I was prepared with my automatic response, which would have been yes, but stopped myself. Why shouldn’t I be driven through the French countryside on a beautiful day with a handsome man with the sun on my face and the wind in my hair? A formidable woman certainly would, and she wouldn’t worry about her hair, either. “Absolutely not. Please keep them down. Just allow me to put on my jumper because I’m sure the wind will feel chilly.” I should have put the scarf over my head, but the bow had been so beautiful that I didn’t want to undo it, knowing I couldn’t recreate it later.
I wiggled forward in my seat, trying to fit my long arms into the sleeves of the jumper, only realizing that my top was baring my midriff when my hands were no longer free to pull it down.
“May I help?” Drew asked, his face looking as stricken as I felt.
“No thank you. I’m quite all right.” It was only after failing to wiggle my arms free that I felt Drew gently tugging on the shoulders of the jumper and pulling them over my arms.
“There,” he said, patting me gently as if I were a dog.
I pulled down my top and nodded without looking at him. “Ready.”
Drew was a careful driver, expertly maneuvering the car through Paris traffic and then north toward the motorway, following signs to Amiens. The wind made conversation difficult, and I was happy to sit back and enjoy the scenery, reminding myself more than once that the driver wasn’t part of it and I should stop staring.
“Have you been to Picardy before?” Drew asked, his voice loud enough to be heard over the wind.
“No, I haven’t.” I shook my head to emphasize my words. “I’ve never been to the French countryside—only Paris with my mother and sister. But that was a very long time ago. All I know is that it’s where the great Battle of the Somme was fought.” I didn’t add that I only knew that because of my dear brother Charles, who had loved to play with his toy soldiers as a boy and reenact battles. He loved the strategizing and the organization of armies, the bright uniforms and shiny cannons, and I suppose it should have consoled me to know that he’d died doing something he loved.
“I hope we have time to drive around a bit, then. It’s not one of the big tourist spots but it should be. It’s the birthplace of Gothic architecture and has six of the world’s greatest examples of Gothic cathedrals, which span the entire history of Gothic architecture. Imagine that! Amiens Cathedral is the largest cathedral in Europe and two Notre-Dames could fit inside. Hard to believe, isn’t it? If you climb up in the cathedral you get amazing views of the city and the river Somme.”
I found myself smiling and not just because I was truly interested in what he was telling me—I was—but because of the boyish exuberance he exhibited in the telling. I was thoroughly charmed and not a little surprised.
He caught me looking at him and frowned. “What? Did I pronounce something wrong? Should it really be ‘Sommay’?”
I let out an unexpected bark of laughter, quickly covering my mouth with my hand, then allowed myself to laugh when he grinned back at me. “Yes, well, I hope we have time today, and if not, then we’ll have to come back.” I don’t know what had possessed me to add that last part, unless Precious’s words had made more of an impact on me than I’d thought, but I was glad I’d said them. I was just too embarrassed to look at him to catch his reaction.
We drove in a comfortable silence for another quarter of an hour or so when the car began slowing and Drew signaled a turn off the motorway and onto a narrow road marked only with a sign indicating a village called Piscop.
“Are we here?” I asked, looking for a grand château and seeing nothing but green fields.
“Sorry, no. I’m starving. I thought we should go ahead and stop for lunch.”
I looked at my watch. “But it’s only half past eleven.”
He grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I know. But my stomach tells me it’s lunchtime. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. Do you know this place?”
His face seemed to close and darken for a moment, so briefly that I thought I might have imagined it. “Yes, I’ve been here before. Just once. But I remember how pretty it was and that it might be a good place for a picnic.” He continued to drive along the curving road that seemed to be carved into a hill before stopping in a small inset, the wheels of the car just barely off the roadway.
Drew opened my door and we stood in the middle of the road, surveying the rolling green hills interspersed with fat leafy trees dotting the landscape. A flock of sheep grazed happily in a neighboring field, seemingly the only living creatures besides us for miles. It wasn’t too terribly different from Devon, yet despite the same blue sky and bright sun that hovered over both places, it felt foreign to me. And not just because of the large American I’d arrived with. There was just something about the scent of the fields, or the sounds of the insects, or maybe the birds sang in a foreign language. Or maybe what Dorothy had said in Diana’s favorite film, that there really is no place like home, was true.
Drew took the picnic basket from the boot and then crossed the road to the field of green grass, where he carefully set the basket. “I think this is about as perfect as we can get,” he said confidently as he opened the lid and pulled out a red plaid blanket.
“Let me help,” I said, grabbing two corners of the blanket. We spent the next few minutes setting out the food while neither one of us commented on the vast amounts of it, or the curious items. He may have raised his eyes at the oysters packed in ice or the bottle of champagne, but I made myself busy breaking the baguette in half and preparing plates of bread, cheese, and fruit.
The sound of a cork popping brought my attention back to Drew. Holding up the frothing bottle he grinned. “I didn’t want it to get warm. If you’ll hold the glasses, I’ll pour.”
I wanted to say no, because women like me didn’t drink champagne in the afternoon. I didn’t drink champagne at all, really. Before that disastrous night in the bar with Drew, the last sip of alcohol I’d had was at my own wedding, and that was in the evening. But I thought of Diana and Precious, and I knew that they wouldn’t have hesitated. And if I were to be a formidable woman, I’d drink champagne in the afternoon. With a man. On a hillside in France while eating oysters and chocolate. I picked up the two champagne glasses and held them while Drew poured generous amounts into each.
Drew held his up in a toast. “To finding the answers we seek.”
I raised my glass then took a sip, the bubbles filling my nose and causing my eyes to water. I hesitated a moment before I swallowed, not sure I really wanted to know those answers anymore.
We began to eat, the warm sun and the champagne loosening my bones and allowing me to breathe deeply for the first time in a very long while. I was reminded of Diana’s last words to me, at the train station seeing me off. Recklessness might be the thing we need sometimes to see our lives anew. As I looked across the blanket at Drew and took another sip of my champagne, I wondered if this had been what she’d meant.
Feeling warm, I rolled up the sleeves of my jumper. “You said you’ve been here before,” I broached as I spread brie on my baguette with a tiny silver cheese knife so thoughtfully supplied by the Ritz. “When was that?”