“ ‘A Marcia de Muneghu,’ ” Remi said.
“What?”
“The doorbell chime—it’s ‘A Marcia de Muneghu.’ The March of Monaco. It’s the national anthem here.”
Sam smiled. “Read some guidebooks on the plane, did we?”
“When in Rome . . .”
The door opened, revealing a rail-thin middle-aged man in matching navy blue slacks and polo shirt. “Mr. and Mrs. Fargo, yes?” His accent was British. He didn’t wait for a reply, but merely stepped aside and tipped his chin.
They stepped into the foyer, which was simply but tastefully done: light gray Egyptian slate on the floor and a soft Mediterranean blue plaster on the walls. A silver-framed mirror sat above a nineteenth-century English Sheraton painted demi-lune console table.
“My name is Langdon,” the man said, shutting the door. “The mistress is on the veranda. This way, please.”
They followed him down the hall, past the formal rooms to the private half of the house, then out a pair of French doors onto a mul titiered deck made from polished burled walnut.
“You’ll find her there,” Langdon said, gesturing up a set of stairs that wound along the villa’s outer wall. “If you’ll excuse me . . .” Langdon turned and disappeared back through the French doors.
“My God, look at that view,” Remi said, walking to the railing. Sam joined her. Below an embankment of rock outcrops, palm trees, and flowering tropical shrubs lay the breadth of the Mediterranean, a carpet of indigo stretching beneath a cloudless sky.
A female voice called, “It’s a sight I never tire of either.”
They turned. A woman in a plain white sundress and sunflower yellow broad-brimmed hat stood at the top of the steps. This was, they assumed, Yvette Fournier-Desmarais, but neither Sam nor Remi would have guessed her to be older than forty. Beneath the hat her face was tanned, but not baked, with barely perceptible laugh lines around a pair of hazel eyes.
“Sam and Remi, yes?” she asked, walking down the stairs, hand outstretched. “I’m Yvette. Thank you for coming.” Her English was excellent, with the slightest trace of a French accent.
They shook her hand in turn, then followed her up the stairs and around the back to an open-air sunroom draped in gauze curtains and appointed in teak chairs and chaise lounges. A large, sleek brown and black dog sitting in the shade beside one of the chairs started to rise upon seeing Sam and Remi, but sat back down again at his mistress’s soft, “Sit, Henri.” Once they were all settled, she said, “I’m not what you expected, am I?”
Sam replied, “To be honest, no, Mrs.—”
“Yvette.”
“Yvette. To be honest, no, you’re not at all.”
She laughed, her white teeth flashing in the sun. “And you, Remi, you were expecting someone more matronly perhaps, a French bejeweled snob with a poodle under one arm and a champagne flute in the other?”
“I’m sorry, but yes, I was.”
“Oh, goodness, don’t apologize. The woman I just described is more the rule than the exception here. The truth is, I was born in Chicago. Went to grade school there for a few years before my parents moved us back to Nice. They were simple people, my mother and father—quite wealthy, but with simple tastes. Without them, I might have ended up the stereotype you were expecting.”
Langdon appeared up the stairs and placed a tray containing a carafe of iced tea and frosted glasses on the table between them. “Thank you, Langdon.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned to go.
“Have fun tonight, Langdon. And good luck.”
“Yes, ma’am, thank you.”
Once he was out of earshot, Yvette leaned forward and whispered, “Langdon’s been dating a widow for a year now. He’s going to ask her to marry him. Langdon is one of the best Formula One drivers in Monaco, you know.”
“Really,” Sam replied.
“Oh, yes. Very famous.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why is he . . .”
“Working for me?” Sam nodded, and she said, “We’ve been together for thirty years, since I started dating my late husband. I pay him well and we like each other. He’s not quite a butler, really, but more of a . . . what is the word . . . in American football he would be called a—”