The French House Helen Fripp (the two towers ebook txt) 📖

along rue de Cordelliers, left at the rusty tap that had dripped as long as she could remember, along the alley and through the fence to the barrel yard where Xavier had hidden her the day of the revolution. The entrance to the other world of wine and cellars, of industry. She felt the same excitement when she went to her father’s wool mills. The looms clicking, the clerks with their piles of parchment, the women whose fingers threaded the machines so confidently. The fine cloth that emerged at the other end, giving a shape to the day, a useful outcome.

She knocked on the door to the house that overlooked the yard.

‘Claudine, Antoine, c’est moi!’

‘Ah, la petite sauvage. Monte, come up!’

She took the steps two at a time, her boots clattering on the old stairs. No need to be ladylike here.

‘I claim sanctuary from matrimony and slow death!’ she shouted, then stopped short.

Antoine and Claudine were in their usual spots by the fire, but there was a third person sitting in her chair. A man with a violin in his lap, looking very much at home. He waved his bow at her in greeting.

‘Granted, but it’s a terrible waste,’ he said, leaning back and crossing his long legs. He didn’t look like he belonged in Reims, neither like a hunting country squire type, nor a farmer. His dark hair was shoulder-length and his angular face was unusually expressive when he smiled. His embroidered jacket gave him a bohemian air, like a Hungarian poet.

‘Approches-toi au feu, il fait froid aujourd’hui. Sit by the fire.’ Antoine beckoned to Nicole. ‘And hush, marriage isn’t so bad, even for a determined tomboy.’

There was nowhere left to sit, and the man didn’t get up.

Claudine bustled over and took the religieuses. ‘Merci, I’ll make coffee and bring plates.’

Claudine gave Antoine a wink and he disappeared into the kitchen with her to help, leaving the two of them alone, with no introductions.

‘There are only three… I’m sorry,’ Nicole said, shooting a glance at the man.

‘François Clicquot. Enchanté.’ He jumped up and kissed her on each cheek, holding onto his violin. ‘Have you ever considered how such a chastely named pastry could be so evil and delicious?’

‘A nun needs evil to fight, or what would be the point? Though all the religieuses I’ve known made a religion of whacking my knuckles with a ruler.’

He smiled. ‘An unwilling scholar?’

His dark, blue-green eyes were a startling contrast to his pale skin and dark eyebrows.

‘I was always escaping.’

‘You prefer liberty with danger rather than peace with slavery?’

In quoting her favourite author, he had summed up her feelings about pretty much everything, including Monsieur Moët. She blushed.

He rummaged around in his violin case and brought out a battered copy of Rousseau’s The Social Contract. ‘I never leave it behind.’

‘Come and sit down, sauvage,’ said Antoine, bringing in the tray of coffee.

The corners of the man’s mouth twitched into a grin and she cursed them for using her nickname in front of him. She remembered François Clicquot now. Her father was friendly with his family. In fact, they lived close by, but he had been away at boarding school.

Claudine served the religieuses. François took one, tore it in half and offered a piece to Nicole, which she refused.

Claudine and Antoine didn’t ever feel the need to fill a silence, so no one spoke. Compared to home, this was a plain place, bare floorboards scrubbed clean, worn wooden chairs and a rag rug by the hearth that Nicole had helped Claudine make as a child. No servants, no fuss. This simple easiness was what she came here for and François seemed to sense that, so he kept the silence, too. She stared into the fire, felt him looking at her. The coffee was warm and nutty, but his curiosity unnerved her. She drained the cup.

‘I should be getting back,’ said Nicole.

‘Are you sure?’ Antoine looked at her with an unreadable expression. ‘We’re going to Verzenay with François to oversee the harvest. Join us? Our picnic can easily stretch to four. Please come, see what happens before the grapes get to the cellars. It will take your mind off your demise-by-matrimony,’ he smiled.

‘Have my share of the picnic. Come on, it’s a glorious day!’ said François.

‘My parents will worry,’ she said.

It would be the second time she’d slipped out alone today and they would miss her and fret. But watching Xavier and the others leave for the vineyards a few hours ago from the square, she had longed to be with them. Now here was an offer to do exactly that. Antoine was one of the most respected cellarmen in Reims and knew everything there was to know about wine production. She would be able to actually join the harvest instead of just read about it. Papa never allowed her to go with him to the vineyards. It was a man’s world unless you were working, and not for ladies, he told her. She hated that word, lady. It just meant being shut away in a gilded cage with invisible boundaries you couldn’t cross or question.

‘I can send a boy,’ said François. ‘I owe you now that I have eaten your evil nun cake.’

‘The Réseau Matu authorised the harvest just this morning. Everyone will be in the fields,’ Claudine encouraged.

‘It won’t be the usual carriage ride to observe from afar that you’re used to. You have to get in amongst the vines, join the pickers and feel the sweetness on your fingers – the smell is intoxicating,’ said François.

‘But the pickers hate owners getting in the way, don’t they? I’ve heard them scoffing at the “gentleman farmers” and muttering about hobbies.’

François laughed an easy, warm glow her way. ‘You’re observant for an untutored truant! We’re going to my father’s vineyards, and I work hard, have done since I can remember. It’s not a hobby for me, it’s my life. When I was sent away to boarding school, I even missed the stripped black vines in