Love Is Lovelier

ANNE MARCHAND POISED at the edge of the pool in the rose-tinted pearl of the moments before dawn. Artfully-placed lighting cast dancing shadows as a breeze ruffled the fronds of ancient palms in massive bronze planters. Banana tree leaves swished and chattered together like ghosts of ladies long past. Anne clutched the lapels of the ruby cashmere robe her girls had given her for Christmas and shivered. New Orleans was balmy in February compared with other parts of the country--but forty degrees with any wind blowing, however blocked by the gracious bulwark of her hotel, was still forty degrees. Cold for her Creole blood. She thought longingly of her comfortable bed upstairs, the Porthault linens possibly still warm beneath the cream silk duvet from her body's heat. Bit by bit, she was moving her life back to the hotel from the stiff grandeur of her mother's Garden District mansion, against the wishes of her four very overprotective daughters. This fitness regimen is part of how you prove to them that you are no longer an invalid,she lectured herself. Drop the robe and get in. They will never stop hovering if you don't keep demonstrating your restored health. She loved to swim. Was determined to keep her body as toned as sixty-two years on this earth would allow. She had never intended to outlive her beloved Remy by so many years as lay ahead. Had wished, in a part of herself, to follow him after the accident, but for the sake of her already-grieving children. And for the legacy he and she had put their hearts and souls into, second only to those daughters: Hotel Marchand. Their fifth child was in grave danger, and Anne would not let her go down without a fight. Anne herself was a survivor. The mild heart attack had been a wake-up call, alerting her to many surprises. One, that working long hours was not a substitute for proper exercise, however much those hours had kept her going after losing the love of her life. Another was that her children could be good partners. She would never cease to be grateful that her daughters Renee, Sylvie and Melanie had been able to help her eldest, Charlotte, the hotel's general manager, when their mother was laid low. Anne had a new and tantalizing vision of how the next years might be spent, but it would have to wait until the hotel was safe. When that was accomplished--and she could only pray that it would be--she would make time for girlhood wishes she'd put aside. She would, as the old saw went, stop and smell the roses. But for now she had had all the leisure she could stand regardless that her daughters would like to see her safely tucked in bed or, at most, reading quietly in the corner. So.First, off with the robe. Don't think about how cold that water will be. She and Remy had built this hotel on the strength of hard work and limitless discipline in all those years when they'd had a dream some people--her mother, especially--had considered a laughingstock. Celeste Robichaux had had a very different future in mind for her daughter. A suitable marriage, preferably to her dearest friend's son, William Armstrong. Anne assuming her position as a society matron, living her days much as Celeste had, a constant round of teas and bridge andnoblesse oblige. But the girl Anne had had visions of the Left Bank, an artist's existence in bohemian Paris, where she would create works of stunning brilliance. Neither had gotten her wish. Not from the day that Remy Marchand looked up from a complicated dish he was creating and laid eyes on the intern involved in updating the hotel restaurant where he reigned as chef. In that moment, two lives changed course.Anne smiled to think of her first sight of the tall man with wavy hair the color of bourbon. Four years after she'd lost him to a drunk driver, smiles far outweighed her tears, though each of them was still smudged by the umbra ofBrashear, Jean is the author of 'Love Is Lovelier', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373389445 and ISBN 0373389442.