Читать книгу Celebration - Rosie Thomas - Страница 5

‘Hello, gorgeous.’ The voice had an unmistakable Aussie twang. ‘All dressed up and somewhere to go? Not with me, as per usual.’

Without looking round, Bell knew that it was Max Morgan, wine correspondent of one of the local radio stations. She always felt that he only refrained from pinching her bottom because she was big enough to pinch him back. Still, she turned and smiled at him. His aggressiveness was redeemed by his raffish cowboy good looks, and she liked him well enough to ignore the challenge he invariably dangled at her. It was just a little harder to take than usual at five to ten on a Monday morning.

‘Hello, Max. Thank you for noticing the extra polish on my turnout this morning. As a matter of fact I am winging my way direct from here to Château Reynard itself.’

Max rolled his eyes and pursed his lips in a silent whistle of mock amazement.

‘Comment? Ze baron opens sa coeur to ze jolie Eenglish scribblaire?’ The parody French accent overlying the rich Australian vowels made Bell dissolve into laughter.

‘Something like that. It should be interesting.’

‘Too right. See if you can sweet talk him into getting out a bottle of the ’61. Haven’t tasted it myself, but I hear …’ He bunched his fingertips and kissed them extravagantly.

‘Mmmm. Shall we get on?’

They were standing at one end of a long, narrow room in the rear of Wigmore & Welch’s St James’s Street shop. The summer light was bright, and reflected off the white cloths spread over two long trestle tables down either side of the room. Along the length of the table, open bottles and rows of glasses were lined up. Down the centre of the room stood four waist-high metal cylinders; spittoons. Wigmore & Welch, wine merchants, were holding a press tasting for the publication of their latest list. Bell picked up a tasting sheet. Each wine was listed with blank spaces next to it for her comments.

‘Forty-seven wines,’ she remarked to Max. ‘Too many for me this morning. I’m just going to look at the clarets.’

‘Attagirl,’ he responded with his Wild West smile. ‘See what they’ve got that beats de Gillesmont.’

She walked the length of the room to where the line of high-shouldered bottles glowed against the white cloth. Wigmore & Welch prided themselves on their clarets, and today they were offering for comment a dozen fine wines from the sixties and seventies. Several of them would still be too young for drinking, but Bell was eager to see how they were developing, quietly sitting in their bottles. Her eyes flicked along the row of labels, then she picked up a bottle and poured an inch of wine into a glass. Quickly she held the glass up against the white cloth background to see the colour, then bent her head over the rim of the glass and sniffed sharply. Only then did she take a mouthful of wine, rolling it gently on her tongue and staring absently into the middle distance as she did so. Finally she twisted round and spat the mouthful into one of the tall metal spittoons.

Frowning with concentration now she scribbled on her tasting sheet ‘Good colour. Still closed in on the nose, but developing. Plenty of fruit and some oak.’ It was a special vocabulary, almost shorthand, but when Bell came back to her notes in a year, or two years, or whenever she tasted that particular wine again, it would be enough to trigger her memory.

Slowly she moved along the line of twelve bottles, tasting and spitting out a mouthful of each, writing quickly on her tasting sheet, talking to no one. Then she went back and tasted from three of the bottles again.

At last she pushed her hair back from her face and folded up her notes. The fine concentration needed was tiring, even after only twelve wines, and all round her people were working their way through forty-odd.

Across the room Max caught her eye and winked. Bell blew him a kiss, spoke briefly and in a low voice to two or three of the other tasters and turned to go. She would have to move quickly to get to Heathrow in time for her plane. At the door she met Simon Wigmore, scion of the family and latest recruit to the company of pinstriped well-bred young men who staffed the shop and the offices. His pink face brightened when he saw her.

‘Bell! Not going already?’

‘Yes, Simon, I’m sorry. I’ve got a plane to catch so I only had time to look at the clarets. The La Lagune is spectacular, isn’t it? Thank you for the tasting – I must dash.’

Simon Wigmore turned round to watch the tall, slim figure taking the steps two at a time. He sighed. Somehow he never seemed to be able to pin Bell Farrer down for long enough to … well, long enough for anything.

Out on the pavement Bell spotted the yellow light of a taxi and waved energetically.

‘Heathrow, please,’ she said and slammed the door behind her.

‘Right you are, duck,’ responded the driver, pleased. Bell stared out at the West End traffic and sighed with relief. At least she was on her way.

Three hours later Bell was ensconced in her window seat aboard the Air France 707, staring out at the curve of the French Atlantic coast as the plane dipped to meet it. At the same moment Baron Charles de Gillesmont sat facing his mother down the length of highly polished walnut dining table. He was peeling a peach, using a tiny mother-of-pearl handled knife to make a little unbroken whorl of golden skin. Hélène de Gillesmont’s mouth tightened with irritation as she watched him.

‘Charles,’ she said sharply, unable to bear the tense silence any longer, ‘you do not even do me the courtesy of listening to what I have to say.’ The baron looked up, laying down the peach and his knife as he did so with a gesture of infinite weariness.

‘I am so sorry that I can’t make you understand. I can’t bear to see you go on hurting yourself, and us, like this. God knows we have talked about it enough. There is no possibility, I tell you, none whatsoever, that Catherine and I can be together again. Too much has happened for us to be able to go back and take up the same old reins. And, as you know perfectly well, she is happy in Paris. And I … I am busy with what I have to do here. I don’t wish to change things, Hélène.’

The baronne clicked her tongue sharply. ‘I can understand that you are still grieved, shocked even, but defeated? My son? If only you would bring Catherine back here, make her stop all this Paris nonsense. You are her husband, after all. Then give her another child, and …’

Charles pushed back his chair with a savage jolt, knocking the table so hard that his glass fell over. A few drops of pale gold wine ran out on to the polished wood.

‘Why can’t you be quiet?’ His voice was barely more than a whisper and his face was dead white. Hélène faltered for a moment and put up a hand to adjust the smooth coil of grey-blonde hair. Her eyes avoided her son’s face until he spoke again, in a normal voice now.

‘Will you excuse me? I have to go and check whether Jacopin has left for the airport.’

‘And why,’ his mother called at his departing back, ‘must we have some foreign girl that none of us know in the house, now, of all times?’

In the doorway Charles looked back, a tired smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

‘Mama, this time is no different from any other. This is what our life is like, now. Nothing is going to change so you had better accustom yourself to it. You still have me, and Juliette, after all.’

This time the click of Hélène’s tongue was even sharper.

‘And a fine pair you are. My beautiful children, the envy of everyone, and what have you grown up into? One stubborn, cold, living like a monk, and the other no better than a hippy.’

But Charles was gone. He walked briskly down a flagged corridor to a heavy oak door. Inside, the little room was a comfortable clutter of papers, dusty bottles with torn labels, maps and rows of books. In the middle of the room, on a square of threadbare carpet, was an elegant little desk that might have been Louis XVI with an ancient black telephone perched on the top. Charles dialled a number and spoke at once.

‘Pierre? Has Jacopin taken the car to meet the young lady?’ Evidently satisfied with the reply he replaced the receiver and briskly took up a pen and a sheaf of account sheets. For a moment or two he stared intently at his work, then shrugged and leaned back in his swivel chair. From his window, at the extreme corner of the front façade of the château, he could see a sweep of manicured lawn and the curve of the gravel drive. Uncomfortable memories tugged at his consciousness as he stared unseeingly out, but he refused to admit them. Not worth starting work now, he told himself. Miss Farrer will be here within the hour, and the rest of the afternoon must be devoted to her.

He picked up a copy of La Revue de France Vinicole, tilted his chair so that he had a clear view of the driveway, and settled down to read.

Bell passed the trio of smiling hostesses at the aircraft door and stood at the top of the steel steps. Somewhere out there, underlying the airport smells of oil and rubber, she could detect the real smell of the country. It was earthy and sensuous, but clean and natural too, made up of damp leaves and rich food and woodsmoke. Even here in the airport chaos there was a feeling of calm, fertile prosperity. It was good to be back.

‘S’il vous plaît, madame,’ murmured a portly French businessman behind her, nudging her slightly with his briefcase. Bell started and hurried down the steps. She was waved through customs and her canvas bag rolled out on to the carousel within minutes. An excellent omen for the visit, she told herself, as she made for the barrier. As soon as she was through into the crowd of waiting faces, a hand touched her arm.

‘Mees Farraire?’ She turned to see, at shoulder height, the wrinkled, nut-brown Bordelais face of a little man in blue overalls and a round blue hat. She smiled down at him, feeling like a giantess.

‘That’s me.’

‘Not too flattering a photograph, if I may say so, but good enough for this purpose.’ His French was heavily accented to Bell’s Paris-educated ear, and she looked down half-bewildered at the magazine he was brandishing. It was a piece she had contributed to Decanter, decorated with a large snapshot of herself smiling rather toothily into the camera. It amused her to see it in such incongruous surroundings.

‘Where on earth did you get that?’

‘Oh, monsieur thinks of everything. You’ll see. This way to the car, madame. My name is Jacopin, by the way. Welcome to Bordeaux.’

Baron Charles’s car was a capacious brand-new grey Mercedes, veiled with a thick layer of whitish dust. Jacopin tossed her case into the boot and she sank into the passenger seat with a sigh of pleasure. The car swept along with the tiny man craning disconcertingly to see over the top of the long bonnet. Bell glimpsed the ugly, modern outskirts of the old grey town and then they were purring north-westwards into the fabulous country of the Haut-Médoc.

Under her breath, like a litany, Bell found that she was repeating the sonorous Château names as they passed. From here, from vines growing in this flat, undistinguished countryside, came the most famous, elegant wines in the world. To the right and left of the road stretched the green sea of vines, all carrying their precious bunches of grapes peacefully ripening in the August sun. Occasionally she glimpsed the bulk of a Château behind its wrought-iron gates, or screened by a protective belt of trees. Sometimes the flat gleam of the River Gironde appeared to their right, reflecting the hard blue of the summer sky. It was a peaceful, unspectacular, almost deserted landscape at this time of year, turning inwards to soak up the sun before the feverish bustle of the vintage when the grapes would be picked.

Jacopin shot a glance at Bell.

‘You know our country well?’ he asked, conversationally. Bell wrenched her attention from the clustering châteaux around the town of Margaux to answer him.

‘Not well. I’ve been a visitor three or four times, but always in a party of other journalists. This is my first visit to Château Reynard, and my first chance to spend a little time looking closely at the workings of a single château. I’m looking forward to it enormously,’ she added, truthfully. Jacopin nodded sagely.

‘Of course,’ he murmured, as if he could imagine no better place for her to be.

They drove on. Past the villages of St Julien (‘Ducru-Beaucaillou, Léoville-Barton, Léoville-Poyferré …’ murmured Bell), the landscape began to swell a little, rising to rolling mounds that were the closest that this open countryside came to hills. At last they were driving through the commune of Pauillac towards the little hill where Château Reynard dominated the surrounding acres of vines. Bell, still counting off the names, knew that they were almost there. She craned forward to catch her first glimpse of the buildings, and was rewarded by a flash of sun reflected from the rows of windows. The wrought-iron gates were open and the car shot straight through into the driveway, slowed between the expanse of lawn, and drew up at the château steps.

Bell opened her door, slowly, and tilted her head to look up at Château Reynard. It was classic late-eighteenth-century perfection, from the steeply-pitched slate roof pierced with the discreet row of dormer windows, down through the two rows of tall windows framed in their wooden shutters, to the double flight of stone-balustraded steps running up to the heavy double front doors. Two wings at either side, each with its own narrow-pitched roof, framed the symmetry of the main façade. Bell had seen it in pictures many times, but she was unprepared for its exact simplicity, and its air of authority.

As she stood with Jacopin waiting patiently at her side, her bag in his hand, one half of the massive double doors swung open.

Bell saw a tall man, dressed in a formal, dark suit. For a second or two he stood staring expressionlessly down at her from the height of the terrace. Then he walked slowly down the right-hand flight of steps and came towards her. Bell’s heart sank.

The baron looked even more formidable than she had expected. He was younger than she had imagined, only in his mid to late thirties. He had an aristocratic face with a high-bridged nose, the face of a man who was used to deference. His sun-bleached fair hair was brushed smooth to his head and his eyes were slightly hooded.

The complete autocrat, thought Bell.

There was only the ghost of a smile around his mouth, and none at all in his eyes. He held out his hand and she shook it firmly, putting all the warmth she could muster into her smile.

She wouldn’t be here, after all, if he hadn’t invited her.

‘Welcome to Château Reynard, Miss Farrer,’ he said. ‘I am Charles de Gillesmont.’ Yes. I don’t think I would have mistaken you for the butler.

‘Will you come this way? Jacopin, I will take the luggage in for Miss Farrer. I am sure that you have other things to do. Jacopin is our maître de chais,’ he told Bell. She looked back at the little man with new respect. As cellar-master, his responsibility for what appeared in the bottles labelled Château Reynard would be almost as great as the baron’s. Jacopin winked at her and settled himself back into the big car. Regretfully Bell watched the car disappear round the corner of the house in a spurt of gravel.

Then, feeling just as if she was tiptoeing into the lion’s den, she followed Charles de Gillesmont into his château.

When they stood side by side in the stone-flagged hallway, Bell saw that he was much taller than her. His eyes were very dark blue with darker rims to the irises, almost navy in the dim light.

Before he spoke again she noticed that his mouth was full, the top lip deeply curved.

‘Marianne will take you up to your room,’ he said. A thin dark girl in a maid’s uniform came out of the shadows towards them. ‘I am sure you will need an hour’s peace and quiet after your journey. Do come down when you are ready.’ He nodded, formally, and strode away.

Bell obediently followed Marianne. A huge stone staircase edged with intricately wrought iron curved upwards, and as Bell’s eyes followed it she caught the gleam of a gilt and crystal chandelier hanging over the stairwell.

‘This way, madame,’ the girl prompted and turned to the right at the top of the stairs. The wide corridor was lit at either end by tall, narrow windows. Heavy oak chests stood at intervals with high-backed chairs in dark, carved wood between them. It was very sombre and completely silent except for the sound of their footsteps on the thin matting.

‘Here we are,’ said Marianne, opening a door at the end of the corridor. The big room was in one of the narrow wings at the side of the house and it had windows in three walls. It was very sunny, clean and bare. Marianne pushed open another door and gestured inside.

‘Your bathroom, madame. Is there anything else you need?’

‘No, this is perfect, thank you.’

As soon as she was alone, Bell crossed to the end of the room and stood looking out of the middle window. From the first floor, and with the height of the little hill beneath her, the view was commanding. She could see the river, with the town of Pauillac and the huge oil refinery on the near bank. In the distance the scene was built up, almost industrial, but in the foreground were rolling masses of vineyards, bisected by tracks and the white, dusty road.

The right-hand window looked across the golden stone face of the Château to the identical opposite wing. A slight woman in a navy blue pleated dress with a bow at the neck strolled across the lawn from the front steps. A fat dachshund waddled at her heels.

‘Now that,’ thought Bell, ‘must be the baroness dowager. I wonder where the young baroness is?’ Still musing, she turned to the left-hand window and immediately forgot the mysteries of Charles’s family. Below her were the working buildings of the Château, the long, low chais with tiled roofs and limewashed walls grouped around a cobbled yard. Blue-overalled men were crossing the yard and Bell could see Jacopin standing in the open doorway of a barn, deep in conversation with a fat woman in a white apron. The sight reminded her that she was there to explore a living vineyard and make a story out of it, and she felt an immediate surge of energy.

Abandoning the view she made a quick survey of the room. It was almost bare except for a high brass bed with a well laundered plain white cotton coverlet and the traditional long, hard French bolster. There was a pretty chest of drawers, a tall mirror in a gilt frame, the glass flecked with dim spots, a pair of spoon-backed armchairs upholstered in pale blue moiré silk, and a tiny pale blue rug with a faded pattern of rosebuds beside the bed. The rest of the floor was bare, highly polished, dark boards.

‘The baron is evidently not investing his profits in domestic comforts,’ Bell murmured to herself, but a glance into the bathroom surprised her again. It was the last word in luxury, with a deep bath and a separate shower, a thick carpet and a cane armchair piled with fluffy white towels. A long white robe hung from a hook and a case of heated rollers stood on a glass shelf next to an enticing row of crystal jars. The gentle smell of expensive French soap filled the room.

The contrast between the stark bedroom and the sybaritic bathroom pleased and intrigued Bell, and she found herself wondering if Charles was responsible for it.

Oh God, Baron Charles. She must think about getting down to work, however much the chilly Frenchman disconcerted her. She went into the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water, combed her hair and then went to unpack her tape recorder.

Here goes.

Charles was sitting in an armchair in the dim hall, reading. He stood up as she wound down the grand staircase and watched her impassively. There was still no smile, but Bell thought that the lines of his face looked less taut.

‘If it suits you, Miss Farrer, I thought we might have a talk now about the Château and the way we run it. Then perhaps you would like to spend tomorrow seeing it all from the practical point of view.’ Bell nodded, and as she moved her head she thought she saw Charles looking coolly at the curve of her cheek. Then their eyes met, and there was a second’s silence.

‘That sounds fine,’ she said quietly. ‘And won’t you call me Bell?’ They were speaking French, as they had done ever since she arrived, and the crisp English monosyllable sounded suddenly incongruous.

‘Bell?’ The blue eyes met hers again, and she suddenly heard her own voice and knew that she was talking too quickly.

‘I was christened Annabel but somehow it doesn’t suit …’

‘No,’ he said. She noticed with astonishment that his eyes were crinkled with amusement. He went on in English. ‘Bell it shall be. I am just plain Charles.’ The way he pronounced it, with the soft ch and the rolling r, it sounded anything but plain to Bell. She laughed back at him and held out her hand. He shook it gravely, then seemed to remember something and withdrew his hand.

‘Won’t you come this way? In my study we won’t be disturbed.’ He led the way to the little, untidy room and closed the oak door firmly behind them.

It wasn’t exactly an easy interview.

Charles de Gillesmont answered her questions about grape varieties, hectares and mechanization punctiliously. He could quote the recent figures fluently and he was careful to explain to her the particular problems and advantages he faced at Reynard.

It was all information that she could have found herself in the reference books. Most of it was in her notes already.

He definitely did not want to talk about the glamorous aspect of being a French baron and owning one of the most famous wines in the world.

Bell had a sudden mental picture of Henry Stobbs swivelling round in his editorial armchair to give her one of his famous beady stares. He would tap her neatly-typed copy and say, ‘Dull. Bloody dull. We didn’t send you out there to get five pages of figures, sweetheart. Where’s the story? Where’s the juice?’ Henry believed that his readers were ‘people people’.

Bell gritted her teeth. Somehow she would have to break through this man’s polished reserve and winkle out what Henry called the human interest angle. She leaned forward slightly to adjust the position of the mike on the table between them, and gave the baron a disarming smile.

‘There have been de Gillesmonts at Château Reynard for centuries, I know …’

‘Four hundred years.’

‘Thank you, yes. What about the continuing tradition? Do you and your wife want your children to carry on as you are doing?’

She was certain that he was married, she had checked on that, but the blue eyes snapped at her, icy cold and offended.

‘Forgive me, I thought you were a wine writer? That is what your editor told me when he wrote to ask if you could come here.’

‘My editor wrote?’ Light was dawning. She hadn’t been given her exclusive invitation to Reynard because Charles had seen and admired her work. Silly of her to imagine that she had. It was just one of Henry’s schemes.

‘Of course. I would normally have refused but he happened to enclose some of your cuttings. I was impressed by your unusually sensible approach to the subject.’ Well, that was something. ‘Which is why I am surprised to hear you asking questions like a gossip columnist. How many of your readers could possibly be interested in my wife? And children?’

Bell went scarlet. She was stung by his tone into a quick retort.

‘Of course I’m a wine writer. I’m a good one because I know what people want to read. In this case, that means you, not just the wine. I have to do my job as well as I can, otherwise I’ll find myself without it. And what you’ve given me there,’ she pointed at the cassette in the recorder, ‘doesn’t exactly sizzle.’ She looked up at him, ready to go on defending herself, but she was amazed to see that he was laughing.

It transformed his face, rubbing out the severe lines and making him look almost boyish.

He’s got a very sensuous mouth, Bell thought irrelevantly, feeling a tiny constriction in her throat.

‘Must it sizzle?’ Charles was asking her.

‘Yes,’ she said, defiantly.

He bent forward to the low table and pressed the ‘off’ button on the machine.

‘You care about it, this job, don’t you?’ He was looking at her differently. As if she was a person and not a prying journalist.

‘Yes,’ she answered, and then, to her surprise, ‘it’s all I’ve got to care about, now.’

Why on earth had she said that, to a frosty, upper-class stranger? Something about him had caught her unawares. His stare was serious now, with a distinct edge of sympathy. He glanced at the recorder as if to make sure that it was really switched off, then said softly, ‘We have that in common, then.’

He stood up and rummaged in a cupboard, then produced a pair of champagne flutes. As he put them on the table he added, ‘My wife and I are separated.’ It would have sounded like a casual afterthought if Bell hadn’t seen the pain and bitterness in his face. The disdainful self-assurance had gone. For that brief instant, he was just an unhappy man. ‘Excuse me.’ He walked out of the room, but Bell barely had time to gather her thoughts after the bewildering change in his manner before he was back, carrying a bottle. It was Krug, connoisseur’s champagne, 1964.

He opened the bottle deftly and let the wine foam into the thin glasses. He handed one to Bell and then raised his own.

‘To you, Bell. And to the success of your assignment.’

They drank, and for the moment Bell forgot everything but the reviving fizz of the wonderful wine in her mouth. When she looked back at him Charles was watching her with clear approval in his face.

‘Thank you,’ she said, meaning for his good wishes as well as the champagne. He made a tiny, mock-formal bow and leant back against the mantelpiece. The room was very quiet, and warm with the early evening sunlight.

‘Yes,’ Charles said almost to himself. ‘My wife and I are separated. Divorce is not a possibility, so …’

Bell frowned and then remembered. Of course, the aristocratic de Gillesmonts would be devout Catholics.

‘… you see, I can’t predict for you or for your readers what will happen here in the future. That will depend on who takes over after I am gone. Whoever it is, it will not now be a child of mine.’ Charles had gone very pale, and his voice was so low that Bell had to strain to catch the words. She didn’t know what to say, and after a moment he collected himself and went on.

‘All I can tell you is that so long as I am breathing, it will stay exactly as it always has been. In that, at least, there is some permanence. Not very fashionable, I know, when everyone else is rushing headlong to get rid of the old ways. You are welcome to write that about me, if you think anyone would be interested. More champagne?’ A little of the suave gloss was beginning to creep back. Bell held out her glass as she answered.

‘I’m sorry, I had no intention of prying. Put it down to vulgar journalistic curiosity.’

He was watching her speculatively. ‘I don’t think, somehow, that vulgarity is one of your faults. I was watching your face when we had our disagreement a moment ago. It upset you. That sort of sensitivity can’t be a very helpful trait, for a journalist.’

‘This is all wrong.’ Bell tried to laugh, casually. ‘I’m supposed to be interviewing you.’

‘Well, perhaps it would be more amusing to turn the tables. I could try my hand at a profile of you, and risk a few personal questions. Let me see … perhaps you are suffering from a newly broken heart?’

Bell looked into his dark blue eyes with a jolt of surprise. This was ridiculous.

She felt uncomfortable under his stare, but at the same time there was something about him that made her want to go on talking to him. It was as if he was familiar in some way that she couldn’t quite identify.

‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Not a broken heart, exactly. More a sad, wasteful mess that I’m ashamed of. He – somebody else – got more hurt than me. I wish it had been the other way round.’

‘Yes,’ he said drily. ‘One always does. So, what now?’

‘Oh, becoming the greatest wine writer in the world.’

‘Of course. Impossible for me to stand in the way of that. We shall have to cook up something between us that will satisfy your editor.’

Charles glanced down at his watch and frowned.

‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to sit here with you like this all evening.’

That was conventional French politesse, but Bell caught herself hoping that there was a whisper of truth in it.

‘But I think I should take you to meet my mother. She will be waiting for us. She always sits in the salon before dinner.’

Charles drained his champagne glass and picked up the half-empty bottle. Bell stood up too, and then glanced down at her bare, suntanned legs.

‘Perhaps I should change?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. There will be just the three of us. My sister Juliette is away until tomorrow.’

He was holding the door open, looking a little impatient. Bell followed him obediently.

Across the hallway a pair of panelled doors opened into a long, graceful drawing-room.

It struck Bell as exquisitely French and at the same time very feminine. The spindly chairs and chaises longues were gilt and upholstered in faded, rose-coloured silks. Panelled walls were painted the palest duck-egg blue and hung with gilt-framed landscapes and clusters of miniatures.

Charles’s mother was sitting to one side of a creamy marble fireplace, leaning over an embroidery frame. As they came in her eyes went straight to the champagne bottle in Charles’s hand.

‘Charles,’ she said in a high, clear patrician voice, ‘couldn’t you have found a tray and a napkin?’ Bell thought that he stiffened as he set the bottle carefully down on an inlaid table.

‘Mama,’ he said, ‘this is Bell Farrer. Bell, my mother – Hélène de Gillesmont.’ Mother and son were very alike, except that the baroness’s face was more deeply etched with lines of pride and hauteur.

Her cold eyes travelled over Bell’s plain blue linen shirt and very slightly creased skirt, and the pale eyebrows arched upwards a fraction. Bell’s hostess was wearing a pale grey silk dinner dress with couture written all over it and a triple rope of pearls.

She held out a reluctant hand. There was a huge emerald in the ring on her third finger.

‘How do you do, Miss er … Won’t you sit down, and my son will pour you another drink?’ She spoke English, perfectly, sounding like the Queen.

Bell perched on the nearest fragile little chair and sighed inwardly. Black mark to the grubby English journalist. She guessed that she was going to have to work very hard indeed to keep her end up this evening. Perhaps it would help if she showed off her own almost equally perfect French.

‘What a beautiful room this is. It feels so restful.’

Back came the reply, still in English.

‘Yes. My daughter-in-law and I planned it together.’ It was a deliberate snub, and Bell felt a flash of irritation. She looked at Charles but his face was turned away from both of them as he stared out of the window.

It was going to be a difficult evening.

It felt to Bell like about five hours later when they filed back into Hélène’s salon for coffee.

The meal had inched past punctuated with long frozen silences. The food had been simple and perfect – spinach soufflé, chicken, fresh fruit – but Bell had eaten her way cheerlessly through it without tasting a mouthful. All she remembered was the fine Château Carbonnieux in her glass. The only time Charles had looked directly at her was when she tasted it, and she had signalled her approval with an infinitesimal nod. Hélène, she was sure, would have condemned it as appallingly vulgar to discuss either the wine or the food. Now they were sitting in the salon again, drinking strong black coffee from tiny gold cups.

Bell wondered a little desperately how soon she could plead tiredness after her flight and escape to bed.

‘Your room is quite comfortable, Miss er?’

‘Bell Farrer,’ said Bell, deliberately stressing the syllables. ‘Yes, thank you, quite comfortable. Is that beautiful bathroom new?’

‘Catherine, my daughter-in-law, designed it.’ Hélène was looking sideways, towards her work-table, and Bell followed her gaze. There was a photograph in a silver art nouveau frame, carefully angled to catch the light from a rose-shaded lamp. Under a smooth cap of dark hair the girl’s face was pale and grave. She was looking down, so that her eyes were hidden by a sweep of dark lashes, but there was a determined point to her chin. Clasped around her long, fragile neck was what looked like a collar of diamonds.

Catherine. Charles’s wife, thought Bell, fascinated. She looked delicate but very beautiful. Bell glanced quickly across at Charles. All evening he had sat unsmilingly at the table between his mother and his guest. He had led the stilted conversation with polished politeness, but he had gone back to being the formal stranger she had met on the steps outside.

The strange moment of intimacy might never have happened.

Now Bell thought that an atmosphere of uneasy tension was creeping into the frigidity of the evening. Charles was sitting tautly in a small armchair, squeezing his little gold cup as if he wanted to crush it into fragments.

Hélène had picked up her petit point and she was stitching with studied calmness. She was still talking in her high, grand voice.

‘We plan to put in new bathrooms throughout the house. It’s surprising how Catherine’s ideas have always coincided with mine.’ She gave a tiny resigned sigh. ‘Unlike Juliette and me. My own daughter is a mystery to me nowadays.’ Bell was still watching Charles, noticing how the tiny blond hairs on his cheekbone glinted in the pinkish light when he clenched his jaw muscles. Moving very slowly, as if he found it an effort to control his movements, he leant forward and put his cup back on the tray.

Bell sensed that something in him was vibrating, ready to snap.

‘As soon as Catherine returns from Paris.’ Hélène’s voice rippled on and Bell listened in puzzlement.

Charles had said that they were separated. Weren’t they, after all?

‘She has been ill. She needed a long rest, and a complete change, but now she is well enough she will be coming home. Then we …’

With a sudden movement, as lithe as a cat, Charles was on his feet. In a split second his dark figure was towering over his mother. Bell saw that his fists were clenched.

‘Mama,’ he hissed, ‘you will stop this pantomime. Now.’ Hélène shrank backwards for an instant and then the lines of her face hardened in defiance.

‘It is your pantomime,’ she breathed back at him. ‘You are a fool, and not only a fool but a destroyer. Of my life, as well as your own.’

Bell longed for the floor to open up and swallow her. They were oblivious of her presence now, but later they would remember that she had been there and they would find it difficult to forgive her for that.

Charles’s face was grey and he seemed to be struggling to breathe.

‘Your life? I don’t care about the pretence and sham that life means to you. You know nothing about human emotion. Love or hate, so long as appearances are preserved.’

Hélène snatched up her embroidery frame and held it against her as if to shield herself.

‘You talk to me of love and hate? You are hardly better than a murderer, and you …’

Bell sank in her chair as she saw the expression in Charles’s eyes. His fist swung up, and then dropped again, leaden, at his side. Hélène’s voice faltered as she saw him.

‘You know I didn’t mean … I just meant that you would have let Catherine die of grief and done nothing … it was left to …’

‘Will you be quiet?’ Charles spat out the words as if they were poison.

Hélène stood up. Her head barely reached his shoulder and she had to tilt her face to look up into his. She looked years older, and racked with bitterness.

‘Why must you humiliate us, in front of … this girl?’ Her hand waved towards Bell. ‘A stranger. I am ashamed of you. Ashamed.’

She turned away and crossed the room without a backward glance, walking slowly as if her body ached. The door shut fast behind her.

Bell swallowed, dry-mouthed, to ease the tension in her throat. She stared down at the pattern in the rug, wishing she was anywhere else in the world. The scene had been so unexpected and so shocking. So pregnant with things that she didn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand. Whatever it was that had happened at Château Reynard, it had shattered the lives of both Hélène and Charles.

Then a tiny movement made her look up at Charles. She saw horror and bewilderment in his face, as if he was staring into a black pit that had opened at his feet.

Bell recognized that expression. And she knew in the same instant why Charles had struck that odd chord of familiarity deep inside her.

Her father. That aloof assurance belied by the loss, the pain showing in his face.

Oh, God.

Without giving herself time to think she went to Charles and put her hands on his arms. This time at least she was old enough to understand, even if she was powerless to help. For a moment the man looked down into her eyes, bewildered. Then, with a low groan, his arms went around her and his head dropped on her shoulder.

Bell had no idea how long they stood there. She felt as if all the blood had drained out of her head and body and she struggled to stay upright, supporting what felt like the entire weight of Charles de Gillesmont.

At last he looked up, shivered a little and let her go.

When he spoke, his voice was thick.

‘I am ashamed too. Bell, I’m sorry that you should have had to sit through that.’ He made a visible effort to pull himself together and Bell saw the ghost of the elegant baron reappearing in front of her.

‘As you see, this isn’t always the happiest of households. It’s one of the reasons why we don’t entertain many of your profession. I’m glad it was you here, tonight.’ He was trying to make his voice light, but he meant what he was saying.

Bell nodded. It had been shocking, but somewhere inside her head she was glad that she had been with him too.

‘I think we need a drink,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of this room.’

In the comfortable clutter of his study he said, quickly as if he wanted to get it over with, ‘You must be wondering what that was about. My mother is not an easy woman, but she has had too many disappointments. She was close to Catherine and she misses her badly.’ He rubbed his hand over his eyes. ‘It was unforgivable of me to have given way like that. Sometimes I …’

Bell shook her head. ‘No. Please, there’s no need.’

She recoiled from the idea of hearing their secrets. She could guess enough, and she had no desire to reawaken the pain she had seen in Charles’s face. It was too close to home.

Charles looked relieved. He sat down in a leather armchair and Bell found herself cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the arm. She had often sat like that with Edward, and she remembered with a sad little smile. He seemed very far away now.

Charles murmured, ‘Talk to me about something else, then. Anything so long as it has nothing to do with Château Reynard. Tell me about Bell Farrer.’

Haltingly at first, then more fluently under the pressure of his gentle questioning, she did. She felt that there was no need for self-protection after what she had witnessed tonight. It should have felt incongruous, sitting there telling her private thoughts to Charles de Gillesmont who she had known a bare few hours.

Yet it didn’t.

Charles sat motionless in his armchair as she talked. His eyes were fixed on her profile, and on the shadow in the hollow of her cheek.

It was very late when Bell stretched and turned to smile at him.

‘That’s all. I know where I am, now. At least, I think I do.’

‘You think you do,’ he agreed, smiling back at her.

They stood up and with his hand on her arm he guided her across the dark hallway to the curving stone stairway.

‘Goodnight,’ said Bell. She wanted to tell him that it was all right, that she would forget what she had heard tonight, but she couldn’t find the words. ‘Thank you for asking me to Château Reynard,’ she said, simply.

The baron made a quick movement in the dimness and for an electric moment Bell thought he was going to kiss her.

No, she thought. Not yet. Then he took her hand. The blond head bent over it and he kissed her knuckles. When he looked up again their eyes met and laughter bubbled between them.

‘If one is going to be a French baron,’ he murmured, ‘one might as well behave like one. You would have been disappointed if I hadn’t kissed your hand.’

‘Bitterly disappointed,’ said Bell.

He let go of her fingers and she turned to climb the shallow stairs. When she reached the top and looked down he was still standing there, watching her.

Bell woke up to a morning that was all brilliant light and dancing shadows. From her three commanding windows she could see that the blue sky was dotted with fast-moving puffs of cloud and a strong breeze was rustling the leaves of the elm trees that fringed the château lawns. The vague feeling of apprehensiveness that had weighed on her when she opened her eyes was dispelled by the beauty of the day. It was impossible to feel anything but lighthearted.

Bell hummed softly as she showered and dressed. Jeans and a T-shirt were the best clothes for touring cellars and vineyards, and she topped them off with a brilliant blue ciré jacket that made her eyes look more blue than green.

Marianne tapped on her door.

‘Monsieur le baron asks if you will join him for breakfast?’

‘Right away,’ said Bell, and ran lightly down the stairs to find him.

In the early sunshine reflecting off the length of the polished table and without Hélène’s chilly presence, the dining-room seemed smaller and more inviting.

Charles was standing between the long windows, a dark figure between the shafts of light, waiting for her.

‘Good morning. You slept well, I hope?’ Calm, polite and self-assured again. Very much the baron in his château, conventionally concerned for his guest’s comfort.

‘Very well, thank you.’

‘Excellent. Marianne, we are ready for our coffee now.’

As soon as she was gone, Charles smiled his rare smile and pulled out a chair for her.

‘Today will be our day for business. If it suits you, I will take you round the chais this morning. Unfortunately I have to do some other business at lunch and for a while this afternoon, so I will leave you in Jacopin’s care.’

‘That will be fine.’

‘Then, this evening, perhaps you would like to meet my sister, Juliette?’

‘Very much.’

Marianne brought in the coffee, and he poured Bell’s himself into a deep porcelain bowl decorated with harebells. As he handed it to her he said, ‘You will see that life at Reynard is not all unhappiness.’

Bell opened her mouth to say she hadn’t imagined it was, but a glance from Charles told her that she should leave the topic closed.

Over their croissants and coffee they talked about the hopes for the vintage. The summer had been long and hot, and all over Bordeaux men were praying now for a few days of gentle rain to swell the grapes before the picking in October. With a little rain and then a few days more sunshine it could be a magnificent year.

Later Charles and Bell walked together towards the chais. The gravel crunched underfoot as they skirted the end gable of the house and followed the sweep of the driveway towards a stone arch. The archway framed a cobbled yard and the barn-like doors beyond like a picture and Bell paused to admire the view.

Jacopin popped up beside them like a rabbit.

‘Bonjour,’ he said, the brown skin wrinkling all over his face.

‘Jacopin,’ Charles told him, ‘Miss Farrer will want to see everything.’

‘Of course,’ the little man responded, beaming at her with pleasure.

Together they walked over to one of the long, low buildings and Bell lost herself at once in the heart of the Château. Hélène’s frigid domain with its gilt chairs and silk cushions, on the other side of the wall, was forgotten. This was the real Reynard, where Charles was the king of these rows of barrels, fermenting vats and massed ranks of bottles.

The tour of the chais with Charles at her side did remind Bell of a royal progress. Blue-overalled men straightened up from their work when they saw him and waited for him to speak. Bell saw that his cool glance missed nothing. It was plain that he ran his cellars with old-fashioned discipline. Charles’s men were hard at work scrubbing out the great fermenting vats ready to receive the new vintage. As soon as the grapes were ripe, some time over the next few weeks, they would be picked and brought by the lorry-load to be crushed in the huge, old-fashioned mechanical crusher. Then they would be allowed to ferment, at carefully controlled temperatures, into wine. All had to be spotlessly clean before the harvest, the focus of the year. Bell noted the clean bare walls and well-swept floors, and the men with their steaming buckets, with approval.

But one thing she saw even more clearly. The primitive machinery was beautifully, lovingly maintained, but it was antiquated. Charles was making no effort to bring in the technological advances that were slowly creeping into the cellars of the greatest Châteaux. For a little while yet, Bell thought, he would be able to hold his own. But, in the end, his refusal to march with the times would tell against him. Already, Bell knew, there were whispers in the trade that Château Reynard would not hold its top position for ever. She remembered quite clearly what he had said last night. Here, at least, there is some permanence. Bell understood, but she knew that he was wrong. If Charles clung for too long to the old, slow ways he would destroy Reynard.

How could anyone tell that to a man like Charles de Gillesmont? Bell glanced at the beaked profile beside her, remembered the arrogant set of his mouth, and shuddered at the thought.

Jacopin was ushering them into the next section. Along the shadowed walls, reaching up to the low arched roof, were rows of stacked-up oak hogsheads. Each one had a loose glass plug in the top and a primitive spigot in the side. They contained last year’s wine, soon to be pumped into barrels to make room for the new vintage.

Jacopin produced a candle, lit it, then stuck it into a little clawed holder on the front of one of the hogsheads. He watched with Bell as Charles bent over the nearest dark wooden shape and ran some of the wine off into a little shallow silver cup. He handed it to her and she held it to the candlelight. The wine was inky-dark with the bright silver barely gleaming through it. Bell sniffed and then took a mouthful on to her tongue, sucking air over it through her clenched teeth. The new wine was cold and bitter, dumb and full of tannin, but somewhere lurking beyond the immediate unpleasantness was the sinewy promise of a great claret.

Bell rolled the wine around her mouth once more to detect the last nuances and then spat it out on to the sawdust covered floor. Charles’s face was in deep shadow but she knew that he was waiting. She gave him a quick, confirming nod but there was admiration in her eyes. Château Reynard was still, just, one of the greatest of the great. Satisfied, Charles led her on down the length of the chais.

At midday they came out into the cobbled yard again, blinking in the light. Charles consigned her formally to Jacopin’s care and strode away. At her side the little man blew out his cheeks in a sigh of relief and winked at her again.

‘Come with me,’ he invited, all smiles.

For lunch she shared a coarse cassoulet with Jacopin and his gang of broken-toothed and Gauloise-redolent workmen. They sat in the richly-smelling kitchen that linked the chais with the main house, hung with shiny copper pans and strings of hams and onions. The château’s chef, Madame Robert, ladled the steamingly fragrant stew out on to thick white plates and put a basket of roughly chopped French bread in front of each person. The conversation, not always intelligible to Bell, eddied round the scrubbed oak table and was punctuated with roars of laughter. Jacopin obligingly repeated some of the politer phrases for her, and she joked back in her educated Parisian French which made them laugh even louder.

As they ate, the men gulped down tumblers full of coarse new wine as if it was water. This was the thin everyday drink made specially each year for the grape pickers and the workmen, and it was as different from the nectar in Charles’s cobwebbed bottles across the yard as lemonade is from vintage champagne.

Bell enjoyed her lunch enormously, particularly when she remembered the stilted formality of dinner the night before with its clink of fine china and the patball of polite conversation. She was just reflecting, as she failed to catch the punchline of a joke that sent everyone else off into gusts of laughter, that she definitely belonged to what Hélène probably called the common herd when Jacopin tugged her sleeve.

His eyes were still streaming with tears of laughter, and his little hat was pushed right to the back of his head.

‘You enjoy yourself with us?’ She smiled her answer. ‘Good, good. Mademoiselle Juliette, too, often comes to have her meal in here. Then you should hear the jokes!’ Bell began to look forward to meeting Charles’s sister. Jacopin lifted up his half-full glass and drained it, then mopped up the last of the juice on his plate with a ragged hunk of bread.

‘Now,’ he went on, ‘are you ready for a long walk? We will look at the vineyards.’

The afternoon, spent walking between the rows of rustling vines and breathing in the clear air, was as enjoyable for Bell as the morning had been but she was heavy-footed with tiredness when at last Jacopin led her back towards the château. As they rounded the corner of the house Bell saw a girl running down the steps from the front door. She saw a mass of blonde hair exactly the same colour as Charles’s and heard the little man exclaim with pleasure at her side.

‘Mademoiselle Juliette is back!’ A moment later Juliette was standing in front of them, a huge smile showing her even white teeth. Bell thought that Charles had inherited most of the beauty in the family, but his sister radiated more than her share of warmth and good nature. Dark blue eyes the same colour as Charles’s met Bell’s, with a long, clear-sighted stare.

‘Hello, Bell,’ she said at last, shaking her hand hard.

‘Ça va, Jacopin?’ She patted his shoulder and he grinned with delight.

‘Mees Farraire took your place at déjeuner today,’ he told her, ‘and we gave her a real taste of Reynard, I can tell you.’ Juliette chuckled as she watched him heading back towards the chais.

‘Baptism by fire? Well done. You don’t belong at Reynard until they’ve taken you to their hearts in the kitchen.’

‘I don’t think I understood more than half of it, but the other half I did enjoy.’

Juliette nodded vigorously so that the tight blonde waves bounced over her shoulders. ‘Shall we go inside?’

She took Bell’s arm and steered her firmly towards the steps. Bell let herself be propelled along, fascinated and amused by the difference between this lively, friendly girl and her reserved brother.

There seemed to be nothing of Hélène in Juliette, either. Bell noticed that the sleeve of the girl’s grey sweater was matted with little blobs of what looked like plaster, her fingernails were short and blunt, and her freckled profile was bare of make-up.

No wonder the two women didn’t get on.

Juliette crackled with good humour and directness. Bell didn’t make new friends very quickly, but she warmed to Charles’s sister immediately and without any reservations.

When they reached Bell’s room, Juliette swung her legs up on to the white bedcover, obviously settling down with relish for a long talk.

‘Tell me what you’ve been doing here since yesterday? I’m sorry I wasn’t around last night. Missed a really jolly time, I hear.’

Bell stopped short, remembering with a kind of happiness that surprised her.

‘Charles and I – sat up and had a long, long talk.’ She smiled suddenly at Juliette. ‘I haven’t done that for ages, not since university, practically, after just meeting somebody. We were both upset,’ she finished, candidly.

‘Yes. Charles told me about him and Mama having a scene. It must have been horrible for you.’

‘Not nearly as horrible as it was for them.’

Juliette groaned and ran her hands wildly through her hair.

‘What can I do? They love each other, but Mama goads Charles until he can’t control himself any longer. Then pouf! Explosion.’

Bell sat down in front of the dim mirror and began to put her hair up. She needed something to do with her hands, and even more she needed somewhere to look that wasn’t into Juliette’s eyes. They were searching Bell’s face with unnerving thoroughness, and they seemed to see something that Bell herself wasn’t even properly aware of yet.

‘Has it been like this for very long?’ she asked.

‘Since Catherine went away.’

Juliette’s openness touched Bell. The other girl began to talk about her mother with affection and exasperation in her voice.

‘She’s very lonely. And getting older. And as she gets older her dynastic instincts get stronger. She loved my father very much, threw everything in with him here although her own family lived quite close. At a rival Château, in fact. Then Papa died, but Charles was just married and she thought that there would be children. Lots of them, the family going on, you know. The Château, the business, tradition. Everything she and Papa had cared about.’

Bell listened, imagining the older woman’s fading dreams and feeling her first dislike tinged with sympathy. Reflected in the mirror she could see that all the merriment had drained out of Juliette’s face, leaving it pale and, without her smile, quite plain.

‘Catherine was perfect in her eyes. Aristocratic, of course …’ the corners of her mouth turned down in a wry grimace, ‘… very correct, and clever too, in a domestic way. Charles met her and married her almost at once. I know him better than anyone,’ Bell heard the note of pride in her voice and guessed that she must love her brother very dearly, ‘and I thought from the beginning that it was a mistake. Charles is cool, but only on the surface. Underneath he is fiery and he needs someone tough and straight, and as hot-blooded as he is. Catherine is outwardly pliant, which is wrong for Charles, but inside she has a little, steely core. And that’s wrong for him too. He’s very traditional, you see. Has to be, au fond, le maître.’ Bell nodded, understanding as she recalled the defiant tilt of the chin in Catherine’s photograph.

‘Then why did they marry?’ she asked.

‘Oh, they were in love, no doubt about that. But as soon as they were married, the discoveries started. I don’t think things ever went right. In bed, even,’ she added very softly. ‘Terrible rows began. Really agonizing rows. Hélène bore it very discreetly, but I couldn’t stand it. Went to live in Bordeaux.’ Suddenly Juliette bent her head so that her face was screened by the mass of hair. One hand picked at a thread in the white cotton coverlet.

‘Then. Then something … tragic happened, and instead of it bringing them together it drove them even further apart. They were making each other so unhappy. At last Catherine just went away. Packed a few clothes into her little Renault and just vanished.’ Juliette paused for a moment, her eyes looking out at the sweep of gravel driveway. ‘It was courageous of her, don’t you think? Since then Charles’s life has been pretty empty, but at least not as painful as before. I came back here to keep him company. He needs it.’

There was a long silence before Bell spoke again.

‘What will happen now?’

Juliette shrugged and pulled again at the loose thread.

‘Nothing. Things will go on just as they are.’

Bell felt a small, unpleasant shock as the words sank in, then wondered half-consciously why.

Divorce is not a possibility, Charles’s voice came back to her.

‘Can’t they divorce?’ she asked Juliette, knowing the answer.

The other girl looked at her, unsurprised, before she answered.

‘No, Bell. Charles is a religious man. It’s part of him, unchangeable. Catherine is his wife, and always will be his wife before God. They can’t live together, but they can’t be freed from each other. Ever.’

Bell closed her eyes for a second. She saw Hélène’s face and the bitter lines etched around her mouth. How painful it must be for her, sitting here in her empty château, alienated from her children and denied the chance to see her grandchildren growing up to inherit it all.

Bell put down her hairbrush and turned to face Juliette.

‘I’m just going to change …’

The other girl, sensitive, saw at once that she wanted to be left alone. She got up quickly and then turned back in the doorway.

‘Don’t worry too much about changing. Mama always stays in her rooms the day after a scene. You know,’ she added, ‘your hair suits you like that. Shows off the lines of your cheeks and neck. Beautifully modelled.’ Bell waved her away and she went, calling back from down the corridor, ‘I am a sculptor, you know. These things are not lost on me.’

Bell was frowning as she took off her jeans and stepped carefully into a soft crêpe de chine dress patterned with tiny wildflowers.

Something awkward and unexpected had happened, and she had to force herself to face up to it.

Charles de Gillesmont had stopped being just someone she had to interview for the paper. He was a man, and he attracted her. More, she knew intuitively that he was drawn to her too.

But that must be all. Nothing else could happen. Nothing should happen. It was sad, but that was the only sensible answer. Charles was irrevocably married. He had told her that himself, and so had his sister. And he lived in a world totally apart from her own.

What’s more, what about her own determination to make her way alone? Charles de Gillesmont was altogether too powerful to fit into the category of lighthearted love-affairs along life’s wayside.

Bell went over to the window to look out at the rich acres of Charles’s vineyards. She rested her forehead against the cool glass and laughed at herself. English Cinderella falls head over heels into life in an exotic French château and succumbs within minutes to the mysterious baron.

No, not quite like that. Worryingly, it went much deeper.

Bell’s smile faded.

Charles fascinated her. It was his combination of natural power and the right to command, bred back over the centuries, coupled with the glimpses of human hurt that drew Bell. She was hungry to know him better. She wanted to go on admiring and being in awe of him, and at the same time she wanted to comfort him with her own hard-won understanding.

Impossible. Romantic dream.

Worse, there was something else about him too. The arrogant sensuality around his mouth, and the way that his eyes held hers, commandingly, for just a second too long.

With a little lurch of her stomach, Bell recognized that she was physically drawn to him too.

Impossible.

She musn’t think about it any more. Not give herself time to. That’s all.

Bell’s fragile resolution slipped away as soon as she found the brother and sister, sitting side by side on one of the pale blue sofas in the salon. Charles was laughing, they were both laughing, and when she came in they jumped up at once to draw her into the warmth of their company.

Bell’s heart started thumping in her chest when Charles took her hands and kissed her on both cheeks in greeting.

She did want him, there was no use pretending. It was impossible, but it was possible. Oh no.

Yes.

The evening was as different from the one before as it could possibly have been. Juliette and Charles complemented one another perfectly.

They had been close all their lives, as irresponsible children scampering about in the draughty passages of the Château, and then as adolescents becoming aware of their position in the world and the world’s expectations of them. Juliette had defied those expectations as well as those of her parents. She had chosen to become a sculptor and had gone to Paris to a famous atelier. Her allowance had gone, and she lived on what she could earn as a waitress in her spare hours. For Charles, escape would have been still less easy, even if he had wanted it. Wine-making and Château Reynard were in his blood, and he gave himself up to his heritage without complaint.

Juliette and her bohemian way of life remained a treasured alter ego for him. Bell could only guess at the closeness of the tie that held the two together but she saw at once how much they meant to one another. With his sister Charles was gentle, and almost frivolous.

The three of them sat until late at one end of the long table. The last of the wine glowed ruby-red in the decanter. It was Château Reynard 1961, and Bell understood that in giving her his best wine Charles was giving her something of himself.

After the pudding, rich little heart-shaped coeurs à la crème, Charles poured pungent cognac into more glasses. Bell began to see the room through a hazy golden glow of happiness and good wine.

Deliberately, she pushed back the doubts and questions that hovered at the brink of her consciousness.

Opposite her Juliette was sitting with her chin in her hands. They had been talking about family likenesses and Juliette had insisted that she and Charles were different because of their different star signs.

‘Me, I’m Libra,’ she said, ‘Queen of the Zodiac, of course. Now Chariot – I’m sure you can guess what he is.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Bell diplomatically.

‘Scorpio. Moody and difficult, but …’

‘For God’s sake, Juliette, don’t bore us with all that nonsense.’

‘Very well, but I was just getting to the flattering bits. What about Bell? I’d guess that you are …’

‘Leo,’ she put in, hastily.

‘Ha! The extrovert with the vulnerable heart.’

‘All wrong,’ Bell smiled. ‘I’m outwardly vulnerable, but my heart is really reinforced with pure steel.’

Across the table Charles studied her for a moment, his eyebrows raised a fraction. Bell went slowly, dully crimson.

There was a tiny silence before Juliette spoke again.

‘Leo, eh? Then your birthday is soon.’

Bell looked from one to the other. There was no reason, after all, why she shouldn’t share her birthday with friends, however new they were.

‘I’m twenty-eight tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Juliette leapt to her feet. ‘Your birthday? This is a fine time to tell us. But we must certainly have a party. Chariot – mustn’t we?’

‘Only if Bell wants it.’

‘Of course she does. Don’t you, darling? I must telephone, and see Madame Robert … oh, what fun. Mama will be appalled.’

Dancing with excitement Juliette planted a kiss on top of each of their heads and whirled away.

Charles put his hand out to cover Bell’s.

‘Do you mind?’ he asked, softly.

‘No.’

The room grew very quiet as they sat and looked at one another. Bell saw that there were gold flecks in the dark blue irises, and noticed a tiny pulse jumping at the corner of one eyelid.

Charles was afraid of something too, she realized.

Bell wanted to stay suspended within that moment for ever. They were equals, waiting to offer each other something precious. She was still, for those last seconds, free and in command but the world seemed full of promise and enchantment.

Very slowly Charles reached out and with a fingertip he traced the outline of her mouth. Then he pulled the combs out of her hair and let it tumble down in a thick mass around her face.

‘My English Bell,’ he murmured. ‘You are very beautiful, and very unusual.’

Then he was holding her hands, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. She let her face fall against the soft dark cloth of his jacket but his hand went to her chin, turning her face up inescapably to meet his. She glimpsed something then in his eyes, a shadow, but then their mouths met and they clung together.

Bell was rocked by a current so strong that it threatened to carry her away.

Time stopped moving for them both, questions went unanswered and fears disregarded.

At last Charles led her up the shallow stairs under the huge chandelier. They stood in front of her door, not speaking, their eyes still locked together.

Charles’s hand rested on the catch.

‘Not yet,’ breathed Bell. ‘Please. Charles, I must think.’

His mouth was set and she saw the shadow, guarded, in his face before he replied.

‘I know. Tomorrow, Bell, we must talk.’

Then he turned away abruptly, and was gone.

‘Tomorrow,’ Bell said into the darkness. Then the memory of something that Juliette had said came back to her. It had been nagging at her subconscious all evening, and now it surfaced.

‘Then something tragic happened,’ she had said. Her face had been hidden by her hair, but the fingers plucking at a thread in the white coverlet had betrayed her anxiety.

Tragic? Something that affected Charles?

Tomorrow.