The House on Cocoa Beach: A sweeping epic love story, perfect for fans of historical romance
lesson. How frustrated I had been, how angry at Father’s unsympathetic sternness. But why do I have to learn? I don’t care a jot for automobiles, I said recklessly, and he said implacably, Because a car can make you free, Virginia, a car can take you anywhere you want to go.
But maybe need was a better word. A car could take you anywhere you needed to go. Like the garage of a medieval château in north-central France—a garage that wasn’t really a garage, just an old stable, lacking electricity, lit by a pair of kerosene lanterns, smelling of grease and wet stone and melancholy. I didn’t want to be here, cleaning the mud from Hunka Tin’s brave, scarred sides, changing her oil and examining her tires, but I needed to be here. And needing was of a higher order than wanting, wasn’t it? A nobler calling.
BY THE TIME I FINISHED, it was nearly midnight, and the lamps in the great hall had darkened at last. The atmosphere lay black and dank on the stones of the courtyard. I strode from the garage to the main house, carrying one of the kerosene lanterns, so absorbed by the question of Hunka Tin’s suspect fuel line—to replace or not to replace?—that I didn’t notice the fiery orange dot zigzagging at the corner of the western wing until the smell of burning tobacco startled my nose.
I lifted the lantern. “Who’s there?”
The orange dot flared and disappeared. “Your humble servant.”
“Captain Fitzwilliam?”
“I didn’t mean to disturb you. Have you been taking care of your ambulance all this time?”
“Yes.” I raised the lantern higher, and at last I found him, resting against the damp stone wall, arms folded, cigarette extinguished. The peak of his cap shadowed his eyes. “How are the patients?”
“Tip-top. Showered in grateful attention from the ladies of the Overseas Delegation of the—which chapter is it?”
“The Eighth New York Chapter.”
“Of the American Red Cross. Yes. They were delighted to see us. I was reminded of Jason and the women of Lemnos. Except that ended rather badly, didn’t it? In any case, commendable zeal. Commendable.”
“Does that mean we’ve passed your inspection?”
“With flying colors.”
I wondered if he had been drinking. I thought I smelled some sort of spirits on his breath, though I wasn’t close enough to be sure, and the pungency of the recent cigarette still disguised any other smell that might have inhabited the air. His voice was steady, his words beautifully precise. I couldn’t fault his diction. Still. There was something, wasn’t there? Some ironic note at play. I stepped once in his direction, so that the light caught the bristling edge of his jaw. “You’re making fun of us, aren’t you?”
“I? No, indeed. Perish the thought. I admire you extremely, the entire enthusiastic lot of you. So fresh and dear and unspoiled. The fires of heroism burning in your eyes.”
I lowered the lantern and turned away. “Good night, Captain.”
“No, don’t go. I apologize.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“I have not been drinking.” Injured air. “I’ve had a glass or two of wine, served over dinner by your redoubtable directrix, but I haven’t been drinking. Not as the term is commonly known.”
“You had dinner with Mrs. DeForest?”
“She insisted.”
Yes, I had lowered the lantern and turned away, but I hadn’t taken a step. The soles of my shoes had stuck to the pavement by some invisible cement. I don’t know why. Yes, I do. Captain Fitzwilliam had that quality; he could hold you fast with a single word, a single instant of sincerity. Don’t go. I apologize. And there you stood, rapt, wanting to know what he really meant. Wanting to know the truth. All that charm, all that marvelously arid English wit—there had to be something behind it, didn’t there? It couldn’t just dangle out there on its own, a signboard without a shop.
A light flickered to life in one of the bedrooms above us. Fitzwilliam went on. “I made my escape, however. As you see.”
“You might have chosen a warmer place for it.”
“Ah, but I wanted a cigarette, you see, after all that. Rather badly. And my mother, who detests cigarettes, always made us smoke outdoors.”
“I see. An old habit.”
“That, and I was hoping to encounter a certain intrepid young ambulance driver, to thank her for her fortitude. And for enduring the cynicism of a jaded old soldier along the way.”
“That wasn’t necessary.”
“Not to you, perhaps. But essential to me.”
The handle of the lantern had become slippery in my bare palm. I had left my gloves in the garage. Essential. That word again. “Well, I’m sorry to have put you to the trouble. I hope you weren’t waiting long.”
“Not too long.” He levered himself from the wall. “I just want to be clear. I wasn’t mocking you, Miss Fortescue. I was mocking myself.”
I started walking toward the door, or rather the rectangle-shaped hole in the darkness where the door should have been. The air was opaque and full of weight. I heard the crunch of his footsteps behind me. “It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“Yes, it does. It matters terribly. All this, it’s no excuse to lose one’s humanity.”
“You haven’t lost your humanity. I saw you working, back there. You cared for those men; you were—you were passionate.”
“The way a butcher cares for his pieces of meat.”
“That’s not true.”
“It shouldn’t be, but it is. It’s the only way to get along, you see.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Because you haven’t been here long enough. Believe me, once you’ve seen enough chaps minus their limbs or their faces or guts, that’s the worst, entrails hanging from a gaping hole in what once was a nobly intact human abdomen …”
He stopped talking. Stopped walking. I stopped, too, and turned my head, pulse racketing. His eyes were stark and gray, his skin was gray. But that was just the light, the feeble light from the lantern I held at my knee.
“Forgive me,” he said.
“There’s no need.”
“It’s the wine, I suppose. One should never obey one’s impulses after drinking a bottle of wine.”
“You said it was a glass or two.”
“I might have been modest.”
How strange. He wouldn’t look away. I wanted to look away, but it seemed rude, didn’t it, turning my eyes somewhere else when he held my gaze so zealously. As if he had something important to say. In fact, I couldn’t move at all, even if I wanted to. Like a nocturnal animal caught in the light from the kitchen door. My knuckles locked around the lantern, my cheeks frozen in shock.
“You should rest,” I said softly. “You shouldn’t be out like this.”
“I might say the same of you. Shall we go in together?”
“Of course.”
He reached forward and took the lantern from my hand. My fingers gave way without a fight. Shameful, I thought. He lifted his elbow as well, but I ignored that. I ignored all of him, in fact, as we walked silently toward the entrance of the château, through which the great had once streamed, the ancient de Créouvilles in all their glory, shimmering and laughing, and now it was just wounded soldiers, common men, nurses and doctors in bleak clothing. I ignored him because I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t