A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel (23 page)

Laurène turned to Jules and very calmly said, “Having dinner here or outside, you’re wasting two hours either way. …”

Jules didn’t even bother glancing her way.

“Your brothers will love it,” Dominique said.

“The Parisians? Of course they’ll love it. They’re on vacation. A picnic. … Pauline would have that kind of idea!”

“Why are you in such a bad mood?” Laurène asked.

This time, he had to turn her way.

“I’m not. …”

“Yes, you are. You had that rotten an evening?”

Without a word, Jules got to his feet. He hadn’t touched his coffee.

“If you want to invite Camille,” Laurène added, “there’s going to be plenty of food. What we wouldn’t do to see you smile again. …”

She was mocking him, and he was in no mood to use the same tone with her. He left the kitchen, furious.

Dominique whistled between her teeth and said, “Well, I can see that things are getting much better between you two. …”

“I’m tired of being the hangdog around Jules. From now on, I’m going to talk to him the way he talks to me.”

“That’s going to be charming.”

Laurène shrugged. “It can’t be any worse than it’s been lately.”

She looked out the window. The sun was shining. Pauline was lucky. Her projects always turned out to be successful.

At about one, Aurélien and Jules joined the rest of the family by the small Urq River. The kids were running all over the place with Jules’s dog. Fernande and Dominique had emptied out huge baskets and were spreading the food across Scottish blankets. Louis-Marie and Alexandre had gone for a swim and were now drying off by fishing in the sun. Lucas was trying, with little success, to teach them how to fly-fish. Robert walked up to his father.

“And two more,” he said. “There’s going to be thirteen of us at the table.”

“What table?” Jules asked. He glanced at the blanket, making a face.

“Come on,” Robert said. “Don’t be a killjoy. It won’t hurt anyone to have a good time.”

Jules followed him to the river’s shore.

“Next week we’ll be gone,” said Robert, “and you’re going to miss us. Remember all the moronic stuff we did in this river?”

“We should’ve drowned ten times over,” Jules said, smiling.

Little by little, he was relaxing. In spite of their disagreements, he enjoyed Robert’s presence. The idea of loving his brother instead of hating him cheered Jules up. He was going to say something, when Laurène came up to them and deliberately stood between them.

“Do you mind?” she asked, with unusual boldness.

Robert moved aside a little, annoyed, while Jules looked off in the distance, toward the river.

“It’s a hot day, isn’t it?” Laurène said.

She took off her T-shirt and shorts, revealing nothing but a tiny bikini.

“We haven’t had much chance to swim this summer,” she said.

She seemed happy and carefree. Robert, uncomfortable, glanced at his brother. Jules remained still.

“Can you spread some sunscreen on my back? Otherwise I’ll be as red as a lobster!”

She handed Jules a tube of sunblock, a fake look of innocence on her face. Aurélien was observing them from a short distance. Jules felt foolish. He swallowed and grabbed the tube.

“Where?” he asked in a voice he meant to sound cruel, but it only came off as weak.

Laurène lay on her stomach and he kneeled down beside her.

“My shoulders,” she said. “If you don’t mind. …”

He began spreading lotion on Laurène’s body, still under Aurélien’s amused gaze. But caressing Laurène’s skin this way immediately made him long for her. She turned to Jules and gave him a mocking smile.

“Thank you. …”

She leaned against Jules to get back on her feet. She could see that he was nervous, quivering, and she regretted having waited so long to provoke him this way. She’d heard him come back to his room at five that morning only to conclude, wrongly, that he’d made Camille his lover. Knowing Maurice Caze, Jules’s actions proved that he wanted to marry Camille, otherwise he never would’ve been foolish enough to drive her back home at dawn. The idea of Camille and Jules being together made Laurène sick with jealousy, helplessness, and anger. At first she thought that Jules dating Camille was just a fling, or a way to get back at her. But after last night, she had to conclude that things were much more serious between them. She knew that Jules was capable of anything, if only out of spite. Having nothing to lose, and out of a sense of urgency, she’d decided to challenge him. And even though adopting this attitude of outrageous seduction pained her, she was set on pushing the experiment to its limits.

“Tell us about your evening. …” she said in a soft voice.

Jules couldn’t stop looking at her. He was hypnotized by her and felt humiliated by that fact. All that time he’d pretended to ignore her, and all she’d had to do was to get undressed for him to become transfixed. The night he’d spent with Frédérique was turning into some vague memory and was of no help at all to Jules. Robert finally came to the rescue.

“Sorry to disturb your contemplation, but Louis-Marie is calling us over. I think he’s got something at the end of his line.”

Jules managed to get to his feet and absentmindedly followed his brother to the river. Aurélien then went over to Laurène. He, too, was gawking at her, and she felt embarrassed.

“You shouldn’t provoke him that way, kid,” he said. “There’s no telling what he’s going to do if you push him over the edge. And I won’t take your side, just so you know.”

She didn’t hold his stare and quickly grabbed her T-shirt. This game wasn’t fun anymore.

They all gathered on the blankets, around a mountain of sandwiches of various types. Jules had gone for a swim and was last to come out of the river. The picnic was quite loud, as everyone was influenced by Pauline’s good mood. And thanks to the wine, everyone ended up feeling sleepy two hours later.

Jules was lying under a tree, far from the others. As tired as he was, he couldn’t fall asleep. He heard Laurène come his way. She kneeled by his side. He kept his eyes shut, and he felt her hand gently touch his hair.

“Since when are you napping?” she said. “You must’ve had quite a night.”

She meant to mock him, but in reality she felt sad and not at all convinced that she’d chosen the right approach. She ran a fingertip along the scar on his back.

“Stop,” he whispered, without moving.

“What?” she said. “No one can touch you anymore?”

She made sure no one was watching them, and then she quickly bent down and kissed Jules on the back of the head.

“Let’s make peace,” she said. “Okay?”

Jules spun around so quickly he almost toppled Laurène. They wound up nose to nose. Jules looked at her, devoid of anger, ready to capitulate.

“You know,” he said. “About Camille …”

He hesitated, searching for the right words, and once again Laurène misread the situation.

“Oh,” she blurted out, “I see. You’re hooked, are you? The great seducer—”

Upset, Jules interrupted her.

“Will you shut the hell up, for one second?”

“You might be able to order everyone else around, but not me!”

Jules grabbed her by the wrists and shook her.

“What are you trying to prove, Laurène? Why do you act like a slut? If you insist, no problem, I’ll do you right here, right now. In front of the entire family, if that’s what you want!”

He let go of her wrists and got up.

Now aware that she’d misunderstood him, she wanted him to stay.

“Wait!”

“Why? You have something more to show me?”

The stare-down he gave Laurène made her blush.

“You really treat me like I’m a moron,” he said, picking up his shirt off the ground. He’d exhausted all his patience.

“Listen …” Laurène said, holding back her tears.

“Leave me alone, Laurène,” he muttered in an oddly muted voice.

He made his way to the Jeep and sped off.

Laurène thought that no matter what they did, they’d never be able to clear up the misunderstanding between them.

Jules worked relentlessly the entire afternoon. He wore out both Alexandre and Lucas, who wondered about his frenzy. Aurélien came over to the vineyard at the end of the day and left without having said a word but looking satisfied. A bit later, Jules met with him in the cellar and talked to him at length about his intention to buy grape destemming machines. Aurélien listened to him, skeptical.

“You’re going too fast,” he said. “You impose too many changes on me, every year. First I’ll go over to the Soubeys to see how those machines are working out for them.”

Annoyed, Jules shrugged and said, “You demanded that the top of the barrels be varnished, and God knows that’s unusual!”

“I hate those damn purple stains you see everywhere. I want my cellar to be impeccable!”

“And it is, isn’t it?”

Aurélien stared at his son.

“You’re so nervous,” he said. “Is there something specific about the harvest that’s worrying you?”

Jules sighed.

“The wine is going to be supple and rich, but it’s going to lack depth.”

“It’s way too early to say,” Aurélien protested. “Besides, you’re always a prophet of doom and gloom before the harvest.”

They left the cellar and headed for the castle. Jules kept on talking about the vines.

“And there are the vines down the hill. Those are in pretty bad shape. The rain is going to make everything rot. We went for quality over quantity, but nine thousand vines per acre, that’s still too many!”

Aurélien gave him a pat on the back.

“Quit that, Jules, or I’m going to have nightmares all night long.”

But Jules wasn’t in a laughing mood, and throughout dinner talked about all the things he worried about. It was as though he wanted to atone for the time wasted during the picnic. He didn’t even seem to notice Laurène’s absence. She said she had a migraine and went up to bed before dinnertime.

The rain came down unexpectedly at the end of the meal, though that day’s weather had been splendid. Pauline played cards with Louis-Marie, Robert, and Dominique, but Jules continued his conversation with Aurélien. Alex talked about Mazion, where the harvest would begin in two days. The three of them sitting at the back of the main living room looked like conspirators, and Pauline joked about it. At eleven, Aurélien announced that he’d heard enough and he left them. Jules drank some cognac with Alexandre, to raise his spirits a little, and then he also left.

Upstairs, he noticed light under Laurène’s door and he knocked. As there was no answer, he knocked some more.

“Are you going to open up or should I kick in the door?” he asked out loud.

He’d decided to put an end to his feud with Laurène once and for all. Since he’d left the riverbank, he hadn’t stopped thinking about her, in spite of all the work he’d put in since. Convinced that she would drive him insane if he didn’t do something, he wanted to stop this back-and-forth game that prevented him from leading a normal life.

He waited for a couple of seconds, then he took a few steps back. Fonteyne’s doors were solid, but he got the better of Laurène’s with a violent kick. Stunned, Laurène watched him stumble into her bedroom.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Yes.”

He took a step toward her and she raised the blankets to her chin. They heard Robert’s voice, at the bottom of the staircase, asking if everything was okay.

They answered together, “Everything’s fine!”

Jules went back to shut the door. Its handle was dangling.

“I don’t give a damn about Camille,” he said. “In fact, I didn’t spend the night with her. I slept with a lovely young woman that I hope Aurélien will hire to replace you, since apparently you decided to leave. …”

He realized he was off to a bad start when he saw Laurène’s alarmed expression. He smiled timidly.

“Listen, Laurène,” he began. “I’m tired of lying to you. The harvest is right around the corner, and I’m going to have very little time. I just wanted to tell you that … that …”

Laurène had never seen Jules fumble for his words this way.

“That I love you, you know that, that I can’t sleep at night because of you, and that I won’t be able to stand it much longer. You chose Robert over me, that’s your right. I was wrong to make things so difficult for you. If you’re leaving Fonteyne because of me, it’s a great way to get back at me, because the idea of not seeing you anymore is making me sick to my stomach. But I think you’re right. …”

He’d remained on his side of the bedroom. Laurène knew how difficult it must’ve been for him to say those words. Proud as he was, he’d just admitted that he was dependent on her. He was quiet, waiting for her to saying something back, and he seemed to be ready for anything.

“Come over here,” she said in a low voice. “Please, come. …”

He took a few hesitant steps.

“Jules,” she said, “it’s like I don’t know you anymore.”

“You’re making me crazy, Laurène. …”

They stared at each other, making sure not to say anything that could be misunderstood.

“Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve loved you for years? Since I got here? That you’ve always intimidated me to the point that I’m clumsy and aggressive?”

He looked at her, incredulous.

“Bob,” she said, “that was … nothing.”

He stiffened at the sound of his brother’s name. She held out her hand and said, “I should’ve found the courage to talk to you a long time ago. Come here. …”

He walked over to the bed. Pushing the blankets aside, he took the time to look at her. She let him, still, consenting. She shivered when he put his hands on her, consumed with passion. He was very gentle with her, even though his desire for her smoldered. He’d dreamed about this moment for so long he didn’t want to cut it short. She reached for the nightstand lamp, but he didn’t let her turn off the light.

Jules had been awake for a few moments, and he was caressing Laurène’s hair. He heard the muffled sound of the library’s grandfather clock ringing down below. Asleep, Laurène cuddled against him.

“You’re the love of my life,” he whispered in her ear.