of seeing the mill in Lourmarin, as I had expected, I found myself staring at photographs of my twenty-first birthday party in 1979.

      I studied them for a brief moment.

      How revealing it was to examine photographs after a long time had passed. How different we look, in reality, than we remember ourselves looking then, years ago. Whenever I cast my mind back to that particular birthday party, I think of myself as being so grown up at twenty-one. But of course I wasn’t. My image, captured here on celluloid, told me how innocent and young I was in my off-the-shoulder white lace dress and string of pearls. My dark brown hair was brushed back, fell around my face in a soft, unsophisticated pageboy style, and my high cheekbones were not as prominent as they are now. My wide mouth looked tender, vulnerable, and a very serious pair of green eyes looked out at me from the album, expectant and trusting.

      I peered at my face more closely. Not a line, not a mark. I smiled to myself. Why would there be? I was very young, just a girl, inexperienced and untouched by life.

      Sebastian was with me, smiling and debonair in his flawlessly tailored Savile Row dinner jacket, his gleaming white shirt punctuated down the front with those deep-blue sapphire studs which he had had such trouble removing later that night.

      Here was Luciana, a bit plumpish in her pale pink taffeta, looking as if a pound of butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, her short curly hair a golden halo around her radiant

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