“Sometimes I work too hard. And sometimes I play too hard. I like doing both, at different times. You have to work hard in order to play hard. I have a wonderful boat I keep in the South. A yacht. Do you like boats?”

“I haven't been on one in a long time.” Not since college, when she had sailed with friends in Martha's Vineyard, but she was sure the boats she'd been on were nothing like his.

They reached his grandmother's house a few minutes later. It was a small, neat cottage with a fence around it, beautifully maintained, with rosebushes in front, and a tiny vineyard behind it. He got out and opened the car door politely for Sarah. It was a remarkable experience being with him. She felt as though she were in a movie. The movie was her life for the moment. And she was starring in it. She was a long way from San Francisco.

He rang the bell and opened the door, and a woman hurried toward them, wiping her hands on her apron. She spoke to Pierre, and pointed to someone in the back garden. She was his grandmother's caretaker. Pierre led Sarah out through the back of the small house. It was filled with lovely antiques, and had bright pretty curtains at the windows. The house was small, but he took care of his grandmother well. She was sitting in a wheelchair in the garden looking out at the vineyards and the countryside beyond. She had lived in this part of the world all her life, and he had bought her the cottage many years before. To her, it was a palace. Her eyes lit up when she saw him.

“Bonjour, Pierre!” she exclaimed with delight, and then smiled at Sarah. She looked pleased to see her, she enjoyed visitors and especially her grandson. He was the joy of her life, and she was very proud of him. It showed.

“Bonjour, Mamie.” He introduced Sarah to her, and explained why she had come. His grandmother responded with a look of interest, many exclamations, and she nodded her head several times at Sarah, as though to welcome her. As she and Pierre chatted animatedly, the caretaker reappeared with cookies and lemonade, which she poured for them, and set the pitcher down on a nearby table, in case they wanted more. The cookies were delicious.

Pierre turned to Sarah then, and pulled up chairs for both of them. “She said she knew your great-grandmother well, and always liked her. She said she was a lovely woman. My grandmother was seventeen years old, and only a maid in the kitchen when Lilli came here. She said your great-grandmother was very kind to her.” She referred to Lilli throughout the conversation as Madame la Marquise. “Your great-grandmother helped her to become the cook several years later. She said she never even knew she had children until one day she saw her looking at photographs of them in the garden, and she was crying. But she said that other than that, she was always very happy here. She had a sunny nature, and she adored her husband. He was a few years older than she, and he worshiped her. She says they were very happy. He laughed all the time whenever he was with her. She said it was very hard for everyone when the Germans were here. They took over the stables and part of the château. The outbuildings were full of their men, and sometimes they were very rude and stole food from the kitchen. Your great-grandmother was nice to them, but she didn't like them much. She said Lilli got very sick toward the end of the war. There was no medicine, and she got sicker and sicker, and the marquis nearly went mad, worrying about her. It sounds like tuberculosis or pneumonia, I think,” he added softly. It was a fascinating recital for both of them, particularly Sarah, as she imagined Lilli crying over photographs of Mimi and her brother. Strangely, she realized now, he had died the same year as his mother, in 1945, just before the end of the war. Alexandre, her ex-husband, had died that year too. It was hard to imagine how Lilli could survive for all those years without news or contact with her children, or any of the people she had once loved. She left them all for the marquis, closed the door of her past behind her, and never opened it again.

“My grandmother is saying that finally your great-grandmother died, although she was still very young,” Pierre went on. “She says she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. And the marquis was inconsolable when she died. My grandmother thinks he had been in the Resistance all along, but no one knew for sure. He began disappearing more and more after she died, perhaps on missions with local cells, or in other districts. The Germans killed him one night not far from here. They said he was trying to blow up a train, she doesn't know if that was true or not. He was a good man and wouldn't do anything to kill people, except maybe Germans. She thinks he let himself get shot because he was so grief stricken over his wife's death. They died within a few months of each other and are buried in the cemetery near the château. I can take you there if you wish,” he offered, and she nodded. “She said it was very sad for everyone when they died. The Germans had kept the servants in the château and worked them very hard. The commandant moved in after the marquis died. And then the Germans left finally. And after the war, all the servants went to other places, the château was boarded up. Eventually someone bought it… and you know the rest. What an amazing story,” Pierre said to Sarah, who reached out and took the old woman's hands in her own to thank her. Pierre's grandmother nodded and smiled, she understood the gesture. She was every bit as lucid as Pierre had said she would be. The story she had shared with Sarah was a gift she could take home to Mimi, the story of her own mother's years in France and her last days.

“Thank you …merci…,” Sarah repeated, as they continued holding hands. This ancient woman was her only link to her lost great-grandmother, the woman who had vanished, and whose house she now owned. The woman two men had loved so passionately that both died when they lost her. She had belonged to each of them, and had been theirs, and in the end, she had been her own. She was like a beautiful bird that could be loved and admired but not caged. As they sat together, and Sarah mulled over Lilli's story, Pierre's grandmother's brow furrowed for a moment, and she said something more to him. He listened and nodded, and turned to Sarah with a wistful air.

“My grandmother says there was one other thing about Lilli's children. She said that she often saw her writing letters. She wasn't sure, but she thought they might have been to them. The boy who went to the post office said that her letters to America were always returned. He gave them back to Madame la Marquise himself, and she would look very sad. He told my grandmother that she put them in a little box, where she kept them tied up with ribbons. My grandmother said she never saw them until the marquise died. She found the box when she was helping to put away her things, and showed the box of letters to the marquis. He told her to throw them away, so she did. She doesn't know for sure, but she thinks they were letters to her children, all of which were returned. She must have tried to contact them over the years, but someone always sent them back to her unopened. Perhaps the man she had been married to, the children's father. He must have been very angry at her. I would have been, in his place.” It was hard for any of them to understand how she had left a husband and two children, out of passion for someone else. But according to Pierre's grandmother, she had loved the marquis that much. She said she had never seen two people more in love with each other, right up to their deaths. Enough to abandon her children for. Sarah couldn't help wondering if she had regretted it, and hoped she had. Her tears over the photographs and returned letters she saved said something. But in the end, hard as it was to understand, her love for the marquis had been more powerful, and had prevailed, as had his for her. It was one of those passions apparently that defied reason and all else. She had walked away from an entire life to give herself to him, and leave everyone, even her children, behind. She had gone to her grave without ever seeing them again, which seemed a terrible fate to Sarah. And for Mimi, the grandmother she loved so much.

Pierre chatted with his grandmother for a while, and then they left. Sarah thanked her profusely again before she did. It had been an amazing day for her. And as he had offered to, Pierre took her to the cemetery on the way back. The Mailliard Mausoleum was easy to find, and they found them there. Armand, Marquis de Mailliard, and Lilli, Marquise de Mailliard. He had been forty-four years old when he died, and she thirty-nine. They had died within eighty days of each other, not even three months. Sarah felt sad as she left the cemetery, after hearing the story. She wondered how many times Lilli had cried over the children she had left, and why they never had any children of their own. Perhaps that would have consoled her, or perhaps she couldn't bear the thought of having another child, after the two she had given up. Even with as much as Sarah knew now, Lilli would always be a mystery to all of them. What had driven her, who she had been, what she had really felt or not felt or cared about or longed for were all secrets she had taken with her. Clearly, her passion for the marquis had been a powerful force. Sarah knew that Lilli had met him at a consular party in San Francisco just before the crash. How she had decided to run away with him, or when or why, no one really knew and never would. Perhaps she had been unhappy with Alexandre, but he had obviously adored her. But it was, in the end, the marquis who had owned her heart, and only he. Sarah felt as though she had something to go back with, which would satisfy her grandmother and even her mother, although Lilli would forever be an enigma. She had been a woman of enormous passion and mystery till the end. Sarah was planning to tell Mimi about her mother's letters to her when she went back.

“I think I have fallen in love with your great-grandmother,” Pierre teased her as he drove her back to the hotel. “She must have been a remarkable woman, of enormous passion and magnetism, and quite dangerous in a way. They loved her so passionately, it destroyed them. They couldn't live without her when she was gone,” he said, glancing at Sarah. “Are you as dangerous as she was?” he teased again.

“No, I'm not.” Sarah smiled at her benefactor. He had made her whole trip worthwhile. She felt as though destiny had brought them together. Meeting Pierre had been an incredible gift.

“Perhaps you are dangerous,” he said, as they drove up to her hotel, and she thanked him for his kindness, and spending the entire day with her, driving her around.

“I would never have found out any of this, if I hadn't met your grandmother. Thank you so much, Pierre.” She was genuinely grateful to him.

“I enjoyed it, too. It's quite a story,” he said quietly. “She never told me all that before. It all happened before I was born.” And then, as she got out of the car, he reached out and touched her hand. “I'm going back to Paris tomorrow. Would you like to have dinner with me tonight? There's only a local bistro, but it's fairly good. I'd enjoy your company, Sarah. I had a good time with you today.”

“So did I. Are you sure you're not tired of me?” She felt as though she had already abused his hospitality and didn't want to do so again.

“Not yet. If I get tired of you, I'll bring you back.” He laughed at her.

“Then I'd like to very much.”

“Excellent. I'll pick you up at eight.”

She went upstairs and lay on her bed after that. She had a lot to think about. She couldn't get Lilli out of her head. She felt haunted by her, after listening to the story Pierre's grandmother had told, and he said he felt the same way when he came back to pick Sarah up in the Rolls.

The bistro he took her to nearby was simple, and the food was plain but good. He had brought his own bottle of wine. He regaled her with tales of his travels, and adventures on his yacht when he sailed around the world. He was interesting to talk to and fun to be with. She felt as though she were on another planet as she laughed and talked with him. It was a delightful evening for both of them. He was fifteen years older than she, but had a youthful outlook on life, probably because he had never married or had children. He said he was still a child himself.

“And you, my dear,” he scolded her over the last of their wine, which was yet another exquisite vintage, “are far too serious, from what I can see. You need to have more fun, and take life more lightly. You work too hard, and now you are killing yourself on your house. When do you play?” She thought about it and then shrugged her shoulders.