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And the lonely, painful knowledge of that settled inside her like a stone.
CHAPTER NINE
THE ENSUING SILENCE was eventually broken by the Baron’s courteous voice. ‘Your mother is well, mademoiselle, and your sister?’
‘Thank you, yes. They’ve gone away for a little while.’
‘And you did not choose to accompany them?’ asked Monique Chaloux.
Ginny knew an overwhelming temptation to say affably, No, because I’m flat broke and the future Baron thinks he may have made me pregnant. But she restrained herself nobly with a quiet, ‘No, not this time.’
Then the door opened and a small thin man, his solemn face made even more lugubrious by a heavy dark moustache, came in carrying a tray of glasses filled with something pink and sparkling.
The Baron said, ‘Merci, Gaston. You have tried Kir Royale, mademoiselle?’
She took a glass. ‘Yes, and loved it. Crème de cassis and champagne. Wonderful.’
‘Ah, but it is not champagne,’ Andre said swiftly. ‘Our cremant du Bourgogne is made by a similar method, but the name “champagne” can only be used for wine that comes from its own region around Epernay. The rules are strict.’
Ginny frowned. ‘I didn’t realise it could be so complex.’
‘We take great pride in our industry, and in what each region has to offer. And the crème de cassis is also made in Burgundy.’ Andre raised his glass. ‘À votre santé.’
She wondered if his choice of toast was loaded, her state of health being an issue between them, but echoed it anyway and sipped, before taking the chair she was offered and discovering it was just as uncomfortable as it looked. Perhaps, she mused, the enormous skirts and masses of petticoats favoured by ladies in the olden days acted as a bolster.
She took another look round her. There were numerous pictures on the walls, mostly landscapes in frames as gilded as the furniture. The exception was the portrait of a woman, which hung above the fireplace.
A stern, rather cold beauty, her black hair drawn back from her face into a chignon, and the décolleté of her dark red dress revealing an elaborate necklace of what seemed to be rubies.
‘You are admiring the Baronne Laure, Monsieur Bertrand’s mother, I see.’ Monique Chaloux leaned forward. ‘An excellent likeness. It is a Terauze tradition that a portrait of the Baronne always hangs in this room and, in her case, most appropriate as she redesigned it so admirably.’ She sighed. ‘Sadly, it seems, notre chère Linnet would never consent to be painted.’
‘My wife,’ Bertrand Duchard said quietly, ‘was a very modest woman.’
‘But of course,’ Mademoiselle agreed quickly, smiling, but Ginny read quite clearly in that smile and with so much to be modest about and it galled her.
She said impulsively, ‘Surely it isn’t too late. There’s a lovely photograph of her in the other sitting room. Couldn’t someone paint a portrait from that?’
Andre said slowly, ‘Et pourquoi pas?’ He looked at the Baron. ‘What do you think, Papa?’
‘That it would be a joy to see my dear one remembered in such a way.’
He looked at Ginny with undisguised surprise. ‘Merci, mademoiselle. An excellent thought.’
Which was an improvement. However, Madame’s softly spoken, ‘Bravo, indeed,’ left Ginny with the uncomfortable feeling she had just made an enemy.
She was quite glad when Gaston came to summon them to dinner, in a much cosier room hung with tapestries of medieval hunting scenes, in which, she noticed, the central figure was a tall man with a long, slightly hooked nose and clothing that glimmered with gold.
‘Philippe Le Hardi. Duke Philip the Bold,’ Andre supplied quietly. ‘An amazing man, at one time King of France in all but name, and the creator of the Order of the Golden Fleece. His feasts were legendary and so was his spending. He died poor.’
‘But we remember him,’ said Bertrand, ‘for his interest in the wine industry and the measures he took to protect its quality, which led, in time, to the Appellation Contrôlée system.’
Monique Chaloux flung up her hands. ‘Have pity, messieurs. You forget that Mademoiselle Mason is not Dominique Lavaux and this talk of wine will bore her. Let us speak instead of your plans for her entertainment while she is with us.’ She paused. ‘You will make time for a little sightseeing, n’est-ce pas?’
There was a brief odd silence, and Ginny saw Andre’s mouth tighten. He said calmly, ‘As soon as the pruning is finished, and begin, I think, with Beaune. Would that please you, Virginie?’
