‘So?’
He switched on the ignition.
‘It was two o’clock in the morning.’
After leaving Waterperry, Clare could not even remember how she had got back to Bordeaux. The shock of discovering that Miranda was shacked up with Jamie, coming hard on the heels of the gloomy conversation with Grandmaman, had completely thrown her. Downing two straight vodkas at the airport bar, she had presumably boarded the plane, where they were followed by two more.
What prompted her to drive to the Rue Vauban rather than branching off at Blanquefort on to the Route des Châteaux, she could only guess.
To her relief, Alain Lamotte was still working. He opened the door to her himself. Switching off the computer in his office, he motioned her to a seat on the sofa as he collected up his papers and put them into his briefcase.
‘Lucky you caught me. I was just going home. What brings you here so late? Problems?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Messieurs Huchez and Combe been bothering you?’
‘Donne moi un cigarette, Alain!’
He looked up sharply.
‘You don’t smoke.’
‘Donne quand même…’
Alain picked up the pack from his desk and proffered them, lighting her cigarette for her.
‘It’s not the fisc.’ Clare inhaled deeply. Jamie would kill her. ‘It has nothing to do with the château.’
Lighting his own cigarette, Alain came to sit beside her, his hands between his knees.
‘Want to talk?’
Outside it was still warm. Clare was surprised to find that she was cold and that her hands were shaking.
Getting up from the sofa, Alain stubbed out his cigarette, lowered the blind on the door and picked up the telephone.
‘Qu’est ce que tu fais?’
‘I am calling Delphine. She worries if I am late.’
While Alain told Delphine that she was not to delay dinner, that some urgent business had cropped up, Clare took the bottle of Château de Cluzac she had brought for Jamie from her duffle bag and put it on the table in front of the sofa.
‘You don’t happen to have a corkscrew?’
Alain brought a corkscrew and two glasses and sat down beside her. As he opened the bottle, she noticed for the first time that his eyes were green and that there were yellow flecks in them.
‘Jamie’s fucking Miranda.’
‘Who’s Miranda?’ Alain handed her a glass of wine.
‘Does it matter?’
By the time she had recounted her story, by the time she had given Alain a blow-by-blow account of her day, forgetting neither the rose petals nor the tell-tale red hairs in the brush, the ashtray was full, the Château de Cluzac empty, and they had made inroads into the cognac, which was kept for the Assurance Mondiale clients.
Sitting so close to Alain that she could feel the warmth of his body, Clare put her head on his shoulder.
‘It’s so nice to have friends.’
The room was revolving.
‘Maybe you have made a mistake.’
‘I’m not s-s-stupid.’
Alain touched her hair, breathing the scent of it.
‘Hold me tight, Alain.’
He could hardly believe he held Clare de Cluzac in his arms.
‘Tighter.’ Clare fastened her mouth over his.
Alain thought of Delphine, then, dismissing her image from his mind, removed his ‘Galleon’ tie.
Clare closed her eyes. She did not want to look at him, did not want him to speak.
‘Que je t’aime…’
She did not want to be loved. She wanted to be ravaged, annihilated, brutalised, until the image of Jamie and Miranda Pugh was expunged from her head. She tore at Alain’s shirt.
‘Fuck me, Alain. Fuck me!’
Sobbing, she let go of her anger, channelling it into her pelvis until it flowed out between her legs.
There was no more conversation. Rolling off the sofa, scattering the papers from Alain’s briefcase, biting and scratching at each other, they made love until they were exhausted.
‘Mon Dieu, Clare…’
She stopped his lips with her finger, as he covered her body with kisses before taking her tenderly in his arms. When he felt the slow drops damp on his skin, he imagined that her tears were for him.
Clare awoke with her head on Alain’s knees. Trying not to disturb him – he was sleeping like a baby – she disentangled herself. Picking up her clothes, and taking the key to the washroom from his desk, she slipped out of the office.
When she returned, Alain was dressed. He was picking up his papers from the floor, trying to collate them.
She let him hold her but turned her head when he attempted to kiss her.
‘Qu’est ce que ne va pas?’
‘Nothing’s the matter. I’m hungry.’ She had eaten nothing since lunch.
Alain reached for his jacket.
‘I’ll take you for dinner…’
‘Non.’
Clare extricated Sidonie’s tarte tatin and the over-ripe cheese from her duffle bag and set them on the table.
‘You are a strange girl!’
It was two o’clock by the time they left Assurance Mondiale. Going down in the lift, Alain pressed her to the wall with his body and kissed her gently.
‘When will I see you?’
‘See me?’
In the mirror she noticed the dark circles that ringed her eyes.
‘I’ll call you.’ She meant about château business.
‘Soon?’
She was tired and needed to sleep.
‘Soon.’
She slept for two days. Viola thought that she was ill. Petronella, who was coping with the visites, needed some time off; the paperwork was piling up on the desk of the Bureau d’Acceuil; Monsieur Boniface wanted an urgent meeting.
‘Jamie’s rung twice,’ Viola said, when Clare finally appeared for breakfast. ‘I told him you were exhausted…’
Clare looked up sharply as if her one-night stand with Alain were written on her face.
‘He was worried about you.’
‘If he calls again I’m out.’
‘Out…?’
‘I’d rather not discuss it.’
‘Suit yourself.’
Taking several bulky manilla envelopes from the chair beside her, Viola handed them to Clare.
‘This is for you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Open it, you’ll find out.’
Opening one of the envelopes, Clare removed a bundle of 500-franc notes. She stared at Viola.
‘It’s for your barrels.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘From Charles-Louis.’
‘Papa giving me money to buy new oak!’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘Mother! What exactly have you been up to?’
‘Give me another cup of coffee and I’ll tell you.’
Smiling broadly, for it was the best thing that had happened to her in years, Viola repeated the story – now heavily embroidered – of what had passed between herself and Charles-Louis and how she had held him to ransom over the divorce.
When Clare had stopped laughing, her own troubles temporarily forgotten, she said, ‘This money belongs to you.’
‘I don’t need it. The Fitzpatrick Equine Centre is turning over nicely. I don’t owe anything on the house. I rarely move from the place. I’ve got Declan. What more do I want?’
‘I can’t take it.’
‘You’ve no choice. There’s one condition. Don’t tell your father. He’d kill me!’
By the time Clare called unannounced on Halliday, Jamie had rung a dozen times, and there was a stack of unanswered faxes from the John Radcliffe on her desk.
Wearing shorts and trainers – he had just returned from his marathon training – Halliday seemed neither pleased nor displeased to see her.
Wandering round his apartment while he was in the shower,
Clare looked at the framed photographs on the buffet. She picked one up to examine it more closely.
‘Is this your wife?’
Halliday, his long hair still wet, had changed into a bush shirt and clean jeans.
‘That’s Maureen.’
‘She’s pretty.’
He nodded.
‘You miss her.’
‘What do you think? You didn’t come here to talk about Maureen.’
‘You said you’d help me with new barrels.’
‘I said you need a million francs…’
‘I’ve got a million francs.’
‘Where from?’
‘Is that any of your business?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I can take a pretty shrewd guess.’
‘Look, Halliday, I’ve had enough of your innuendoes. I welcome your opinion as an oenologist; I’m willing to take your advice about my grapes. Keep out of my private life! It has nothing whatever to do with you.’
‘Sit down, I’ll show you a card trick.’
Apologising in the only way he knew, Halliday took a deck of cards from the buffet and, laying them on the coffee table, deftly sorted out the four aces, four kings, four queens and four knaves, which he removed from the pack.
‘There were once four queens, whose countries bordered upon each other. The four countries met at a point marked by a dense forest where the four kings – their husbands – hunted deer. One day, these four royal ladies’ – he laid the four queens side by side – ‘decided to take a country ramble without guards or attendants. They hadn’t gone very far when a great storm arose. Convinced that the weather would soon clear, each queen hurried as fast as possible to the shelter of the forest where they found a woodcutter’s cottage. The good woman who owned the cottage, who was much flattered by the royal favour, ushered each queen into one of her four rooms. Then she went into the kitchen to brew them some tea…’
He slid the four queens across the coffee table into four imaginary rooms.
‘Now it so happened that the four kings missed their wives and went out looking for them. They were also caught in the storm and went to the woodcutter’s hut, where the old woman begged them to make themselves at home under her poor roof. One by one the kings found their wives and joined them, while they waited for more favourable weather…’
As Clare watched, fascinated, Halliday placed the kings, according to suit, beside their queens in the four imaginary rooms.
‘Scarcely were the kings settled, than four young officers arrived at the cottage demanding shelter. “Please accommodate yourselves where you can, your excellencies,” said the old woman, and the four young officers each went to a different room…’
He placed the knaves, indiscriminately, together with the matched kings and queens in each of the four rooms.
‘The quiet of the cottage was disturbed once more by the arrival of four Secret Service agents who believed that the young officers were spies. Ordering the old woman aside, they marched into the four rooms…’
Without regard to suit, he put the aces one in each room.
‘Finding that their suspicions were groundless, the Secret Service agents grew restless. They wandered around from room to room, as did the rest of the party, all of whom were getting bored with waiting for the storm to end…’
Halliday mixed up the occupants of the various rooms thoroughly, before gathering up all sixteen of the cards.
‘After a while, the four young officers thought they would like to join forces again; the four kings and queens got fed up with each other – as husbands and wives do…’
Glancing at Clare he dealt the cards one by one – one card into each room and then another card into each room – into four packs of four, as if for a rubber of whist.
‘When the old woman, bearing her best tray filled with cups of tea, knocked on the doors of the rooms later on, what do you think she found? In one room she found the four queens discussing the latest court scandal…’
He turned up the four queens.
‘In another room the four kings were playing piquet…’
He turned up the four kings.
‘In the third room the four young officers were boasting about their conquests…’
He turned up the four knaves.
‘And in the last the Secret Service officers were discussing the latest bugging devices…’
Beating him to it, Clare turned up the four aces.
‘Brilliant!’
‘Billy used to like that one.’
‘About Alain Lamotte…’
‘I didn’t ask you about Alain.’
‘I had a terrible a shock. It’s about Jamie… I was just using poor Alain.’
‘A pain-killer.’ Halliday put the cards back on the buffet and picked up the photograph of Maureen. ‘I know all about that.’
Thirty-eight
Halliday Baines was not the only one to have seen Clare coming out of the offices of Assurance Mondiale at two o’clock in the morning. Harry Balard had been cruising the streets in search of one of the rent boys who hung out in the Place Ste Croix, when he had caught sight of Clare embracing Alain Lamotte beneath the streetlight on the pavement, and jammed on the brakes of his Porsche.
Harry was not one to keep anything to himself. Certainly not such a succulent morsel of gossip. He had passed on the tid-bit to Marie-Paule, while at the same time storing it in his head to be put to good use at some future date.
Since the information sounded highly unlikely – everyone in Bordeaux knew that Clare de Cluzac was engaged to be married – Marie-Paule wondered if Harry, who lately had been acting decidedly strangely, could possibly have invented the story.
It was several weeks now since, in the early hours of the morning, she had heard the patter of pebbles against the tightly shut volets of the marital bedroom. No matter what the temperature, Claude was opposed to fresh air. Putting the sound down to hailstones – accounts of the freak storm at Château de Cluzac were still circulating in the Médoc – Marie-Paule had taken no notice. When the noise persisted, she had heaved herself off the bed – it was far too hot for covers – released the catch and pushed open the purple-painted shutters, which matched the purple couvre-lit. Had she not witnessed the sight with her very own eyes, she would not have believed it. Her beloved Harry, his hair dishevelled, his forehead encrusted with what looked very much like dried blood, was standing woefully beneath a chestnut tree on the deserted pavement, without a stitch on below his waist, his hands modestly shielding his sexe.
Taking care not to wake Balard, Marie-Paule put on her peignoir and let Harry into the apartment.
Gathering him into her arms, she cooed at him as she had when he was six years old.
‘Mon petit chou!’
Pushing his mother aside roughly, and without a word of apology for waking her, Harry had gone straight to his room, where Marie-Paule, who followed him, found the door shut in her face.
Since there had been no explanation from Harry, either at the time or since, Marie-Paule wondered if he was perfectly well. She did not dare discuss the matter with Balard, who was more bad-tempered than usual, and Christiane’s head was permanently in the clouds as she day-dreamed of Halliday Baines. The only person she confided in was Biancarelli who, although she had hidden it from Harry’s mother, had been highly amused.
Marie-Paule’s other piece of gossip, concerning Clare and Alain Lamotte, had amused Biancarelli considerably less. If the story was true, however, and considering her discussion with Clare before the looking-glass in her showroom she would be very much surprised, it was Clare’s problem. Biancarelli had her own.
The return of the Baron to the Médoc had put the boutique owner into a flat spin. She had not wanted to fall in love with her benefactor, she had not asked for it; but ever since he had gone back to Florida she had been acting like a lovesick girl. She was unable to eat, unable to sleep, and had lost interest in her clients, whose requirements had previously been paramoun
t. Shooting herself in the foot – business was bad and rents were going up – she had given even Claude Balard and her other petits amis their marching orders.
The fact that Charles-Louis had returned to Bordeaux with Rosa Delaware, rather than Laura Spray, was neither here nor there. Biancarelli saw neither of them as a competitor for the Baron’s heart. Alone of all the women who came and went in his life, she knew that he did not have one. All that she asked was to be able, unequivocally, to love him. Her Corsican heart was big enough for two.
Making no excuse to Rosa Delaware, the Baron had been to see Biancarelli; she knew all about the divorce and Viola’s blackmail (a woman after her own heart). Distraught at the thought of losing her lover permanently to his orange groves – she did not see the uptight Laura Spray as a rival – on the last occasion she had seen him, Biancarelli had grappled him to her side.
Slipping on a gown when the business of the afternoon was over, she had shyly approached the Baron, put her arms round him, and pressed his mouth to her own. If he was surprised, he did not show it. Releasing himself from her grasp, he sat down on the Louis-XV-style fauteuil in her boudoir to put on his monogrammed socks.
‘La prochaine fois qu’on se verra, je serai marié…’
Next time he would be married. Biancarelli’s face fell. Installing herself on his lap, she pulled his face to her magnificent breast.
‘Ne t’inquiétes pas, Bianca…’
She was always Bianca after they had made love.
‘…I’ll be back.’
‘What would you do if I were no longer here?’
Charles-Louis looked at her blankly. The thought of his long-term mistress being no longer around was as farcical as the idea of returning to Château de Cluzac to discover that it had vanished into a hole in the ground.
‘You’ll be here.’ Tipping Biancarelli unceremoniously off his lap, the Baron reached for his trousers, as she lit a cigarette. He was right, of course. Like the Trojan women, she would be around, awaiting his pleasure.
‘Je t’aime.’ I love you. There was nothing to lose.
Putting on his tie, the Baron laughed his deep-throated laugh. It was like a dagger in Biancarelli’s heart. Picking up his jacket and caressing his mistress’ dimpled derrière, in much the same way as he patted the rump of his horse, Baron de Cluzac, whom she had served for so many years as concubine and confessor, without a backward glance, took his customary leave.
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