Love in Vogue (5 page)

‘Aren’t we going to the Avenue Foch?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so. Corinne said she was coming up to town this evening.’

‘My place then. Let’s get a taxi.’

Back to a narrow seventeenth-century street, up the breath-snatching stairs to the top floor, into a dark studio. There was enough light from a dim lamp to reveal the unmade bed and Patrick’s usual domestic discomfort – minimalist furniture and dirty laundry strewn haphazardly on the floor, film posters on the stark white walls. It couldn’t have been more unlike Yolande’s luxurious abode at the other end of town, but she liked it.

‘I hope you’re not pinning your hopes on Mrs Pedersen and Vic Bernitz,’ she said, as Patrick took off his jacket. The air was heavy, and he opened the window before lighting a cigarette.

‘Of course not.’

His shoulders and head stood out in relief against the night sky. Yolande was anxious, wondering what Althea Pedersen had said to him during her absence. His mood was quiet and reflective. She had a horrible sensation of not being party to his thoughts, not counting in his plans. He seemed absorbed by ambitions she neither shared nor understood.

‘What did you think of her?’

‘Mrs Pedersen?’ he asked. ‘Quite an amusing woman. Vain, likes admiration, has spent a fortune on her teeth. That’s why she smiles so much.’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

He moved over to the bed, sitting down beside her. Yolande took the cigarette from him and inhaled deeply before handing it back.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s you, Patrick. Sometimes I feel I don’t know you at all.’

He fell back on the duvet, looking at her a little warily.

‘Are you worried because you’ve got no work? Surely your agent will come up with something soon? Especially after
Souvenir Amer
did so well.’

‘I didn’t win the awards, Yolande – the director did. He’s working on a new film, but he won’t tell me about it.’

‘Did you fall out with him?’

Patrick snorted. ‘Who doesn’t fall out with the delightful Jacques? He’s such a shit. Don’t worry. He’s not the only director in the world even if he thinks so.’

Sometimes she amused him, fussing him like a baby, looking so hurt when he recounted his setbacks. She couldn’t see it was all a game. Jacques would call him next time, and he would make him crawl. Althea Pedersen, now, she knew the game. Vic Bernitz might even give him a chance.

‘Still, Franco needs you,’ said Yolande. ‘There’s the Hervy gala in New York in October, and he’ll want you to go. Will you?’

‘If I’ve got nothing better to do.’

Patrick had had enough of the conversation. He pulled her down beside him. She didn’t understand, she wasn’t the right woman for him, but her body acted on his like an addictive drug. That amazingly beautiful face, lit up with desire for him. Her smooth silky skin, her eager caressing hands, her creative and insatiable sexuality. He took her slowly this time. No restaurant to hurry to, no important strangers to entertain. Just the two of them in the enveloping darkness, heat on heat.

‘Why are you jealous of Althea Pedersen?’ he asked, when she lay quivering beneath him.

Yolande ran her hands down his back, her legs clamped around him, then pulled his head down so that her lips brushed his cheek. ‘Because I couldn’t bear to lose you, Patrick. I just couldn’t.’

He shut her up with a kiss, and not until much later did Yolande realise she had let him know how far she depended on him. How had he guessed she was jealous? Was she? Not of Althea Pedersen, surely, but of that plausible Hollywood talk that made Patrick’s eyes light up in a way they never did for her. Talk which smelt of greasepaint and rolling film cameras, actors and scriptwriters – talk that excluded her. For the first time in her life she felt insecure. It wasn’t a sensation she enjoyed.

‘So how’s your new boss, Georges?’ asked Toinette Brozard, pacing tigress-like in the pristine salon of her small apartment near the Invalides. ‘I hope she appreciated my flowers.’

‘She was rather surprised to get them after your little sabotage effort in the press. But she asked me to thank you and said she’s sorry to hear you’re still ill.’

Toinette gave a short laugh, then coughed. ‘This wretched flu. Can’t seem to shake it off. Have a Scotch.’

She motioned him to an armchair and stepped over to a sideboard to pour him a drink. ‘Ice?’

‘Please.’

Still lithe and slim at forty-nine, neither flu nor a loose gown pulled in carelessly at the waist could lessen her appeal. Her small, pretty features were skilfully made up, and her hair, Viking blonde and a little flyaway, was tailored neatly to the contours of her head. She handed Georges a glass and sat down opposite him.

‘What’s this about Yolande? Is it really over between her and Yves?’

‘So it seems. She’s mad about some actor.’

‘I met him. It won’t last.’ Toinette fiddled with a ring on her finger. ‘Jean-Claude invited him to dinner a couple of months ago, and one could tell it was just sex – well, for Patrick anyway.’

‘Yolande has other ideas,’ said Georges. ‘She’s practically living with him.’

‘Silly girl! Throwing away a fantastic guy like Yves for some egocentric young actor who will dump her once he’s successful.’

‘I had a chat with him at the Hervy show to try to get some information for Corinne, and it was as though we’d met before. Very odd.’

‘Do you know, I felt the same thing? There’s something about him, but I just can’t pin it down. He wouldn’t reveal much about his background.’

Georges smiled. ‘So you did ask? He told me Jean-Claude never mentioned it.’

‘Did Jean-Claude ever look into things like that? It was always left to me.’ She got up and poured herself a drink, which she gulped down. ‘I shouldn’t, but I must.’

‘How are you managing?’ he asked gently.

‘OK, I suppose. It’s horrible without him. I hate it here. No one to talk to, nothing to do.’

‘What about your friends?’

‘They’re a bit thin on the ground.’ She resumed her seat, giving an expressive shrug of her shoulders. ‘Let’s face it, Georges, most of them only cultivated me because of Jean-Claude. I don’t suppose Corinne will do much entertaining.’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘How could she be so dull at such an early age? I’ve never exactly seen eye-to-eye with Yolande, but at least we usually agreed on parties and clothes. But Corinne …’ She sighed at the hopelessness of her elder step-daughter.

Georges gave her a penetrating look. ‘Why did you threaten to sue, Toinette?’

She took a cigarette from a silver case, and tapped it two or three times against the lid engraved with her monogram before lighting up. Only after she had inhaled did she answer him.

‘I was his wife in all but name for twelve years. I did the best I could in difficult circumstances. But those girls treated me like a pariah. And the legacy was an insult.’

‘But a five per cent stake in Marchand, as well as a seat on the board …’

‘I earned that directorship a long time ago!’ she snapped. ‘He would have lost control of the company if I hadn’t stepped in when Philippe sold out.’

‘You hardly helped matters by encouraging Philippe to sell his shares to UVS.’ He leaned back in his chair.

‘Jean-Claude couldn’t afford to buy them. You know that. I thought it would be better having them owned by a firm over which I have some influence rather than letting our rivals buy them on the open market.’

‘Possibly.’ He grimaced. ‘But UVS is such a secretive little outfit, isn’t it? Nobody had ever heard of it. We did a lot of research, but all we uncovered was a foreign private equity firm in which you have a thirty per cent stake.’

‘So. Would it kill you to thank me?’ she asked. ‘If Jean-Claude hadn’t overstretched himself buying Hervy, none of it would have happened.’

‘True.’ Georges drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘But we could never get Philippe’s shares back afterwards. I always wondered why.’

‘How should I know? I don’t make the investment decisions for UVS.’ She took a long pull on her cigarette. ‘Look, Georges, I know what you’re driving at, but if you really think I’m about to stage a bid for Marchand you must be paranoid.’

‘Then why threaten a lawsuit? Why force down the share price?’

‘I told you – I was very upset over the will.’

‘So it was simply spite?’ he persisted.

Toinette considered the question carefully. ‘Not at all. I wanted to remind Corinne and Yolande to treat me properly in future. I could still make things very awkward. They shouldn’t forget that. They’ve hardly been sympathetic so far.’

‘But they were extremely hurt.’

‘So am I. I
loved
him.’

Georges began to look very uncomfortable, as though he’d had his fill of broken-hearted females lately. He seemed relieved when Toinette stood up and stalked over to the sideboard to pour another drink. She turned to face him, glass in hand.

‘I’ll see you around, Georges.’

He moved across to her. ‘We must do lunch soon.’

She kissed him lightly on each cheek. ‘Give Corinne my love, won’t you? I’ll continue to support her for the moment, but you know me – I can easily change my mind.’ They walked towards the door. ‘And tell Yolande I hope she’ll invite me to her wedding.’

After he left, Toinette rested for a while on a sofa, chain smoking in the grey light grudgingly admitted by the half-shuttered windows. When she felt sufficiently calm, she picked up the telephone and called Ulrich von Stessenberg’s suite at the Crillon. 

Chapter Three

‘So where are you off to today, monsieur?’

Miles Corsley looked up from his map as Madame Lebrun approached the table with steaming coffee and croissants. The aroma was delicious. Already the warm August sunshine streamed in through a small recessed window, casting a pleasant brightness over the rustic Burgundian dining room.

‘St Xavier,’ he said, pushing aside his guidebooks to make way for the breakfast tray. ‘I have an invitation to Le Manoir.’

Well, one given through gritted teeth. He smiled as he recalled Corinne Marchand’s frosty confirmation of her father’s open-ended offer to show him all of the company’s operations, and the way her eyes had flashed as he asked if he could visit the vineyard. Fitting a wine tour into what would otherwise have been a fraught business trip had been a stroke of genius as far as Miles was concerned. It gave him both a holiday and the opportunity to observe Corinne in her natural habitat. A lesser man would have run by now, but Miles didn’t scare easily, and her formal politeness since that appalling board meeting only fuelled his curiosity to discover if a real woman lurked somewhere beneath the alluring, but glacial façade.

‘Only the best for you, eh?’ Madame Lebrun was suitably impressed. ‘Vosne-Romanée, Vougeot, Gevrey-Chambertin – there won’t be a
grand cru
village you haven’t visited.’

‘That was the whole idea.’

‘Well, St Xavier is one of the prettiest. You must look at the church. And the Château de Rochemort is magnificent. Of course, you can only see part of it, but they’ll certainly let you have a tour of the cellars.’ Baron Yves’ place. He might as well squeeze that in too. ‘Will you want a packed lunch today?’

‘No, thanks. A colleague recommended the
coq au vin
at a restaurant in St Xavier. Le Tastevin? But I’m sure it can’t be as good as yours.’

Marie Lebrun shook her head reprovingly and trotted back to her kitchen. A large, practical, middle-aged farmer’s wife, she was usually dismissive of compliments, but praise of her culinary skills never left her unmoved. She was also, as a rule, proof against masculine charm, but there was something about her young English guest that, had she been twenty years younger, would have led her into serious indiscretions. Tall, tanned, and toned, his long legs stretched out under the table in thigh-length shorts and his chest was hard and muscular beneath an open-necked polo shirt. She wondered how many girls had been burned by those easy manners and that open smile, but as he pored over a map and made a few pencil notes, she almost expected him to turn and order a sergeant to fall in or out, or do whatever soldiers did. He was like a commander planning his battle strategy. The head was held high, the chin jutted out uncompromisingly. He’d stopped off at the farm guest house for one night but had now stayed three. As he drove off in his Range Rover, she wondered if he would bring back any more wine. He had several cases stacked in one of her outhouses already. Still, he’d hardly be able to afford St Xavier or Château de Rochemort. They ranked among the most expensive and sought-after wines on the Côte d’Or, and were almost sold on the vine. Not what one would find in a
coq au vin
at Le Tastevin, of that she was certain.

Miles was going with the flow. No rush. He wanted to relax and enjoy the summer landscape, threading his way along winding back roads flanked by some of the most illustrious vineyards in France. It was only since the Paris secondment that he’d begun to take a serious interest in wine. Of course he knew his Champagne, the standard brands with which he had toasted the memorable events in his life; getting his degree, winning the Queen’s Sword at Sandhurst, being awarded a gallantry medal for service in Afghanistan. Only a few years ago, yet it seemed like an eternity. It had been a huge shock to his colleagues when he decided to leave the regiment. Everyone said he had a brilliant future in the army. His father, Brigadier Peter Corsley, would certainly have been dismayed. But Miles’ father had died along with his mother on a minor country road when a lorry smashed into them while they were returning from the supermarket run. Miles and his younger sister Caroline were away at school. It was far too banal an end for Peter Corsley, who’d survived bombs in Northern Ireland and snipers in the Falklands. His brother Rupert, a merchant banker in the City, had other ideas for his nephew’s long-term future. At thirty, Miles exchanged his uniform for a suit and spent three years at Corsley First European’s London headquarters before being sent to the Paris office.

The bank had a solid client base and a fearsome reputation in European takeovers and mergers. Miles loved the job, found his company apartment on the Ile St Louis the perfect bachelor pad, and took every opportunity he could to escape the confines of the city – which was why he was happily motoring down this enticing Burgundian road in the rising temperature of an August day, looking forward to a gourmet lunch, more wine-tasting, and another run-in with Corinne Marchand.