The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2) (17 page)

“You’re in the hospital in Épernay. The doctors say that you were very lucky. Concussion. Some bad bruising on your chest and back and some grazing. It’s a miracle you didn’t break your neck. A few days of rest and you’ll be your old self again, the doctor said a few minutes ago. Oh, Leon, I was scared to death!” Crying, Isabelle kissed him on his chest, arms, hands, fingers. She laughed and cried at the same time.

Leon closed his eyes again.

A miracle. He’d been given a miracle.

At some point, Isabelle’s exhaustion caught up with her and she fell asleep. She jumped when she felt a hand shaking her shoulder.

Two young nurses were standing beside Leon’s bed. While one of them changed Leon’s bandages, the other said, “Madame, we’re going to move your husband into the big ward. I’m sorry, but you have to leave.”

Isabelle looked beseechingly at the nurse. “And if he wakes up and calls for me?”

The nurse shrugged.

Downcast, Isabelle stepped out of the room. In the corridor, she encountered the doctor with whom she had only spoken briefly.

“It is truly a miracle that it wasn’t any worse,” he said. “When your husband was brought in, he was covered in blood. The gash on his head and all the grazing on his body—he looked very bad. But when the nurses washed him clean, we saw that it wasn’t as bad as we’d feared. Your husband had more than one guardian angel watching over him.”

Still, it made Isabelle shudder to think what had happened. She didn’t want to know everything in detail. She looked yearningly in the direction of the ward where the nurses were rolling Leon’s bed.

The doctor spoke gently. “Go home, madame. Go home and try to get over the shock. If you don’t want to drive home, there’s a nice little pension just around the corner. You can’t do anything for your husband here. We’ve given him something to help with the pain; he’ll sleep soundly now for at least ten hours. Sleep is sometimes the best medicine. More than anything, he will need peace and quiet for the next few days.”

Isabelle had almost reached the entrance when she heard someone weeping softly, the sound coming from a room on her left.
More like a lament
, she thought. It was a woman, and there was so much sorrow and loneliness in the sound that it almost broke Isabelle’s heart. She hesitated for a moment, then walked on. She had worries of her own; someone else could console the crying woman.

But she stopped just outside at the entrance and turned back. If she didn’t look in on the woman now, she would spend half the night reproaching herself.

Two gas lamps cast a dingy light over the large ward and exuded a sweet odor. Ten beds were lined up along the walls to the left and right of the door, but only three of them were occupied. The sound of weeping was coming from the last bed, beside the window. Cautiously, Isabelle approached the bed. She had no idea what she was supposed to do to console the woman. After the shock she herself had suffered, and from which she had not yet recovered, she really had no head for charitable acts. She hadn’t been able to walk away, but when she reached the bed, she wished she had done just that. “
You?
”

Ghislaine’s beautiful face was swollen, her eyes red with tears, her normally magnificent hair dull. When she saw Isabelle, she didn’t turn away; Isabelle momentarily hoped that she would, because then she would have turned away and left. But instead, Ghislaine’s tears only intensified.

“Mademoiselle Lambert, Ghislaine . . .” Isabelle said gently, fighting against the lump in her throat.
Don’t
you
start crying too
, she commanded herself.
That won’t help the woman at all
. But how could she help? If it had been Josephine, Clara, or even Micheline lying there, Isabelle would not have hesitated to throw her arms around her friend and rock her back and forth until the crying stopped. But with Ghislaine, such an embrace would have felt out of place; it would have suggested an intimacy they did not have. Instead, Isabelle pulled up a chair—the least she could do was give her a little company. Perhaps she would soon fall asleep, and then Isabelle could leave.

Ghislaine Lambert. Daniel’s sister. That’s why he had been in the hospital. That’s why he had heard that Leon had been brought in, badly hurt.

The longer Isabelle sat there, the more she felt how tired and worn out she was. She moved her aching shoulders and concealed a yawn behind her hand. She thought of Leon, lying just a few doors away. Was he sleeping? She hoped his headaches would ease soon.

“The child . . .” Two words, whispered.

Isabelle started. For a moment, she had forgotten Ghislaine was there. Instinctively, she laid both hands on her own belly. “Which child?”

“I lost it. Early this morning. The doctor said that with work as hard as mine, it can happen.” Ghislaine’s eyes were bloodshot, and her arms lay on the rough, white bedcover like the limp limbs of a marionette.

Isabelle nodded, and as she did, she felt unspeakably stupid. Why did she nod? Was it because there were no words of solace that she could possibly say?

Ghislaine did not seem to notice. Instead, she whispered, “I finally had something from him that was only for me.” Her voice was choked with tears.

“I’m so sorry,” Isabelle said softly. So it was Alphonse Trubert’s child. And Ghislaine had lost it.

Ghislaine looked at Isabelle with a strange expression, as if she only then recognized her.

Isabelle slid back and forth uncomfortably on the chair. “Can I do anything for you? Or . . . I should go.”

Ghislaine closed her eyes, just as Leon had earlier. Relieved, Isabelle stood up. She turned to leave when she heard a soft voice from the bed. “Look after yourself, Isabelle. Yourself and the child, so that you don’t go through what I am.”

Chapter Eighteen

Isabelle heeded the doctor’s advice and took a room in the pension. The next morning, Micheline and an extremely hungover-looking Claude appeared in the small breakfast room.

“How did you know I was here?” Isabelle exclaimed when she saw them.

“Where else were you supposed to be?” her neighbor said, and crushed Isabelle to her chest. She had brought along a bag of toiletries and fresh underwear.

They ate croissants and coffee together, and Isabelle reported what she knew of Leon’s accident and condition. Everything was going to be all right. Micheline and Claude sighed with relief.

Together, they went to the hospital.

Leon was sleeping. Isabelle persuaded Claude and Micheline to go home again. The spring festival had carried on into the early hours of the morning, and a few hours of rest before the start of a new work week would do both of them good. It took some convincing, but they let Isabelle accompany them to the hospital entrance, where Daniel Lambert was just then approaching.

“Is your husband all right?” he asked immediately.

“He’s asleep,” Isabelle said. “He has a concussion, but he’s doing well otherwise.”

“When I saw him yesterday, covered with blood, I feared worse,” said Daniel.

“Thank you for coming to tell me right away.” Isabelle clasped his hands in hers. “If you hadn’t, then who knows when I would have heard about the accident?” She waved in the direction of Ghislaine’s room. “You’ve come to see your sister?”

Daniel looked at her in surprise, then nodded curtly.

“Ghislaine’s in the hospital, too?” Micheline asked as soon as Daniel was gone. “Is she sick? What’s wrong with her?”

Isabelle only shrugged.

Whenever Isabelle visited Leon, he was asleep. The doctors and nurses said this was normal, that a damaged body healed best when asleep. Hour after hour, she sat by his bed and held his hand. His bandages no longer covered his eyes, and she observed how his left eyelid twitched as he slept and how his cheeks flushed or paled.

Now and then, he woke up but only briefly. As soon as he realized she was there, a smile spread across his face, and he squeezed Isabelle’s hand. There was so much intimacy when his eyes met hers that it sent a tremor through her. If it had been up to her, she would have sat by his bed around the clock. But the nurses kept sending her away. Couldn’t she see that she was hampering their work?

A few days later, Claude and Micheline returned to the hospital to check on Leon and Isabelle. Micheline brought Isabelle a hunk of bread with cheese and a bowl of apple compote, which Isabelle ate hungrily. Apart from breakfast at the pension, she hadn’t eaten anything for days. She was just finishing the last bit of food when the doctor came by.

“Madame Feininger, here again, I see. Or should I say, still here?” He shook his head. “If you don’t go home voluntarily, then I’ll have to ban you!”

“But I—”

“No buts, madame!” the doctor cut her off. “If you come back tomorrow or the day after, your husband may be able to leave the hospital. To do that, he will need fresh clothes. Or do you want to put him back in his torn cycling gear?”

“If I may say so, Madame Feininger,” said Claude, “you do look very tired. Let us take you home. I’ll be happy to drive you back again tomorrow.”

It was good to be home again. She had not washed properly since Leon’s accident, and now she warmed water and poured herself a hot bath. Lying in the enamel tub, she looked out the window into the green foliage of the pear tree and thought of everything that she wanted to prepare for Leon’s homecoming.

She would need to have a delicious meal on the table, for one thing—something to give him back his strength. She wanted to change the bedding, too, so the bed would be fresh for him. An hour later, with wrinkled fingers and toes and feeling much more cheerful, Isabelle climbed out of the tub. She had a lot to do!

She returned to the hospital the following day. A squeal of joy escaped her when she saw that Leon was awake and dipping a croissant into a cup of milky coffee.

“If I’d known you had your appetite back, I’d have brought you some of the stew I’ve made for when you come home,” she said gaily. Maybe she would finally be able to tell him the good news today?

They kissed long and affectionately, then Leon said, “I’m feeling much better. The headaches have finally stopped, at least, but I fear your stew will still have to wait awhile.” He grimaced. “The doctors still want me to stay a day or two longer because of the concussion. They asked me to walk down the corridor this morning, and I felt dizzy; apparently I was swaying from side to side. I still need peace and quiet, they say, and medical supervision.”

Peace and quiet? She couldn’t help her disappointment.

“What’s another day or two if it gets you back to your old self again?” she said as encouragingly as she could. “Perhaps I can speed up your recuperation with a little good news.” She paused for a moment before she went on. “Claude will be shearing the sheep this morning, and he already has a buyer lined up for the wool. That will bring some money in.”

Leon smiled. “Didn’t I tell you it was a good idea to hang on to the sheep?” The next moment, his left eyelid began to twitch uncontrollably, and he lifted his hand to his temple.

“Leon, what is it?” Isabelle quickly took his hand and squeezed it. From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the nurses approaching.

“Nothing,” he whispered hoarsely. “The pain will go away in just a moment.”

“Madame! The patient needs rest! How many times do we have to tell you?”

Isabelle went to the hospital again the next morning, and when she saw who was sitting by his bed, she was speechless for a long moment. What did
she
want?

“A little sausage, some cheese, a bottle of good red wine . . .” Henriette Trubert was unpacking a basket of groceries on Leon’s bed as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “And chocolate, perfect for getting one’s strength back, by the way.”

The eyes of the man in the next bed grew wider and wider, but Henriette just gave him an unfriendly look. Then she noticed Isabelle.

“Ah, Madame Feininger, I’m sure you have nothing against my dropping by for a quick visit with your husband,” she said with a sugary smile. “When I heard about the accident, I thought to myself, how can a sportsman possibly recover on the food they serve in hospitals? I happened to be in town, so I brought a few things for him. We have to get him back on his feet, after all, don’t we?”

“The doctors and I are taking care of that,” said Isabelle with undisguised displeasure. She set down her own basket, also filled with fruit, sausage, and cheese, beside Leon’s bed. Then she leaned over to Leon and kissed him.

“How are you feeling, darling?” she asked him gently.

“With two beautiful women here to look after me, I can only be getting better. I’m allowed to go home tomorrow morning. The doctors said so earlier.”

Isabelle heaved a sigh of relief.
Thank you, God
.

“I like your fighting spirit, Monsieur Feininger. Nothing seems to keep you down for long.” Henriette Trubert packed the things she’d brought back into the basket and put it on a chair beside her. “I don’t want to disturb you any longer. However, I would like to repeat my offer to purchase your estate. You’ve just seen how quickly things can change—and painfully, too. It would be good to know that one had made some provisions for the future, wouldn’t it? Two million francs would see you through to the end of your days and beyond, and you’d never have to lift a finger again.”

Isabelle could not believe what she was hearing. “You’ve got some nerve, exploiting my husband’s condition to—” she began, but Leon interrupted her.

“It’s all right,” he said gently. “Madame Trubert is right. The accident has truly changed my view of things. This was no simple fall. I could easily have been killed. The more I think about it, the clearer I see just how lucky I’ve been. God has given me a second chance.” His eyes were gleaming, and for a second he looked as if he might begin to weep.

Isabelle looked at him in horror.
Don’t sell! Don’t make a rash decision now!
she begged him silently.

The first signs of victory flashed in Henriette’s eyes. “And you would like to enjoy life to the fullest. I knew you were a smart man,” she said, patting Leon’s hand. “If it would be agreeable to you, I will use the time of your convalescence to have our notary draw up the necessary contracts. Agreed?”

“Leon, don’t say yes!” Isabelle cried, looking at him in despair.

For a long moment, no one said a word.

“I’ve made my decision,” Leon said, directing his words as much to Isabelle as to Henriette. “Please don’t misunderstand me—cycling will continue to play an important part in my life. It isn’t as if the fall has robbed me of my courage, God forbid! It’s more that I’ve finally realized what God put me here to do. I was so blind.” He took a deep breath, as if to underline the weight of his words.

Isabelle’s forehead creased deeply. Leon mentioning God so frequently . . . what did it mean? He sounded practically enlightened!

“When I leave the hospital tomorrow, and in the future, I will use all my strength . . . to get the estate into shape! I have no intention of selling, Madame Trubert.”

“But why . . . ?” Henriette began.

Isabelle could have jumped for joy. Instead, she stepped forward and shooed Henriette off her chair.

“Please go now,” she said, as icily and arrogantly as she possibly could. “I find your chatter terribly exhausting. I can only imagine how the patient must feel!”

“What you said, do you really mean it?” said Isabelle as soon as Henriette left. She felt like kissing him from head to foot but instead just held his hand chastely.

He nodded, then pulled his hand free of hers. He fished a small worn notebook out of the drawer of the nightstand.

“One of the nurses gave me this when I told her there was so much going around in my head that it hurt.” He opened the notebook, and Isabelle saw that most of the pages had been torn out. On those that remained, she saw Leon’s handwriting.

“I’ve started a list with the most important things, the ones we have to get on with urgently in the next few months. On the estate and out in the vineyards, one step after another, you know?”

She nodded and read.

• Replant the fallow vineyard
  
• Actively seek new customers?
  
• Sales tour together?
  

Three points, two with question marks after them. Isabelle found it charming—the mere fact that Leon was thinking about these questions at all counted for something. She was suddenly filled with emotion and happiness, and she felt a swelling in her throat.

“From now on, you come first. You and Uncle Jacques’s inheritance. And only then the cycling.”

“Oh, Leon.”

They kissed tenderly.

“We’ll have none of that in here, thank you!” said one of the nurses walking past.

Isabelle pulled a face behind her. Then she turned back to Leon. Should she or shouldn’t she? She took a deep breath.

“You might have to reconsider what comes first on that list. You’re going to be a father, Leon. We’re going to have a child.”

“We . . . what? But . . . since when?”

“I’ve suspected it for a while, but I’ve only known for certain since last week.” Isabelle stroked her belly automatically, as she often had in recent days. A feeling of bliss washed through her.

“An heir!” Leon beamed. “Someone to take over our work later on. If I hadn’t made the right decision already, I would do it now.”

Isabelle smirked. “I never thought I’d hear you talk like this. But there’s one thing you do have to promise me. Later on, that we won’t coddle our children or push them too hard. When I think about how I suffered because my father had everything mapped out for me!” She shuddered. “Our children should decide for themselves what kind of life they want to lead. If they want to continue with the winery, wonderful. If not, that’s also fine.”

“You’re right, darling,” said Leon tamely. “But one can hope, right?” They smiled at each other. “It took a miracle to open my eyes, but from now on, everything is going to work out. I love you,” he murmured softly, then closed his eyes.

“I love you, too,” Isabelle whispered back. “Tonight will be your last night in the hospital. You’ll sleep in our bed again tomorrow. Sleep well, my darling.”

She stayed awhile longer, sitting beside his bed, basking in their love, her trust in him, and her confidence about the future. Then she left the hospital. She would pick Leon up the next day. With fresh clothes and a fresh outlook. And then their new life could begin. Again.

The large round clock at the end of the corridor said it was two o’clock when Leon swayed toward the nurses’ station. He had had a bad dream and probably tossed his head from side to side in his sleep. Now, his head was aching something terrible. And he was thirsty, too. A glass of water and a few drops of that horrible liquid on a spoon. Two birds with one stone.