Tangled Vines (23 page)

Claude waited for them at the entrance to the old brick winery. Sam made the introductions, then explained, “Claude is-originally from Chateau Noir. His grandfather was maitre de chai there.”

“That was many years ago,” Claude inserted, his grizzled head tilted at a proud angle, “in the days when your grand-pere was the patron.”

“Your grand-pere was Girard Broussard, non?” The baron studied him with a thoughtful and curious gaze.

“He was.” Claude nodded crisply.

The baron responded with a nod that was idly contemplative. “The name of your grand-pere is greatly revered at Chateau Noir.” Claude's big chest puffed out a little more at these words of praise for his grandfather. “You have been at Rutledge Estate a long time?”

“I sailed on the ship that brought the madam to America after the death of her husband. I was thirteen years of age, not yet a man. I helped the madam plant the new vines and make the first wine from their grapes.”

The entire exchange was conducted in French. Sam understood only snatches of it. The same was true when Claude took the baron through the winery. Sam doubted that Katherine had anticipated this would happen. Personally he found that more than a little amusing.

“A remarkable man, your Monsieur Broussard,” the baron commented as they left the winery and crossed the dusty yard to the winery offices.

“He is the best,” Sam stated. “If he has an equal in the valley, it would be Andre Tchelistcheff. The man is in his eighties, he may be ninety by now, but he continues to work as a private consultant for several wineries in the valley.”

“I have heard of him, of course.” The baron nodded.

No one who spent any time in Napa Valley could fail to hear the name Andre Tchelistcheff. He was as much a legend as Katherine; like Claude Broussard, he was a winemaker who had never owned his own winery.

The paper side of Rutledge Estate proved to be of more interest to the baron than either the vineyards or the winery had been. He examined sales figures, production reports, and cost sheets, asking many and varied questions. An hour passed before Sam ushered him into his office at the rear of the converted stables.

Gaylene, the secretary-receptionist, brought them coffee, American style. Between sips, they discussed the weather, the ongoing drought in California and its effects on the valley. At last, the baron set his empty cup on the desk and leaned back in the wing chair.

“Tell me, what are your feelings on this proposed collaboration between Rutledge Estate and Chateau Noir? I cannot recall that you have mentioned them,” he said.

There was a sideways movement of his head that passed for an indifferent shake as Sam leaned back in his own chair. “My personal feelings don't enter into it. This is a decision that has to be made by you and Katherine.”

“But it is your opinion I am seeking,” he persisted.

Sam tried again to evade the question. “Obviously it has its merits.”

“That is hardly an answer.”

“Perhaps not.” Sam dipped his head, conceding the point. “But it's the most diplomatic one I can give.”

The baron seized on that immediately. “Then you are not in favor of this?”

Sam rocked back in his chair, his mouth slanting in a wry, tight line. “You are determined to put me in an awkward position.”

“Non. I am determined to learn your opinion.”

“In that case,” Sam said as he shrugged, “to be perfectly honest, I find the whole thing too one-sided for my taste.”

The baron frowned. “I do not understand. How is it one-sided? The proposed terms are quite equitable.”

“Equal on the surface, maybe. But if this deal is struck, you are the one who gains. We will lose too much.”

“How is it that you will lose?” His hands and shoulders lifted in a shrugging gesture of confusion. “Explain this to me.”

“This is Rutledge land, Baron. Every year we pick Rutledge grapes and make them into Rutledge wine. All that changes the minute you and Katherine reach an agreement. In the future, when a great wine is made here on the estate – One superior to any from the great chateaux in France, including yours – Chateau Noir will share in the credit and the glory.” Sam paused a beat. “To put it mildly, I don't like that idea. If the roles were reversed and it was Chateau Noir that stood to lose its identity, I don't think you would either.”

A look of satisfaction spread across the baron's face as he settled back in his chair and continued his thoughtful study of Sam. “Then if the decision were yours to make?”

“If it were mine to make,” Sam said, smiling, “I would never have contacted you in the first place.”

“Have you expressed these feelings to Katherine?”

“No. And she has never asked.”

“I can understand that,” the baron replied with a slow and thoughtful nod, then glanced at his watch. It was nearly one. “The hour, I had not realized it was so late. I promised my wife I would return in time to have lunch with her. There has been little time for us to spend together on this trip.”

“I'll take you back.” Sam rose from his chair.

After he dropped the baron off at his resort hotel, Sam returned to the estate and drove straight to the house to check in with Katherine. When he swung into the circle drive, he saw a light blue rental car, then the van, its side doors pushed open to reveal lighting and camera equipment. The television crew had arrived.

His first impulse was to drive away, but it was his second impulse that took Sam out of the Jeep and into the house.

Sunlight came through the panes of the French doors at the opposite end of the marbled entry hall, back-lighting the group standing in front of them. Katherine's petite shape was among them, but it was the tall, slender form of Kelly Douglas that Sam sought out first.

With deliberately unhurried strides, he walked toward the group, the sound of his footsteps intruding on their conversation. He observed that unguarded moment when Kelly turned and saw him, the recognition shining in her eyes and the smile of pleasure softening, her lips. Why was it that he only had to look at her to feel all churned up and hungry?

Stopping, he addressed his first words to Katherine. “I saw the baron safely back to his hotel.” Then he turned. “Hello, Kelly.” He felt the quickening tension, almost like a hum in the air between them.

“Sam. It's good to see you again.” Her expression was warm and polite, nothing more, as she took his hand. Her defenses were now up and solidly in place. Why?

“Welcome to Rutledge Estate.” He was conscious of the firm grip of her fingers and the quick loosening of them as she pulled her hand away. He wondered if she had felt the same warm jolt when their palms met.

“Thank you,” she said and proceeded to introduce him to the rest of the television crew.

At the conclusion of it, his attention came back to her. She wore her hair pulled back in a French braid that was both simple and sophisticated, the sunshine coming through the terrace doors touching off the deep red lights in it.

“Didn't Hugh come with you?” he asked.

“He wanted to,” Kelly replied. “But he couldn't get away.”

“He did give us his list of not-to-be-missed restaurants in the valley,” the other woman in the group, the producer, DeeDee Sullivan, inserted with a faint drawl. “Too bad he didn't schedule us enough time to go to them.”

There was the soft squelch of thick rubber-soled shoes on the marble that signaled the approach of the housekeeper, Mrs. Vargas. “Excuse me, Madam, but you have a phone call,” she informed Katherine, as always her appearance stern and stiff in her starched black uniform. “It seems the caterer has some difficulty he needs to discuss with you.”

Katherine nodded, a little curtly, then said, “Sam, would you show Kelly and Miss Sullivan through the house while I take this call?”

“Yes, we want to shoot some at-home scenes with Mrs. Rutledge,” DeeDee Sullivan explained. “Maybe take the viewer on a mini-tour of the house. Subtly, of course.”

“Of course.” Sam returned her droll smile as Katherine left them to take the phone call.

“We'll go ahead and set up out on the terrace,” the cameraman said. “We should be ready to go by the time you're through.”

“Sounds good.” DeeDee nodded, then waved a hand forward. “Lead the way,” she told Sam.

Obligingly he set off. Kelly followed with barely contained eagerness. When she was growing up, she had thought this house was the grandest that had ever been built.

There were parlors with curvy old Louis Quinze sofas and fragile porcelain. Ming vases, Foo dogs, Lalique crystal, and Limoges pottery. Walls were done in soft mellow colors, offset by rich woods and Impressionist paintings.

Behind two heavy carved doors, there was a walnut-paneled library lined floor to ceiling with books, everything from fiction to nonfiction, classics to children's stories. Faded Persian rugs were scattered over the floor, and an ancient vinestock, twisted and bare, hung on the wall above the fireplace mantel like a piece of sculpture.

The formal dining room was enormous, dominated by heavy mahogany servers and sideboards, all bearing the distinct lines of Louis Seize. Overhead, a three-tiered chandelier of Waterford crystal rained its light on the long table and tapestried chairs.

The south wing held a garden room, filled with tropical greenery and furnished with a mix of ornately carved; hand-painted furniture and wrought-iron pieces finished in pewter and aged iron.

There was a music room, complete with an ebony grand piano, a new stereo with compact disc player, and an ancient Victrola. An airy morning room that looked onto the terrace was filled with vases brimming with fresh autumn flowers, and a fireplace with a pickled-pine finish.

Down the hall, up the marble staircase, there were guest rooms furnished with four-posters or beds with intricately carved headboards, fringed ottomans, and Oriental chests, arranged in an order that was spare and stylish.

Kelly had stopped counting rooms by the time Sam led them to the second floor's south wing. He pushed open a door on the right and stepped back to let them enter. As DeeDee started to walk in, Steve, the cameraman, called to her from below.

“I'll catch up with you later,” she said and hurried off to see what he wanted.

Hesitating only briefly, Kelly walked in. It was a corner room, empty of any furnishings, the parquet flooring scarred and dull. Tall windows filled two sides of the room. Sunlight poured through them, flooding the room with light. The air smelled different, stale and dusty, tainted with something else Kelly couldn't identify.

Her curiosity aroused, she turned back to Sam. “What is this room?”

He stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the frame. “My mother used it as her studio, although she preferred to call it her ‘atelier.”' The dryness in his voice bordered on amusement.

“That's right, your mother was an artist,” Kelly remembered, able to identify at last the trace scents of turpentine and artist's oils that lingered in the air. “She worked in oils, didn't she?”

“Among other mediums. At one time or another she tried them all.” His gaze wandered over the room. “She went from wanting to be the female Dali, to the female Wyeth, to the female Warhol, and never stuck with any one style long enough to master it. When the muse struck her, she would stay in this room for hours on end, sometimes days on end.”

His thoughts had turned back to that time. Kelly could hear it in his voice, see it in his expression. “You must have spent a lot of time in here watching her paint when you were growing up,” she guessed.

His gaze came back to her, his expression hardening. “I wasn't allowed in here.”

She was stunned by his answer, the total absence of emotion in his voice – and the sudden realization that he stood in the doorway, not crossing the threshold of the room he had been forbidden to enter as a child.

“And your father?” she asked softly, thinking of all the times she had longed to live in this house, to be a Rutledge.

“The vineyards kept him busy. The vineyards, and arguing with my uncle.”

“What about you?”

A shoulder lifted in an offhanded shrug. “My parents made sure I had qualified nannies to look after me until I was old enough to take care of myself.”

My parents made sure I had nannies. The words chilled her, shattering the illusions she had about life in this house. Trying to hold on to them, Kelly said, “But you had Katherine – you had your grandmother.”

His mouth twisted in a smile that mocked. “Katherine is hardly the type you'd cast as the ideal grandmother, always ready with a few kind words and a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies.” He pushed away from the door, his eyes on her, and Kelly sensed immediately that Sam regretted this brief glimpse he had given her of his childhood. “Ready to move on?”

Kelly well understood that he wanted neither pity nor sympathy from her, and offered none. “Of course.” She left the empty room and followed him down the hall.

There were more rooms, guest suites, a game room. When they reached the end of the hall, only one door was left to open. Sam reached for the brass knob. “This is my room.”

Her reaction to that was quick and strong -she didn't want to see it; she didn't want to know any more about him. “There's no need for me to go in. We won't be using it for any of our shots,” she told him, then went on, without giving him a chance to respond. “They're probably ready for me outside. Is there a bathroom close to the terrace? I need to add makeup for the camera.”

“Fairly close.” He moved away from the door.

They retraced their steps to the marble staircase and followed it down to the entry hall. After Kelly had retrieved her bulging canvas shoulder bag, Sam directed her to a powder room on the first floor.

When she came out ten minutes later with her face powdered and her eye makeup, blush, and lipstick subtly intensified, he was gone. It was just as well, she told herself. She was already nervous about this interview. About being here. She didn't need an audience watching her, not even an audience of one. Especially when that one was Sam Rutledge.