The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(17)
Still, she could use the time to refill her supplies. She was dreadfully low on even the most essential of potion ingredients. Her mind made up, she closed the spell book and picked up a basket. She might not be able to perform complex magic yet, but it was no reason to be unprepared when her strength did return. She banished the notion that it might not ever return out of her mind as she closed the storage room door behind her.
As she exited the cellar, she met Jean-Paul in the courtyard as he brought the plow horse in from churning the soil between the vine rows. She didn’t need to see his face to know he was angry. His aura blazed to rival the setting sun.
“What is it?” she asked. “Has something happened?”
“This,” he said, reaching into a bag he’d slung on the side of the horse. He produced one of her witch bottles caked with mud. “Care to tell me what this is for?”
Lie or tell the truth? She didn’t expect to be torn over which was the right way to answer. “It’s to protect the roots.” There, not a lie.
“Oh? And does it contain some sort of slow-release fertilizer I’ve never heard of?” He opened it and gave it a sniff, though he was obviously mocking her now. He tipped the bottle and poured the contents out at her feet. The wine and strands of hair splashed on the cobblestones. “I specifically said I wouldn’t tolerate this sort of nonsense.”
Nonsense?
How to tell him that the vines on the crown of the hill had been exposed to a spell encouraging black fungus and wouldn’t survive the summer if those bottles were not kept in the ground? “It’s an old custom,” she said, choosing the lie after he’d splattered her skirt with the remnants of her wasted work. “Joseph Gardin would never face a growing season without first paying homage to the earth, sky, sun, and water. Every grower knows that the hope for a good crop begins with humility. It’s like an offering to the gods of wine. Harmless, but hardly nonsense.”
His eyes narrowed at the mention of Grand-Père, the look of a man zeroing in on knowledge he wanted for himself. His respect for the old vigneron ran deeper than she’d first thought. And though she didn’t regret the lie—he’d just undone a day’s worth of work, after all—she did regret she couldn’t be candid with him about someone he obviously admired.
Joseph Gardin, as everyone knew, had been the best vine witch ever to work in the valley.
She waited for the lingering influence of her wish to strum through his heart until his posture relented.
“On second thought I suppose it was just a bottle of wine,” he said, backing down. “I can appreciate the symbolism in the gesture. Even a modernist like myself has a soft spot for the old Romantics and their reverence for nature. We’ll toast Monsieur Gardin at dinner tonight to make amends for spoiling the custom.”
“I’m sure he would appreciate that. Until then I’m off to gather a few supplies for a project I’m working on.” She swung the basket in her hand for emphasis.
Jean-Paul glanced up at the darkening sky. “Will you be all right walking by yourself?”
His genuine concern for her safety disarmed her. Odd how he could win her over in the most unpredictable moments. “I’ll be fine,” she said and even managed a smile. “I’ll return before dark.”
“Maybe I should accompany you.”
To see the worried expression on his face, as if she were a mere defenseless mortal in a dangerous world, made her almost sorry she’d had to use the wishing string on him. He wasn’t truly bewitched, but he wasn’t capable of seeing her for what she was, either—a witch who experimented with poison in her spare time so she could kill the former lover who’d betrayed her.
“No, that won’t be necessary,” she said and then saw he’d taken her answer as a rejection. “But perhaps next time?”
“Of course. Well, I’ll leave a lamp burning for you in the courtyard.” With nothing left to say, he shoved the witch bottle back in the bag and led the horse toward the stable.
Elena tucked her basket in the crook of her elbow and headed out the gate, wondering why she’d said that last thing. She had no reason to spare his feelings. Did she?
For someone who didn’t approve of spellcraft, this handsome mortal was very good at the charm business.
CHAPTER NINE
Jean-Paul had not lived with a woman for three years, not since his fledgling marriage had been allowed to fall apart under the new secular law. Now he lived with two. Yet when he’d first bought Chateau Renard and invited Ariella Gardin to continue on at the estate, the arrangement had felt little different than sharing a home with an elderly aunt. They complained about the weather when it rained, gossiped about the neighbors when it didn’t, and on Saturday evenings he endured her gentle teasing about being a bachelor as they ate their supper together in the kitchen with a glass of red wine from the cellar. Sometimes he’d wished he’d had the house to himself, of course, but most days he was happy for the company. With two women now coming and going in the house, there were days he barely knew how to navigate the hallways without feeling like a guest who’d overstayed his welcome.
From the first night, the Boureanu woman had slipped off to sleep in the cellar workroom—the room Madame had long claimed was a storage room full of useless broken equipment. During the day she came and went inside the main house as if she owned the place, but at night she always retreated to the workroom. Peculiar for a woman to want to sleep in such spartan surroundings on her own, but on reflection everything she did was slightly strange.