The Violet Farm – Part 2: Candied Petals

She came back the next weekend, and the one after. By April the rows were at full bloom, and she arrived each Friday at dawn to cut with Mathieu until her hands were purple. In the evenings she took over his kitchen with sugar, egg white and tiny paintbrushes, painting each violet petal with care and dusting it with sugar.

"You are good at this," said Mathieu from the doorway.

"I'm patient. It's the only thing I'm good at."

"I doubt that."

"Taste." She held out a candied violet on the tip of her finger. He bent, took it gently between his lips, and closed his eyes.

"It tastes of the hill," he said.

"That's the idea."

He opened his eyes. They were very close. "Claire. I would like to kiss you. If it would be welcome."

"It would be very welcome."

His kiss tasted of violet and sugar. His hand came up slowly to her cheek, calloused, careful. She slid her arms around his neck and the kitchen, the sugar, the cooling syrup all melted into the background. They stood for a long time in the warm yellow light, kissing and laughing.

"I live over the barn," he said at last. "There is a very small bed."

"Show me."

The little room over the barn smelled of hay and pressed flowers. Violets dried in bundles from the beams. A quilt in faded blue covered the narrow bed. They undressed slowly, laughing at flour-dusted sleeves and tangled scarves, and the evening passed to the tune of a rain shower on the roof. His touch was gentle. Hers was warm and certain. Neither of them was in any rush, and the bed turned out to be exactly large enough.

In May the restaurant opened with a new dessert: violet cream, candied petals, a single sugar-dusted flower on the plate. The menu note read: Grown by Mathieu, on a hill near Toulouse.

Claire drove out the same night to tell him it had sold out.

More romantic stories: Salt and Sugar · The Chess Club · The Glassblower's Daughter