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hurt her for all the world. But you really don’t want to get mixed up with a runaway; if anything happens to her, your entire family will blame us.”
    “But we need a good assistant. Someone special, not just a secretary. Doesn’t it seem as if fate has already taken a hand?” I argued enthusiastically. “Like there’s a reason she appeared on our doorstep at this point in our lives.”
    “Maybe so,” Jeremy said affectionately, “but all I’m saying is, tread carefully.”
    I had been rummaging through a drawer where I kept all my maps. “Look, the odds are that Honorine’s mother won’t let her stay with us in London anyway,” I said. “Let’s see where we’re going this weekend. Hmmm . . . Mougins . . . must be away from the coast, so that would be the opposite direction from Great-Aunt Penelope’s villa in Antibes. . . .” It was our villa now, but we still referred to it as Great-Aunt Penelope’s. “There it is. Mougins is an old town up in the hillside. Not terribly far from Cannes, as the crow flies . . .”
    Jeremy groaned. “Somehow, the minute that kid showed up,” he said, “I knew, in my heart of hearts, that our goose was already cooked.”
    “Don’t be silly,” I replied. “It’s only a weekend in the country. Good food, nice company. What’s not to like?”

Part Two

Chapter Five
    S o Jeremy, Honorine and I went winging our way to visit what I had begun to think of as ma famille française . I was pretty excited. Deep down, I’d secretly hoped that I harbored the potential to be a devastating French female . . . I merely needed a little exposure to that side of my lineage. Perhaps I could learn by some sort of osmosis. Take Honorine, for instance. She just had that natural sleek, radiant quality that is somehow the heritage of French girls, mysteriously acquired amid all those school days of wearing navy blue cardigans and white Peter Pan blouses and good wool pleated skirts and serious shoes, and being fed pain au chocolat after school without guilt. Yep. A weekend in a little French country house would be a great crash course for me.
    When we landed at the airport in Nice, I immediately felt the soft sunlight streaming in the windows, indicating that the Riviera had already gotten a head start on the warm weather. Since we were in town just for the weekend, we’d rented a car at the airport.
    “We could stop by the villa to check it out,” Jeremy said, tempted by the relaxed atmosphere.
    “Detour to Antibes now?” I said, glancing at my watch. “That would make us quite late. Besides, Celeste would be highly insulted if we showed up without warning. She’d think we didn’t trust her to look after the place.” Celeste had worked for Great-Aunt Penelope, and was now our housekeeper. She had a naturally proprietary air, and she liked things to be properly scheduled, comme il faut .
    “How do you know she’s not down in the wine cellar, drinking up the sherry?” Jeremy teased.
    “You don’t have sherry,” I retorted, thinking of his recently stocked collection. “You have port.”
    From the back seat of the car, Honorine was watching us in amusement. Jeremy steered the car out of the airport labyrinth, and we were climbing up to the Moyenne Corniche road, which wove its breathtaking way along the cliffs above the splendid coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. We were immediately enveloped by the cheerful Matisse colors of blue-white-and-yellow for sky, clouds and sun, brilliant in the Côte d’Azur’s inimitable combination of brightness and softness. The air was redolent of flowers, fruit and that salty sea, that sparkled and shimmered as if the fish were dancing just beneath its surface. Every harbor we passed was dotted with fishing boats and yachts. I inhaled contentedly, leaning my head back, letting the Riviera once again soothe me and smooth me. But, since I wasn’t exactly born into this lifestyle, I didn’t dare close my eyes, for I still can’t quite