Loves Choices

It was late afternoon before they entered what the Comte told her was the Burgundy region of France. His own estate lay to the north-east, he added. The scenery of the Côte-d’Or as they drove through made Hope catch her breath, her eyes rounding in awe, forgetting her tiredness as she saw the vineyards, interspersed with tantalising glimpses of châteaux and weathered farmhouses, with the word clos constantly appearing on signboards. It referred to enclosed vineyards, the Comte explained to her; vineyards which had once belonged to large convents or monasteries, and which still retained their enclosing walls.

‘Are your vineyards like that?’ Hope asked him, suddenly curious to know more about his home.

‘No. The Serivace lands are too extensive to be enclosed, although there is one small clos not far from the … house.’

He didn’t seem disposed to talk any more, and Hope lapsed into silence, tension knotting her stomach, although she was at a loss to understand why.

At last they turned off the main road, taking a narrow, badly tarmacked track, barely wide enough for the Ferrari, and open to acres of vines on either side.

‘The Serivace vines,’ the Comte told her laconically, adding, ‘Serivace is one of the largest vineyards in the area. The ancestor of mine who first settled here said he would own land in every direction from his home as far as the eye could see. Despite the many vicissitudes the family has passed through, that still holds true today.’ He paused and pointed out a long, low collection of buildings in the distance. ‘That is our bottling plant, Jules Duval, my manager, lives there with his family. There are many small growers in the locality who also make use of the plant.’

A large copse suddenly loomed up ahead of them, so alien in the vine-covered countryside that it took Hope completely by surprise. The sun, which had been sulking behind dull cloud, suddenly broke through, glinting on something behind the trees, and then they were among them, and the Comte was telling her that many of the trees were rare and valuable specimens, planted by one of his ancestors to provide parkland, ‘in the English fashion’. Beyond the belt of trees were formal gardens, and at the end of the drive … Hope’s eyes rounded as she saw the lake with the château rising from it, a fairy-tale in spun white resting on the silver water like a mirage. An ancient, wooden ‘drawbridge’ spanned the lake at its narrowest part, the Ferrari wheels reverberating noisily as they crossed it, driving under the stone archway and through into the courtyard beyond, the Ferrari coming to rest beside an arched and studded wooden door.

‘It’s … it’s like something out of a fairy-tale,’ she stammered, bemused by the total unexpectedness of her surroundings. A ‘house’ the Comte had said and she, foolishly, had expected a large and rambling farmhouse, not this airy turreted château with its peaceful lake and formal parterred gardens.

‘Sleeping Beauty, perhaps?’ the Comte suggested, unfastening his seat-belt and opening his door. ‘Rest assured there is no captive princess here, mon petit,’ he told her dryly, adding, ‘Come, I shall collect our cases later.’ He saw her confusion and smiled. ‘You were perhaps expecting an army of retainers.’ He shook his head. ‘Those days are gone. The château consists mainly of unused rooms. I have a small suite in the main building, which is maintained by Pierre my … general factotum, I suppose is the best description. A word of warning, by the way, before you meet him. He worked for my father and was badly injured in the same car explosion which killed my parents. My father had a minor post in the government at the time of the Algerian troubles. A bomb was thrown into the car. He and my mother were killed outright, but Pierre who was driving was thrown free. However, he was badly burned, and since the accident he has never spoken. He has also lost the ability to hear.’

‘Oh, poor man!’ The shocked exclamation left Hope’s lips before she could silence it. The Comte glanced at her sardonically as he helped her from the car. ‘You would do well not to let Pierre become aware of such sentiments. He is not a man who cares for … pity … I was fourteen when it happened,’ he added, as though anticipating her next question. ‘At an age to feel very bitter, but, as all things must, it passed, and of course I had …’

‘Pierre?’ Hope offered, torn by compassion for the pain she had glimpsed in his eyes.

‘Pierre?’ The glance he shot her was sharply piercing. ‘Oh, yes, I had Pierre.’ He crossed the courtyard, leaving Hope to follow, and pushed open the heavy door. Standing inside it, surveying the vastness of the hall, Hope shivered, wondering if the chill was the effect of so much marble. It covered the floor in a black and white lozenge design echoed by the stairs, supported gracefully by marble columns, with polished mahogany doors set at pairing intervals along the walls.

‘This way.’ The Comte touched her arm, indicating one of the doors. ‘This central part of the château is all that we use now. This is the library. Later I shall show you the remainder of the rooms.

The library was heavily panelled with an enormous marble fireplace and a carpet which Hope suspected was Aubusson, the colours faded to muted creams, pinks and greens. Pale green velvet curtains hung at the windows, a large partners’ desk placed where it would obtain maximum benefit from the daylight.

‘This room doubles as my office,’ the Comte explained. ‘It’s where I keep all the vineyard records and data, but I shall now show you the rest and then Pierre can prepare dinner for us.’

Hope’s thoughts as the Comte showed her from room to room were that the as yet unseen Pierre must have his work cut out looking after such huge apartments, but the Comte told her that they received help from the village when it was needed. ‘After the vintage comes the time when we entertain the buyers, and then the château comes into its own. You look tired,’ he added. ‘I’ll take you to your room.’

The marble stairs struck a chill through the thin soles of her sandals, the last rays of sunlight turning the chandelier hanging from the ceiling into prisms of rainbow light, almost dazzling her in their brilliance. The landing was galleried, the walls covered in soft pale green silk, and Hope wondered who had chosen the décor which was obviously fairly recent, and who acted as the Comte’s hostess when he entertained his buyers. He indicated one of the doors off the landing, thrusting it open for her, watching her face as she stepped through it and started into the room.

It was huge, almost dwarfing the Empire-style bed with its tented silk hangings, the fabric drawn back to reveal the intricate pleating and the gold and enamel rose set in the ceiling which supported it. A chaise longue covered in the same cream and rose brocade was placed at the foot of the bed, with two Bergère chairs in front of the fire, and the delicate white and gold Empire furniture made Hope catch her breath in awe.

‘The bathroom and dressing room are through here,’ the Comte told her, indicating another door. ‘I’ll leave you to freshen up while I go and find Pierre. He’ll bring your cases up for you.’

When he had gone Hope wandered over to the window. It was already growing dark outside and she could just about make out the shimmer that was the lake below her window—perhaps originally it had been the château moat—and beyond it the formal parterred gardens, before the ring of trees closed round the landscape obliterating everything else.

While she was investigating the bathroom, Hope heard the bedroom door open and then close again and guessed it must be Pierre with her cases and boxes. The bathroom was obviously a modern addition and rather breathtaking. The walls, floor and sanitary ware were all made from creamy white marble, the huge bath sunk into the floor, and one entire wall mirrored. Hope wasn’t entirely sure that she cared for it. It rather reminded her of something she had once seen in a film the nuns had taken them to see in Seville.

The dressing room which she had to pass through to reach the bathroom was lined with wardrobes and cupboards, all of which were mirrored, and thinking that she could hardly expect Pierre to unpack for her, Hope returned to her cases and started to remove the clothes she would need for the morning. She didn’t plan to change for dinner—she would simply wash and re-do her make-up.

Just when would her father arrive? She quelled a feeling of disappointment that he hadn’t been there to meet them, but then she had guessed that this would be the case, for if he hadn’t been busy, surely he wouldn’t have sent the Comte to collect her. Rather like an unwanted parcel, she thought wryly as she stripped off her suit and returned to the bathroom to wash.

Half an hour later, her hair brushed and her make-up fresh, she opened the bedroom door and walked across the landing. Her shoes seemed to clatter loudly on the marble stairs. As she reached the hall a door underneath the stairs opened and a man walked through. Hope guessed immediately that he must be Pierre. His face bore several livid scars, his dark hair streaked with grey, but there was more curiosity than embarrassment in the look he gave her, and trying not to feel too self-conscious, Hope said warmly:

‘You must be Pierre. I am Hope Stanford and …’ Her voice faded away as she remembered that the Comte had told her that Pierre had been rendered both deaf and dumb by the bomb blast and, suddenly feeling awkward, she was relieved to see the Comte coming downstairs.

Unlike her, he had changed and her eyes widened a little as she took in the thick silk shirt and tightly-fitting dark trousers. Gold cuff-links glittered at his wrists, and she was suddenly and overpoweringly aware of him—not as her father’s friend, but as a man. Her heart started to thud with heavy, suffocating strokes, her body turned to marble, as stiff and unresponsive as the stairs, as she stared at him, barely noticing the signs he made to Pierre, or the comprehension burning to life in the servant’s dark eyes as he turned back to the door.

‘Dinner is almost ready. You need not look like that,’ he assured her, obviously misunderstanding the reason for her shocked expression. ‘Pierre is an excellent chef.’ He opened the door that Hope vaguely remembered belonged to the dining room, her eyes dazzled by the sea of polished wood and glittering glass and silver that swam before her, mentally contrasting the magnificence of the château to the refectory at the convent.

Two courses were served and eaten in silence, Hope merely sipping the wine the Comte had poured for her. She refused any sweet, watching instead while the Comte helped himself to some cheese—a local cheese called Chaource, he told her, offering her some. Again Hope shook her head. The long journey had tired her, her mind exhausted by so many new impressions.

A portrait on the wall behind the Comte caught her eye and she studied it. It looked relatively modern and depicted a dark-haired woman, proud and faintly arrogant so that Hope sensed a wildness beneath the conventionally elegant mask.

‘Is that … was that your mother?’ she asked hesitantly.

The Comte turned his head and studied the portrait for a while in silence, his voice harsh as he said, ‘No. My sister, Tanya. She is dead now, she committed suicide.’

For a moment Hope thought she must have misheard him, the words seemed to hover between them, and Hope looked again at the portrait. What could have driven a woman as beautiful and proud as she was to take her own life? She hadn’t realised she had spoken the words out loud until the Comte said bitterly, ‘A man, of course, mon petit; a man, and the shame of knowing herself discarded.’

Hope shivered, unable to tear her eyes from the portrait. ‘It happened six months ago,’ the Comte continued. ‘I was in Paris at the time, Tanya was in the Caribbean with her lover. I suspect she had hoped that in the end he would marry her, but I knew he never would. I had warned her, but she would not listen. In the end, she preferred to take her life rather than face his dismissal of her.’

‘Had he … had he fallen in love with someone else?’ Hope asked huskily, hardly knowing why she asked the question.

The Comte’s mouth tightened. ‘Hardly. No. Tanya was simply a diversion who no longer fitted into his plans, and so she had to go. She, poor girl, went on deluding herself up to the last that he genuinely cared for her. However, her death will be avenged. He shall not be allowed to shame our family unpunished.’ He said the words so quietly that Hope barely caught them.

‘Tanya,’ she pronounced wonderingly. ‘It is surely a Russian name?’

‘As is my own,’ the Comte confirmed. ‘My mother insisted upon it. She could not hand down to her children her own birthright—she was a Princess; Princess Tatiana Vassiliky—but she gave us her family names. Mine is Alexei, after her father.’

It was his Russian blood that demanded reparation for what had happened to his sister, Hope guessed intuitively, sensing as she had done before the savagery and pride that lay so close to the surface of his French sophistication—a sophistication which was barely more than a cloak.

‘Tanya’s lover?’ she pressed, scarcely knowing why she asked the question and yet somehow compelled to do so.

‘I think you can guess,’ the Comte said slowly, forcing her to meet his eyes and holding her gaze as he stood up and came to stand beside her. ‘Your father was Tanya’s lover, Hope,’ he told her softly, so softly that for a moment she didn’t sense the danger surrounding her.

‘My father?’ She stared up at him in bewilderment. ‘My father … but … You and he are friends … Why did you come for me when … ?’

‘How naïve you are, little one. Your father knows nothing of me apart from the fact that I am Tanya’s brother, but I know a great deal about him. I made it my business to know. I discovered, for one thing, that he had a daughter—a pious, innocent child, who was kept secluded from the world, brought up to be innocent in mind and body; a child who he intended to use as a pawn to secure for himself the power he has always wanted. You are that pawn, Hope,’ he told her softly. In the half-light his eyes glittered dangerously, hard and green as emeralds, and fear choked Hope of breath as she fought to take in what he was saying.

‘I swore when my sister killed herself that she would be avenged,’ he told her slowly. ‘The Russian blood in me demands that she is, even while the French mocks me for my passion, but on this occasion the Russian wins out, although I must admit that the French side of me has helped me to plan my campaign with care and thought. My first instinct was to deprive your father of life as he had deprived Tanya of hers.’

Hope, listening, shivered. She could well imagine this man killing her father, the lean fingers fastening round his throat, demanding that he suffer as Tanya had suffered.

‘But, on reflection, I decided that that was not enough. Besides, I have no wish to spend the rest of my own life languishing in prison. No, there had to be a better way. A way in which your father was vulnerable, and then, quite by chance, at a dinner in Paris, I found it. You will be surprised to know, mon petit, that you were the subject of the dinner-table conversation on that occasion.

‘My female companion, I shall not bore you with her name, was telling me of the marriage your father had planned between the Montrachet heir and his carefully reared daughter. It seems your father has been foolish enough to borrow money on his expectations of becoming the grandfather of the new heir-to-be. The Montrachet name is an old and powerful one, and Montrachet brides are always carefully chosen and vetted. Normally, they are also rich, but the numbers of rich young women who are also virginal in body and character are quickly dwindling.

‘However, your father has taken care to make sure that you fulfil both those latter two requirements. His name is also an old one—you have no fortune, of course, but Isabelle Montrachet, Alain’s mother, prefers a bride for her son who is easily moulded and taught. A healthy young bride, moreover, who will provide her son with children; a bride whose virtue is unimpeachable—and who better than her business partner’s daughter; a girl who can bring as her dowry, all these things. In return for your innocence, your father will receive an increased share in the Montrachet business, provided it and his own share is willed to you, and your children after you, upon his death.

‘As I have just said, he has already gambled heavily on his expectations, investing in a holiday complex in the Caribbean, which is not paying off as it ought. Before the summer is out, Sir Henry intends to capitalise on his only remaining investment—you—or at least he did.’

The Comte walked away, standing by the fire with his back to her while Hope watched him in stunned and appalled silence. Was it true? Had her father intended such a marriage for her? She supposed she ought not to be shocked, after all she knew that was what many of the girls were at the convent for; to be prepared for such marriages but, somehow, she had never imagined it happening to her—and to suggest that her father was responsible for his sister’s death! It was preposterous! Struggling with her feelings, all she could manage was a husky, ‘I don’t believe you, my father would never …’

‘Make love to my sister? Discard her like an unwanted toy? Destroy and humiliate her publicly by telling her he no longer wanted her, so that she was forced to take her own life. I assure you that he did. The newspapers were full of the story—I haven’t kept the cuttings, but I could obtain them for you, I’m sure.’