Page 13 of Liaison with the Champagne Count
Archambeau gave her a considering look. ‘That must have been a lonely way to grow up. My family was always together; my great-grandpère, mygrandpère, mypère, myoncle, my cousin, we were always living with one another in some combination or other.’
‘What wondrous chaos that must have been,’ Emma laughed and then sobered, remembering other things he’d shared. ‘How lonely it must be for you now with them gone.’ Perhaps it was harder for him. She couldn’t truly miss what she’d never had. She furrowed her brow trying to remember. ‘Youroncle, is he still in England?’ She could not recall what he’d said about that, only that hisonclehad been in England during his school years.
Archambeau shifted. For comfort? Or because her question made him uneasy? ‘Myoncleis here. He returned in 1845 after mygrandpèreand my father died. My cousin and mytantestayed in England to look after that end of the shipping business.’
She nodded, unsure what to say. There was great sadness in those few sentences. 1845 had been a dark year for the Archambeaux. The death of the family patriarchandhis son in quick succession. More importantly, the death of two men Julien had loved dearly.
We talk about the things we love.
She had not missed the affection that had accompanied his mentions of hisgrandpèreand his father. Upheaval had no doubt followed as the family reorganised itself to fill in the gaps left by those deaths. She thought of the family left behind in order for hisoncleto return. Had that been a sacrifice on hisoncle’s part? She settled on, ‘I’m glad you have youroncleat least, Monsieur Archambeau.’
‘Julien.’ The single word was a gunshot fired into the silence of the morning. ‘Perhaps you might consider calling me Julien? Monsieur Archambeau seems so formal at this juncture.’
‘Then you must call me Emma,’ she replied, trying to understand what his request might mean. She might take it to mean a hundred things. Had he asked because they’d spent a morning together discussing business and pleasure? Because they’d shared stories about those they loved and those stories had left them revealed? Or because they were becoming friends? Did she dare allow that? Friendship would be complicated. Friendship between men and women always was. Friendship between a new widow and a man involved in her business enterprise would be doubly so.
Admittedly, she found herself liking the idea of befriending Julien Archambeau. Far better to have him as a friend than an enemy, especially if they were sharing a roof and a vineyard.
The voice in her head spoke sharply.Not really sharing. All this is yours.Perhaps he’d like you to forget that.You’ve not yet fully discovered his role here.
No, she hadn’t. Somehow that kept getting postponed, put off in favour of other things, like walking the vineyard and learning about the grapes.
I need him for that, she told the voice in her head.I know what I am doing. I must learn the business from him. I’d be a fool to let him go before then.
Is that what you’re doing on the picnic blanket, ogling his legs and swapping stories with your husband only gone a month? Learning the business, is it?The voice in her head was showing no mercy today.
What else would it be?came her rejoinder.
It could benothingelse because if it was something else, what did that say about her love for Garrett? It was not the first time she’d reminded herself of that. But it was a troublesome rejoinder because her head refused to treat it as a rhetorical question and let her be. Her mind had answers: it was a friendship that was doomed on all fronts. Men and women couldn’t be friends. That wasn’t how the world worked. If they liked each other enough to be friends, they were inevitably attracted to each for more than conversation. Secondly, it was a paramount rule in business not to mix the two. At least in England. Perhaps the French felt differently. Her father did not. He’d always preached that friends made the worst business partners, and her father was always right.
‘I’ve enjoyed our picnic, but there is more to see,’ Emma began, trying to put the original point of the morning back on track. ‘Grapes are only one part of the process. I am eager to see the cellars. I believe they are in caves beneath the house?’
Julien gave her a curt nod, his soft gaze returning to its usual flinty hardness. ‘Absolutely. I’d be happy to show you. It will take just a moment for us to be under way.’ Within minutes the quilt had been folded up and the hamper stashed beneath the seats of the carriage. All signs of their picnic erased as if they’d never lounged beneath the morning sun, sipping coffee and talking of their families.
If only the consequences of those precious hours could be erased as easily. It was the one idea that floated at the forefront of her thoughts throughout the short carriage ride back to the chateau, all of them coalescing around a single word.
Julien.
He’d asked her to call him Julien. That was one inerasable consequence of the morning picnic. With that single request, objectivity had been stripped away and it could not be restored. She could not unsee the way his face lit when he spoke of the land, of his family. She could not forget the sight of him, long legs outstretched, hands behind his head as he lounged in unabashedly male repose on the quilt, his body open to her study, perhaps entirely unaware of the effect it had on her and the guilt that followed.
In the span of a morning, he’d become a man she did not want to argue against or butt heads with. She did not want to compete for control of the vineyards. She wanted to work with this man, learn from him, but without the risk of ceding control. Was such cooperation possible? Would he be able to see her as an equal? More to the point, even if it was possible, was it something he’d want, too?
The voice in her head was quick to scold, to warn. Slow down.But what was there to slow down about? Garrett had trusted Julien for seven years, had left him in charge of what would become her inheritance, her last gift from Garrett. He would not have risked that. If Garrett could trust Julien, by extension, so could she. She wasnotracing towards any impetuous business decisions.
In many ways, these were decisions that had already been put in place. She and Julien just needed to accept them. The more she thought about it, the more she believed Garrett meant for them to work together in some way when the time came. He’d just not planned on it being so soon. Perhaps, if there’d been more time, Garrett would have even forged the link, the expectation between them as the years passed. Garrett meant for Julien to help her. She and Julien just had to see that for themselves, help themselves find their way back to the path Garrett wanted. They’d got off to a poor start, each one more interested in defending themselves than looking at the larger picture. By the time they reached the wine caves beneath the chateau, she was sure of it. Now she just needed him to be sure of it as well.
Chapter Nine
Julien was sure of nothing as he heaved open the heavy oak doors that led to the cellars. He should have postponed the visit to the cellars even if it required making up an excuse, but he’d been loath to part company with Emma, loath to see the picnic end for reasons he was not comfortable explaining to himself. He did not want to like her, but he did. He did not want to empathise with her, but he did. He did not want to be impressed by her, but he was. He’d not wanted to discover anything in common with her, but he had.
That had been the most dangerous of all, sitting on the picnic blanket and listening to her talk about her family, how her father was a man of self-made fortune, who’d raised his children to be self-sufficient, to be tenacious in their independence, to stand up for themselves in a world that would not appreciate their ambition because of their trade or, in her case, her gender. ‘Please, be careful on the steps,’ Julien instructed, his free hand dropping too easily, too naturally, to the small of her back as he ushered her carefully to the centuries-old staircase.
He held the lantern up, lighting the way. This close, he could smell the scent of her jasmine sambac mixed with the earthy outdoors of the vineyards. It was a sweet torture, letting himself be overwhelmed with the feminine details of her. Was there anything more intoxicating than the scent of a woman? Especially after having been deprived of female company for a spell.
Deprivation was his fault, his own self-imposed choice. He had little to offer a woman these days emotionally or financially. If he was tortured, this was what he got for being alone, for being without a woman for so long. He’d let himself be drawn in by her stories, and now he was paying for his lapse. This was what happened when one let a beautiful woman work her wiles and a man let his imagination run away with him.
The voice in his head teased him.But you liked her words as much as her scent, you liked the idea that her father had built his business with his own efforts, that she wants to do the same here, that she wants to learn.
He could admire all of that in theory, even if he could not allow it to occur in practice.
