Invitation to Provence(67)
Knees demurely together, she swung her long legs out. She looked up at Scott and her heart leaped. God, he was cute, and truly salt-of-the-earth… . He was everything she was looking for.
“You’ve come just at the right moment,” he told Rafaella. “Harvesting on the west hill begins tomorrow. Everybody’s geared up, the migrant workers are here, ready to go, plus the locals of course. We should be able to start the first crush tomorrow night.”
Rafaella always enjoyed the vendange. It was exciting to see the grapes roll through the huge machines that removed the stems, then watch them tumble into the giant crusher. It was intoxicating to smell the sweet juice, and later taste a thimbleful to assess its sweetness. Too sweet? Too acid? Too green? Then see it cascade into the huge, freshly scoured fermenting vats from where, several weeks later, it would emerge as the beginnings of a new Domaine Marten wine. It was then that Scott’s expertise would come into play. He was the “nose,” the only person to blend the Domaine wines, using his knowledge and experience and his instinct to add or subtract, to sniff and taste, to correct until he was satisfied with the new vintage.
Scott explained the process to them as they toured the big stone sheds, inspecting the tall steel vats and the huge machines. Then he took them down to the cool dim sixteenth-century caves. The stone walls were arched and banded with old beams, and the aroma of wine made them giddy. On a stone table in the center of the largest cellar waited an array of glasses and a half dozen bottles of wine ready for the tasting.
Scott opened the first one and poured a small amount into each glass. “This was a great Domaine Marten vintage,” he said proudly, demonstrating to the novices how to first swirl the glass to release the aroma, then take a sip, let it slide over their tongues, then allow it to rest for a second on the palette. “Then you spit it out,” he said.
Little Blue stared at him, shocked. Of course Chinese peasants spat but she had never expected to see her elegant French grandmère do that. Still, they all sniffed, swirled, and sipped obediently, though Clare and Franny drank theirs instead of spitting. “Too good to waste,” Clare told Scott with a grin.
After their tour, they drove up to the historic village perché, past old farms clinging to the rocky hillsides and the strange little conical stone buildings called bories, believed to be ancient shepherds’ huts. The very walls of the bastide grew out of the rocks, and cobbled streets wound through the small village that still looked the way it had hundreds of years before.
Jake held Franny’s hand, Rafaella held Little Blue’s, Juliette held the Pomeranians (for once on their leashes), and Scott fell in step with Clare. She was instantly aware of him, his lean body, his easy outdoorsman stride. “Tell me, did we dance together last night?” she asked, pretending not to recall.
“We did.”
“Hmm, if it was that good surely I would have remembered?”
She was flirting with him and he was enjoying it. “Don’t you remember I told you how beautiful you were?”
She tilted her head, looking at him under her lashes, “And do you still think that?”
“I do,” he said, sounding as though he were taking marriage vows, making her laugh.
“I like a guy I can laugh with,” she said, linking her arm companionably through his as they walked.
They went to the sprawling outdoor café in the square, where they dined on roast chicken and the best pommes frites while the first stirrings of a mistral tugged at the umbrellas and sent their hair and napkins flying. Holding hands with Jake under the table, Franny hardly dared believe she was here in this paradise with a man she loved. A man who loved her. A man whose bed she couldn’t wait to share tonight. The veterinary practice in Santa Monica suddenly seemed a long way away.
The monastery bell was tolling eleven as they drove back down the winding road to the chateau, and this time Franny, too, thought it was like coming home.
52
THAT NIGHT Little Blue could not sleep, for worrying about Bao Chu. She thought of her grandmother’s cough and the way it shook her whole body, and the sweat streaking down her exhausted face. Terrified, she realized that Bao Chu might die soon, and that was why she’d insisted Little Blue go to France alone.
She got up very early the next morning and went and sat cross-legged, outside Rafaella’s door until she saw Haigh carrying her breakfast tray. Then she asked if he would please ask Rafaella if she could speak to her.
“Of course, come in, ma petite,” Rafaella called and Little Blue slipped into what was to her, her grandmother’s magic kingdom. Her eyes roamed the tall shelves stacked with more books than she had ever known existed, taking in the many paintings, the tables with the photos, the silk shawl spread across a comfortable chair by the window and the huge four-poster bed where Rafaella lay propped against lacy pillows, watching her.
“Well? Do you like it?” Rafaella smiled at the child’s stunned expression.
“All the books in the world must be here,” she said, amazed.
Rafaella laughed. “Maybe not quite all of them, but there are thousands. Come here, ma petite, and kiss your grandmère, and then tell me what you need to discuss.”
Litle Blue climbed into the big bed, where she curled up unself-consciously next to her grandmother. “I am worried about Bao Chu,” she said in a small, trembly voice.