A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel (54 page)

“What trouble?”

“Your brother … He’s out there.”

Jules went pale and Fernande snatched his wrist.

“Listen,” she said. “Bernard prevented him from entering the house. He was keeping an eye on the cars and saw him. … Lucas had warned him against Alex because … we figured he might decide to show up here tonight. … Jules! Wait!”

Jules was heading for the exit door. She ran after him and said, “Please, Jules! Don’t be too hard on him!”

But he was already outside, running down the steps. He hurried over to the barn. The castle’s surroundings were fully illuminated, and the chrome of the cars was shining. Alexandre was leaning against one of the barn’s pillars, Bernard in front of him. He watched Jules come his way, but it was through a fog as he was completely drunk. Jules walked by Bernard.

“Don’t you touch me!” Alex managed to shout.

“What are you doing here?” Jules demanded, shaking his brother.

Alex laughed and then began to vomit, hitting Jules’s shoes and the bottom part of his pants. Jules let him finish, and then dragged him to the back of the barn, opened a faucet and held Alex’s head under the water. Alex was trying to free himself, but Jules held him tight. Bernard, who’d followed them, was standing still behind them. Jules finally released Alex, who collapsed on the dirt floor.

“I came to get my wife,” he mumbled.

He didn’t dare look at Jules, and he pointed at Bernard.

“That son of a bitch wouldn’t let me in the castle. Who is he anyway? You have to tell him that this is my house!”

Then he snatched the bottom of Jules’s pants. “My house! You, you bastard, you never should’ve been brought here!”

Jules freed his leg, grabbed Alex by the arm and brought him to his feet. The punch he gave his brother sent him against the wall, but he caught him before he could crash onto the floor.

“One more word and I’m going to beat the crap out of you.”

Jules was struggling to keep his cool. He wanted nothing more than to hurt him badly.

“He’s drunk,” Bernard said, behind him.

“You go back inside, Jules,” Lucas said. “Everyone is wondering where you are.”

Alex glared at Lucas and said, “You got all dressed up. …”

Feeling ill at ease in his rented tux, Lucas shrugged and told Jules, “He’s wasted. I’ll take him back to Mazion.”

“No,” Jules said. “You have to come back to the table, too.”

Lucas lowered his head. Jules had just reminded him that he’d invited him to his table, treating him like an equal, and in doing so making him very happy. Jules glanced at Bernard.

“Do you think you can handle this? You know how to get there?”

The young man nodded silently. He was very much impressed by Jules.

“I won’t leave without Dominique,” Alexandre shouted.

Lucas’s presence reassured him. It protected him from his brother’s wrath.

“I’m going to get her,” he said.

Jules didn’t give him time to take a step, slamming him against the wall.

“Let go of me!” screamed Alex.

He tried to fight back and went for Jules’s throat, but all he managed to do was mess up his brother’s bow tie.

“This is my home,” he said, crying. “It’s my home …”

Disgusted and furious, Jules slapped him in the face, hard. Alex brought a hand to his cheek, wriggling against the wall. Lucas intervened and forced Jules to take a step back.

“You can’t stay out here,” he said. “You’ve got to go back inside. Let Bernard handle this. …”

Jules nodded. He felt empty. He turned to Bernard.

“I don’t want any scene,” he said. “Can you manage?”

“No problem,” Bernard said.

“Okay, then. Get rid of him.”

Bernard looked straight at Jules for a moment, then put an arm around Alexandre’s shoulders and guided him to the Mercedes, parked at the far end of the barn. Having been in charge of parking, he’d made sure that the Jeep and the Mercedes could access the driveway easily. He opened one of the car’s back doors and let Alexandre crumple onto the seat.

“He’ll sleep the whole way,” Bernard said, calmly.

He started the engine and the Mercedes made its way out of the garage, slowly going past Jules and Lucas.

“Okay,” Lucas said. “Let’s head back in now.”

Jules decided to get going. His anger was intact, not having found the right outlet. He dashed toward the terrace but went around the house to enter by the kitchen. The room was buzzing with activity. Jules ran up the backstairs and hurried over to his room. He turned on the lights and looked at himself in the mirror above the fireplace. He was a mess. He took off his clothes, then went over to the walk-in closet and selected a clean shirt and a dark blue suit. He went back downstairs using the main staircase, straightening his bow tie. His entrance in the room was greeted by whispers, which he answered with his charming smile. As soon as he sat back down at his place, a waiter served him. He picked at the pieces of duck on his plate and then gestured that the next course could be brought. The guests pretended as though nothing had happened, in spite of the long pause in the meal.

“What happened?” Laurène asked between her teeth.

She was a bit pale. Jules didn’t answer right away, occupied as he was with trying to restart his conversation with the person sitting next to him. Laurène shot Dominique a worried look. They were seated too far apart to be able to talk, but they understood each other.

“Is it Alex?” Laurène insisted.

Jules turned to her. He was no longer smiling.

“Shut up, will you?” he whispered.

She opened her mouth but shut it without saying a word. When Jules adopted that tone, it was best not to argue. Louis-Marie stopped observing his wife to look at Jules. He knew that only something serious would’ve caused his brother to leave the table right in the middle of dinner. He also noticed that he’d changed his clothes. He turned to the other end of the table, where Lucas had quietly regained his seat. He wondered how long Fonteyne was going to escape the drama that was brewing. Thankfully, the headwaiter brought in the wedding cake, the perfect diversion.

Jules didn’t want to disappoint Laurène, and so he carried her over the bedroom’s threshold according to tradition and told her what had happened with Alex earlier, without going into details. Then he undressed her, made love to her for a long time, promised to make her happy, and held her hand until she fell asleep. Then he quietly slipped out of bed and headed for the bathroom, where he took a lengthy shower. He still wished he could’ve punch Alex in the face. Deeply wounded by his own brother calling him a bastard, he’d brooded over it for the rest of the meal. When he’d accompanied his guests to their automobiles, Bernard had given him a reassuring nod of his head. Alex was sleeping it off back at the house in Mazion. Jules had asked Lucas to accompany Dominique, Marie, and old Mrs. Billot. Before they left, he’d told Dominique that she was always welcome at Fonteyne. Then he’d taken the time to thank the staff and tip them before heading upstairs. There, he’d found his brothers and Pauline waiting for him, collapsed on the landing’s window seats. They had one last drink before heading for their rooms at four in the morning.

I did it,
Jules thought as he stepped out of the shower.
I hope you’re happy, Aurélien
.

He wasn’t sleepy but tried to convince himself that he should get an hour or two of shut-eye. He went back to the bed, shooing away Botty, who was trying to lie low. He smoked one last cigarette, absentmindedly grazed his wife’s shoulder, and turned off the light. Laurène turned his way, snuggled against him, and held onto him with all her might.

“I thought you were sleeping,” he said in a low voice.

She said his name over and over again, holding on to him as though she were drowning. He then realized that she was crying. He tried to turn the light back on, but she didn’t let him.

“Jules … Oh, Jules. I forced you to marry me, but you didn’t want it at all. You don’t like sleeping next to me. You’re bored when we’re together. I’m worthless … I’m…”

“Quit that, Laurène.”

“I did it on purpose. This baby … I wanted to force you into marrying me. …”

“Stop it!”

“Everybody looks at you like you’re a god, and they see me as some sort of insignificant thing. I so wished you’d truly love me.”

Her last words were almost inaudible she was crying so hard, but still Jules heard them. He wondered what he could do to calm her down, to reassure her. He flopped on top of Laurène, pinning her down, and turned on the bedside lamp.

“Look at me,” he said, lovingly. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

Jules’s face was inches from hers, and Laurène drowned in her husband’s dark eyes.

“I love you and you’re my wife,” he said. “I don’t have time to console you if you get a kick out of being sad.”

His entire weight was on her and she couldn’t move. As soon as he started caressing her, she began to moan.

Jules was getting antsy, stuck as he was in traffic trying to make it downtown. He kept thinking about what Frédérique had told him on the phone an hour earlier. The call had surprised him, then worried him. She hadn’t said much, but she was insistent—she wanted to meet him right away. He’d tried in vain to imagine why but consented to see her. Anxious to find out what was going on, he’d driven to Margaux like a madman. He was also more troubled than he wanted to be at the thought of seeing the young woman again. Their affair was both recent and remote, and it still nagged at him. He could remember very clearly every detail of her face. She was the first woman that he’d lied to Aurélien about, the only one who had managed to stand up to him. But she was also the last woman that Aurélien had loved, the last one he’d desired.

Jules found a spot and parked the car. He quickly glanced at the building’s façade to make sure he had the right address before rushing in. He ran up the three flights of stairs, paying no attention to the peeling paint and the dirty windows. He looked for Frédérique’s name above the doorbells and saw that she lived down the hallway.

When she opened the door, he held his breath for an instant. She was exactly as he’d seen her a few months before, when he asked her to leave Fonteyne after Aurélien’s attack. She stood aside to let him walk into a small, dim room that was only sparsely furnished. She shut the door and they wound up face-to-face, silent, not sure how to break the ice. Without a word, she gestured for him to sit down. He hesitated, then headed for an armchair. He felt embarrassed, awkward, out of place.

“I’m glad you came so quickly,” she finally said.

She pointed at the newspaper sitting on the coffee table. Jules leaned toward it and saw the article about his wedding, with a photograph. The picture showed him and Laurène on the church’s steps. He raised his eyes to Frédérique.

“Well?” he asked.

She sat on the carpet in front of him.

“You caught me off guard,” she said.

She seemed to be searching for words. Her superb light gray eyes were not directly on Jules.

“I didn’t think you were going to marry that little nitwit so quickly,” she blurted out.

He didn’t react to the insult, waiting for the rest.

“After your father’s death, I thought you were going to put things off for a few months. … The mourning period is usually pretty long in old, traditional families, isn’t it?”

Frédérique’s tone of voice was harsh, but Jules kept silent.

“I needed those months, Jules!” she screamed.

Jules straightened in his chair, fearing what was to come.

“When you kicked me out of Fonteyne like a dog …”

Completely at a loss, Jules muttered, “Please …”

She paused for a moment, seething, and then continued, enunciating every syllable, “When you kicked me out of Fonteyne, I knew I was pregnant, and yet I didn’t say anything. …”

Jules shut his eyes, devastated by what he’d just heard. She gave him a bit of time to recover, to realize the implications of what she’d said to him.

“I remained in contact with Mr. Varin. He’s always been nice to me. … I said I wouldn’t go back to work for him until June because I wanted to give birth first. Since I was calling him once in a while, I learned about your brother challenging Aurélien’s will. I figured you’d be too busy with that to think of getting married. I was wrong. …”

“Frédérique, please …” Jules muttered.

He was dying inside, but she had no intentions of sparing him the rest.

“And also, I wanted to see …” she said, lowering her voice.

“See what?”

“The child! The baby. I figured that as soon as I saw the baby I’d know who the father was.”

Livid, Jules got up, took two steps toward the window, came back to his chair.

“You’re calculating?” she asked, with scathing irony. “Go ahead. … Remember that night? Think about it slowly, calculate, and you’ll realize … And there were only two possibilities: Aurélien or you!”

She paused for effect and concluded, “My child is either your son or your brother. In either case, he’s a Laverzac!”

Jules had heard a number of terrible things in his life, but nothing so stunning. He wasn’t prepared to deal with the situation. Still sitting on the carpet, she was now looking him straight in the eyes, and he turned away. He was trying to think in a coherent manner but couldn’t manage it.

“Why …” he began to ask, his voice flat. He couldn’t formulate the rest of the question.

“Why didn’t I tell you? Oh, you have no idea how I regretted it once I saw this.”

She pointed at the newspaper, then let her hand fall in her lap.

“You treated me like a whore, Jules! You got rid of your father’s troublesome mistress as soon as he fell into a coma. You remember that, don’t you? I was such a schemer in your eyes, all of you, that no one ever bothered to tell me how he was doing. His hospital stay, when he came back to Fonteyne, his death—nobody told me anything about it. All I knew was what I read in the papers, as usual. …”

She snatched the newspaper and angrily crumpled it, before tossing the ball in a corner of the room.

“You didn’t even suppose that I might have at least some affection for him. … Of course, I wasn’t in love with him because you’re the one I wanted to be with. But he was still a great man, something I don’t have to tell you, right?”