PRESENT DAY
LES TROIS-MOUTIERS
LOIRE VALLEY, FRANCE
The scrolled-iron gates were parted at the center of the long road, as if the castle waited for them. Maybe even welcomed their return.
Ellie and Quinn paused, hovering at the threshold of the road to the ruins, both staring down a long path broken by fractured sunlight cutting through the trees.
She grinned, rolling her palm over the curve of a rusted scroll. “Titus?”
“And to think I was goin’ to give you two guesses this time.”
Quinn met her smile with an easy one of his own, but the air turned sober as he tipped his head and looked down the road once more. He ran a hand over the back of his neck for a long moment, refusing to look at her, like he was battling in some way.
Hands in his pockets, he asked, “So, you want me to go along with ya then?”
“Well, you are my tour guide.”
“I don’t know this place well enough to give anybody a tour, Ellie. Told ya—this would only be the third time I’ve seen the grounds from inside. Twice with you and just one other time before that.”
“But that one time . . . it was special, wasn’t it?”
Ellie watched him stare out beyond them, the moments they’d shared in the winery suddenly making sense. Emotion could be wrapped in detachment as easily as a zealous pursuit of truth. Quinn was running as much as she, only in the opposite direction. With his quiet way and casual approach to life, she’d judged his flight as apathy when all along, he’d been fighting to exist with both roots and wings.
“The one walk you made here was with Juliette—your mother. That’s how Titus knew you’d change your mind about taking me in to see it.”
He nodded. “She was everythin’. Used to tell me and my brother stories about the castle when we were young. Cormac’s a bit older, so he wasn’t sold on them like I was. But she said there was a princess once who’d been lost somewhere out in the fairy-tale wood. She disappeared. Never came back, and the castle was named for her—The Sleeping Beauty, because she wouldn’t tell her secrets. Just like the ruins. Now that legend is hauntin’ the land with stories of the past.” He shrugged it off, maybe not ready to talk about the family dynamic that had shut down areas of his own past. “Childish tales.”
“Childish or not, they matter to you.”
“Yeah. They do. And I haven’t thought about ’em in a long while. I suppose I have you to thank for that.” His gaze searched Ellie, drifting from her eyes up to her brow and her hair, spilling out over her shoulders. “She said every woman needs a scarf. A real one, from France. That if a lady was ever gifted one, she’d remember it for the rest of her life.”
It wasn’t like Quinn to stand defenseless before anyone. But something about the moment felt like a wall was tumbling down. For him. For her. Both of them, choosing to travel that road together because they were no longer content to walk alone.
“Sure you’re wantin’ to do this?”
“Yeah.” Ellie drew in a deep breath. “I’m ready for answers. Whatever they are, I can’t leave without them.”
Ellie couldn’t think of going home, or of the e-mails that had increased, Laine calling her back to face Grandma Vi’s decline. She knew she’d have to go, maybe tomorrow. And at his own admission, Quinn would be packing up his guitar case and drifting off again soon. They’d been tossed together by a story and would be separated the same way. He must have understood that it meant they’d walk together in the moment and then walk away after, because he spoke to her heart, so gently, without the necessity of words.
He just reached for her hand.
It felt safe, and right, and . . . like home somehow, to lace her fingers with his.
Quinn was content to walk at her side, as slowly as she needed to absorb every detail of the castle they’d seen rising out of the trees.
The overhead canopy mingled with birds, and the leaves with late-autumn breezes. Timber snapped somewhere in the depth of the wood—one of the fox perhaps, creating mischief in Titus’s Fox Grove. The sound of their shoes against the road . . . somehow, even that became magic.
Ellie’s heart swelled to see the chapel, its spire and moss-covered roof peeking through the trees to her right. And then the long span of the rock wall and gate, creating an enchanted garden boundary all along the edge of the arbors behind.
Quinn let go of her hand, pulling her attention back.
“What in the name of St. Patrick do ya think you’re doin’?” he shouted, racing up the castle steps.
Titus waited beneath the castle’s grand façade, patient and resolute as always, his walking stick buried against the stone at his feet. He held his palm on air until Quinn found it and moved to support his forearm.
“Are you mad? You could slip on the rocks, fall in the water, and drown before anyone could get to ya, stubborn old goat.”
The hint of a smile swept Titus’s lips. “I believe I am acquainted with this castle a bit more than you, my boy. Even blindfolded.” He nodded, then reached up until his palm met Quinn’s cheek and gave it a light tap. “But I’m warmed by the concern. And when I received the call from the Gendarmerie that they had indeed let you go, I knew I should wait. I wanted to personally welcome Lady Vi’s granddaughter for her first visit to the Château des Doux-Rêves.”
“The Sleeping Beauty . . . ,” Ellie whispered, climbing the steps.
“That’s you gasping over there, isn’t it, Ellie?”
“Oui, Titus.” She eased up the last step and accepted his hand. “C’est moi.”
“Your Français is improving,” he teased. “Soon you’ll be teaching this boy a thing or two about a proper accent.”
She flipped her gaze to Quinn, who rolled his eyes heavenward.
Titus raised his eyebrows. “And have you seen the fox yet?”
“No.” Ellie looked around even then, always hoping to catch a glimpse of rust and a black-tipped tail darting through the trees. “Not yet.”
“Give it time. They will come to greet you after a while. But they are not why you’ve come. You young ones must have had to walk by the Cathédrale Espoir Sacré, or you would not be here now. Hmm? So tell me—what did you find in Loudun?”
“That was you?” Quinn leaned back against a ledge of stone and let out a hefty sigh. “You called the police. I might have known my own grandfather would one day be responsible for startin’ up my arrest record. I’m tellin’ your wife, make no mistake.”
Titus brushed off the threat with a wave of the hand. “Hush. Let the girl answer.”
“Everything, Titus. We found everything. She was there. In old wartime photos on the wall. I saw Grandma Vi in the dress, the same one from the photo I have. And then in trousers, a vest, and a beret . . . We saw her as I’ve never seen her before. Standing with the rest of the resistance fighters right here at the castle, bold as they were to defend it. Alongside the man from her photo. Was he your brother—this Julien?”
“It’s been a long time.” He nodded, pausing on the words. “A very long time. I haven’t heard his name in . . . many years.” He turned his face out to the grove, the road, and the chapel, as if he could readily see them all. “Yes. Julien. And my first wife, Mariette. She passed many years ago, when our son was young. And Camille. Brig and Pascal. So many names.”
“We saw an old camera in a glass case at the church. Was it yours?”
Titus pressed a finger to his lips. Thinking. Remembering. Some evidence of pride washing down over his countenance. “No. It was not. But I am grateful that your grandmother took ownership of it at the proper time.”
Ellie walked over to the side of the castle and pressed her palm to the stone façade. Tiny flecks of weathered red still remained; the breath of history beneath her fingertips. “And the V you painted on the front. I can’t believe it—after all this time, the paint is still here.”
She turned a circle. Looking, taking in the art of the ruins . . . loving the feel of the sun on her shoulders . . . hearing the slight ripples of the water on all sides . . . and seeing the length of the long road she and Quinn had walked together.
“There is a history where we stand, Ellie, and I would be honored to give you your first tour of this story. In spring, the road is bathed in blossoms overhead, and violets on both sides. They grow wild through the grove. It is said that a mistress of the castle—the first lady to rebuild it anew after the Revolution—she favored them. She came here, fell in love with the land and the people on it. And she is the reason our wine, and our name, and even this very castle survive today.”
“L’Aveline . . . the Muscadet.” Ellie jumped her gaze over to Quinn, remembering their tour of the night market and the name of the Renard signature label they’d seen at the wine tent. “It’s named for her, isn’t it? Aveline. Was that her name?”
“There are many names in this place. And Lady Vi made sure to record them all. She spent years writing every name, researching every story, so that one day these ruins could be rebuilt upon them.” Titus lavished her with a smile and took a small leather-bound journal from the inside pocket of his field jacket. “The job of keeping them safe was passed to me. And now, Ellison Carver, these stories belong to you.”
It felt like a kiss from heaven sweeping in, overwhelming Ellie as she flipped through the journal and saw her grandmother’s writing. Inked pages, years’ worth, filling cover to cover with names . . . and dates . . . and the storied past of the sleeping castle where they stood.
“I wish I could stay. But Grandma Vi hasn’t been well, and if I have any time left with her”—she paused, hugging the journal to her chest—“I want her to know I found the truth. About her. And Julien. And all the people who have lived here and loved this place. She needed me to find this story, and now that I have, my job is to bring it back to her.”
She locked eyes with Quinn. There was one question left to answer, and somehow, what he would think about it mattered more to her than having it confirmed.
“There’s one thing I need to know before I go. You are not the owner of this Sleeping Beauty, are you, Titus?”
“No. I told you that I am not. But then who is, Ellie? Because I think deep down, you already know the answer.”
She swept a palm under her eyes, emotion having crept in, and brushed at the wetness beneath her lashes.
“I am.”