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ELIZABETH
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MY YOUNG GODSISTER Lucy Daville and I had one bizarre thing in common: medieval royal middle names. Mine was Bertrada, Lucy’s Theodrada. I could see my mother’s fingers in that pie; she was Lucy’s godmother.
I’d thought Bertrada was a pretty name until, at the age of twelve, I learned that the woman I was named after was also known as Bertrada the Broadfoot. For the next four or five years, I lived in sheer terror that my schoolmates would somehow find that out and tease me. They didn’t; medieval history had never been the favorite pastime of most school-age kids. Besides, my feet had turned out to be small and narrow, a fortunate fact I had been ready to prove on the shortest notice. That hadn’t been necessary either, and after those dreadful few years, I started liking my old, beautiful middle name again.
Once adulthood had reduced the nine year gap between us, Lucy and I discovered we had many other things in common: we liked traveling, had similar interests in art, literature and music, and we both had chosen architecture for our profession.
Together with Rick and Alain, Lucy and her parents had always been like my family. They used to live in Boston but had moved to New York when Lucy was about ten. While my mom and dad were still alive, we would spend holidays together. When I later moved to Montréal, I’d made sure to visit my godmother Abbie, Uncle Etienne and Lucy at least once a year.
The day Lucy was supposed to arrive I was up to my eyeballs in work. Lottie had saved the day. Lucy was flying from New York to Seattle, and Lottie and Ned offered to pick her up.
We had a barbecue party planned for the parking lot behind the office, to celebrate Lucy’s joining of the team, David Fontaine’s return from Russia, the end of the renovation of the Mayfair Theater and the arrival of the site supervisor’s triplets—two girls and a boy.
Lucy’s flight was an hour delayed and the party was in full swing when Ned’s car pulled in and our summer student Lucy jumped out.
“Bertrada!”
“Theodrada!”
Since Lucy was a kid, this had been our customary greeting, followed by happy giggles and fierce hugs.
“Omigosh, look at you, Elizabeth! You look fantastic!”
“You too!” I took a step back, looking at her. Tall, lithe and with small cleavage, she was somehow my physical opposite. Young as she was, Lucy looked even younger with her thick, long, ginger red hair, vivid green eyes and freckles. Not even the elegant oval of her face and its perfect, classical features could overlay the expression of incredible youth and freshness.
I introduced her to my coworkers and friends and showed her around. “This is going to be your place,” I said and pointed at the desk that Marlowe and I had prepared for her earlier that day. It stood under the window, between Christian’s and mine. “You’re going to work closely with Christian. You can learn a lot from him. He’s a great architect with versatile professional experience.”
“Oh, I know! He’s among the best. I’m so excited. Thank you, Elizabeth, for having me for the summer.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. We need all the help we can get. I want to finish the project by the end of October.”
“So where is Mr. Enescu?” she asked. “I’m looking forward to meeting him.” She exhaled. “Or rather, I would be if I weren’t too nervous.”
Where was he indeed? He’d mentioned he had some errands to run and disappeared after the lunch break. He was likely just avoiding this gathering. His single status seemed to become a personal challenge for Lottie. So far without any success, but not that it would discourage her.
“If he doesn’t show up tonight, you’ll see him tomorrow for sure,” I said.
No sooner had I finished the sentence than I heard the deep, familiar rumble of his car. “Oh, wait, here he is.”
Through the back window, I saw Christian’s red Porsche pulling in beside my heavy duty pickup, Brian’s idea of reliable and safe transportation.
“So that’s him. Cool car,” Lucy said, peering over my shoulder.
He opened the door, got out, took a few steps—and stopped dead in his tracks. In the fading light of the early dusk, I couldn’t see his face, but his eyes were scanning the crowd ahead.
Then he turned on his heel, got into his car and drove away.
What the heck was going on?
“What happened?” Lucy asked.
“He forgot something,” I said with a dismissive movement of my hand.
If only.
“He doesn’t look old enough to suffer from dementia,” Lucy murmured. “Although he looks older than I imagined. Maybe he’s avoiding someone.”
That was certain. But who? Someone he knew and didn’t want to meet?
Christian didn’t return to the party. He phoned me later that evening, with an explanation of his sudden exit that didn’t explain anything. I glanced at Lucy, curled up on the sofa in my living room. Had her scent thrown him out of balance? God, I hoped not.
I was about to ask him, when he said, “How is your young friend? I’m sorry I wasn’t there to meet her. Poor girl, she’ll think I’m an old grumpy man.”
His voice sounded normal. Polite, conversational and emotionally colorless. I let out a silent breath. Somebody’s scent had rattled him so much that he had panicked and fled, but it wasn’t Lucy.
“Who is she?” I asked, deciding the direct approach was best.
I heard his deep laugh. “Ah, vardanni, why did I think I could hide it from you? A rather alluring scent, but not worth the trouble.”
I wondered if I smelled so alluring to him when we had met. In a typical display of female vanity, I was glad I had been worth the trouble.
“You okay, then?” I asked.
“Until the next time.” He snorted. “Did you notice the ratio of females to males at the party today? Three to one. Mrs. Fontaine seems determined to introduce me to every unmarried Rosenthal woman between ages twenty and forty. And today she had a partial hit.”
“Only partial?”
“The lady had an escort. I escaped rather than let her lovely scant torture me the entire evening for nothing.”
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LUCY HAD ALMOST FALLEN asleep on the sofa but pulled herself upright when I finished the phone call.
“Was it Mr. Enescu?”
“Yes. He apologized he couldn’t come tonight.”
She stretched and rubbed her eyes. “Oh, that’s fine. We’ll see a lot of each other in the next couple of weeks. Now I want to hear about Brian Canagan.”
“Aren’t you tired?” I said. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk about our love lives.”
She smirked. “Your love life. I don’t have one. Here.” She moved toward the corner of the sofa to make more room for me. “I’m listening.”
Carefully balancing on the fine edge between the facts and the secrets I couldn’t reveal, I told her my love story.
“Wow! This is serious!” Lucy clasped her hands. “You’re going to marry him!”
“Oh, we haven’t come to that point yet,” I said, painfully aware of how much I needed Brian in my life. I could easily leave marriage out of the equation, but I wanted him to love me as much as I loved him.
Did I ask for too much?
I pushed back the growing uneasiness about our future.
“What about you?” I asked Lucy before she came up with another set of questions. “Can we expect a special visitor from New York?”
She rolled her lovely green eyes. “Yeah, Mom and Dad, unless you find a way to prevent them from coming.” She sighed dramatically. “Elizabeth, I’m still a virgin. Can you imagine that? Almost twenty-one and still a virgin.”
I didn’t think being sexually inexperienced at the age of twenty-one was the end of the world. I, myself had had my first physical relationship when I was twenty-three.
“Love just refuses to happen to me,” Lucy carried on with a dramatic sigh. “Either I expect too much, or real men like this Brian Canagan of yours are too rare. I don’t want a bed mate; I want someone to cherish me, to make me crazy with love. A soulmate.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe things will change, but they will. Just keep looking.”
“Oh, I will. For another year. But not longer than that. I don’t want to waste too much time waiting for something that might not even happen.” Another heavy sigh. “All my girlfriends have had many relationships and I’ve had none. What’s wrong with me?”
I came closer and hugged her. “Nothing’s wrong with you. You just might have higher standards, that’s it. What’s the plan if Mr. Right doesn’t show up in the next year or so?”
“To lower my standards,” she said. “I don’t want to be a twenty-two-year-old virgin.”
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LUCY STARTED WORKING the next day. She and Christian established an easy working relationship. Christian was a great mentor with endless patience, and Lucy was a quick learner. She took care of tons of small tasks, helping whoever needed a hand, including Marlowe.
Lucy was like a sponge, absorbing everything Christian taught her. He also enjoyed their teacher-pupil liaison. He liked her—she was smart, hardworking and had a wonderful sense of humor, but I could see that he wasn’t attracted to her. She was so young that I doubted he even noticed how lovely she was. As for Lucy, she never made a comment, cast him a look, blushed or stuttered in his presence or showed in any way that he had caught her attention as a man.
In the end, everything was going to be okay, I thought, watching the two of them hunched over his computer. An unexpected peace came over me, all my troubles and fears dissolving like the forest mist in the morning light.
One day Christian and Lucy would find the loves of their lives.
Ennis Killian, damn her, would find it, too.
Eve would realize her stubbornness hurt too many people and give Brian the divorce.
In less than three months the Baker Block and the Cosmo would be brought to their former glory. Then I would return to Copper Ridge and Brian. We’d stay together, in spite of the small roadblocks here and there. Yes, everything would be okay in the end.
Because, according to the old quote, if it wasn’t okay, it wasn’t the end.