The French House by Helen Fripp (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📕

could to help and now there is no need, with a competent man at her side.’

‘Since we’re getting down to business so quickly, there is another aspect to your agreement with Madame Clicquot. Your threat of spreading rumours about my dearest friend and Nicole’s late husband is just about as low as it gets. It saddens me to think a man of your standing would target his widow so cruelly. I hope this is an end to the matter and that you’ll act honourably.’

Moët stood up to leave. ‘My dear Monsieur Bohne, you insult me! I merely tried to do everything in my power to stop her getting further into debt and disrepute.’

‘We appreciate your touching concern, but do I have your word?’

Louis held out his hand and Moët shook it.

‘I will tell nothing but the honest truth, my dear friend,’ he said, opening the door to leave. He turned to face them. ‘By the way, whatever did happen to all that stock you left with? You damn nearly bankrupted her with your disappearance. Goodbye, Nicole. I also noticed that the fence on the vineyard on the east slope is breached. I suggest you mend it before the wild animals get in.’

As soon as they heard the carriage wheels, they stared at each other in shock and Nicole could breathe.

‘What the hell was all that about?’

‘He took it far too well,’ Louis replied.

‘Look outside, it’s just perfect. It’s going to be the best harvest in a generation. Whatever he’s got up his sleeve, he can’t change that,’ said Nicole.

The news of Louis’ return was the talk of the town. At Natasha’s boulangerie, Nicole delighted in the gossip. Louis escaped from Siberia but his prick dropped off in the cold, Xavier stage-whispered to Etienne whilst biting into a large chocolate éclair. Thérésa seduced the Tsar to get him released from a filthy Moscow jail, disguised as a Sultana from India. India, said the butcher’s youngest daughter, in awe. Louis bribed a hundred Cossack guards with Veuve Clicquot’s best champagne to get himself released from the salt mines, then he walked all the way back to Reims, was the story from a battalion of soldiers with a penchant for Natasha’s millefeuille.

The summer flew past in a haze of sunshine; every day was spent tending her vines, checking the workers, planning the harvest with Louis. It was wonderful to have him at her side, helping with the running of things, a trusted sounding board for the multitude of decisions she needed to make on a daily basis. Nicole had been in the business for long enough now to know she had never seen a year like it, and she left nothing to chance. It would be a vintage year and her luck would change. It was just a matter of staying power. She was under no illusion that Moët had backed down quite so easily, but the only way she could think of fighting the unknown was to be as successful as possible.

It was months since she’d been into the centre of Reims. Mentine was spending most of the summer with her boarding-school pals, so she didn’t need to be in the city to be near her daughter’s friends. Josette had run all the errands in town and she couldn’t bear to leave her vineyards, so she’d based herself at her little house in Bouzy for the whole summer to be close to the sweetening grapes. No need for all those big rooms filled with François’ ghost, never mind the running costs of the grand house on the rue de la Vache.

Despite all that, she couldn’t miss the church service in the cathedral where all the vintners and workers gathered together to pray to the harvest saint. By the calculations of the Réseau Matu, the harvest would be ready in about a week’s time and she would be foolish if she missed the rites in advance of the harvest. Even if it was superstition, who was she to argue with hundreds of years of tradition and risk a last-minute disaster?

At the mews near the cathedral, she jumped down off Pinot, handed the reins to the stable boy, and pressed a coin in his hand. It was as though she’d burnt his hand as he winced away from her.

‘No thanks, Madame,’ said the stable boy, unable to look her in the eye. The coin chinked onto the floor.

‘Don’t be silly, take it. You work hard and I can spare it.’

‘I can’t, it’s bad luck,’ he said, ashamed. He grabbed Pinot’s reins and busied himself with the tackle.

She left the coin and hurried down the rue du Marché to the cathedral square. A large notice caught her eye on Joan of Arc’s plinth.

Births and deaths, 1805

Criminal activity: Doctor Aristide Moreau

Detained for Falsification of Cause-of-Death Certification

Convictions obtained for falsification:

And the first name on the list:

François Clicquot

The list went on, but she couldn’t read.

A crowd of vintners and workers was gathered outside the cathedral, silently watching. The place was deathly quiet apart from one set of footsteps ringing around the square.

A pair of strong arms encircled her.

‘Look at me, Babouchette, not them.’

She focused. Natasha.

‘Ignore them, they don’t matter,’ she beseeched. ‘I’ll take you home. Where is Pinot?’

‘The mews. The stable boy wouldn’t take my money. Thank God Mentine can’t see this.’

‘They’re peasants. They don’t know any better. Come, Nicole. Hold your head up and get out of this square and let them go and pray their lies to their God. You don’t need any of them.’

Natasha linked her arm, somehow got her up on Pinot, cursing the stable boy. Nicole spurred her old horse so fast he was rasping with exhaustion by the time they reached Bouzy. Natasha followed, but she was left far behind on the vineyard road.

Safe in her sunlit house in Bouzy, she allowed herself to think. Don’t break, she told herself. Don’t give him anything he wants.

The only way to beat this was to keep going. Her failure would only prove to the