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

the crimson grapes they found on the day they met. She knew he would think the same.

‘Open the box.’

Inside was a Russian doll that looked remarkably like François. She looked up in surprise.

‘Keep opening.’

The next doll was her. Grey eyes, straight strawberry blonde hair and a red velvet dress, the same as the new one she was wearing. Next was a little Clémentine, with the same colour hair, but curly, and her father’s blue-green eyes.

‘It’s us. I love it!’

‘Open the little one. There’s more.’

Inside the smallest doll was a gold chain hung with a filigree insect. She held it up to the light. It was a firefly, intricately enamelled and underneath a yellow gem body, cut so it shattered the candle flame.

‘A yellow diamond. A firefly and champagne all mixed up in one rare combination, like you. If I go first, remember me by it. Now get ready, we’ll be late for the ball and it can’t start until the most glamorous couple in Reims arrive.’

He kissed her and left.

Josette helped pile her hair up. The necklace glowed like a honey moon on her skin. François made the darkest days into the loveliest.

At Moët’s mansion in Épernay, torches lit the way, through the grounds to a Petit Trianon, Louis XV’s fashionable classical Greek-style mansion at Versailles, which Moët had built a faithful replica of in honour of his friend Napoléon. And, of course, to honour himself.

‘A replica monument for a replica king,’ pronounced François to Jean-Rémy.

Moët clicked his heels and nodded in reply, François’ sarcasm lost on him. Nicole giggled.

The first three dances were theirs. The waltz was her favourite. He whispered into her hair and spun her so fast her feet lifted off the ground and she was flying, oblivious to the rest of the world. After that, he was no longer hers. He never was at a ball or party. It was on these vast, glittering stages that François came into his own and she left him to his stories to join the tasting committee for vineyard gossip.

Since the day of her first tasting committee meeting, she had forged herself a place as something of a novelty, an honorary man, so nobody batted an eyelid when she joined the circle of men, pulling on fat cigars. She lit a thin cigar for herself, crinkling her nose at the unaccustomed smoke.

‘Oat is definitely superior to flax to tie the vines,’ pronounced Monsieur Olivier, rolling his burgundy around the glass, checking the legs.

‘Oat. No question,’ she agreed. ‘Flax is far too rough on new shoots.’

‘Quite right, Madame Clicquot. And what, may I ask, is your opinion on the best rose to indicate greenfly?’

He passed her the decanter of burgundy. Ten years old at least, deliciously earthy with notes of leather, cherry and mushrooms.

As she sipped, a man in a blue coat edged with gold braid appeared and bowed to the group. His dark fringe was cut high above his forehead and hung square below his ears in tresses oreille de chien, dog’s-ear style, with a pigtail at the back. His skin was a sallow yellow and his deep-set eyes had a penetrating, feverish gaze.

‘May I join you, gentlemen?’ The man turned to Nicole and bowed again. ‘And lady?’

‘Oui, bien sûr.’ Monsieur Olivier stubbed his cigar and scrambled for a suitable chair for the leader of all of France, General Napoléon. It had been rumoured he would be in attendance.

Everyone shuffled down one place.

Napoléon sucked on a fat cherry, his favourite fruit, apparently.

‘I hear you messieurs are the best producers in these parts,’ he addressed them with a winning, radiant smile.

They rushed to introduce themselves. Nicole kept quiet. Being a woman and going unnoticed occasionally served her well – it was his bloody wars that were at the heart of her troubles today.

The committee, her committee, were rapt. Not content with meddling in the whole of Europe, there was apparently nothing Napoléon didn’t know about winemaking. What he didn’t know could be answered in the pamphlet he had commissioned, Chaptal’s L’art de faire, gouverner et perfectionner le vin. A copy was handed to her, as if it was the Holy Bible itself. Chemistry had been elevated over centuries of knowledge handed down from family to family and the feel of the terroir, watching the sky for the weather. She flicked through. Some of it did make sense. To control some of the processes, mitigate some of the elements of chance would certainly change things for her and François, especially if she succeeded with her riddling experiment. However much she disliked the man, he had done his homework.

Polished buttons and a sash interrupted her thoughts. Napoléon was standing right over her. ‘You are absorbed in Chaptal instead of dancing, Madame…?’

She held out her hand for him to kiss.

‘Madame Clicquot. I don’t agree with all of it, but some of it isn’t bad for a chemist.’

‘And how would you know so much, may I ask, Madame Clicquot?’ he asked, amused.

‘I have a hand in winemaking with my husband. Method and chemistry might help the uninitiated, but there is no substitute for an instinct for the terroir, the grape on your tongue, the soil between your fingers.’

‘Are you suggesting that I am uninitiated?’

The committee looked on in horror.

‘You must be very busy with your wars. Leave the wine to the experts.’

Monsieur Olivier let out an involuntary harumph at her audacity. Some of the others turned away to disassociate themselves.

‘Of which you are the leader?’ continued Napoléon provocatively.

‘One of them.’

He laughed. ‘You would have loved my old aunt Geltruda. She tended the vines with her own hands and taught me to love them.’ He took her hands. ‘Tsk-tsk, as rough as hers, and so young.’

‘Working hands. Stupid to be trapped in drawing rooms full of painted dolls.’

He winked at the committee. ‘Gives you boys a run for your money? These are tiny hands and that’s good in a woman. My aunt had to work the land. I take it you don’t?’

‘I choose to.’

‘A good revolutionary