Prologue

I still remember that afternoon. There had been no indication that a simple visit from my daughter Claire and my granddaughter Louise would bring back so many memories.
As my memory was not yet too failing and my body not yet too worn out, I was able, for a moment, to immerse myself in those memories and relive that ‘first time’.
For nothing would have suggested that I, Charlotte Crussol-Cranfield, heiress to the Earl of Middlesex, might leave my grey London life behind for the bountiful sunshine of the South of France, and, more specifically, the hills of the Uzège.
To embrace its gentle valleys dotted with vineyards and olive groves, where every bend in the road offers a viewpoint over the winding gorges of the Gardon, where every summer is lulled by the song of the cicadas, where every breath is an ode to love and life, so imbued is the air with vitality and freedom. This natural world, so far removed from the social whirl of my beloved London, has taught me to come to terms with the natural cycle of time, freeing me from aristocratic constraints and granting me a freedom of body and mind that I would have struggled to find in my beloved city, so enamoured of its conservative peers. And although I have swapped The Old Smoke and my countess’s attire for the mist and morning dew of the Duchy of Uzès, it remains an integral part of who I am. It fuelled my first wild thoughts, soothed my earliest stirrings of emotion and doubts, strengthened my desire for greater freedom, and provided the arguments I needed to cast off the enslaving chains of my patriarchal heritage.
It was that summer that I began to define myself, to accept who I am whilst rejecting what others wanted me to be. That moment suspended in time, when my life took a turn, caught unawares by fate, bringing the man who was to become my late beloved into my life. For every time I wake up, I am reminded a little more that I was born that very afternoon. That day, when a simple opening in a wall – such an insignificant gesture – would open a window onto love, life, independence, and the freedom to be who I wanted to be.
But please, do take the time to sit down, to lean back, to rest against the window, to grab your favourite cushion or even to lie down, and let me tell you how that day marked the beginning of my life, the starting point for the woman I am today.