The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2) (30 page)

Daniel smiled. “I wish you all the best, my
vigneronne allemande
. May your champagne be as tantalizing as you are.”

“You frighten me,” she said, unsettled.

“Do you think I feel any different?” he replied. “You scare the
hell
out of me. That kiss—it came as unexpectedly for me as for you. I had no plans to fall in love with you. Being in love makes you vulnerable. But it looks like I’ve lost the battle. So I’m asking you, be forgiving with me.” Even in the dark, she saw that the fine lines around the eyes in his weathered face grew deeper as he smiled.

Isabelle could only return his smile with difficulty. Too much was going on in her head. Daniel’s confession had shocked her. What feelings did she hold for him? All she knew was that, whenever she was near him, she felt that subtle trembling, like the beat of a butterfly’s wings against the inside of her stomach, pleading for release. It was something she could only remember from when she had first fallen for Leon. And now she felt the same way around Daniel.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for a new love, or if I ever will be,” she said, more to herself than to him. “Though I’m getting through the days better than I was, I’m still so sad that I’ve lost Leon. The sadness comes and goes like waves, and I never know when the next one is going to crash over me. What if I’m lying in another man’s arms then?” She waited for an answer. When Daniel said nothing, she continued. “I have so many things still ahead, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to deal with them. I’m going to be the mother of Leon’s child! And there’s the champagne—it’s supposed to be something exquisite, the kind of champagne you find once in a hundred years, and it’s my
first
champagne. I won’t be able to do it with Gustave Grosse. Sooner or later, I’ll have to look around for a new cellar master, someone more talented. Someone who shares my vision. And then I have to look for new customers. And then, and then . . . !” She shook her head. “So many new things . . . and a new love on top of everything? I’m too big a coward for that.”

“You are the bravest woman I have ever met.” There was so much longing in his voice, so much tenderness and depth that Isabelle was afraid she would drown in it. Abruptly, she jumped to her feet, her skirt catching on a splinter on the rough wooden bench. She heard a soft tearing sound. Ignoring it, she looked at Daniel.

“Me? Brave?” Her laugh was shrill. “Try telling that to Clara and Josephine. They know what a coward I am. I’m sorry, but I’m not the right one for you. The best thing you could do would be to leave me in peace. There’s no room in my life for this kind of thing.”

Without another word, she walked away.

It was the first performance of the new season, and every seat at the opera in Reims was sold out. Now that the harvests were over and the cellars of champagne were full again, the
Champenois
wanted a change, and they wanted to be entertained. The director of the opera was an experienced elderly man from Paris, and he knew what his audiences were after, so he had decided on a performance of Jules Massenet’s
Manon
to kick off the season—a love story as dramatic as it was ill fated, set in the times of Louis XV. Beautiful women, rich noblemen, magnificent costumes and even more magnificent backdrops, and bold, risqué dialogue—that was something the champagne makers could identify with! But there was one visitor that evening who could not identify with that.

Raymond Dupont shifted restlessly in his seat in one of the red-velvet-clad boxes. Manon Lescaut’s arias were scraping his nerves raw, as if someone were dragging a knife across a china plate, and he did not find her constant vacillating between her lover, Le Chevalier des Grieux, and her lover’s rival, the wealthy Monsieur de Brétigny, to be even the slightest bit prurient, but rather simply repugnant. Why were the two men blind to the underhanded game the profligate beauty was playing? How was it possible for grown men to let her run roughshod over them like that? Where was true love, great love?

Raymond had no idea why he was so worked up. It was an opera, no more.

Was it to do with all the busy weeks he’d been through lately? Endless days in his shop, followed every evening by the mandatory excursions with his wealthy customers out into the countryside to enjoy the atmosphere of the harvest. Only when he had gone to such pains to ensure the well-being of his spoiled clientele did he realize the truth: there was no one—truly no one!—who cared about
his
well-being. There he was, the
grandseigneur
of Champagne, a pillar of Reims society, all alone in the world. When, late in the evenings, he returned to his apartment, his two thousand square feet of luxury, it welcomed him as cold and as deserted as a grave. Now that the harvest was over, the Champagne party season would begin, and he would have to work even more. His customers relied on his advice, so this meant numerous tasting sessions and as many painstaking conversations. Sometimes his clients even expected him to pay a visit to their venue before he selected a champagne for the event.

Work, work, work, never time for anything else.

And my love life is in the doldrums. Not the slightest sign of a liaison
, he thought grumpily as beautiful Manon sank into the arms of de Brétigny.

As the curtain fell and a melodic gong rang for the thirty-minute intermission, Raymond sighed. With a friendly smile at the other guests in his box, he fled to the champagne bar, awaiting the onslaught of the guests in the gaily lit foyer.

He ordered a
coupe de champagne
and gazed at the other opening-night visitors. Everyone was there: the Ruinarts and the Moëts, Maurice and George Roger from Épernay, Louise Pommery’s son Louis, Joseph and Georges Bollinger. Each of those esteemed men was escorting an elegantly dressed woman . . . couples, wherever Raymond looked. He frowned; so this was where all his hard work had taken him—instead of a beautiful woman at his side, he was standing at the bar like something ordered but never picked up. It would actually have been up to him, then, to approach one or another of the winemakers he could see around him. A compliment here, a quick chat about the next tasting session there. But instead of turning on his usual charm and working on his contacts, he stood there with his smile frozen in place and hoped that everyone would leave him in peace.
What is wrong with you?
he asked himself. He needed a rest, some time to turn his thoughts to other things.

He probably would have sunk even deeper into his gloomy musings if he had not seen Alphonse and Henriette Trubert walking in his direction just then. Raymond was taken aback; he had not expected to see them together in public like this. Every sparrow in every bush was whistling about how Alphonse’s lover, Ghislaine Lambert, was expecting his child. But it looked as if Henriette didn’t care at all; with her back straight and her head held high, she strutted through the foyer, greeting friends and acquaintances on every side.

“Raymond, my dear!” She stopped in front of him, a predatory smile on her face. Returning her smile, he kissed her on both cheeks and did his best to ignore the red lipstick smeared on her teeth. He could no longer remember what it was that had once attracted him to this woman. Her husband seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because as soon as Henriette spoke to Raymond, Alphonse took the opportunity to escape.

“A ravishing production, don’t you think? I find the composition both ingenious and refined, and with a distinctive atmosphere to boot.” Henriette rolled her eyes in feigned rapture.

Since when did you become an opera expert?
Raymond wanted to ask his erstwhile lover, but he suppressed the urge. Like Raymond, Henriette only went to the opera to see and to be seen; the play beyond the stage was far more interesting to both of them than the efforts of the
professional
actors. In the past, on several occasions, they had laughed about this common ground.

“Cat got your tongue, or is it something more dire?” Henriette gave him an unladylike jab in his ribs. “Talk to me. Your silence is gradually getting embarrassing. People are starting to stare.”

Pull yourself together
, Raymond warned himself, and not for the first time that evening. He was depressed, and it was not a mood he was familiar with. It scared him, and it made him angry. But instead of uttering either a moody quip or the kind of compliment women like Henriette liked to hear, he sighed deeply.

“I think I’m getting old,” he heard himself say, to his own horror.

Henriette, who assumed he was making a joke, laughed brightly. “Won’t we all be sooner or later? I know exactly what you need, my dear,” she whispered in his ear.

“How can you know that when you yourself are still in the bloom of youth?” he said, finally managing to conjure up his usual charm.

Henriette raised her thin, plucked eyebrows coquettishly, then she hooked her arm into his.

“Let’s take a little walk,” she said, and strolled off with him toward one of the two terraces that framed the opera house. Every gas lamp along the marble balustrades was lit—the operagoers wanted to show off their splendor wherever they went, after all.

Outside, they set their glasses down, and Henriette immediately said, “I’ve heard that Isabelle Feininger has also managed to get her harvest in, albeit only at the last moment and by getting over some serious obstacles.”

Raymond laughed. “And who was behind those obstacles, I wonder? None other than you!”

Henriette did not dispute his claim but merely waved her hand in casual dismissal, as if Raymond had mentioned a trifle. “One way or another, she will lose her estate. Am I supposed to wait for the next charlatan to come along?” she said, then went on without waiting for Raymond to reply. “Jacques Feininger was not cut from the right cloth to run a winery, nor was Leon Feininger, and Isabelle Feininger most certainly is not. It is high time that the estate found its way into the right hands.”

“And the right hands would be yours?” Raymond asked drily. Why was she telling him this?

Henriette looked at him confidently. “I’m not trying to disguise the fact that I would like to have the Feininger lands. I look out my window every morning, and when I see the Feininger vineyards, I am overcome by a desire to own them. They would, so to speak, set the crown on my holdings.”

Although it was nothing new, Raymond suddenly found Henriette’s habit of talking about “her” property, as if she alone owned the Trubert estate, extremely disagreeable. In fact, he was finding this entire discussion disagreeable!

“At the same time, I am not ignoring Isabelle’s well-being for one moment,” Henriette continued. “She’s still young. She should marry again. A well-to-do man would lay the world at her feet, a world where she could be a princess instead of a drudge who slogs away from morning to night. The kind of life due to a fine young lady from imperial Berlin—that’s what I would wish for Isabelle Feininger. Wouldn’t you?”

“What do you want, Henriette?” Raymond asked impatiently. He picked up his glass and drained it in one draught, then turned as if about to go back inside.

“Only what’s best for you, darling,” she replied with a saccharine smile. “It’s clear to me that being alone all the time isn’t doing you any good. You look tired and somehow . . . joyless. A new love would buck you up! A young woman who would appreciate a man as mature, clever, and attractive as you are. A woman like Isabelle Feininger would breathe new life into your dusty bachelor existence. There’s more to life than work, my dear!”

“I won’t argue with that,” he noted, his voice sarcastic, but at the same time he was trying to hide his surprise. Could Henriette read thoughts? A beautiful woman, desire, excitement—there was nothing like that in his life; he’d become as flat as champagne left to stand. But it was almost humiliating that one of his former lovers should rub salt into the wound. “But you really don’t need to worry about my love life. I’m discreet, that’s all,” he added.

“Discreet or not, my eyes and ears miss very little, as you are well aware. I’ve observed on several occasions that the widow Feininger appeals to you—at our own annual soiree, for one, and at the festival in the village. The way you look at her, the way you hang on every word she so much as mutters.”

He laughed then. “Don’t you have anything better to do than spy on me?”

She went on, unperturbed. “The German is a highly desirable woman. My own dear cellar master also seems rather taken with her, though with Daniel I’m not sure what’s got him more fired up: Isabelle Feininger the woman or the thought that he might finally be able to take back control of his forebears’ estate. He wouldn’t be the first man to marry for money!” She sniffed in disgust.

A tangle of thoughts filled Raymond’s head, and he had trouble sorting them all out. “Daniel Lambert has his eye on Isabelle Feininger?” he pressed, realizing how stupid the question made him sound.

Henriette nodded. “And because of that, he’s undermined me several times. I’d toss him out on his ear for his disloyalty, believe me, but I’m afraid I’d never find such a talent again for my cellars.”