To say the same about the rest of the château wouldn’t be entirely correct; George, it seemed, was prone to exaggeration. This was not the refined type of building found in the Loire Valley or at Versailles. It was more fortress than Palace, a true Norman castle, with an imposing keep. We looped around the water and over a rough bridge, then followed the drive along a tall gatehouse fashioned from blocks of stone and golden red bricks, its windows long and narrow. Defensive walls had once enclosed the perimeter, but now all that remained of them were bits and pieces of varying heights, few much taller even than I, most of them covered with a thick growth of ivy or dwarfed by hydrangea bushes. Long rows of boxwoods lined gravel paths in the formal garden, and the flowers, organized neatly in pristine beds, must have been chosen for their scents, as the air was sweet and fragrant.

“The garden is much nicer than the house,” George said, rising from a stone bench and coming towards us, a gentleman with a large, dark moustache at his side. “You’d be wise to stay outside. I can have tea sent to us here.”

“You’re doing nothing, sir, but increasing my curiosity about the interior,” I said. “The exterior is lovely.”

“Very medieval,” Cécile said, tipping her black straw hat forward to better shade her eyes from the sun.

“If only I had a catapult,” George said. “We might have some real fun. May I present my friend, Maurice Leblanc from Étretat?”

The other man bowed gracefully. “It is a pleasure,” he said as George introduced us.

“Maurice is a writer—does stories for every magazine you can think of. Excellent bloke.”