will know within twenty minutes, I can guarantee it.”
She had the good grace to laugh. “You’re right. I sound like an imbecile, don’t I?”
Paying no attention to this remark, I went on quickly, “There is one thing you can do for me, Belinda, and that’s field any calls from news papers for me today. I really don’t feel like speaking to the press. I need a little quiet time by myself.” I glanced at my watch.
“Lila’s supposed to come to clean today, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is. But not until one. She had a dental appointment at eleven. She called me yesterday to say she might be a bit later than usual.”
“No problem.”
“About the press, Vivienne, don’t worry, I’ll deal with them. If they insist on talking to you though, at some point, shall I have them call back tomorrow?”
“Yes. No, wait a minute, I have a much better idea! If Jack’s still here, pass the press over to him. And if he’s gone back to Laurel Creek Farm, give them the phone number there. He’s as capable of dealing with them as I am.”
With these words I escaped. -Upstairs in my bedroom it was calm, tranquil, with sunlight filtering in -through the many windows.
Opening the French doors I went outside onto the wide balcony, marveling at the mildness of the morning, wondering if this extraordinary Indian Summer was nature’s gift to us before we were beset by the violent winter weather typical of these parts. The Litchfield hills -can be harsh, storm-swept and snow-laden from December through -the spring; in fact there was frequently snow on the ground as late as -April.
But I would not be here in winter. I would be in France at my property in Provence. For a long time now I have lived in an old mill that Sebastian and I remodeled some years before, and it is there that I write my books, mostly biographies and other works of nonfiction.
Sebastian and I found the property the first year we were married, and because I fell madly in love with it he bought it for me as a wedding present. -The day we stumbled on it there was a piece of jagged wood nailed to the dilapidated old gate on which someone had scrawled, in black paint, vieur Moulinold mill-and we kept that name.
A second primitive wooden board announced that the land and the mill were for -* - - sale, and it was those neglected acres of land that eventually became my beautiful gardens.
We enjoyed working on the mill together, Sebastian and I, and much of its restoration and renovation was inspired by his ideas as well as -mine. Vieur Moulin and Ridgehill were my two real homes, one be -?ause it had been in my family for hundreds of years, the other because it was truly of my own creation. It didn’t take much prompting for me -to become quite lyrical about them both, since they were truly special to me. I divided my time between these two old houses; the oneoom 42Badam Taylor Bradford studio in New York was just a pied-a’terre, a convenient place to hang my hat and my typewriter whenever I needed to be in the city for work.
When I had arrived in Connecticut in August, on my annual visit, I had intended to return to Provence at the end of October. I still planned to do so. However, there was the matter of the autopsy report; I felt I couldn’t leave without knowing the facts. On the other hand, the police would be dealing with Jack and Luciana, Sebastian’s next of kin, and not with me. There was no real reason for me to hang around, other than my own anxiousness, my desire to know the truth about his -death.
I wondered what the autopsy would turn up, what the Chief Medical Examiner’s verdict would be. An involuntary shiver ran through me despite the warmth of the day, and deteririnedly I tried to cling to the belief that Sebastian had died of natural causes.
Pushing my troubling thoughts aside, I went and leaned against the wooden railings and glanced around. The trees in the gardens below, -and sweeping down the hillsides to the waters of Lake
She had the good grace to laugh. “You’re right. I sound like an imbecile, don’t I?”
Paying no attention to this remark, I went on quickly, “There is one thing you can do for me, Belinda, and that’s field any calls from news papers for me today. I really don’t feel like speaking to the press. I need a little quiet time by myself.” I glanced at my watch.
“Lila’s supposed to come to clean today, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is. But not until one. She had a dental appointment at eleven. She called me yesterday to say she might be a bit later than usual.”
“No problem.”
“About the press, Vivienne, don’t worry, I’ll deal with them. If they insist on talking to you though, at some point, shall I have them call back tomorrow?”
“Yes. No, wait a minute, I have a much better idea! If Jack’s still here, pass the press over to him. And if he’s gone back to Laurel Creek Farm, give them the phone number there. He’s as capable of dealing with them as I am.”
With these words I escaped. -Upstairs in my bedroom it was calm, tranquil, with sunlight filtering in -through the many windows.
Opening the French doors I went outside onto the wide balcony, marveling at the mildness of the morning, wondering if this extraordinary Indian Summer was nature’s gift to us before we were beset by the violent winter weather typical of these parts. The Litchfield hills -can be harsh, storm-swept and snow-laden from December through -the spring; in fact there was frequently snow on the ground as late as -April.
But I would not be here in winter. I would be in France at my property in Provence. For a long time now I have lived in an old mill that Sebastian and I remodeled some years before, and it is there that I write my books, mostly biographies and other works of nonfiction.
Sebastian and I found the property the first year we were married, and because I fell madly in love with it he bought it for me as a wedding present. -The day we stumbled on it there was a piece of jagged wood nailed to the dilapidated old gate on which someone had scrawled, in black paint, vieur Moulinold mill-and we kept that name.
A second primitive wooden board announced that the land and the mill were for -* - - sale, and it was those neglected acres of land that eventually became my beautiful gardens.
We enjoyed working on the mill together, Sebastian and I, and much of its restoration and renovation was inspired by his ideas as well as -mine. Vieur Moulin and Ridgehill were my two real homes, one be -?ause it had been in my family for hundreds of years, the other because it was truly of my own creation. It didn’t take much prompting for me -to become quite lyrical about them both, since they were truly special to me. I divided my time between these two old houses; the oneoom 42Badam Taylor Bradford studio in New York was just a pied-a’terre, a convenient place to hang my hat and my typewriter whenever I needed to be in the city for work.
When I had arrived in Connecticut in August, on my annual visit, I had intended to return to Provence at the end of October. I still planned to do so. However, there was the matter of the autopsy report; I felt I couldn’t leave without knowing the facts. On the other hand, the police would be dealing with Jack and Luciana, Sebastian’s next of kin, and not with me. There was no real reason for me to hang around, other than my own anxiousness, my desire to know the truth about his -death.
I wondered what the autopsy would turn up, what the Chief Medical Examiner’s verdict would be. An involuntary shiver ran through me despite the warmth of the day, and deteririnedly I tried to cling to the belief that Sebastian had died of natural causes.
Pushing my troubling thoughts aside, I went and leaned against the wooden railings and glanced around. The trees in the gardens below, -and sweeping down the hillsides to the waters of Lake
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