“Jake is a wonder. He’ll take care of everything. It will all work out,” Marguerite assured her and Nicole nodded, though she got the feeling Marguerite was referring to more than just her kitchen and home. There was no time to question her on it though, because the doorbell rang then and Marguerite released her.
Leaving Marguerite to say good-bye to Jake, Nicole stepped around her to open the door and smiled in greeting at the suited man waiting patiently on the step.
“Hello,” he said politely, his gaze sliding past her to Marguerite and then moving to the suitcase next to the door. “Is that going?”
“Oh, yes,” Nicole said recognizing Marguerite’s small case on wheels. The woman must have set it by the door before coming upstairs, she realized and grabbed it. But she’d barely slid it a foot closer to the door before the driver stepped in and took it.
“I’ll take care of that,” he assured her politely. “Is this it?”
“Just that and me,” Marguerite said brightly as she stepped away from Jake to move up next to Nicole.
“Very good.” The driver smiled at Marguerite and then turned to lead her to the car. He opened the back door and handed her in and then closed it before carrying the case around to set it in the trunk. Nicole was barefoot, so stayed in the doorway and waved when Marguerite finished buckling her seat belt and looked her way. She was aware when Jake stepped up behind her and thought he was probably waving too.
They watched silently as the driver got in and closed the door, but once the vehicle began to head up the driveway, Nicole asked, “How old is Marguerite?”
She was pretty sure Jake stilled behind her. He probably peered down at the top of her head too, but she didn’t look around to see. Finally, he said, “What do you mean?”
The question brought a small breathless laugh to her lips and she offered him a crooked smile over her shoulder. “It’s kind of a simple question. How old is she?” She tilted her head and added, “She can’t be more than thirty or so, though she doesn’t look that old even, but I’ve known her for ten years. She was married to Jean Claude back when I first went with Aunt Maria to help with spring cleaning, so she must have been at least twenty then, which means she has to be in her early thirties now . . . But I swear the woman acts like she’s at least twice that in age. She mothers both Pierina and me.” Nicole gave an embarrassed laugh and admitted, “I swear, she makes me feel about ten years old every time I’m around her . . . So . . . is she older than she looks? Or just mothering by nature or something?”
“Mothering by nature,” he answered, happy to avoid the original question. “She mothers everyone and was probably doing so even as a little girl.”
“Yeah, I can just picture her as a five-year-old, fussing over every child and adult in the vicinity,” Nicole admitted wryly, and then asked again, “So how old is she?”
When he didn’t answer right away, she raised her eyebrows in question, and he murmured, “Let’s close the door.”
Nicole nodded and moved out of the way as he began to do just that. She watched him lock it, and then turned to lead the way back upstairs to where her coffee waited.
Jake stayed silent as he followed Nicole back upstairs, but his mind was working in overdrive as he tried to figure out what to say in answer to her question . . . and then it came to him.
“She isn’t in her thirties,” Jake announced as they reached the kitchen.
“What?” Nicole asked with amazement as he moved to pour himself another coffee. “She has to be. She—”
“She was thirteen when she married Jean Claude.” Both statements were true. He just didn’t mention that the marriage took place back in the thirteenth century, and that she was actually seven hundred and something rather than the thirtysomething Nicole had supposed.
“Thirteen?” She sounded as horrified as he would expect as she asked, “Is that even legal?”
Jake shrugged and carried his coffee to the table as he offered, “The Europeans don’t have the same laws we do.”
“Yeah, but—holy crap, Jean Claude was worse than I thought,” she muttered with disgust as she followed him.
“What do you mean?” he asked curiously.
“Well, you know, he was such a jerk to her,” she said on a sigh. “I mean I only saw him maybe a half dozen times over the years before he died, but I remember he would come in and be perfectly awful to her, snapping and growling and ordering her around like she was a dog or something. Even as a teenager I thought, man, she’s too pretty and nice to put up with that from anyone.”
Jake turned back to his coffee, doctoring it with cream and sugar as he considered what she’d said. He hadn’t known that Jean Claude was unkind to Marguerite. The truth was Jake didn’t know Marguerite that well, and he hadn’t known her when she was married to Jean Claude. He’d heard stories, of course. His boss, Vincent, had been an Argeneau, after all, and was her nephew, which meant there had been talk about his family. But Jake hadn’t really got to know Marguerite until the attempt on his life that had resulted in his being turned.
Marguerite had talked to him several times after he’d woken from the turn. That was before he’d run away. And Nicole was right, she was a very nice woman, one who shouldn’t have to put up with the kind of behavior Nicole was describing. But then Nicole shouldn’t have had to put up with the abuse Rodolfo had dished out either, so all he said was, “I’ve found in life that the nicest people somehow seem to end up with the most unkind partners. I’ve never understood that myself. You’d think like would attract like, but it definitely seems like opposites attract when it comes to a lot of couples.”
“Yeah,” Nicole murmured, her mouth twisting. “I’d agree with that.”
“What was your husband like?” Jake asked, taking her empty cup and walking over to pour her a fresh one.
“A jerk,” she said, and then smiled wryly as she added, “But then I’m somewhat biased. I’m sure a lot of people think he’s great. Certainly, he’s the sort who’d give the shirt off his back to friends and acquaintances.”
“Just not his wife?” he suggested, pouring coffee into her cup and then carrying it back to the table.
“Me, he wouldn’t even have given the time of day,” she assured him dryly and doctored her coffee with sugar and cream, before adding, “I suspect he married the artist, and was disappointed when he found himself shackled to the woman.”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t they one and the same person?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” she asked with amusement. Nicole sipped her coffee, swallowed, and then said quietly, “It turns out Rodolfo was all about the surface and appearances. At first he liked going around bragging about marrying a world-renowned artist. That was cool. Unfortunately, actually living with me was less so.” She peered into her coffee and said, “I think he had poor self-esteem, that maybe he thought marrying me would boost it . . . and was terribly disappointed when it didn’t.” Sighing, she met his gaze and added, “And I suspect he thought that being married to me would mean a life that was one long round of cocktail parties and glad-handing with celebrity clients. Instead, it was day-to-day drudgery, a lot of time spent with him twiddling his thumbs and bored while I worked hard, or his standing by listening to my side of phone calls with those celebrities he longed to connect with, or his having to listen to me being complimented and praised by people who thought of him as ‘the husband’ who didn’t work rather than the charming, dashing fellow who bagged the artist.” She breathed out wearily, and shook her head. “But he wouldn’t talk about it, so I’m just guessing and with that and ten cents, you still have ten cents.”