‘Yes. Ten-thirty.’
Paul glanced at his watch. ‘God, that’s only half an hour from now. We’d better get a move on.’
Neil folded his arms across his chest and looked down at me, his eyes faintly searching. ‘They gave you an invitation?’
I nodded. ‘I met the owner, you see, quite by accident, and—’
Simon cut me off. ‘You met the owner? Really? Great! Then you can ask him for me.’
Neil pulled his eyes from mine, eyebrows lifting. ‘Ask him what?’
‘If I can see his cellar.’ I was watching Simon’s face when the next thought struck him, and my heart sank, because there wasn’t a thing I could do to prevent it. ‘Hey,’ he said brightly, turning to Neil, ‘why don’t you come with us? You know the guy, too, don’t you?’
Startled, I glanced up at Neil, and he met my eyes with a curious smile. ‘Yes, I know him,’ he said, sliding his gaze to Simon. ‘And thanks. I’d be delighted to join your tour.’
Armand Valcourt didn’t look especially delighted when he met us at the gate. He hid it well, but I caught the hard line of his smile as he returned Neil’s handshake.
‘It’s been a long time,’ Armand said.
‘Yes.’
‘Martine told me you were back. I was surprised you did not come earlier, to the house. You are avoiding us, perhaps?’
‘Not at all.’ A curious tension grew and stretched between the two men, like a tightly strung wire, until the air around us fairly hummed with silent friction. It felt, I thought, almost like hate …
Paul must have felt it, too. Ever the peacemaker, he took a step forward and introduced himself, and the moment of unspoken combat passed.
Armand shook Simon’s hand next, then mine, his dark eyes knowing. ‘So,’ he said, in French, ‘you decided to use your invitation, after all. And you have brought your friends. How … nice.’
I smiled up at him, innocent. ‘Did I mention, Monsieur, that my friend Paul can speak the most beautiful French?’
‘Can he?’ The dark eyes laughed, left mine and looked at Paul. ‘Can he, indeed?’ He let go of my hand, and took a step backwards. He looked different again by daylight. The working man’s outfit of chinos and sweater suited him rather well, I thought.
Simon nudged me. ‘Ask him.’
Armand arched an eyebrow, intrigued. ‘Yes? You have a question, Mademoiselle?’
Again I smiled. ‘More of a request, actually. Simon here was hoping to see your wine cellar.’
‘Ah.’ He looked from me to Simon, and back again. ‘Naturally, the cellars are included in the tour, but at the end, yes? For the tasting. We must follow the process in its proper order, beginning, I think, with the vines.’
He turned to lead us along a narrow, straight-edged path, cool in the shadow of the high stone wall that bounded the vineyard. Simon, impatient as always, kept close behind Armand, and Paul ambled along behind. Neil fell into step beside me, matching his pace to mine.
We walked in silence to begin with, but then my own awareness of him made the silence uncomfortable, and I tried to think of something neutral to talk about. ‘You’ve been here before, then?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I knew his wife.’
I bent my head hurriedly. ‘Oh, I see.’ So much for neutral, I told myself.
‘Brigitte, her name was,’ he went on, in a mild tone. ‘We had mutual friends in Vienna. I knew both the sisters, Brigitte and Martine.’
Curiosity pricked me then, and against my better judgement I asked: ‘And were they very much alike?’
I felt the glancing touch of his eyes on my downturned face. ‘That’s right, you’ve met Martine, haven’t you? Yes, Brigitte was very like her to look at, but as far as personality …’ He smiled a little, thinking back. ‘Brigitte was wild. Unpredictable. She met Armand and married him, all in one weekend. Destiny, she called it. She believed in destiny.’ He spoke the word almost as if he believed it, too. He cast a quick glance up the ridge towards the white house, remembering. ‘She used to hold these huge dinner parties,’ he told me, ‘all artists and writers and poor musicians like myself, and she’d fill us full of food and wine and set us talking. Bright minds and brilliant conversation, that’s what Brigitte wanted. Like Madame Pompadour.’
Still looking down at the path, I stole a sideways look at the denim-clad legs striding evenly beside mine, and the beautiful, long-fingered hands, and I thought I knew exactly what Brigitte Valcourt had wanted from Neil Grantham. The sudden stab of feeling rather shocked me. I hadn’t felt jealous in years. Aloud I said: ‘It must have been fun.’
‘It was. Brigitte brought us all together, Christian and myself and … oh, there was a gang of us, in those days. I don’t know what happened to most of them. When Brigitte died the group just fell apart, stopped meeting.’
I kicked a pebble on the dirt path. ‘How did she die?’
‘Heart failure.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘It happens. She’d been in and out of hospital since giving birth to Lucie – she used to make a new will nearly every week, I think,’ he said, with a brief smile. ‘I don’t think any of us was particularly surprised.’
Armand was still walking briskly alongside the wall, several paces ahead of us. He turned his head to say something to Simon, and glanced idly back at Neil and me, his expression unreadable.