The Sauvignon Secret wcm-6

by Ellen Crosby

  Juliette glanced at me as a courtesy, but I knew she’d been speaking to my grandfather.

  “I’d love to see your greenhouse,” I said, “but if you’ll excuse me, I ought to find your powder room. You two go along. I’ll catch up later.”

  Pépé shot me a martyred look as though he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions without a chaperone, but I gave him a bland see-no-evil look and smiled. He was a big boy; he could handle this.

  The powder room off the foyer was occupied. As I waited, the noisy sounds of the kitchen staff preparing dinner floated down the hallway. My cousin would be there, cool and collected, calmly making sure everything was in order with her staff, the meal, her host and hostess.

  I walked down the hall and pushed open the swinging door. Juliette’s enormous French country kitchen was warm and inviting, dominated by a collection of brass and copper pots suspended from a wrought-iron rack over a granite island and walls filled with colorful plates and oil paintings. Above all, the fragrant aroma of baking and the odors of garlic, onions, herbs, and spices mingled with meat and, I thought, fish, smelled wonderful.

  Jasmine, the waitress who had filled my champagne glass and gotten Charles his martini, stood at the large Viking stove, whisking something in a copper saucepan.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, mopping her forehead with the sleeve of a chef’s jacket she now wore. Her voice was low and pleasant, and in the brighter lighting of the kitchen, I noticed the tiny beauty mark by her upper lip, the quizzical tilt of her dark eyebrows, and intelligent eyes.

  “Smells wonderful in here,” I said. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Roast chicken with garlic and herbs, pan-seared trout with summer vegetables, new potato gratin … the menu’s à la française, of course, for Bastille Day. Crepes for dessert, fresh berry compote, and mousse au chocolat. All the herbs, vegetables, and fruit are from Mrs. Thiessman’s garden or her greenhouse. Even the olives. She cured them herself. The chicken is from the organic butcher in Middleburg and the fish from someone I found who catches it fresh.”

  Her French accent sounded native and she obviously worked at the Goose Creek Inn as more than a waitress. I knew almost everyone on the staff, but I hadn’t met her.

  “We haven’t been introduced,” I said. “Dominique told me she hired a new chef last month, so I guess that would be you. I’m Lucie Montgomery.”

  “I figured you might be.” She looked up from her sauce again, a game expression on her face, eyes avoiding my cane. “You own the vineyard. I’m Jasmine Nouri. Your cousin did hire me as an assistant chef, but it looks like I’m probably going to be helping out more with the catering business. Tonight, though, she thought I was too new to solo and she needed to supervise.”

  I wondered when Jasmine Nouri would find out that if Dominique had been around when God made heaven and earth, she’d feel the need to supervise Him before he went solo on this brand-new creation thing He was trying out.

  She must have read my mind because she said, “Don’t worry. Everyone from the bookkeeper to the guy who takes care of valet parking has made sure to tell me she likes to keep her finger in every pot. Literally.”

  “That’s because so far no one in the family has found her Off switch,” I said. “And now we’re all pretty sure she doesn’t have one.”

  Jasmine smiled.

  “Where did you work before you came here?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Everywhere. Most recently a restaurant in Portland, Oregon.”

  “Virginia’s a long way from Oregon.”

  “Umm.” She turned off the gas and set the saucepan on another burner. “I’d better get busy. Dominique will have my head if this evening isn’t perfect.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to distract you. I’ll just say hi, then disappear,” I said and slipped out the side door.

  My cousin glanced up from grinding her cigarette butt under the heel of a black sandal. She looked like she did the time I caught her in the kitchen adding a can of broth to her made-from-scratch chicken stock.

  “Merde, you scared me,” she said. “I thought it was Juliette. She believes cigarettes are the devil’s creation. They’re totally banned from the house.”

  “Serves you right if it had been Juliette. When are you going to quit? You’ll get cancer.”

  “Pépé smokes like a chimney. He’s eighty-four and he doesn’t have cancer. We’ve got good genes,” she said. “Where is he, by the way?”

  “Visiting the greenhouse. Juliette is giving him a tour.”

  “Just the two of them?”

  I nodded and Dominique shot me an unreadable look that I didn’t like.

  “Where’s Charles?” she asked. “She sent him to the library to talk to a guest who’s on oxygen. You know, I think I’m the only person here tonight except for your staff who is under sixty. Maybe even under seventy.”

  My cousin didn’t smile. “Merde,” she said again. “I knew it.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “She’s still in love with him. After all these years.”

  “What are you talking about? Pépé and Juliette?”

  Dominique automatically slipped her pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of her slim-cut black trousers and I glared at her.

  “Oh, all right,” she said and shoved them back. “But it calms my nerves when I smoke.”

  “Forget the cigarettes and tell me about Pépé and Juliette.”

  “I forgot that you wouldn’t have known. It started after Grand-mama died. My mother told me the story one night when we stayed up really late and drank too much champagne. He was so lost on his own. Juliette … well, she lived in the same building on Boulevard Saint-Denis, so they all knew each other.” She bent and picked up her cigarette butt, holding it between her thumb and forefinger like it was some rare specimen that needed to be preserved. “She got in the habit of coming by to bring him dinner. She’d say she just cooked a little more than they needed and that he would waste away to nothing if he didn’t eat. Sometimes my mother and I would drop by his apartment and there’d be a pretty bouquet of flowers, or pastries from the boulangerie across the street. My mother said she always knew they were from her. Juliette was married at the time to a troll who beat her. She finally left him.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I think she was hoping … you know. ”

  “That Pépé would ask her to marry him?”

  She nodded.

  “Were they, I mean did they … I mean …”

  “Did they have sex? Is that what you mean?” Dominique rolled her eyes. “And who do you think was going to ask him that? You know Pépé. Mon Dieu, he’s so private. They could have done. The troll traveled a lot so it wouldn’t have been difficult to arrange, living in the same building. To be honest, I don’t think they did. He’s too much of a gentleman and she was married.”

  “But after the divorce?”

  “He was sent to Brussels for a year since he was still doing some consulting for the foreign ministry. It was a blessing, kept him really busy, but of course he was living in Belgium. Then my mother heard Juliette was moving to Washington to take a job as a secretary at the embassy. She thought Pépé pulled strings to get her the position. Juliette left France and apparently decided to turn over a whole new broom.” Dominique spoke English fluently but despite years of living in America, idioms continued to baffle her.

  “You mean forget about Pépé?”

  “My mother always thought that’s why she left,” she said. “Juliette met Charles in Washington right around the time he was named ambassador to France. She married him and moved home, into the residence on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré with her new husband, and all of a sudden she’s living down the street from the Élysée Palace. Parties, balls, receptions, lots of fancy entertaining, and a huge staff to help. My mother said she was absolutely aux anges. She was such a beauty, too—her picture showing up all the time in Paris-Match and Vogue.”

  I nodde
d and thought about the portrait in the library. Maybe that teasing smile had been for my grandfather and he’d been there when she posed for the artist. It would explain why he’d been so abrupt when I asked him if he knew where it had been painted.

  “Charles and Pépé never got to be close friends, did they?”

  “You know Pépé,” she said. “He’s such a gentleman and always polite, but I don’t think he ever warmed up to Charles. And Charles didn’t strike me as so dumb he didn’t realize his wife still carried a torch for another man. It wouldn’t surprise me if Juliette married Charles just to get back at Pépé—then she had to live with her decision. The irony of it is that Charles has a reputation as a womanizer, though he’s discreet and they pretend to be a happy couple.”

  “My God, how complicated.”

  Was this what Charles wanted to talk to us about after dinner? Something personal? His marriage? The kitchen door opened and Jasmine’s head popped into view.

  “The lady of the house is asking for you. I told her you were in the bathroom.” She waved something at my cousin. “Breath mints. I figured you could use them.”

  Dominique and I exchanged glances. “Well,” she said, “here we go.”

  On our way inside I said, “I like your new chef.”

  “She’s amazing,” Dominique said. “I was lucky to get her.”

  “How’d you find her?”

  “She contacted me. She was born in France, spent a lot of time there, but grew up here. Her father was Iranian, a university professor. American mother, died last fall. Apparently she brought up Jasmine in a home that only ate organic produce, anything locally grown. They owned chickens, a goat, that sort of thing. Jasmine worked with Juliette on tonight’s menu, so all the fruit and vegetables could come from her garden.”

  “I’m impressed,” I said. “At least the food is going to be fabulous.”

  “It is. Which reminds me. We’ve been planning a dinner at the Inn where everything on the menu was grown or raised within a hundred miles of here. We’ve had so much interest that I was wondering if we could move it to the vineyard.”

  “Sure, no problem. Talk to Frankie and we’ll get it on the calendar.”

  “There won’t be time. It’s next Friday.” She saw my alarmed look. “Don’t worry. Jasmine’s got it all organized. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “You’re letting Jasmine run this?”

  “It was her idea,” Dominique said. “She’s very capable, Lucie. Besides, you know what they say—never let a gift horse in the house. How could I say no?”

  “When you put it like that,” I said, “I suppose you couldn’t.”

  Juliette seated Pépé at her table and exiled me to a remote corner of the living room with an elderly crowd who talked about the old days at their various foreign posts and the new days with their aches and pains, and the hassles of dealing with Social Security and Medicare. Mercifully everyone began leaving at eleven. By eleven thirty Pépé and I were the only guests remaining. Charles took me aside after Juliette excused herself to settle up with Dominique and her staff.

  “I explained to Luc where the lodge is located,” he said. “It’s only half a mile down our private road, easy enough to find. Make yourself at home and I’ll be along shortly.”

  “Charles.” Juliette returned from the kitchen, lightly touching his sleeve. “Do you have the check to pay the caterers? I thought I had it, but I don’t.”

  “It’s in the library,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  He disappeared, leaving the three of us alone. I waited, hoping the floor would open up so I could drop through, rather than witness the anguished looks that passed between Pépé and Juliette.

  “When will I see you again?” Juliette held out her hands to my grandfather, who clasped them without taking his eyes off her face.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I leave for California on Sunday. After the trip, I’ll be returning to France.”

  “Can’t you stay a day or two longer?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please try. We could see each other again.”

  Even now I don’t like to remember the look of loss and longing that passed between them. I cleared my throat and turned away, pretending to have a coughing fit. When I finished, Pépé was kissing both of Juliette’s hands.

  She blinked rapidly. “Good night, Luc.”

  “Good night, ma chère Juliette.”

  “Thank you for dinner,” I said.

  Juliette gazed at me like she had no idea who I was. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  I followed my grandfather outside, where one of the valets had the Mini waiting in front of the entrance. We got in the car without speaking. I believe Juliette came to the door and watched us drive off, but I couldn’t be sure because I kept my eyes glued to the road so I didn’t have to see the utterly bereft look on Pépé’s face.

  The lights from the Thiessmans’ house glittered in my rearview mirror until I turned down the side road where Charles’s lodge was located and we were swallowed up in darkness.

  What Charles wanted to talk about and why we had to retreat to his private eyrie to talk about it was anybody’s guess. Now it wouldn’t be long before we found out. Hopefully by then my grandfather would have composed himself. Charles’s wife was in love with him. And after tonight, it seemed Pépé was at least a little bit in love with her, too.

  Chapter 7

  My grandfather’s silence filled the car until I felt so claustrophobic I had to roll down my window. The night air rushed in, sharp and stinging, as though summer had evaporated in the past few hours. The unexpected smoky tang of autumn scented the breeze and whipped my hair in my eyes. I shivered and rolled up the window again, but at least now my alcohol-buzzed brain felt like it had been jolted out of its stupor.

  As soon as I drove beyond Juliette’s gardens and her greenhouse, the gravel road plunged into a thicket of woods that closed around the car. I put on the brakes because I had been speeding, and in the murky swirl of fog my headlights turned trees, underbrush, and impenetrable black holes an unnatural yellow-green. Overhead the canopy of trees wove together and blocked out the night sky so it felt like we were winding through a tunnel or a cave.

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” Pépé asked after a few minutes. “Maybe you should have turned left at that fork in the road beyond the house.”

  “I thought you told me Charles said right.”

  We rounded a corner and he said, “I think I see a light up ahead.”

  “I wonder what he wants to talk about. He said it was life or death.”

  “Juliette knows he’s upset about something,” my grandfather said.

  “She has no idea about what?”

  Pépé tilted his head, as though he were weighing his answer. I wondered if he was thinking about Juliette or me. “She says she does not.”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  “I think she has her suspicions,” he said. “She asked if I would do what I could for him.”

  “And you said yes.”

  “I said I would try. But Charles specifically asked for you to come this evening, ma belle, and you’re the one he asked for help.” He gave me a sideways glance. “I don’t know what, if any, role he has in mind for me.”

  “Mick Dunne got me to agree to fly out to California to sample some wine Charles talked him into buying,” I said. “Mick knew you had business out there, too, so he figured I could accompany you and, um, we’d … be together. And Charles was the one who set you up to talk to this Bohemian Grove group.”

  “How interesting. Obviously it’s no coincidence. I wonder what Charles has got up his sleeve.”

  I rounded another bend in the road and the light grew larger, winking like a wicked eye between the tree branches.

  “I guess we’re about to find out,” I said. “I hope that’s the lodge, or else we’re really lost.”

  I parked in front of a rustic cabin t
hat sat in a clearing surrounded by Charles’s smallish vineyard. The cloudless blue-black sky was star filled and serene. A scuffed-silver half-moon hung high above the trees and brushed the tops of the vines so they looked frost rimed. The luminescent clock on my car dashboard showed ten minutes to midnight.

  “Should we wait for him?” I asked.

  “He said to make ourselves at home.” Pépé was already starting toward the front door. “And he left the place unlocked.”

  The hinges creaked as he pushed open the door, and for an instant I expected the Big Bad Wolf or a wicked witch disguised as a kindly grandmother to appear and bid us to come inside. The room could have been the reading room in a gentlemen’s club, with a pair of black leather wing chairs and a matching sofa pulled up around a polished granite coffee table, all grouped in front of a large stone fireplace. The walls looked like old barn wood that had been beautifully refinished. The sconces and matching chandelier in the middle of the room were made of antlers. Tiny red shades over the candlesticks muted the light so it seemed almost viscous, except for the warm pool of spreading color that came from a Tiffany lamp hanging over the bar. A rug in the center of the room was a dead animal skin—a zebra. Something dark and furry I couldn’t identify lay in front of the fireplace.

  “I didn’t know Charles was a hunter,” I said. “It’s cold in here.”

  “He’s hunted for as long as I’ve known him. When he lived in France he used to go off to Scotland with a group of friends every year,” Pépé said. “Juliette loathes blood sports so I suspect that is why he has this place in the woods, so far from the house. Here, chérie, take my jacket.”

  “I can’t. You’ll freeze.”

  He draped his navy suit coat around my shoulders. “I’ll be fine.”

  I walked around the room, examining the signed photographs that lined the walls. Pépé did the same from the other direction. Each one showed Charles, with practically every American president since Harry Truman or with sober-suited men I didn’t recognize, with the exception of Winston Churchill. All the pictures looked official; there were no candid snaps of him and Juliette on a vacation cruise, at Christmas, a special dinner somewhere. I wondered why there had been no children.