own mother brings the lying piece of trash who broke your heart back into your country home. Ah!” She clutched at the breast of her muumuu, or caftan. “How can you ever forgive me?”
“I forgive you, Maman,” he answered truthfully. His mother may have been a drama queen, but she was sincere in her efforts.
She cast away the wet cloth and jumped out of bed. Jack followed her. “Where is that awful girl? Nadine? Nadine?” She descended the stairs, shouting for his ex. Nadine appeared from the salon with a fashion magazine, having wisely decided to stay away from the kitchen, a pissed-off Marthe-Louise and her collection of sharp utensils.
“Oh, madame, you’re feeling better. Jacques and I were worried that the heat was making you sick.”
“You better worry about yourself, ma petite.” It wasn’t an endearment. “How dare you lie to me—twice—about being affianced to my son? After what you did to him, with whomever you did it.” His mother looked at him for more information but he shook his head.
His mother continued, obviously disappointed at the lack of details. “He is a good and brave man who deserves a decent woman, and you are not the woman for him. Get out!” She flung her arm to point to the front door.
Jack was torn between the desire to clap at her stage-worthy (but genuine) performance as Outraged Mother and the desire to get back to the guesthouse and smooth things over with Lily. Option two won. “Maman, you deal with her. I have to talk with Lily.”
Nadine gave him a half smile. “Oh, I’m sorry. She left.”
“Lily left?” He seriously considered throttling Nadine. “What did you say to her?”
“We chatted.” Her half smile pulled into a smirk. “She decided she wanted to return to Paris. I suppose the slow, rural pace wasn’t to her liking.”
“That’s not true,” he snapped. “She loves it here—loves Provence, loves the lavender farm.”
“Obviously not, or she would have stayed,” she answered.
“And how did Lily leave?”
“The Rolls.” Nadine started to get defensive as she realized how angry he was getting. “She insisted. She said she wasn’t going to stick around this dusty, hot place in the middle of nowhere and wanted to hurry back to Paris. I think she wanted to shop for clothes.” She wrinkled her nose. “She certainly needs some help in that area.”
Now he knew she was lying. Lily hadn’t bothered to shop much when she was in Paris the first time, preferring to concentrate on the people and sights. “You better hope the chauffeur unloaded your luggage because you’re taking the train back to Paris, not Lily. Now do as my mother says and get out. You and I are going to the local train station.”
“Jacques, wait!” his mother called.
“No, Maman, I’ve waited too long to meet someone like Lily, and I’m not going to wait any longer.”
His mother gave him a sweet smile. “Nor should you, my treasure. But you need a shirt, do you not?”
“Oh.” He glanced down at his bare chest, still damp with lavender florets stuck here and there. He pounded upstairs to his rarely used boyhood room. “Nadine, you better really hope she’s still there, or…or…I’ll think of something nasty.”
He yanked open a drawer in his dressing room and grabbed the first T-shirt he found, pulling it over his head. It was snug since he’d filled out quite a bit since he’d last worn his scouting jamboree shirt, but he didn’t care.
He ran down the stairs and found his mother nose to nose with Nadine.
“My son may be nice, but I am not. If you have driven this Lily away, you can be sure that I will ruin you.”
For the first time, Nadine started to look worried. His mother continued, “You may as well move to Burma because you will never get invited anywhere, you will sit behind a column at the opera house and you will never, ever get your photo in the society page again. What is the English term for that, Jacques?”
“Blackball?”
“Yes, how appropriate. Social death,” Maman hissed. “And you know I will do it.”
Nadine was pale and quivering by then. Jack rolled his eyes. He couldn’t imagine Lily even caring about those things, as long as they were together.
“Go, go.” His mother flapped her arms at them. “And you—don’t come back,” she told Nadine.
JACK GRIPPED THE steering wheel of the small rental car, Nadine’s luggage stuffed to the ceiling and jammed into the trunk. Lily hadn’t answered her phone, so he was racing