“Give her time, my dear, she’ll come around. As I was the only bachelor brother, she’s come to depend on me since my father died.”

“I don’t want that to stop,” I said. “She should be able to depend on you.”

“And she will, but she’ll have to get accustomed to sharing me. She’s used to having me all to herself much of the time. I admit I thought she’d adjust more readily and am sorry her reaction to you has caused you grief.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “Come, though. If we don’t head down now, we’ll be late, and that will only serve to put her off me all the more.”

He took me by the hand and led me to greet his mother’s guests. The oldest parts of her house dated from the fourteenth century. Built in traditional style, the low ceilings and beam construction on the ground floor made for cozier surroundings than those to which I was accustomed. The space was warm and welcoming. Long rows of leaded glass windows lined the walls, letting in the bright summer sun. The surrounding gardens were spectacular, bursting with blooms in myriad colors, and enormous pink, purple, and blue hydrangea popped against the estate’s velvety green lawns.

Halfway down the narrow, wooden staircase, Colin stopped and gave me a kiss. “I suppose it is for the best that you decided not to take dinner upstairs,” he said. “As I do have a surprise for you. Coming, I think you’ll agree, at a most opportune time. She’s likely not only to cheer you immensely, but also to terrorize my mother into accepting you.”

“Cécile!”

“Mais oui,” he said.

I’d met Cécile du Lac in Paris, where I’d traveled while in the last stages of mourning for my first husband. An iconoclast of the highest level, she was a patron of the arts who’d embraced Impressionism when the critics wouldn’t. She’d had a series of extremely discreet lovers, including Gustav Klimt, whom she’d met when we were in Vienna together the previous winter, and considered champagne the only acceptable libation.