‘Mees Farraire?’ She turned to see, at shoulder height, the wrinkled, nut-brown Bordelais face of a little man in blue overalls and a round blue hat. She smiled down at him, feeling like a giantess.
‘That’s me.’
‘Not too flattering a photograph, if I may say so, but good enough for this purpose.’ His French was heavily accented to Bell’s Paris-educated ear, and she looked down half-bewildered at the magazine he was brandishing. It was a piece she had contributed to Decanter, decorated with a large snapshot of herself smiling rather toothily into the camera. It amused her to see it in such incongruous surroundings.
‘Where on earth did you get that?’
‘Oh, monsieur thinks of everything. You’ll see. This way to the car, madame. My name is Jacopin, by the way. Welcome to Bordeaux.’
Baron Charles’s car was a capacious brand-new grey Mercedes, veiled with a thick layer of whitish dust. Jacopin tossed her case into the boot and she sank into the passenger seat with a sigh of pleasure. The car swept along with the tiny man craning disconcertingly to see over the top of the long bonnet. Bell glimpsed the ugly, modern outskirts of the old grey town and then they were purring north-westwards into the fabulous country of the Haut-Médoc.
Under her breath, like a litany, Bell found that she was repeating the sonorous Château names as they passed. From here, from vines growing in this flat, undistinguished countryside, came the most famous, elegant wines in the world. To the right and left of the road stretched the green sea of vines, all carrying their precious bunches of grapes peacefully ripening in the August sun. Occasionally she glimpsed the bulk of a Château behind its wrought-iron gates, or screened by a protective belt of trees. Sometimes the flat gleam of the River Gironde appeared to their right, reflecting the hard blue of the summer sky. It was a peaceful, unspectacular, almost deserted landscape at this time of year, turning inwards to soak up the sun before the feverish bustle of the vintage when the grapes would be picked.
Jacopin shot a glance at Bell.
‘You know our country well?’ he asked, conversationally. Bell wrenched her attention from the clustering châteaux around the town of Margaux to answer him.
‘Not well. I’ve been a visitor three or four times, but always in a party of other journalists. This is my first visit to Château Reynard, and my first chance to spend a little time looking closely at the workings of a single château. I’m looking forward to it enormously,’ she added, truthfully. Jacopin nodded sagely.
‘Of course,’ he murmured, as if he could imagine no better place for her to be.
They drove on. Past the villages of St Julien (‘Ducru-Beaucaillou, Léoville-Barton, Léoville-Poyferré …’ murmured Bell), the landscape began to swell a little, rising to rolling mounds that were the closest that this open countryside came to hills. At last they were driving through the commune of Pauillac towards the little hill where Château Reynard dominated the surrounding acres of vines. Bell, still counting off the names, knew that they were almost there. She craned forward to catch her first glimpse of the buildings, and was rewarded by a flash of sun reflected from the rows of windows. The wrought-iron gates were open and the car shot straight through into the driveway, slowed between the expanse of lawn, and drew up at the château steps.
Bell opened her door, slowly, and tilted her head to look up at Château Reynard. It was classic late-eighteenth-century perfection, from the steeply-pitched slate roof pierced with the discreet row of dormer windows, down through the two rows of tall windows framed in their wooden shutters, to the double flight of stone-balustraded steps running up to the heavy double front doors. Two wings at either side, each with its own narrow-pitched roof, framed the symmetry of the main façade. Bell had seen it in pictures many times, but she was unprepared for its exact simplicity, and its air of authority.
As she stood with Jacopin waiting patiently at her side, her bag in his hand, one half of the massive double doors swung open.
Bell saw a tall man, dressed in a formal, dark suit. For a second or two he stood staring expressionlessly down at her from the height of the terrace. Then he walked slowly down the right-hand flight of steps and came towards her. Bell’s heart sank.
The baron looked even more formidable than she had expected. He was younger than she had imagined, only in his mid to late thirties. He had an aristocratic face with a high-bridged nose, the face of a man who was used to deference. His sun-bleached fair hair was brushed smooth to his head and his eyes were slightly hooded.
The complete autocrat, thought Bell.
There was only the ghost of a smile around his mouth, and none at all in his eyes. He held out his hand and she shook it firmly, putting all the warmth she could muster into her smile.
She wouldn’t be here, after all, if he hadn’t invited her.
‘Welcome to Château Reynard, Miss Farrer,’ he said. ‘I am Charles de Gillesmont.’ Yes. I don’t think I would have mistaken you for the butler.
‘Will you come this way? Jacopin, I will take the luggage in for Miss Farrer. I am sure that you have other things to do. Jacopin is our maître de chais,’ he told Bell. She looked back at the little man with new respect. As cellar-master, his responsibility for what appeared in the bottles labelled Château Reynard would be almost as great as the baron’s. Jacopin winked at her and settled himself back into the big car. Regretfully Bell watched the car disappear round the corner of the house in a spurt of gravel.
Then, feeling just as if she was tiptoeing into the lion’s den, she followed Charles de Gillesmont into his château.
When they stood side by side in the stone-flagged hallway, Bell saw that he was much taller than her. His eyes were very dark blue with darker rims to the irises, almost navy in the dim light.
Before he spoke again she noticed that his mouth was full, the top lip deeply curved.
‘Marianne will take you up to your room,’ he said. A thin dark girl in a maid’s uniform came out of the shadows towards them. ‘I am sure you will need an hour’s peace and quiet after your journey. Do come down when you are ready.’ He nodded, formally, and strode away.
Bell obediently followed Marianne. A huge stone staircase edged with intricately wrought iron curved upwards, and as Bell’s eyes followed it she caught the gleam of a gilt and crystal chandelier hanging over the stairwell.
‘This way, madame,’ the girl prompted and turned to the right at the top of the stairs. The wide corridor was lit at either end by tall, narrow windows. Heavy oak chests stood at intervals with high-backed chairs in dark, carved wood between them. It was very sombre and completely silent except for the sound of their footsteps on the thin matting.
‘Here we are,’ said Marianne, opening a door at the end of the corridor. The big room was in one of the narrow wings at the side of the house and it had windows in three walls. It was very sunny, clean and bare. Marianne pushed open another door and gestured inside.
‘Your bathroom, madame. Is there anything else you need?’
‘No, this is perfect, thank you.’
As soon as she was alone, Bell crossed to the end of the room and stood looking out of the middle window. From the first floor, and with the height of the little hill beneath her, the view was commanding. She could see the river, with the town of Pauillac and the huge oil refinery on the near bank. In the distance the scene was built up, almost industrial, but in the foreground were rolling masses of vineyards, bisected by tracks and the white, dusty road.
The right-hand window looked across the golden stone face of the Château to the identical opposite wing. A slight woman in a navy blue pleated dress with a bow at the neck strolled across the lawn from the front steps. A fat dachshund waddled at her heels.
‘Now that,’ thought Bell, ‘must be the baroness dowager. I wonder where the young baroness is?’ Still musing, she turned to