The French House by Helen Fripp (english readers TXT) 📗

scrabbled to gather the papers up. He squared up to him, ready for a fight.

‘What’s her favourite colour?’ François interrupted.

Moët regarded him with contempt. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, man. I don’t know. She’s a woman, she likes gold, and diamonds.’

‘The colour of a slice of cucumber when it’s held up to the sun. Her favourite grape is Pinot Noir, she named her new foal after the fruit she tasted on my land. She loves Rousseau and prefers lace-up boots to shoes that pinch.’

‘All very touching, until you need to put food on the table. It seems my fiancée’s parents have allowed Nicole to get to know you a little too well.’

‘She is never out of my sight, or without a chaperone, Monsieur Moët…’ Maman pleaded.

‘Apart from when I swam with him in the lake,’ said Nicole. ‘Or the day we stole the boat for a picnic on the Vesle, or the full moon when we listened for budburst in the vines at midnight.’

Papa raised his hand, in possession of himself again. He gave Moët the conciliatory smile Nicole had seen him use when his clerks came to him with a dispute at his mills. ‘Monsieur Moët, I can only apologise. My eldest girl is good like her mother, but my youngest is a little too wilful, like me. Please apologise, Nicole, and let’s find a way to settle this amicably.’

Nicole steeled herself, trusting her father. ‘Monsieur Moët, I am sorry. I should never have sent the letter to you.’

‘No you should not. You should be careful, leading men on.’

Papa held up a settlement paper. ‘You are angry, Monsieur Moët, and rightly so. In business, there would be a financial penalty for reneging on a contract. My dowry to the Clicquot family was to be thirty thousand livres. If ten thousand of that was redirected to your business at Epernay, would that redress the broken contract?’

Monsieur Moët quickened. ‘It’s not just about the money. I’m sure in time that my affection would have been reciprocated…’

‘There are vineyards, too,’ her father said, tapping the paper.

‘Which ones?’ interrupted Monsieur Moët, putting on his spectacles.

Papa pointed to the figures they’d noted down. ‘We just finished measuring today, so it’s all up to date.’

‘Is this one really 204 pieds du Roi? That is more sizeable than I thought.’ Moët scooped up some soil and ran it through his fingers, tasted a little on his tongue. ‘Grand cru. These vineyards, especially Tois-Puits, would be wasted on these two novices. They’d kill the lot within a year.’

Papa smiled. ‘It would certainly put my mind at rest to see them pass on to good hands. The vineyards would have been amusing, a hobby, but they will be well provided for without them. And I would feel, along with the money, that I had bought myself out of a contract honourably, should you accept.’

‘You’ll send the papers directly and agree on all three vineyards?’

‘It’s the least we could do.’

Nicole felt she was going to explode. He didn’t deserve this, despite her transgression. She wouldn’t be the first girl to break off an engagement, nor the last. But François squeezed her hand to steady her.

Moët sniffed and raised his chin to make himself taller, refusing to look at Nicole. ‘I see the young couple are hell-bent on their course and I have no choice but to wish them every happiness they can hope for. Due to their meetings, it would be impossible for me to take the girl now. I can only withdraw and accept reasonable compensation.’

‘Graciously said, Monsieur Moët. Please, take the horse. We can get another for the barouche later,’ said Papa, shaking his hand.

‘Send the papers directly to my office,’ he instructed, kissing Nicole’s hand. ‘You have a lifetime’s lessons to learn, my dear. Allow me to demonstrate the first, that even you can be bought and sold.’

‘Don’t threaten us,’ François confronted him. ‘There are things we have that you will never buy. You know she’s special, and one day I’ll make her Queen of Reims.’

‘My dear François, you’ll ruin her,’ said Monsieur Moët, walking away.

Papa caught François’ arm. ‘Let him go. You have Nicole and he has nothing. Those vineyards are worthless, too, apart from Rilly. The Clicquots still own the best vineyards in Champagne, everyone knows that, and they will be yours. Use them to make the finest vintage – the sweetest revenge needs time to mature.’

François scowled. ‘I know you’re right, but I still hope the bastard gets fruit rot; he doesn’t deserve a sou from you.’

‘Come on,’ said Papa, kissing Maman on the cheek. ‘Remember twenty years ago, just here, when I begged you to marry me and your parents, quite rightly, disapproved of me?’

‘You were a rogue then and it’s no different now,’ said Maman with the ghost of a smile. Then to François, ‘It’s done, so make sure you prove me wrong and make her happy.’

It wasn’t quite the triumph Nicole had imagined. The way Monsieur Moët looked when she apologised to him for the letter betrayed something unexpected. He was hurt, and Natasha had always told her that was more dangerous than anger. She tucked the uncomfortable feeling away in a corner of her heart and promised herself she’d make up for it sometime in the future. Natasha would say ‘what goes around comes around’.

Antoine worked through the night to make the cellar beautiful for the wedding. Candles lit the place where Nicole had first taken refuge on the day of the revolution. She’d since learned that the cellar was actually owned by the Clicquots, just another piece of the journey that had led her to this point in her life, which felt so unaccountably lucky. It was Thermidor, sixth year of the republic, though everyone knew it was really August, in the year 1798.

She peeped into the cellar from behind the curtain and saw Jean-Rémy Moët sitting straight-backed next to Monsieur Olivier from the tasting committee. Only she knew what it cost him to be there. He was just one