He turned to Ginny. ‘And now, mademoiselle, permit me to welcome you. Je suis énchante de faire votre connaissance.’
Not that enchanted, thought Ginny, aware that his smile no longer reached his eyes.
She said quietly, ‘You’re very kind, Monsieur le Baron. Your home is very beautiful.’
‘You have heard about it, perhaps, from your beau-père?
‘No,’ she said. ‘He—he never mentioned it.’
There was a silence, then the Baron inclined his head courteously. ‘Then it is good we meet at last, as he wished. Andre, you must make sure your guest’s stay with us is a pleasant one. Burgundy, mademoiselle, has a fascinating history and some exquisite architecture.’
He turned to Mademoiselle Chaloux. ‘Ring the bell, will you, Monique, and Gaston will bring the aperitifs to toast our visitor.’
It all sounded very hospitable and pleasant but Ginny wasn’t fooled.
‘He doesn’t want me here,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I’m getting a subtle warning not to outstay my welcome.’
Maybe she had an ally at last, yet somehow she couldn’t rejoice, because suddenly it was being brought home to her, coldly and bleakly, that she no longer belonged anywhere.
And the lonely, painful knowledge of that settled inside her like a stone.
CHAPTER NINE
THE ENSUING SILENCE was eventually broken by the Baron’s courteous voice. ‘Your mother is well, mademoiselle, and your sister?’
‘Thank you, yes. They’ve gone away for a little while.’
‘And you did not choose to accompany them?’ asked Monique Chaloux.
Ginny knew an overwhelming temptation to say affably, No, because I’m flat broke and the future Baron thinks he may have made me pregnant. But she restrained herself nobly with a quiet, ‘No, not this time.’
Then the door opened and a small thin man, his solemn face made even more lugubrious by a heavy dark moustache, came in carrying a tray of glasses filled with something pink and sparkling.
The Baron said, ‘Merci, Gaston. You have tried Kir Royale, mademoiselle?’
She took a glass. ‘Yes, and loved it. Crème de cassis and champagne. Wonderful.’
‘Ah, but it is not champagne,’ Andre said swiftly. ‘Our cremant du Bourgogne is made by a similar method, but the name “champagne” can only be used for wine that comes from its own region around Epernay. The rules are strict.’
Ginny frowned. ‘I didn’t realise it could be so complex.’
‘We take great pride in our industry, and in what each region has to offer. And the crème de cassis is also made in Burgundy.’ Andre raised his glass. ‘À votre santé.’
She wondered if his choice of toast was loaded, her state of health being an issue between them, but echoed it anyway and sipped, before taking the chair she was offered and discovering it was just as uncomfortable as it looked. Perhaps, she mused, the enormous skirts and masses of petticoats favoured by ladies in the olden days acted as a bolster.
She took another look round her. There were numerous pictures on the walls, mostly landscapes in frames as gilded as the furniture. The exception was the portrait of a woman, which hung above the fireplace.
A stern, rather cold beauty, her black hair drawn back from her face into a chignon, and the décolleté of her dark red dress revealing an elaborate necklace of what seemed to be rubies.
‘You are admiring the Baronne Laure, Monsieur Bertrand’s mother, I see.’ Monique Chaloux leaned forward. ‘An excellent likeness. It is a Terauze tradition that a portrait of the Baronne always hangs in this room and, in her case, most appropriate as she redesigned it so admirably.’ She sighed. ‘Sadly, it seems, notre chère Linnet would never consent to be painted.’
‘My wife,’ Bertrand Duchard said quietly, ‘was a very modest woman.’
‘But of course,’ Mademoiselle agreed quickly, smiling, but Ginny read quite clearly in that smile and with so much to be modest about and it galled her.
She said impulsively, ‘Surely it isn’t too late. There’s a lovely photograph of her in the other sitting room. Couldn’t someone paint a portrait from that?’
Andre said slowly, ‘Et pourquoi pas?’ He looked at the Baron. ‘What do you think, Papa?’
‘That it would be a joy to see my dear one remembered in such a way.’
He looked at Ginny with undisguised surprise. ‘Merci, mademoiselle. An excellent thought.’
Which was an improvement. However, Madame’s softly spoken, ‘Bravo, indeed,’ left Ginny with the uncomfortable feeling she had just made an enemy.