The Bordeaux Betrayal (16 page)

“I’ll bring it by your house tonight. I have a meeting with Amanda Heyward at four so I can drop it off afterward and get it over with.” I knew it sounded ungracious but I was mad and hurt.

He was as short with me as I’d been with him. “You can ‘get it over with’ tomorrow, please. Sunny and I are out this evening. And bring it to the house, not the store.”

“Of course.”

“One more thing.”

I closed my eyes as lightning bolts stabbed the back of my eyes. What now? “Yes?”

“I’d like the Dorgon back. You’ll thank me for that. I drank another bottle from that vintage last night and it had turned.”

“You didn’t find out until last night?” I asked. So he wanted me to return both Bordeaux.

“I would not purposely give you a bad bottle of wine.” He sounded surprised. I had offended him again. “Please bring it with the Margaux.”

“I’ll bring them both tomorrow evening.”

“Thank you.”

“By the way,” I said, “I was wondering if you knew Valerie Beauvais.”

He hesitated a second too long before answering. “You mean that woman who was in the car accident the other day?”

Damn right I did and he knew it, too. I doled out rope. “That’s right. The author. She followed Thomas Jefferson’s route through the European vineyards. Wrote a book about it.”

“I know her by reputation,” he said. “Knew her, that is. Never met her in person. Sorry, Lucie, I’ve got customers who just walked in. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He hung up and I contemplated the bust of Jefferson for a while. Jack Greenfield just lied about knowing Valerie and I wondered why.

Did the reason he’d asked for the Margaux back have anything to do with her death? Jack’s arthritis was so bad he had trouble corking wine bottles. He could hardly have loosened the lug nuts from Valerie’s wheel, could he? Besides, why would he want to harm her?

Unless he’d found out what she knew about the Washington wine. Which I was about to give back to him so it could disappear into his collection, away from public scrutiny.

Forever.

I took more ibuprofen and lay down for a few hours before my meeting with Amanda. When I woke my headache had subsided but my anger had not. I still thought Valerie Beauvais was mixed up with Jack’s decision to withdraw the Washington wine, but I didn’t know how or why. And then there was Nicole Martin and her client with pockets that went all the way to China. They say everyone has a price. I wondered what Jack’s was. If Nicole offered him the moon and the stars for that bottle, would Jack sell his family’s prize possession and reap a huge profit—or would he keep it like he told me he intended to do?

Amanda’s Range Rover was already in Mick’s driveway when I pulled up behind her and parked. Even though Mick and I shared a common property line, between us we owned more than a thousand acres, so it wasn’t like we swapped cups of sugar across a backyard fence. It was nearly a mile between the entrance to my place and his.

Unlike my home, which had always been a working farm, Mick’s place, with its parklike grounds, reminded me of an English manor house. Saucer magnolias and dogwoods lined the private road leading to his home. In the spring drifts of daffodils and tulips bloomed alongside the trees. The previous owner had a professional horticulturist put landscape labels on all the trees surrounding the formal gardens. Mick contacted the horticulturalist, offering him a job as full-time groundskeeper. Then he asked Sunny Greenfield to take on redecorating the house, giving her carte blanche so he could focus on his real love—renovating and upgrading his extensive stables. He’d also supervised the planting of thirty acres of vines.

Before he moved to Virginia, Mick owned Dunne Pharmaceuticals, a Florida-based mom-and-pop business he’d transformed into a multinational conglomerate, which he’d sold in a deal that made the front page of major financial newspapers. If he never worked again for two lifetimes, he’d still be richer than Midas. I wondered how long someone so restless would be content racing thoroughbreds and growing grapes. I’d often wondered whether he was more captivated by the romantic notion of a gentleman farmer from Virginia than the reality of that life. One day would he wake up and discover he was bored?

A maid met me at the front door. “Mr. Dunne is in the stables, miss. He asked you to stop by when you’ve finished your meeting with Mrs. Heyward. She’s waiting for you in the drawing room. You know the way, I believe.”

I passed an enormous silver urn filled with several dozen red and white roses. If the Queen of England ever came for tea, she’d feel right at home. Sunny had knocked herself out redecorating the place and Mick had put no limits on what she could spend. The result was too grandiose for my taste but I knew Mick liked that kind of stately baronial splendor, even reveled in it.

I hadn’t seen the drawing room since Sunny finished redoing it in masculine shades of rust and royal blue. Persian carpets covered the floor, setting off the fine European and American antiques. The art looked like she’d borrowed a few treasures from a major museum.

Amanda stood by the fireplace, staring at a portrait of George Washington. She was dressed hunt country casual in a tweed blazer, silk blouse, and well-cut jeans. I joined her.

“That painting,” I said. “Isn’t it—?”

She nodded. “Yes. A Gilbert Stuart.”

Maybe Sunny really had borrowed it from a museum. “Where did Mick get it?”

“Sunny wouldn’t say. But Mick paid a bundle for it. Did you know Stuart painted over a hundred portraits of Washington? I had no idea there were so many out there.”

“Me, neither. This one’s fabulous.”

“That’s why I really want to hold the auction in the house, rather than a tent. This place is gorgeous.”

“The tent might not be a problem anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Her eyebrows knitted together. “What’s wrong?”

“Why don’t we sit down?”

We sat on a large camelback sofa covered in pumpkin-hued brocade. Amanda’s overstuffed planner and her paisley folder, now thick with papers, lay on the coffee table.

“Jack Greenfield is withdrawing the Washington bottle from the auction.”

Amanda put a hand over her mouth like she was going to be ill. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she looked tragic. “Sunny never said a word. I was just with her at the kennels.”

“Maybe he didn’t tell her.”

“Well, shit!”

“I know.”

“Why did he do it?” She picked up the folder and opened it. Then she closed it again. “Dammit, he
can’t
!”

“He can and he did. He’s giving us a jeroboam of Château Pétrus instead.”

She looked like I’d said he offered us a bottle of hemlock. “That Washington wine was the centerpiece of the auction. Without it, we’ll be lucky to fill the guest bathroom with whoever shows up.”

“I tried talking to him, but he’s made up his mind,” I said. “We’ll just have to live with it. Now we need to figure out how to let people know it won’t be part of the auction.”

Amanda threw herself back against the sofa. “We can’t do that! I’ve been calling and e-mailing everyone on the planet crowing about that wine, for God’s sake. We’ll look stupid saying, ‘Hey, guess what?’”

“We’ll look more stupid when people show up and we can’t produce it,” I said. “Not to mention how angry everyone will be. They’ll think we lured them into coming under false pretenses.”

She glared at me. “God, what a mess! Have you told Ryan?”

“I haven’t told anybody. Not even Quinn.”

“Quinn.” She tossed her head. “I heard a rumor about him.”

“Oh?”

“I heard Shane Cunningham’s hot new girlfriend is Quinn’s ex-wife.”

“From a long time ago.” At least she didn’t know about him showing up for work drunk.

“And he was drinking in Leesburg the other night. Got completely plastered.”

“We’re off the subject of the auction,” I said. “And Quinn’s love life is his own business.”

Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “Love life, huh? I thought they were divorced. Are you saying he’s still in love with his ex? How interesting.”

“Poor choice of words. Can we get back to the auction? I still think we need to tell people.”

“Before we do anything, let me talk to Sunny. She might be able to persuade Jack to reconsider.”

Sunny and Amanda were best friends. What did we have to lose?

“Good luck,” I said. “He wants me to bring the bottle over to his house tomorrow evening. Can you talk to Sunny before then?”

“Oh, don’t you worry,” she said. “I’m on my way to see her as soon as I leave here.”

We walked outside together. Amanda pulled out her car keys. “I’ll follow you out,” she said.

“I’m, uh, going to stick around for a while.”

She smiled. “Really? Seeing Mick? You two still together?”

“He asked me to drop by the stables, that’s all.” I hoped she’d leave it alone, but I was blushing.

“He’s quite a catch.” She climbed into the Range Rover. “I heard you stuck it to the Orlandos the other day when they came by and asked you to close your farm to the hunt. They’ve got their nerve. Good for you for telling them to go to hell.”

What, in my life, didn’t Amanda know about? One thing about a small town, we lived in each other’s back pockets—though that was part and parcel of the way people looked after each other around here. Neighbors who’d show up to help dig a garden, take down a tree, pull a car out of a snowbank, or drop off a meal because someone was ill. I knew I could never live in a big city where my next-door neighbor might be a total stranger. Maybe that was the problem with the Orlandos. They underestimated the bonds between families who had lived here since before the Civil War.

“I don’t like being pushed around,” I said.

She started her engine. “What did they say?”

“What you’d expect.”

Amanda’s glance flickered down at my cane. “You’re just like your mother, Lucie. She had guts, too.”

She drove off and I walked to the stables. Even if Amanda persuaded Sunny to talk to Jack, I still didn’t think he’d change his mind about the Washington wine. In fact, less and less did I believe he’d told me the truth about why he wanted it back.

The wind had shifted during the day bringing in cooler air that sharpened the sky to a lacquered cerulean blue I had not seen for months. The Indian summer heat was gone for good.

I liked the ordered serenity I felt each time I walked into Mick’s stables with their pleasant smell of hay and leather. His horses lived a regimented life—especially the ones being schooled. Ultimately, though, it was the animals that decided what they would and wouldn’t do, and the trainers knew better than to try to force them otherwise. Mick raised thoroughbreds, which he planned to race, some foxhunters, and two strings of polo ponies. To care for them, he had a staff of six grooms and exercise riders who reported to Tommy Flaherty, his Irish head trainer. Mick and Tommy had spent all spring and summer supervising the renovation of the farm’s sprawling network of barns, stables, run-in sheds, paddocks and fields, as well as the repainting of miles of post-and-board fences, which divided his land like a giant checkerboard. Now that the work was finished, the place looked magnificent.

I glanced at my watch as I walked into the main stable. Just past four-thirty. Feeding time. Tommy had a rule about not letting anyone in the barns until after four o’clock during the months the thoroughbreds were in training.

“These horses are athletes,” he told me once, in his lilting, musical voice. “They train hard, darlin’, and they need to get their shuteye. I won’t have anyone disturbin’ them.”

I checked first on my favorite—Black Jack—a thoroughbred whose glossy coat fit his name. His feeding tub looked full, but he still came to the stall window when I called him and nuzzled my hand, looking for an extra treat. One of the grooms pulled a carrot out of his pocket and handed it to me.

“Got any apples?” I asked. “He loves apples.”

“Give him an apple and he’ll drool all over himself. He’s just been groomed.”

“Sorry, buddy,” I said to Black Jack. “You heard what the man said.”

“And what would that be?”

I whirled around. Mick stood there, looking amused.

“That apples are off limits for Black Jack.” My face felt hot. I should have asked the maid to tell him that I needed to return to the vineyard after my meeting with Amanda. I should not have come here.

“We’ll make an exception for the pretty lady, all right, Jackie boy?” Mick nodded at the groom, who went to fetch an apple. “We’ll clean you up again after that messy apple, won’t we?” He rubbed Jack’s nose as the groom handed it to me.

“How’d your meeting go with Amanda? She’s running this auction like a bloody military campaign,” he said.

I fed Black Jack, holding the apple while he ate. Gentleman that he was, he avoided chomping on my fingers, though he enjoyed his treat with teeth-baring gusto and a glint in his lovely, liquid brown eyes.

“Jack Greenfield decided to withdraw the Washington bottle this afternoon. He wants to keep it,” I said.

Mick ran his hand down the horse’s neck, studying him. “Sorry to hear that, but it makes sense. The intrinsic value of that bottle is out of this world. I’m sure Jack reconsidered now that it’s getting so much attention.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me. Or the disabled and homeless kids who lost out.”

He stopped patting Black Jack and considered me. “I’m sorry you’re upset but you’re thinking with your heart, Lucie. Jack’s a businessman. I would have done the same thing.”

“Then you’re both cynics.” I walked down to the tack room, leaning on my cane, and found a towel to wipe the apple juice off my hand.

When I came back, Mick pulled me close and brushed a lock of my hair out of my eyes. “I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist. Have dinner with me tonight. I’ll cook for us. You’ll be dazzled by my culinary skills.”