The Bordeaux Betrayal

“Let’s go.” Quinn walked me over to the El and opened my door, holding it while I got in. Across the street, I saw Shane whisper something in Nicole Martin’s perfect ear. She watched us, nodding. Guess he’d explained what was what. Or who.

Quinn revved his engine. “Do not hit that Porsche,” I said. “I don’t care how much you hate him for being with your ex-wife.”

“I don’t hate him,” he said. “He’s welcome to her.”

We drove back to the vineyard in silence that echoed. He looked at me just once—his face like granite, his eyes dark as obsidian. I knew then that seeing her again had opened a wound that had never healed. Now she was walking around in his mind.

He was grieving, hurt, angry. And still very much in love with his ex-wife.

When we got back to the vineyard he dropped me at my house and said, “I’m going out in the field for a while. And don’t worry about punching down the cap tonight. I got it covered.”

I nodded. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

I knew better than to offer sympathy, let alone pity. He would have thrown it right back in my face. So I let him go, saying nothing, and tried not to think about the look in his eyes when he talked about going out into the field alone.

Around nine o’clock the phone rang. I was in the parlor, trying to plow through European Travels with Thomas Jefferson’s Ghost. The nearest telephone was in the foyer. I reached for my cane and half-ran to catch it, hoping it might be Quinn. By the time I picked up the receiver, the answering machine had kicked in.

“Lucie, ma chère.” The well-loved voice on the other end sounded slightly muffled—filtered, no doubt, through the smoke of a bad-smelling Boyard and a snifter of Armagnac, before being piped through my machine. It was 3 a.m. in Paris. My eighty-two-year-old grandfather would be an hour or so away from calling it a day and going to bed. “Desolé que tu n’est pas la—”

“I’m here, Pépé,” I said in French. “How are you? It’s so good to hear your voice.”

My end of the conversation reverberated like a bad echo through the two-story foyer and I regretted not getting to the phone sooner since now I’d have to hear the entire conversation in stereo.

“I’m well,” he said. “Very well. I just returned from China.”

I often hoped I’d lucked out and inherited most of my DNA from my mother’s family rather than any of the self-indulgent, weak-willed genes my father might have passed along. Pépé had sent a postcard from the Great Wall, writing that he and a few friends hiked part of it. They’d also traveled the Silk Road as far as Kyrgyzstan.

“I hope you’re going to take it easy after that trip. It sounded quite strenuous,” I said.

I heard the flare of a match. Probably relighting his cigarette. Boyards, banned years ago by the European Union because of their toxicity, were made of black tobacco and maize paper. The only cigarette I knew that constantly extinguished itself. Pépé allowed himself one or two a day from his dwindling hoard.

“I shall definitely be taking it easy. My next trip is to Washington.”

“Here? It is? When?”

He paused. “I am sorry to spring this on you at the last moment, mon ange, but I’m flying in tomorrow.” Another pause. “I have a hotel reservation at the Marriott near Dulles Airport but I hope we can see each other and you’ll let me take you to dinner at least once while I’m in town.”

Pépé had been a career diplomat. He was unfailingly polite. I knew better than to be hurt that he hadn’t asked if he could stay with me, because he’d worry he was imposing. He probably hadn’t even unpacked from China, much less gotten over jet lag. I thought about the refrain from a song Leland used to teasingly sing to my mother, lamenting how hard it was to keep ’em down on the farm after they’d seen Paree. You couldn’t even keep my grandfather in Paree.

“First of all, you can cancel your reservation at the Marriott,” I said. “You’re staying here with me. And second, what time does your flight get in? I’ll come get you.”

“Absolument pas,” he said. “I’m renting a car. Not to worry, I’ll drive myself to your place.”

I didn’t realize he was still driving. I adored Pépé but he drove like a Formula One racer hell-bent on breaking the record. Most of the rest of the family—in particular, Dominique—flat-out refused to get in a car with him any more.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said. “They’ve raised the penalties for traffic violations here in Virginia. A thousand dollars for reckless lane-changing. Some fines are even higher. I’ll drive you wherever you need to go.”

I didn’t mention the fines applied only to drivers with Virginia licenses. Or that our legislature had imposed the excessive penalties hoping they’d motivate the good citizens of the Commonwealth—some of whom also drove like bats out of hell—to behave better behind the wheel.

“I don’t want to be a burden,” he said. “Harvest is such a busy time of year for you. I’ve got meetings with les vieux amis—my old friends—and several dinners planned. It would be better if I have my own transportation.”

“Sure. You’ll get on the Beltway and think you’re on the Autoroute du Soleil,” I said. “It would be better to let Dominique or me drive than bail you out of jail.”

“I drive like every other Frenchman.” He sounded miffed.

“Exactly. So don’t rent the car. What time’s your flight?”

He told me and I wrote it down.

“Have you told Dominique you’re coming?” I asked.

He sighed. “Not yet. You know how she fusses over me and treats me like an old man. I am not as old as she would like me to be, you know.”

“You still need to call her. She should hear the news from you that you’re coming. You don’t want to hurt her feelings, do you?”

“Mais non,” he said. “Of course not.”

“Then call her. And don’t worry. Everything will be fine once you get here. We’ll have a good time.”

“Mon trésor,” he said. “I forget how much I miss you until we speak. I cannot wait to see you.” Another sigh and the sound of a match being struck once again. “And your cousin.”

I hung up and a moment later, the answering machine beeped. Tomorrow was harvest and another early start, but I was too restless to go to bed. I hit the delete button and erased our conversation.

Maybe Quinn had gone back to the summerhouse. I put on a jacket and went outside. The Adirondack chairs were exactly where we’d left them last night.

Where was he? Maybe I should call him. We often spoke late at night, especially during harvest when there was work to do in the barrel room. But this wasn’t work and we’d never crossed the line this far into intimate territory. Tonight would be a bad night to start.

I went back inside, threw my jacket on the chair by the phone and walked into the library. It had been Leland’s book-lined office until a fire destroyed most of the room, along with much of the downstairs. As part of the renovation I’d had the cherry bookcases rebuilt as they’d been before. But the shelves, once jammed with double rows of Leland’s extensive collection of books by and about Thomas Jefferson, were nearly bare. It still startled me each time I saw the empty spaces.

A copy of Jefferson’s diary of his voyage through the European vineyards, reprinted on the bicentennial anniversary of his trip, was one of the few books to survive the fire. I’d been trying to read Valerie’s tome before Pépé called. The bad reviews were justified.

The odds weren’t good that Jefferson’s actual diary, written more than two centuries ago, would provide a clue to what Valerie had hinted at about the provenance of the Washington wine, but I pulled it off the shelf anyway. A slim volume, just over one hundred pages. I wiped dust off the cover. Thomas Jefferson’s European Travel Diaries. Jefferson’s Own Account of His Journeys Through the Countryside and Wine Regions of the Continent, 1787–1788.

I took it upstairs and began reading in bed.