The Hotel Riviera Read Free

besides a clean linen handkerchief and her money, also contained her knitting. Now, I’m not sure if the Queen of England knits, but Miss Nightingale, with her determinedly gray hair set in stiff waves and curls, and her piercing blue eyes behind large pale spectacles, was a dead ringer for Her Majesty.
    She was usually first down for dinner, showing up about this time for a glass of pastis, a little self-indulgence to which I knew she looked forward. She’d mix the anise liqueur with water in a tall glass then sip it slowly, making it last until dinner, which I also knew was the social highlight of her day.
    I sat with her while she told me about her outing to the Villa Ephrussi, the old Rothschild house with its spectacular gardens up the coast near Cap-Ferrat. She always liked to tell me about the gardens she had discovered; she was a keen gardener herself and her own roses had won many local prizes. In fact, she was often to be found pottering about the gardens here, straw sunhat slammed firmly over her eyes, pulling up a naughty weed or two, or snipping back a recalcitrant branch of honeysuckle that threatened to overwhelm the already out-of-hand bougainvillea.
    Settled at her usual table, the one at the end of the terrace nearest the kitchen, glass of pastis to hand, she gazed at the spectacular view and heaved a satisfied sigh.
    It was that special time in the evening on the Côte d’Azur, when the sky seems to meld with the sea and all the world turns a shimmering silver-plated midnight-blue. In the sudden breathless silence that always comes when day turns into night, the chatter of high-pitched French voices floated from the kitchen, and a tiny lizard swished by, pausing to stare at us with jeweled yellow eyes.
    â€œDivine,” Miss Nightingale murmured. “How you must love it here, my dear. How could you ever bear to leave it?”
    Without realizing it Miss Nightingale had struck right at the heart of my dilemma.
    I do love it here. The trouble is I do not love my husband. All I feel for him right this minute is anger, because I believe that when Patrick left that morning he knew he was not coming back. He simply left me without a word, left me not knowing where he was, what had happened to him, or even if he were safe. If he’d run off with another woman, or decided just to wander the world the way he used to, at least he should have told me. And if he was in some kind of trouble, then he should have shared that with me too, and not just left me alone like this. Not knowing.
    â€œThe Hotel Riviera is my home,” I said to Miss Nightingale. “It’s my own little piece of paradise. I’ll still be here when I’m an old, old lady, still looking after my guests, still cooking, still drinking rosé wine and not believing how blue the late evening sky can be just before night falls. Oh no, Miss Nightingale, I’ll never leave here, even if Patrick never…”
    â€œIf Patrick never comes back.” She eyed me sympathetically from behind her large glasses. “My dear, do you think he’s run off with another woman?”
    I’d thought of that possibility so many times, lying in bed, tossing and turning, and I’d decided it was the only answer.
    â€œMiss Nightingale,” I said, genuinely lost, “what do I do now?”
    â€œThere’s only one path for you to take, Lola, and that’s to move on with your life.”
    â€œBut how can I? Until I find out the truth?”
    She patted my hand, gently, the way she might an upset schoolgirl. I almost expected her to say, “There, there…,” but instead she said, “The answer to that, my dear, is you must find Patrick.”
    I wanted to ask her how, where do I start? But my other guests were showing up for predinner drinks and a chat with the patronne , so I pulled myself together, dropped a kiss on her powder-scented cheek, and with a whispered “thanks for being so