Helena was, indeed, much restored by the time they left. She wore the nicest of her dinner frocks, a simple shift in heavy, midnight blue silk charmeuse, its inky darkness brightened by scrolling silver embroidery at its neck and hem. Her hair was now long enough to look fashionably bobbed and not simply shorn, and apart from setting a slim diamanté clip in the locks by her left temple, she left it alone.
Agnes was wearing one of her glorious velvet devoré caftans, this one in a burnt orange color that ought to have looked dreadful but instead suited her admirably. In her hair, which had been hennaed to a shade that very nearly matched her frock, her aunt wore a peacock feather aigrette, its clip adorned by a diamond the size of a quail’s egg.
The H?tel du Cap, which occupied an enviable swath of seafront at the southeastern tip of the cape, was all but deserted in high summer, its wealthy and titled clientele preferring to holiday in milder climes. Monsieur Sella, the hotel’s proprietor, had been planning to shut the hotel for the summer, Sara had confided, but Gerald had persuaded him to keep it open.
Gerald and Sara were sitting with a single man, his back to them, when she and Agnes arrived. The table, which had been set for five, was at the edge of the dining room, its linen napery fluttering in the soft evening breeze.
Gerald was the first to notice them. “Sara, darling, they’re here!”
Just then, the man turned to face Helena and Agnes, and she was astonished to see that it was Sam Howard. It was such a surprise that she simply stood and gawped while Gerald made their introduction.
“Sam Howard, may I introduce you to the Princess Dimitri Pavlovich, and to her niece, the Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr. Ladies, may I introduce you to Mr. Sam Howard, a correspondent with the European edition of the Chicago Tribune.”
“Good evening,” they chimed.
He was somehow even taller than she remembered, though not as young as she’d first thought, for there were deep-set laugh lines around his dark blue eyes when he smiled. His hair, in the lamplight, looked more brown than auburn, but his freckles were just as noticeable.
“Good to meet you, Princess Dimitri, Lady Helena.”
“Please do call me Agnes, or Mrs. Paulson if you’re obsessed with minding your elders. Our royals anglicized their names, so why shouldn’t I? Besides, all that grand duchess folderol seems so terribly old-fashioned to me. I know dear Dimitri expected it, but he was the great-grandson of a czar, after all.”
“Well, then, Mrs. Paulson it is. Glad to make your acquaintance.”
It seemed as if Mr. Howard was about to say more, but the arrival of their waiter forestalled any further conversation until everyone had been furnished with their first course of sliced tomatoes with olives and a basil dressing.
“The chef is short-staffed, so I ordered for the table ahead of time,” Gerald explained. “After this we’ll have grilled leg of lamb, and then some figs and cheese to finish.” Instead of wine, they had one of Gerald’s cocktails with their first course. “I call it ‘Juice of a Few Flowers.’ My own recipe. Orange, lemon, grapefruit, and lime juices, with just a splash of gin. What do you think?”
Helena took a careful sip, for she had learned to be wary of Gerald’s concoctions, and promptly choked on it when Mr. Howard spoke again.
“Lady Helena and I actually met earlier today. On the road into town. She was having some trouble with her bike, so I stopped to see if I might help.” He smiled, revealing the boyish dimple in his cheek again.
“Helena! You didn’t say a thing,” Agnes chided. “You know how I feel about your riding miles and miles on that contraption. You might have become ill with sunstroke.”
She directed a frostbitten glare at her aunt. “I was fine. I am fine.”
Mr. Howard drained his cocktail, grimacing a little, and shook his head. “It wasn’t anything worth worrying about, Mrs. Paulson. Just a slipped chain. We fixed it in no time.”
Helena couldn’t help but smile at his generous use of the collective pronoun. “There was no ‘we,’ I’m afraid. I’d still be there if Mr. Howard hadn’t come along.”
“You divine man,” Agnes all but cooed. “You must come for lunch—tell me you will. Tomorrow? I insist absolutely.”
“Oh, Auntie A,” Helena pleaded. “I’m sure Mr. Howard has better things to do than—”
“I’d love to, but I’m only here a few days,” he explained. “One of my colleagues is in Nice for the summer with his family. They took the train down, but he wanted his Peugeot, too. So we drew straws, all of us on the rewrite desk at the paper, and I won. Wish I could stay longer, though,” he added, and he looked directly at Helena.
“You’re staying here at the hotel?” Agnes asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lovely. How long have you known Gerald and Sara?”
“Oh, three or four years—does that sound right, Gerald?”
“We have mutual friends in Paris,” Gerald said. “Archie and Ada MacLeish.”
“Archie and I were friends at Harvard, and then we served together during the war,” Mr. Howard added. “He and Ada have been nice enough to introduce me to people of taste and refinement, unlike the crowd I run with most of the time.”