The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux - Samantha Verant Page 0,106
girl I’ve ever met to look even more beautiful. Green really is your color,” he said, eyeing me up and down, stopping at my legs. “Is that Chanel?”
“It is,” I said. “It’s Grand-mère’s.”
“You’re a vision of grace and beauty.”
“I’m not sure about grace,” I said, stumbling. “But I’ll take the compliment.”
The moment Rémi put his arm around me, the granny brigade pointed at us and whispered. Clothilde’s voice rang clear. “Quit your clucking,” she said. “Rémi and Sophie are now a couple and that little girl over there is Rémi’s daughter.”
Each member of the granny brigade’s eyes widened and they clucked on and on. All of the guests, around eighty of them, took notice. Normally, I’d have shied away from such attention, but this time I wasn’t the center of a scandal and I was proud of myself—and the handsome man standing at my side.
“No more secrets,” said Rémi, squirming a little bit. “In a way, it feels good. Awkward, but good.”
“It does,” I said with a slight smile.
As an outside observer, I thought it seemed that everyone was having a good old time, save for the man standing with a beer in one hand. He might have been good-looking when he’d been younger, but time had not been kind to him, and the effects of the sun had taken its toll on his weathered face.
I nudged Rémi. “Who is that man? The one staring at me? Clothilde and Bernard don’t look like they are all too thrilled to see him.”
“Oh,” he said. “Him? That’s Jean-Marc Bourret.”
My vision blurred. I couldn’t focus. “What?”
“I invited him.”
“Wasn’t meeting him supposed to be my decision?”
“It is yours. You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to, but I wanted to give you the opportunity. You told me you were looking for answers,” he said. “I can tell him to leave.”
I didn’t know if wanted to hug Rémi or kill him. Of all the days he’d invited Jean-Marc, it was when we were under audit by La Société. “We’ll talk about this later.”
As I approached Jean-Marc, he smiled a feeble smile. I don’t know how my feet moved toward him without falling down. I don’t know how I found my voice, but it came out strong. “My mother was Céleste Valroux de la Tour de Champvert,” I said. “I believe you knew her.”
“I did.” His eyes flashed with the incredible sadness of deep loss, one that I knew. “I was very hesitant to come here today. Your grand-mère isn’t my biggest fan, but Rémi was insistent. There’s no easy way to ask you my question.” He straightened his posture. “Is it true? Are you my daughter?”
“I am,” I said, though wondering a bit as I took in his face. Aside from the shape of his jawline and his hair—now gray, but which had probably been an inky black like mine in the past—we didn’t share any similar features. “My name’s Sophie.”
“Please forgive me. I was young and stupid. Believe me, I’m not a bad man,” he said, not meeting my eyes.
It was time to walk my own path, to choose it. My battle scars had healed; his could, too.
“Everybody has a story, and I want to hear yours,” I said, thinking of Phillipa’s nonjudgmental reaction toward me. It was now my turn to listen to his words, even if I didn’t like what he said. I braced myself.
Jean-Marc straightened his posture. “What would you like to know?”
“Did you ever try to find me?” I asked.
His mouth curved into a sad frown and his eyes darkened. “I wanted to. But I was a man of little means. I barely had enough food on my table.”
“But wasn’t my grand-mère paying you?”
“She was,” he said. “But I only cashed the first check.”
He was telling the truth. Grand-mère had told me this after one of our reading sessions.
My eyes went wide and I motioned for him to carry on. He swallowed hard. “I worked here at the château as a seasonal picker during the grape harvest to make extra money.” His lips curved into a wistful smile. “Sometimes, Céleste would help collect the grapes. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. It was, as they say, un coup de foudre. Love at first sight, and I did everything in my power to get her attention.”
“You loved her?”
“With all my heart,” he said with a sigh. “But she didn’t love me.”