to want in a generic sense was désirer. Her cheeks heated. “Oui. Where is he?” She mimicked searching for him and Marthe-Louise laughed.
“The lavender, it is ready. Men working together in field.”
Ooh la la. The memory of Jack, a sweaty field hand, stripped to the waist was hot. Maybe she could see him from the side of the house that had a view of the hills. “Can I…” She gestured at the doorway leading to the formal living area of the manor.
Marthe-Louise waved her on. “Go. I cook nice dinner, eh?”
“Good.” She smiled at the older woman. She and Jack would have to get her a fancy gift before they left. Cooking for them all the time was above and beyond what she had expected.
Lily had asked Jack when the de Brissard family would return, but he said the lady of the house preferred Paris and probably wouldn’t be back this summer. Lily had no idea why not. She’d enjoyed Paris but loved Provence.
Lily walked down the hallway past the dining room and turned into the formal living room, or salon. Undoubtedly this was used for parties and maybe even weddings, being able to hold over a hundred people by her calculations.
She peered out the large French doors leading to the stone terrace, but no sight of Jack in the lavender fields. Maybe they were farther up the hill. She turned and caught sight of a large framed photograph hung on the wall that hadn’t been there during her tour. She would have remembered it because Jack was the subject.
Her eyebrows shot up as she peered closely at it. Jack in some fancy tux and tails, with a red sash across his chest, complete with a large gold sunburst medal pinned to it. And there was a woman in the photo. Unless Jack had a thing for older women with hair the same shade of auburn as him, she was his mom.
Lily looked closer and found several similarities in their high cheekbones, strong jaw and wavy hair. His mom was dressed just as fancily in a copper silk dress with a full skirt, and she was seated on an elaborate French-style chair upholstered in white and trimmed in gold. Jack stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.
Pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together, and she had the feeling it wouldn’t be a cute puppy puzzle or panoramic lavender field jigsaw.
Lily went back into the kitchen. “Marthe-Louise?” she called.
“Oui?” The housekeeper came out from the butler’s pantry, wiping her hands on a white towel.
“Photo.” Lily jerked her thumb backward at the salon. “Grand photo.”
The guilty look on Marthe-Louise’s face confirmed her suspicion. When Jack had brought her for the tour, he’d sent Marthe-Louise in there first to take down the evidence that he owned all of this.
Not only was he probably ten times richer than Mrs. Wyndham back in Philly, but he owned a huge chunk of France, the farm, this giant house plus the guesthouse. Where he had pretended to be a guest.
“Marthe-Louise.” Her tone was harsher than she had planned and Marthe-Louise shrank back. Lily took a breath. “What is Jack’s real name?”
The older woman frowned. “Jacques Charles Olivier Fortanier Montford. Comte de Brissard.”
De Brissard. The lavender family. “Comte?” She’d never heard that name before. “In English, count. His mother is the Dowager Countess de Brissard.”
Lily made a choking noise. “Royalty?” That jerk. He had said the de Brissards were a dull lot, and not to bother writing about them. No wonder.
“Oh, no.” The older lady chuckled, relieved to give Lily some good news for once. “Nobility.”
“Oh, is that all?” Lily gave an appalled laugh. “Good grief. I should have been curtsying before getting into bed with him.”
Marthe-Louise had caught the gist of Lily’s statement and pulled her wide cheeks back in a nervous grin. “Ah, the food—it burns.” She scurried away before Lily could say that it didn’t smell like anything was even cooking.
The mythical food wasn’t the only thing burning—so was Lily’s temper. She glared at the photo of the lying Comte de Brissard and stalked through the kitchen and out the back door.
She hit the stone pathway leading from the kitchen garden to the guesthouse.
Jack was walking shirtless down the hill from the lavender fields, wiping his face with a cloth, bits of lavender blossom and twigs stuck to his chest and back. “Ah, chérie, there you are. Did you get a lot accomplished this afternoon? I hope so, because I have plans