Frankie pulled her phone out of her pocket and started tapping away.
‘Are you sure we should? It seems intrusive.’
‘Martha, if we find anything, it’s public knowledge, so it’s not as if we’re rifling through his pockets or reading his diary.’ She paused as she scrolled down. ‘Ooh, and if we did, we’d find it madeveryinteresting reading.’
She flashed the phone towards her sisters, who barely had time to make out a blurry picture of Léo kissing a dark-haired woman, before she spun it round again.
‘It’s all in bloody French, of course; hang on, I’ll read it out, and we can have a crack at it:Le chef de renom, Léo Brodeur, pris dans un accrochage avec la star de télé-réalité mariée Veronique Mercier.’
‘Let me see that.’ Juliet snatched the phone from Frankie. ‘Well, the first bit must just be “famous chef”, renowned maybe, I don’t have a clue about the next bit, and then it says something about a reality TV starmariée– must be “married”.’
Martha took the phone from her and inspected the picture.
‘Maybe he is married to her, but this photo looks like it was taken in secret. Maybe she’s married, but to someone else?’
‘Yes! I bet that’s it. He’s been involved in some scandal and had to flee to England to escape it. I’m going to see if I can find anything else.’
Frankie took her phone back and tapped away for a few minutes, eventually throwing it down in disgust.
‘Everything’s in French and way beyond what any of us remembers from school. I suppose he isn’t famous enough here for it to have made the British press.’
‘Well, I’m not disappointed,’ said Juliet, picking up her coat. ‘“Love rat” seems to me to fit the bill perfectly; I don’t need to know any more. I feel better after this, so I’m heading back to Feywood. Are either of you coming?’
They both declined, so Juliet set off alone, glad of the peace so she could process all the new information of the past few hours and start making some decisions about her future.
FIVE
Léo was removing his floral quiche from the oven when Sylvia came in.
‘What have you been making, Léo? It smells – oh, andlooks– marvellous.’
‘Merci. And you have arrived in perfect time to try some. Please, sit down.’
‘Wonderful, I’m famished. After that uncomfortable meeting, Juliet’s birthday lunch has apparently been forgotten. Frankie said it was looking unlikely and then I saw the girls going off down the drive. Heading to the pub is my guess, and Rousseau will survive on black coffee until supper time.’
‘Well then, let us enjoy a pleasant lunchà deux. This is something of a trial, after we discussed how we could ask our students to identify and use things that we grow here at Feywood. So, to make this, they will need to venture into the kitchen garden and then beyond. The goat’s cheese is also local, made at a farm just three miles away in the hamlet of Netherford. The wine I’m going to pair it with is, alas, French. I am beginning to learn about English wines, though, and I aim to use them exclusively, eventually.’
‘It’s so pretty!’ Sylvia cut a piece and tried it. ‘Léo, that is delicious. I don’t know how you do it. Your flavours…I would never have thought to put these together. Our students will love it – it’s a feast for the eyes as well as for the stomach.’
‘Wonderful! I will add it to our repertoire.’
They ate in a companionable silence for a few minutes, savouring the quiche and the perfectly matched wine.
‘Léo, I’m sorry about that meeting earlier. This family…None of them is bad, but there is such a headstrong streak. Everyone always believes themselves to be right. And I’m afraid we can all be somewhat tunnel-visioned, focused on our own goals without stopping to balance that with others’ needs. Juliet is a dear girl but had a difficult relationship with Lilith, my sister-in-law, and then a romantic relationship which…well, I won’t share the details with you, but it was a painful time.’
Léo sipped his wine thoughtfully. Sylvia saw the good in everyone, that much he knew, and while he respected her opinion, he wasn’t going to believe just yet that Juliet was nothing more than a sheep in wolf’s clothing. He had met one too many women who would have you believe that and turned out to be the big bad wolf after all.
‘I was…surprised, the way she spoke about her mother. She is very lucky to have grown up here – why doesn’t she want to help?’
‘It’s more complicated than that. Although she won’t talk about it, London has been an escape for Juliet, a chance for her to spread her wings. I’m not sure it has always been healthy, but even the bad parts have acted as some kind of purifying fire. I suspect that she is still not wholly at ease, that she is looking for something different. If shedoescome back to Feywood, I would like to ask her for her help promoting the cookery school – with your agreement, of course.’
Léo pushed away his empty plate, took up his glass and nodded. He would do anything for this lovely woman who had – although he wasn’t sure to what extent she realised – provided him with sanctuary and purpose at a critical time in his life, when he thought he would be chased out of France by the vitriol of the judgemental public, people he had never met who still felt it their place to hound and vilify him for what had happened with Veronique, without knowing the full story.
‘Of course, Sylvia, I would be glad to work with your niece and get to know her. You are clearly very fond of her.’
‘You know, I am. I love all three girls, but despite Frankie’s youth and recklessness and Martha’s dreamy gentleness, it is Juliet who I feel is the most innocent somehow, the most vulnerable. Despite her prickly exterior, I just want to give her a hug most of the time, although she hardly ever lets me.’
After lunch, Sylvia went to speak to her brother about some of the logistics for opening the school, and Léo tidied up the kitchen. He was pleased with how the quiche had worked out and knew it would be something their students would enjoy cooking as well as eating. His earliest days had been spent working in the kitchens of a bistro local to where he grew up in a small village near Reims, then he moved on to pot washing and watching the chefs at work at a larger brasserie in Paris. Finally, he had worked his way up to running the kitchen of a top Paris restaurant and been so nearly in reach of his first Michelin star. Throughout it all, Léo had loved to explore the ways ingredients came together perfectly in a dish as deceptively simple as a quiche.
