Page 27 of Liaison with the Champagne Count
‘Comte. Comte du Rocroi. But it doesn’t matter any more. Titles come and go in this new France. Did you know they were suspended again four years ago? If a new government is voted in this year, there’s rumour titles will be restored once again.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that it would mean anything. It would most likely just be the restoration of hereditary titles, which our family’s is,’ he added. He gave a sardonic smile. ‘Etvoila, I am the Comte again.’ This was followed by a harsh chuckle. ‘No privileges though, just the words. Just the title.’ She recognised he was trying to mitigate the revelation, and her heart, most regrettably, warmed to it, prompting her to wonder even now—was he trying to protect her?
‘The purported land steward is a Frenchcomte.’ She repeated the words, starting to feel silly now. All the things she’d accused him of seemed ridiculous.
‘As I said, it doesn’t matter. Titles are meaningless now in France. We lost the title in the Revolution and then we lost the land when my great-grandpèrelost his head. Great-Grandpère sent his son, Matthieu, mygrandpère, and my father, who was only an infant, to the safety of England, as I’ve mentioned before. But when the decree went out that all emigres must return in order for their families to keep their lands, my great-grandpèrerefused to bring his son home. He knew it wasn’t safe. It cost him everything.’
‘But when itwassafe,’ Emma picked up the story. She knew this part to some degree from what he’d shared during one of their many long, lazy afternoons. She spoke slowly, piecing it together. ‘Your grandfather returned, leaving his younger son behind in England to continue running the now legitimate shipping company. But he had nothing to return home to. The lands had gone to someone else by then.’
‘Titles were restored by the Bourbons so he had that to come home to. He established a second branch of our shipping business in Calais. He began saving his profits and making enquiries. It took time. The land had been broken up and it was owned by several different people. Once my grandfather was able to secure one of our old parcels, one with a house on it, we moved to Cumières and left the shipping office in capable hands. I was still quite young when we came here. Cumières is the only home I know. All I know of the time in Calais is in the stories my father told me. I grew up walking the land beside them, learning from them.’
‘Until you were ten,’ she prompted when Julien fell silent.
‘Yes. It was hard to leave. I didn’t want to go but Grandpère insisted that I have a foot in both worlds. He wanted me to learn the shipping business from myoncle. Just in case, he said. France was unreliable. The Revolution changed mygrandpère. He lived with the knowledge that his country had killed his father, taken our family’s property, forced him into exile not knowing if it would ever be safe to return. For a man who loved the land, it was a heavy fate. He lived with a strong sense of betrayal and distrust after that. Land and family were all a man could rely on, he would tell me.’ The little boy he’d been had learned those lessons well, perhaps better than he thought, Emma mused. Julien kept his cards very close to his chest, as Garrett might say. People knew only what Julien wanted them to know. She was starting to see his omissions not as lies but as protection. Unnecessary protection, perhaps. He could trust her.
‘As you know, I spent my winter holidays with myoncle.The trip to Cumières was too long to undertake for Christmas and the Channel too unpredictable. But I had the summers here. I looked forward to those all year long.’ There was a hint of a smile on his lips and a softness to his gaze, as if the words had conjured memories of fairer times. This Julien was irresistible, and he was dangerous to her resolve. Some of the fight went out of her. The longer he talked, the harder it was to remember why she was angry.
Her father’s lesson came to her again:Everything has two sides. Perhaps she would have been less angry with Julien, perhaps they would be in bed right now if she’d applied her father’s lesson sooner. The explanation was so simple. Julien didn’t draw a salary because he was a gentleman, because he couldn’t let go of that part of himself, of what his family had been. There was nothing nefarious about that or about the missing grapes.
‘I am sorry for all your family has suffered,’ Emma said quietly, aware that she’d have to do better than that for an apology. She had reparations to make. Julien wasn’t the villain here. But quite possibly, she was. It had not gone unnoticed, although Julien had delicately not mentioned it, that she was now the owner of a piece of his estate, a very large piece, including a home that had been in his family for centuries before it was taken away. ‘Julien, am I the enemy?’ She didn’t want it to be true. If it was true, why befriend her? Why teach her? Why make her his lover? These were implications she’d so far avoided pursuing because they led down unpleasant paths.
‘Why would you think that?’ His tone was more guarded now and she sensed he was trying to protect them both by evading her question. But she could not let it go.
‘I am living in your house.Yourhouse,yourland is my inheritance from my husband.’ How it must gall him to be the caretaker of this beautiful land and yet have no legal rights to it, to make decisions regarding its future. The only rights he had were given to him by Garrett to act as his man of business. With such freedom to act, perhaps it had become easy for Julien to pretend the placewashis in all ways that mattered. Until she’d shown up. ‘You must resent me.’ How ironic that she’d feared being the one who would be betrayed in all this, when it was really Julien who was the one betrayed—by his country and in some ways by her and Garrett, albeit unintentionally.
‘I don’t resent you. Just the situation,’ Julien said quietly. ‘You had nothing to do with the circumstances.’
‘I am part of those circumstances now, though, and Idoaffect them simply by being here, by having my own ambitions.’ She thought about that for a long moment—something didn’t seem right. There was another piece still missing. ‘Julien, did you not try to buy the place from Monsieur Anouilh?’ This place had been available seven years ago. Had it been a lack of funds? Chateaux and land didn’t come cheaply, but surely they might have applied for a loan in Reims, especially if they already had some land established. They would have had collateral and a shipping firm to vouch for their solvency.
Julien gave a bitter laugh. ‘We tried. Monsieur Anouilh refused to sell to us.’
He paused and she prompted, ‘There’s more, I sense it. I can handle it. It seems odd that a Frenchman would choose a foreigner over a neighbour.’
He shot her a swift glance before returning his gaze to the fire. ‘Garrett outbid us. His pockets were endlessly deep and he was determined to have the place for his new bride.’ For her. Her heart sank even as Julien tried to pass it off. ‘Your husband had no idea of our history with the place. He didn’t know us or anything about the property.’
‘You never told him? You let him hire you thinking that you were just a convenient neighbour to watch over the property while he was away.’ She was trying to figure out if she thought that was dishonourable behaviour or not.
His gaze turned to her and lingered. ‘You think it was somehow a lie to not tell him, don’t you? But what could I do? This was the only way I could get close to the land, to take care of it. Then, Garrett offered me rooms here. Myoncleand I decided it would do for a time.’
‘Until you could make an offer to Garrett? Hoping perhaps he’d run out of enthusiasm for a place so far away?’ Never guessing that Garrett would never let go of it, that the place had been consigned to his bride as part of her widow’s portion. How it must have stung when she’d walked in, upending Julien’s long-held hopes.
Julien nodded. ‘That was the plan. We realised we’d need more money to make an offer to Garrett. He’d paid more than the place was worth but he didn’t care. He had money to burn. We’d have to at least match that amount when the time came. But meanwhile I could take care of the land and make sure it would be fruitful when another chance came.’
‘But I came instead,’ Emma put in.
‘Do you really want me to say it, Emma? Yes, you were somewhat of a wrinkle in those plans.’ The wrinkle being she was not interested in selling. She was interested in staying. She had nowhere else to go that allowed her the freedom and independence she was used to, the chance to build something of her own.
Guilt swamped her against her better judgement. She was now part of an untenable situation for Julien, for hisoncle.Shestood in the way of the family dream to restore the Archambeau lands and legacy, generations of work. She had no intention to sell. Surely, Julien must know that by now. There was no way he could get his hands on the land as long as she owned it and shewouldown it unless circumstances changed. Unless...
One of her father’s lessons:If something seems impossible in one environment, change the environment. Julien could change the environment. He could chase her away, make things so unbearable for her that she would sell. That strategy seemed unlikely at this point given the time he’d spent coaching her on viniculture. Although, she wondered in retrospect if it was merely a failed strategy. Had he in truth been trying to overwhelm her with all the books, the long walks filling her with knowledge, and she’d thwarted his attempts? If that failed, there was another option even less savoury. Hecouldmarry her. The land would become his upon marriage. She felt sick to her stomach. Was that why he’d taken her to bed? When all else failed, seduce it out of her? No. She would not believe it of him. She’d kissed him first. He’d been a complete gentleman right up until that day in the vineyard. He’d made no inappropriate overtures.
‘Emma, say something. You’ve been silent too long and I can see your mind working.’ Julien’s low voice interrupted her thoughts.
‘That’s just it. I don’t know what to say.’ Emma rose. Anything she said now would be driven by emotion and confusion. She would regret it come morning. ‘I think it’s best that I leave now.’ She needed to be somewhere he was not, somewhere she could think without those slate-blue eyes on her, where she wasn’t driven to subjective empathy for this man. ‘I have tea with the Widow tomorrow. You needn’t come. I can manage it on my own.’ Then, to restore a touch of the professional to a conversation that had begun that way and then severely veered off course, as so many of their conversations did, she added, ‘Thank you for your time. Be assured, I will not make a habit of importuning you at such a late hour.’
That was too bad, he’d like to be importuned by her at this hour quite frequently, but for different reasons than awkward, secret-spilling conversations. Julien slumped in his chair after the door shut behind her. Now she knew. As predicted, the knowing had been disastrous. She wanted nothing to do with him beyond what she needed for the vineyards now. If she wasn’t so inexperienced and in need of his expertise, he had no doubt she’d have asked him to leave. He’d not been dishonest with her, but he had not been truthful either about his attachment to this place. Should he have been? Would things be different if he’d told her from the start?
He stared at his empty brandy glass and debated a third glass. No. Another drink would not make it better. He feared nothing could. His family’s legacy of loss had made him hard-bitten. He’d inherited quite a lot of his grandfather in that regard. He might have shaken that off if it hadn’t been for Clarisse’s betrayal, which had resulted in a broken heart and the loss of the land. His grandfather had been right. You could trust no one, and no one should be entrusted with the things you hold dear—one’s heart, one’s family, one’s land. These precious items must be protected, locked away. He’d lost his heart to Clarisse, and his father had died of a broken heart over the double disappointment, defeated after a life of striving. How much more proof did he need?
And yet.
