Page 34 of My Best French Wedding

“How is that going? With the castle.” Hildy casually brushed her palm over the bristly surface of the nearest hedge. “Everything coming together to your satisfaction?”

Maude narrowed her eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“I heard there were some issues. With the historic preservation person? What was his name again?”

“Loïc,” Maude replied, taking her time with it. “He’s the archaeologist supervising the excavation of a troglodytic habitation in the caves underneath the castle. There may be even older cultural remains on-site.”

“Like… dead people?”

“Art,” Maude corrected. “Engravings. Considering the area, it wouldn’t be surprising.” Hildy nodded like she got it, while makinga mental note to listen more carefully the next time Corinne went on one of her Travel Channel spiels.

“Are you going to be based in France, going forward? Since you’ll have a business here.”

“It depends,” Maude said, obscurely. As if picking up on the unspoken part of Hildy’s question, she glanced behind her. “Have you seen Walter?”

“I’m sure he’s fine.” This was not a guess on Hildy’s part. She had personally sent Walter on a completely different outing, going so far as to slip a revised itinerary under his door and hire a car to pick him up an hour before the bus departed for the gardens. The goal was to dispatch him on a wild-goose chase while she covered the actual excursion. Only now it appeared she had unwittingly given Maude an opportunity to cheat.

“So,” Hildy said, watching Maude’s expression for any hint of guilt. “You and Walter.”

“Shouldn’t we be talking about Fiona’s love life?” Maude pushed back. “I’m not sure how this is relevant.”

Under other circumstances, Hildy would have enjoyed the sass. She could picture inviting Maude to brunch, maybe downing a pitcher of mimosas. A tiny voice whispered that maybe this was why Walter liked Maude enough to violate his principles by fraternizing with a source. That was better than supposing he’d been seduced by her millions… and yet Hildy’s annoyance spiked.

Dicking him around ismyjob.And in her case, it was consensual. Or at least reciprocal. One of those.

“Just collecting background detail. For the story.”

“I like Walter. He’s very easy to be around.”

Hildy’s exhale carried a whiff ofyeah, right.

“You disagree?”

“No comment.” Which was its own comment, as Maude well knew. “Whatever I think or don’t think about Walter, I hate to see anyone in a situation where there’s an imbalance of power.”

“And which of us do you see as having the upper hand in this scenario?”

“Here’s what I know,” Hildy said, in lieu of answering. “It doesn’t end well when one person is way more into his romantic partner than she’s into him. Especially if he decides a baby will fix everything, only it backfires because the woman is even more determined not to be tied down, so she takes off and publishes an academic paper about how monogamy is a primitive system, and we could learn a lot from non-Western cultures about more enlightened and fluid attitudes toward sexual partnerships. Meanwhile, he’s stuck at home with a newborn, pining. Just to choose an example at random.”

At some point in her preteen years, it had occurred to Hildy that she might not even be a biological Johnson, if her mother was that big on bucking traditional family structures. That added some extra salt to the wound when people made assumptions about Hildy’s cushy background. Were you really a nepo baby if you didn’t have the right DNA?

Maude blinked at her. “That does sound… complicated.”

“It’s okay. I have a pretty great life. But it would have been nice if my mother had figured out her shit before other people got dragged into it.”

Maude hesitated, looking torn. It might have been one of thoseI am about to lie to youmicroexpressions. Then again, it could also meanI am about to confess something meaningful. People were tricky like that.

“Walter and I have been very honest with each other.”

Hildy’s claim to the moral high ground was shaky on that front, so she accepted this with a curt nod. She’d delivered her coded warning, for reasons she didn’t fully understand. And now she had a job to do, regardless of other people’s messy lives.

“Let’s talk more about plants,” Hildy said, opening her voice recording app.

13Walter

TWO YEARS AGO

NEW YORK—Aside from the Venus flytrap, which he knew mostly from time-lapse nature videos, Walter had never felt menaced by greenery. That changed when he walked into the “Beyond Bouquets: (Un)Natural Art” expo at the Javits Center.