Page 30 of Liaison with the Champagne Count
Julien loved her. The thought followed her all the way upstairs to her chamber, unwilling to be kept out by her door. She could leave the room but she could not leave the thought. Emma pressed her head to the door. How dare he say those words when he knew she’d been made a fool of in love before and when he knew how difficult it would be for her to believe them. How did she darebelievethem? How could she when she knew what he stood to gain? Did he think her naïve? Willing to take a handsome man at his word? Worst of all, how dare her heart side with him when it ought to know better.
But could you do it? Could you love Julien?came the whisper.
To love Julien in return would be an enormous leap of faith across a wide chasm filled with doubting fingers that reached up from her past to clutch at her at every opportunity. Once more, she was the one with the money, the property. How could she be sure Julien saw beyond that? Or even wanted to see beyond that? How could she be sure that he sawher? The answer was, she couldn’t be. To love Julien would be a true act of blind faith, both in him and in her own intuition. Such an act had not been required in loving Garrett. There’d been no risk, no cost, just reward. It had made her choice easy. This choice was not easy.
There were so many reasons not to make it. It was too soon; it was too good to be true. Men used her for money. She should not expect Julien to be different when he openly had so much to gain. But she wanted him to be different. Her heart wanted a reason to believe, a reason to leap, and that was a dangerous place to be. ‘Whose side are you on? You are supposed to be on my side,’ she muttered to her traitorous heart as she got ready for bed, acutely aware that she need not sleep alone tonight—that too was her choice.
‘Who side are you on these days?’ Oncle Etienne’s tone was sharp and scolding, the same tone he’d used when Julien and his cousin were eleven and had been caught with the brandy at the Christmas party. It was all Julien could do to not feel eleven again now as they strode the Archambeau vineyards. It was perhaps a warning to him just how angry hisonclewas that they were outside walking the land, something hisoncleusually left to his workers. He suspected they were walking the land now in order for hisoncleto make a point. Although Julien was not certain what point that was. The summons had been sudden and unexpected.
‘Are there any sides, Oncle? I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.’ Perhaps word of his quarrel with Emma had reached hisoncle’s ears. No one would have actually heard the quarrel but the icy atmosphere at the chateau the last few days would hardly leave anyone in doubt there’d been a split between them. In the evenings, the dining room was dark. There were no more elegant meals that lasted hours. No more retreats to the library to finish those discussions. Emma had been sure to keep her distance. She’d not come out to the vineyards when she knew he was walking, or down to the cellars when he was in the office, and he’d felt the absence of her keenly.
‘There’s our side,mon fils. I feel as if you’ve forgotten that.’ Hisoncle’s tone relented slightly as he clapped a fatherly hand on Julien’s shoulder. ‘I thought you had Luce’s widow under control.’
The thought of controlling Emma was almost laughable. ‘She’s not a woman to be manipulated. She’s too smart for that,’ Julien cautioned. Despite the words she’d flung at him and the things she thought of him, he felt compelled to protect her. He might not be her enemy, his intentions had been honourable, but hisonclewould do anything to regain the lands. Hisonclewas more than capable of doing the things Emma had accusedhimof doing. That was the difference, he realised, between him and hisoncle. He’d always admired hisoncle’s business sense. Hisoncleran a successful regional shipping company, he had acquired some of the Archambeau lands, but Julien had never seen the cost of that up front like he was seeing it now.
‘Your widow went to visitthewidow at Boursault earlier this week.’ Hisoncleslid him a sideways look. ‘Without you in attendance.’
‘She asked me not to come,’ Julien replied simply. ‘I cannot keep her captive at the estate.’
‘You should have been with her to control the conversation,’ hisonclechided. Silently, Julien agreed. If he’d gone, perhaps he could have prevented the widow from spilling the tale of his engagement to Clarisse, from suggesting to Emma that he was the sort of man who’d sell himself in marriage for an estate. He’d taken a gamble there, thinking the women would limit themselves to business only instead of making his personal history a primary topic of conversation. But that wasn’t something that would have upset hisoncle. Something else had happened as a result of the visit.
Hisonclestopped to study a vine. ‘Everything bloomed a little later than expected but it’s making up for lost time. I think we might have an early harvest.’ He smiled and Julien felt the tension that had been building between them ease. Whatever happened, they had the grapes between them—the grapes kept them together. ‘The old widow told her agent and the agent told Charles Tremblay, who has made it his business to share with everyone he can find, that Madame Luce is at the reins of the estate, that she’s running the vineyard. A woman, and an outsider, is at the helm of the chateau, not Julien Archambeau, a man who implicitly had everyone’s trust and subsequently their money.’ That was the rumour they’d feared the most, the idea getting out that Julien was no longer in charge.
‘Her being in charge doesn’t affect what’s already in production there. She won’t even have a harvest to call her own until next year, and there won’t be a vintage that can be attributed to her management for a few years yet.’ Julien tried to soften the blow. ‘If you’re worried about the consortium, we can reassure them of that.’
‘And your position there? Is that guaranteed?’ came the pointed question.
‘I do not know,’ Julien answered truthfully. He would have felt more secure in the position if hisonclehad asked this question last week. This week he wasn’t so sure. ‘She’s not asked me to leave.’
‘But she might?’ Hisonclesounded worried. ‘You have to be indispensable to her, Julien. She has to be made to see that her success relies on keeping you there.’ Hisoncleshook his head. ‘I don’t like it, Julien. Our fates are too intertwined with hers. She has us trapped. If we support her and help her succeed, help her retain the good faith of the consortium, then she will not sell and we are no closer to getting those lands back than we were seven years ago. But if she asks you to leave, and tries to go it on her own, she’ll ruin the land, and if we ever get it back, it will be a mess to rebuild the chateau’s reputation from there. But the latter is a future concern. I am more concerned with the immediate fallout from the Widow’s gossip. We are losing money,mon fils.’
‘What?’ Julien straightened from his examination of the vines. ‘Why?’
‘Can you really not guess? A few of the consortium members who’d bought futures on ourcouteau champenoishave asked for their money back. They are concerned about the grapes that come from the chateau if you are no longer the one making decisions over there. I suspect once word gets around people have asked to pull out, others will want to do the same.’ That would be devastating. They’d put all they had into expanding the production of the highly sought aftercouteau champenois. ‘There’s more. I received this just this morning.’ Hisonclereached into his coat pocket and withdrew a letter. He passed it to Julien. ‘It’s from the Growers’ Consortium Bank, the one that holds the loan we took out for the acreage we were able to buy back last year. They are concerned that the “changes in our circumstances” make us a high risk. They want to foreclose on the loan.’
Julien stared at the letter. He knew what foreclosure meant. If they didn’t pay the loan in full, the farmhouse, the vineyard which they’d put up as collateral, would be lost. He handed the letter back to hisoncle. ‘Can we pay it?’
‘If we bankrupt ourselves. It would take everything we’ve got. We would have to use the funds we’d set aside so far for buying the chateau. We’ll have to dip into them already to return the money on the futures. In short, it will take all of our reserves.’ Which meant it would take years to put money aside for the chateau—again. It also meant a significant setback in their ability to run their own vineyard.
‘But our vineyards would still function because I’d be there. We could slowly rebuild, find a new source for the grapes in thecouteau champenois. Tremblay’s been wanting in on that and his grapes are good.’ Julien spoke slowly, thinking out loud. He didn’t want to believe it, but it was possible Tremblay had started the rumour on purpose to force them to turn to him as a source for the grapes.
Hisonclenodded and let out a sigh. ‘It is what I was thinking as well. Pay the damn loan, scale back production to what we can afford, perhaps support the vineyard from funds from the shipping company until our coffers are restored and create a new partnership for thecouteau champenois. But dammit, Julien. We’ll lose the chateau. We won’t have the lands back in my lifetime.’
For the first time, Julien saw true age in hisoncle’s face. There were wrinkles and lines, a bit of sagging at the jaw. ‘Oncle, perhaps what we have is enough. There’s the farmhouse, and there’s the land we do have. It was Archambeau land before and now it is again, because of your efforts and my father’s efforts.’ Today, hisonclelooked defeated, a warrior who’d fought his whole life for an unattainable goal, but also a man who’d been so set on his dream that he hadn’t enjoyed what was right in front of him. Julien thought there was a cautionary tale in that for him. Would this be him at sixty-two? Alone, obsessed? Oncle Etienne looked like a successful man on the outside, but he’d given up so much, including his marriage, compromised so much, and each compromise asked for another and another.
‘I mademon pèrea promise on his deathbed.’ Oncle Etienne shook his head. ‘Do not give up now,mon fils. We must stay strong. I think the way forward is to distance ourselves from Madame Luce. The consortium will come around if we show we’re good for the money and that we’ll support them, not an outsider.’ He gave a shrug. ‘Who knows, once she has no place with them, she might give up, and perhaps the consortium would help us buy the chateau as a reward forourgood faith.’
Julien’s blood chilled. Hisonclemeant to drive her out. If hisonclecouldn’t have the chateau, he wasn’t going to allow her to have it either. ‘Mutually assured disappointment, then?’ Julien asked.
‘Unless you marry her?’ hisoncleasked, too hopefully for it to be taken as a joke.
‘I don’t think there’s any chance of that,’ Julien said. Even if their latest quarrel hadn’t taken away some hope of that, this latest conversation did. Refusing to marry her was a sort of protection for her. If he married her now, no matter what his own motives, he’d be hisoncle’s puppet. That would create a shadow over their marriage before it started and Julien did not think it was a shadow that could be overcome even with time. Emma would question every decision about the vineyard. Was this decision for the good of them or hisoncle? It would destroy them. She would doubt the truth of his feelings and that would destroyher, to say nothing what it would do tohim. Trust was everything to her. She’d given it once and been betrayed.
Hisonclegave him a final clap on the shoulder. ‘Well, that settles it then. The consortium meets tomorrow. We’ll announce our decision there and you can find the right time to tell Emma Luce you’ll be leaving her to devote yourself full-time to your family enterprise.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I feel better already,monfils. I knew talking to you would help me organise my thoughts. With luck, Widow Luce will have been nothing but a small detour in the road to our success.’
Julien offered a tight smile and wished he could say he felt the same. But no, that wasn’t quite right. He didn’t want to wish Emma gone from his life. He didn’t want to leave the chateau. He’d spent seven years of his life managing those vineyards with the hope they’d be his someday. Maybe one day they still would be.
He said goodbye to hisoncleand made the ride home, taking the long route so he could think. Did he tell Emma about the consortium meeting? It was the monthly meeting, and as the head of the vineyards she was entitled to a spot among them. She should have been invited once Madame Clicquot had let the news circulate that she was in residence and planning to work. There’d been plenty of time to send her an invitation this past week. That they hadn’t was further proof they meant to ignore her, shun her for being an outsider. She was a woman and English. Julien reasoned this was perhaps not much different than the reception she’d received when she’d made her debut in London. His heart had gone out to the young girl she’d been and the courage it must have taken to keep showing up even when she was obviously unwanted. That pattern was about to repeat itself.
