A Bordeaux Dynasty: A Novel (55 page)

Jules was so pale she stopped speaking. She got up, went over to a small cupboard, and took out a bottle of gin. She poured herself a tiny bit, but almost completely filled the glass she handed Jules.

“Your father helped me during a very difficult period of my life,” she said. “He had more dignity than the four of you put together. You, you make women crazy. But your father loved them. It’s one hell of a difference.”

Jules downed the gin. He was in a trap from which he could never escape, a trap he’d set for himself unknowingly.

“This child,” Frédérique said, “I wouldn’t have kept him if I didn’t have that much bitterness inside me. You had the right not to love me, but not to despise me. You never cared what happened to me. You removed me from your life. But you kept Laurène, the golden goose. … All you care about is your land. The vineyards …”

Jules kept his head low, crucified by her words. An unbearable combination of humiliation, guilt, and doom had overcome him. There was nothing he could say. For the first time in his life, he was helpless, taking a beating without being able to defend himself.

“After he was born, I wanted to go see you at Fonteyne, with my son. … To talk to you. … Try to convince you. … I imagined that moment for months. … If you only knew how much I’ve endured. …”

Frédérique’s voice had changed, and Jules looked at her. Tears were streaming down her face, landing on her sweater.

“Since we first met, I’ve thought about you every single night before falling asleep. You’ve tortured me horribly, Jules. And today it’s payback time. … Your son … or your brother … you won’t be able to get rid of him like you got rid of his mother. … Never!”

Jules wanted to move, but it took everything he had just to take one step. Frédérique collapsed in his arms, insulting him and suffocating through her tears. She hit him until she was out of breath.

“As powerful as you are, Jules, you’re never going to be able to repair this.”

He knew that completely. He’d been married twenty-four hours and Laurène was pregnant with his child. There was no room for Frédérique’s son, but he still had to find some.

“Where is he?” Jules finally asked.

She glared at him and stepped away.

“No, Jules,” she simply said. “No.”

She went over to the door and opened it and waited, leaning against the frame. She’d regained her composure.

“Get out. …”

He tried to meet her gaze, but her gray eyes were avoiding him.

“Get out of here!” she said, loudly.

He was in no shape to argue. She’d trampled him to death. He wound up in the hallway and heard the door slam shut behind him.

Jules came back to Fonteyne at a snail’s pace, ignoring the angry horns of the cars passing him on the highway. He left the Mercedes at the foot of the front steps and headed for his office and, for the first time in his life, he locked the door behind him. He didn’t answer Laurène when she knocked, or Louis-Marie when he did the same an hour later. Robert, called to the rescue, wasn’t any more successful. Though wondering what was going on, the brothers all decided to leave Jules alone until the end of the day. They called Varin to make sure that nothing new had happened concerning the trial, and the notary’s negative response worried them. Jules never hid like this, never played games, and so his behavior was quite surprising.

At seven o’clock, Louis-Marie took advantage of the fact that Pauline and Laurène were chatting with Fernande in the kitchen. He grabbed his brother and led him to the office.

“He opens or we kick in the door,” he said loud enough for Jules to hear.

Almost immediately Jules opened the door and moved aside to let them in. It was hot in the room, embers still burning in the hearth. Jules had spent the afternoon watching the flames, regularly adding logs to the fire, smoking one cigarette after the other. Robert opened one of the French doors and sat next to Louis-Marie. Jules was standing in front of them, hands in his pockets. He looked worn out, devoid of expression. Many times that afternoon he’d wondered whether he’d be able to survive the ordeal. It took a long time to calm down and gather his thoughts, but he’d done it.

“I have something horrible to tell you,” he said, his voice low.

His brothers were watching with such anxiety that he told them what happened in a few short sentences. When he stopped speaking, a long silence followed. After a while, Robert let go of a sigh, crossed his legs, took a deep breath, but still found nothing to say. Louis-Marie whistled between his teeth, shook his head like a wet dog. Unable to stay put any longer, he went over to Jules, put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. Then he began to pace the room, not a word coming out of him, either.

“When it rains, it pours, as they say,” Robert finally said. “Alex opened fire on us, but now we’re going to get blasted with heavy artillery.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Jules said, in all honesty. “No clue. …”

Coming from him, this admission of helplessness was particularly alarming.

“No matter how we look at the situation,” said Louis-Marie, “you’re screwed. …”

They heard Pauline’s voice on the other side of the door, asking if she could come in. The three of them said no in unison. They heard Pauline burst out laughing and walk away.

“If Laurène learns about this,” Robert said, as neutrally as possible, “it’s going to make her sick.”

Jules nodded in silence. Laurène would be extraordinarily upset if she found out, he was aware of that. She was pregnant, she needed to be treated gently.

“Of course I feel completely responsible for all this, but I don’t know what to propose to you guys. I don’t know what to propose to her, either. I don’t even know what her intentions are, what she decided to do. I didn’t see the … baby. She didn’t want me to.”

They were all thinking about their father. His presence could still be felt at Fonteyne, especially here in this office.

“We do have to admit that we treated her badly,” Louis-Marie said. “I don’t know what she really did mean to Dad. There was nothing in his will about her. He probably didn’t know she was expecting. …”

“The problem is not her,” Robert snapped. “It’s that kid!”

He turned to Jules and looked at him.

“You’re the biggest troublemaker I know,” he said. “How do you do it?”

He smiled as he said that, trying to cheer Jules up a little.

“I have to go back to Paris tomorrow,” he said. “I can’t be away from my department forever. But I’ll stop in Bordeaux on my way, and I’ll have a chat with Frédérique.”

Louis-Marie said, “We have to help her to raise her son, if only financially, since … he’s a member of the family.”

Robert gave him a funny look and said, “How does it make you feel to know that there’s a little kid in a crib somewhere who’s your brother … or your nephew?”

He gestured at Jules without looking at him.

“This guy, here, he’s all about high drama. Never a dull moment. One thing is certain, when he asks us to come over, it’s not for nothing.”

He started to laugh and went for the pack of cigarettes that Jules was fiddling with.

“Give me one,” he said. “You know, we could ask for a paternity test. …”

Jules tossed his brother his lighter and shook his head.

“She won’t go for it,” he said. “Uncertainty, that’s her best revenge. …”

Though he’d regained his composure, Jules was still on edge. Through Aurélien, Frédérique had hit right at Jules’s heart.

“What’s certain,” Robert said, “is that we should try to move them away from Bordeaux.”

Robert’s objective wasn’t to prevent a scandal but to protect Jules, imagining the nightmare his life would be if Frédérique had her way. She held all the cards. She knew Jules well—his sense of family, his passion for Aurélien, his status as adopted son, his stubbornness, and his pride. She could destroy his existence by forcing him to make an impossible choice. She’d made him feel guilty, she’d humiliated him, and she could make his life a living hell for the next twenty years.

Just as he did every time Jules found himself in trouble, Robert felt the need to protect his younger brother.

“I’ll find her a position at the hospital,” he said. “Something much more interesting and better paid than her job as a secretary for Varin.”

“And we’re going to offer her a monthly stipend,” Louis-Marie added, calmly. “It’s normal. And an apartment in Paris. The three of us can split the expenses. …”

“That’s not right!” Jules said.

“What do you mean? You don’t want her to go away? You’re married, remember … ?”

“I remember. It was only yesterday. …”

Jules looked infuriated, hostile. Louis-Marie’s comment had stung him, since it wasn’t very far from the truth. And he was dying to see the baby, in spite of all of the tragic aspects of the situation. If the child was Aurélien’s, Jules loved him already, he couldn’t help himself and Louis-Marie knew it. The existence of a child that was Aurélien’s somehow made it as though he were still around, and Jules wouldn’t turn his back on him that easily. Jules would only ever have his own children with Laurène. But this was different. The child had been born, and nobody could do anything to change that.

“If you haven’t finished grieving,” Robert told Jules in a low voice, “you’d better hurry up. …”

Jules let out an exasperated sigh and turned to light a cigarette. Robert was right, he still hadn’t accepted his father’s death, the man to whom he owed everything he had.

“I know what you guys are thinking,” he said. “And I can’t disagree with you. But when I said it wasn’t right, I meant that there’s no reason that you should have to pay for any of this.”

“Of course we do,” Robert said. “Because of Dad … and Fonteyne. The three of us take care of this. If that jerk Alex were here, he’d be in also. And speaking of Alex, we can’t let him know about this. …”

Robert got up, went over to Jules, and gave him a friendly shove.

“Come on, little bro! This isn’t the end of the world. It’s going to be okay.”

They smiled at each other, the two very close in spite of their age difference, the physical distance between their homes, the different type of lives they led.

Across the room Louis-Marie said, “In any case, be careful. If you want Laurène to continue sleeping well, don’t say a word about this to Pauline. Discretion is not her forte.”

The comment made Robert shiver. Of course, Pauline had a big mouth, but coming from his brother, it sounded like a warning. Pauline was his wife, and he took advantage of a very serious conversation between men to remind them of that fact. Robert accepted the caution without a word. He was ready to do anything to one day be with Pauline again, even if it meant being split up from his family forever after. But right now, the most urgent matter was to deal with the problems that Frédérique was causing them.

Jules looked at both his brothers. The coming trial, the marriage imposed by Laurène, the growing rivalry between Louis-Marie and Robert, and this fatherless child: all these factors threatened Fonteyne’s existence.

You left too early, Aurélien,
he thought.
I’ll never be able to deal with all this. …

And yet he felt ready to fight. Something was smoldering inside him, deep down, which was much more like anger than despondency. His moment of discouragement had passed, partly because of his brothers’ support, but also because of what he was made of. He felt like he could overcome everything thrown his way, for Fonteyne’s sake.

Yes … I’ll beat this. …

He walked over to the fireplace and threw in another log.

“You’re feeling better?” Robert asked with a cheerful voice.

He hadn’t stopped observing his brother, and he’d just noticed how Jules had suddenly straightened, abandoning his haggard, desperate expression. He felt greatly relieved. If Jules cracked up, Fonteyne wouldn’t survive three months.

“Yes,” Jules said. “Tackling the problems one by one, and with the help of others—that’s the way to do it.”

Like all barflies, Alexandre was buddies with a few downtrodden alcoholics. His favorite spot was now a third-rate bistro where he could get smashed in peace. He remained vague and mysterious, though he kept talking about his brothers and his castle. The bistro’s waiter paid him no attention—his customers often went on and on about their own obsessions. But today, one customer did listen to Alex’s story with interest. It was a shady-looking young man, wearing a leather jacket and torn jeans. Alexandre didn’t know him, had never seen him before. And so he had no idea it was Marc, Frédérique’s brother, with whom Jules had been in a fistfight the year before.

Marc, having realized who Alex was, had no difficulty becoming his drinking buddy. They actually had a lot in common—a hatred of the same people, a need for cash, a very strong taste for cognac, and the fact that they were losers. Marc felt like he’d been done wrong by the Laverzacs, and knew Alexandre’s animosity toward his brother might just be the way to get back at Jules, though he didn’t know exactly how. He’d never forgiven Frédérique for having been that old man’s mistress. Mad at his sister, he rarely phoned her and saw her even less. He wanted to forget about his past—his father ruining himself gambling, his mother’s suicide, his sister’s behavior. He didn’t want any ties with anyone so that he could take the easy road to alcohol abuse and failure. But his tenacious rancor toward Alexandre’s family remained. He hated the Laverzacs’ unbearable success, which they flaunted all the time. He was no longer part of the bourgeoisie and, therefore, he despised it and everyone that was part of it. Alex was the Laverzacs’ weak link, and he was going to take advantage of it.

Valérie Samson pushed back the superb mane of red hair she was so proud of. She also knew how to make use of it. She gave Varin a ferocious grin. They’d just run into each other in the courthouse entrance hall, and he’d had little choice but to shake her hand.

“I’m sorry to be your opponent in this succession case,” she said, an obvious lie. “I just came out of the judge’s office. I presented him with my arguments.”

She was tall and very slim, dressed with simple elegance. As the latest in a long dynasty of attorneys, she’d specialized in commercial law, soon gaining a reputation as a wizard in her field. An only daughter, she didn’t want to disappoint her parents, so she’d decided not to marry in order to concentrate solely on her career, and her success was unbelievable.