Page 20 of Liaison with the Champagne Count
‘Did he say where?’ Emma took a seat at her dressing table, letting Chloe brush out her hair.
‘No,madame, only that he did not know when he’d be back. He said not to wait supper on him.’
She ought to feel relieved. She didn’t have to face Julien today. By the time she did see him, she’d have herself together, her mind organised instead of her thoughts flying in a hundred different directions like a heart-struck young girl. But she did not feel the relief she’d expected at this reprieve. She felt disappointment, and dismay. Her mind immediately dissected what it could mean—did he leave because he didn’t want to face her? Because he regretted what had happened?
Did he regret it because he’d let his guard down, allowed someone to see him at his most vulnerable? Or did he regret it because of what he’d done with her? If it was the former, she could manage it, they could come back from that. But if it was the latter, if it was her, or their actions, he took objection to, that could ruin everything. How would they ever work together then? If she’d known this would be the outcome would she still have done it? If the opportunity arose, would she do it again? She feared the answer would be yes.
Chapter Thirteen
He should not have done it. After a day of brutal exercise in the fields trying to work himself into forgetful exhaustion, that was the conclusion he’d reached. There were, in fact, quite a few things he should not have done. He should not have taunted her, should not have flirted with her, should not have pushed her, because he knew by now that when she was pushed, Emma Luce pushed back. He’d spent all day enumerating his sins. But that had only made the torture worse.
Using the last of the daylight, sunset falling, Julien kicked his horse into a hard gallop along a flat stretch of road that lay between the chateau and hisoncle’s farmhouse, hoping that if he could ride hard enough he could exorcise the heat from his veins, and convince himself to regret last night, because logically heoughtto regret it.
But that was only logic talking. He seemed to have little use for such a commodity in the last ten hours and it was a hard sell. He could not persuade any part of him to regret last night. His mind was full of images of her; her hair falling down, the heat in her eyes when she looked at him, the way she’d looked when pleasure claimed her—pleasurehe’dgiven her—her back arched, her head thrown back, her hips pressing into his, legs wrapped about him as if she never wanted him to leave her, but of course he had to. He could not spend within her. There were other images, too—her atop him in her bed, riding him like Godiva with her dark hair draped over her breasts.
Thathad been exquisite. Leaving her bed had been much more difficult than he had anticipated. His body still reverberated with the echoes of their lovemaking, every wild, wonderful minute of it. The ache in his body asking the questionwhen? When would they be together again? Notwouldthere be a next time—his body had leapt right over any circumspection. His body was not bothered by more sophisticated issues such as the relational implications of last night.
He did not fool himself that he could simply pretend last night had not happened. For one, he did not think Emma would let him treat it so callously, and for another, he did not want to. His body ached for hers, to repeat it. But what would that mean? An affair with Emma Luce? It would have to be hidden. From the servants, for the sake of her reputation, and from hisonclefor the sake of his. The farmhouse came into view with its green shutters, like the chateau’s, and Julien slowed his horse. If hisonclesaw him racing up the road, he’d know something was wrong. In the yard, Julien dismounted and schooled his features. He must not give away anything. His business with Emma was between him and her, not hisoncle. Hisonclehad already hinted that intimacies could be strategically used to advance their cause.
That had not sat well with him when hisonclehad originally introduced the idea, and he liked the idea even less now that he knew her better.
That’s because you’ve become attached, that’s what empathy will do for you, his inner voice scolded.You did not heed your own warnings, your own advice.
He wanted to dismiss the self-directed scold. Just because he’d slept with her didn’t mean he was attached. They were two consenting adults who’d been keen to stave off loneliness. Sexcouldbe just sex. Goodness knew he’d tried ‘just sex,’ trying to find relief, trying to obliterate the pain of the past.
He wasn’t doing a good job of selling the argument to himself. In this case there was no ‘just sex’ about it. It had been physical, and primal, rough and riotous, but emotion had been there bubbling underneath. They’d both been desperately seeking something: belonging, connection, and for a few short hours, they’d found it in each other’s arms. He wanted to find it again. With her.
Hisonclewas in his office, sitting behind his desk, poring over reports and ledgers, dressed immaculately, and looking out of place, something that struck him more strongly than usual. Hisoncledressed well for town, but not for the countryside. His office was also well-appointed with an expensive desk from Paris and all the accoutrements that adorned his bookshelves—the scales, the globe, the leather-spined books with the gold gilt letters that came from a Paris bookseller monthly. This was an office to rival a noble’s town house. It was not an estate office of a man who lived in a country gentleman’s farmhouse. But hisonclehad never aspired to be a simple country gentleman, had he? His life, all sixty-two years of it, had been dedicated to the pursuit of something larger—restoring the Comte du Rocroi’s land.
Hisonclelooked up and smiled. ‘Julien, welcome. You are in time for supper. It will take no time at all to set an extra place.’
Dinner was a pleasant affair; one could always count on eating well at the farmhouse, breakfast or supper. Perhaps eating a little too well. Only a nobleman ate like hisoncle. They talked of the weather and of local news in the neighbourhood, making a two-hour meal of it, which alternately soothed and chafed at Julien’s nerves. It was not until they’d adjourned back to hisoncle’s office that there was a shift to business.
‘I suspect you haven’t just come to catch up on the news. You’ve come to tell me something.’ His slate-blue eyes, so like Julien’s own, twinkled, and Julien froze. How did hisoncleknow? Then he remembered. The other news.
‘Yes, we’ve got budburst. The vines are showing. Another season is under way.’ That’s what had started everything yesterday. Julien took his usual seat across from hisoncle. Budburst seemed a lifetime ago, and far less significant than what had followed, a sure sign that logic had deserted him. When had anything been more important than the vines? ‘Now we just need to hope the winter weather is gone for good. I don’t want a cold snap bringing a frost and killing us off before we truly get under way. And your vines here? Are they showing?’
‘Ourvines, you mean,’ hisonclecorrected. ‘Yes, buds showed a couple days ago. It took them long enough this year. They’re as unpredictable as a woman.’ He chuckled. ‘Speaking of which, how is the situation over there? Has Madame Luce given up on her fantasies of being a vineyard manager?’
Emma. He’d not thought of her as Madame Luce for quite a while now, not since their picnic. ‘No, in fact, just the opposite. She’s become an ardent student of viniculture.’
Hisonclescoffed at the idea. ‘Assign her some hard reading like Merret’s treatise. The science will put her to sleep. Have her read Chaptal.’
‘Ididassign those.’ Julien took a bit of satisfaction in informing hisoncle. ‘She devoured them and she debates me nightly. Ask her who invented champagne at your own peril.’
Hisonclearched a white brow, catching his slip. ‘Then, I’d say you are not trying hard enough. The goal was to make her disinterested in the process, not to have her become intrigued by it.’ He gave a sly look. ‘But perhaps if you debate nightly, her interest isn’t so much in the wine as in the instructor? Perhaps she wants to impress you?’
Julien took refuge in chagrin. ‘She is a woman in mourning. I doubt she even looks at a man with such thoughts.’ But she’d looked at him with want and desire last night. He’d not let himself contemplate how much of that want and desire was for him and how much was a want and desire to assuage her loneliness. Had she simply used him? Could he blame her when he had used her for his own needs as well? And yet, somehow in the riot of passion, they’d transcended those needs.
Hisonclegave a shrug, unconvinced. ‘Well,Iwon’t debate with you. Perhaps an invitation to the chateau might be in order? I could come to dinner and discuss the wine gala with her. I do admit to some curiosity about this woman who seeks to unseat us.’
‘She doesn’t seek to unseat us,’ Julien corrected swiftly. Hisonclewas being hyperbolic. ‘She just wants what is hers, what her husband has left her.’ He realised as he said the words that he believed them. The resentment he’d felt upon her arrival over a month ago was absent. How had that happened?Whenhad that happened? Last night or before? How long had he felt that way?
Hisonclewas silent for a long while, his gaze fixed unblinkingly on him. ‘Oh, my,mon fils, she’s really got her hooks into you if she’s got you thinking about throwing away the family legacy. No woman should come before your family,’ he cautioned. ‘A woman is nothing but trouble. You should know that by now.’
‘It’s her chateau, Oncle.’
‘It’s your inheritance, it’s what your great-grandpèrelost his head for, what yourgrandpèrelived in exile for, what he and your father came back for, what you were raised for. We have all lived for this moment, invested for this moment, and now it’s up to you to see it through.’ He waved a beringed hand. ‘I am an old man. But you are the Comte, you are the next generation.’ If hisonclewas trying to make him feel guilty, he was doing an excellent job. When had he moved away from his old dreams?
