‘We’re working on it,’ added Luc as Marthe raised both eyebrows and gave them an amused look.
‘I hope you’ll make up your minds soon,’ she said. ‘Nice to meet you, Hattie.’
‘It’s nice to meet you too,’ said Hattie rather formally, conscious of Marthe’s flawless English. ‘Solange sent this.’ She handed over the large Tupperware box that the housekeeper had pressed into her hands as they were leaving.
‘Ah, she knows me well. Florentines. How wonderful.’ Marthe hugged them possessively to her chest. ‘But it’s a long time since Solange made them for me.’ She looked thoughtful.
‘She’s coming back to life,’ said Luc.
‘Is she now? About time too. Especially when she makes me Florentines.’
‘They’re your favourites?’ asked Hattie.
‘Oh no,’ said Marthe with an airy wave of her hand, her eyes suddenly twinkling. ‘I like them because I don’t have to share them.’ With a laugh she lapsed into French, leaving Luc to translate.
‘You’re a wicked woman, Marthe.’ He turned to Hattie. ‘She likes them best because no one else can eat them because they get stuck in their dentures.’
Hattie laughed and shook her head.
‘However, I quite like the look of you, so you can have one with coffee. Luc, go and sort some coffee out for us. Go see Janine.’ She shooed him away. ‘I want to talk to your non-girlfriend, without you around to listen.’
Luc rolled his eyes, clearly used to Marthe’s forthright honesty. ‘Yes, Madame.’
As soon as he’d gone Marthe turned to her. ‘So what brings you to the château?’
‘I’m here to help organise the wedding for my cousin.’
‘How strange? Does your cousin not want to get married?’
Hattie laughed again; she liked the old lady’s quick mind and her directness. ‘She’s very busy. And I was not.’
‘Ah, I see,’ said Marthe, a mischievous light dancing in her blue eyes. ‘You know Luc likes you.’
Hattie’s eyes widened, not sure how to respond.
‘It’s the first time he’s ever brought anyone to see me.’
‘Oh,’ said Hattie, even more unnerved now. What did she say to that?
Marthe studied her, her eyes boring into Hattie’s as if she might be able to see right into her head.
‘You know he’s very rich.’
‘So is my uncle,’ replied Hattie. After years of putting up with veiled rude comments from Chris’s mother, and with him not sticking up for her, she refused to allow herself to be insulted anymore. ‘I’m not a gold-digger, if that’s what you mean, but even if I were, don’t you think Luc is smart enough to work that out? And I thought it was his father that was very rich.’
Marthe leaned over and gave her an approving pat on the hand. ‘I’m old enough to spot a woman like that from a thousand metres. But that sort of wealth brings its own problems, I just wondered if you were aware of them. I was warning you that if you care for Luc, you’ll need to know that.’
‘We really haven’t known each other that long,’ protested Hattie, slightly alarmed by the feeling that she was being weighed up as a potential niece-in-law or something. ‘And I’m going back to England after the wedding.’
Marthe raised those straggly eyebrows again and gave her a kindly, if superior, look. ‘Luc would not have brought you to see me, if you weren’t important to him.’
The breath whooshed out of Hattie’s chest although she hid it well and her smile at the older woman was non-committal.
‘I’m not some senile old woman, you know,’ said Marthe with a smirk.
Hattie lifted her chin. ‘The last thing I think is that you’re senile,’ she retorted, feeling some of her old fire sneak back into her veins like sluggish lava, slow but persistent. What had happened to her? When had the spark been extinguished? She knew how, but at what point had she surrendered that part of her personality, the real her?
Marthe cackled. ‘I think I like you and I don’t like that many people these days. Not enough of them say what they really think. Although of course that is easier with age. People excuse my rudeness because I’m old.’ Her lips twitched and she looked around as if checking that no one could hear. ‘I’m rude because I can get away with it.’
