recall was the pleasure of being with Charles.
As they ate he told her about his childhood, and Juliette’s, at Château Reynard. He described the old baron, a fierce and stubborn disciplinarian with the roll of the seasons from vintage to vintage in his blood.
When he died he had entrusted Reynard to Charles, and his son had accepted the charge proudly. To Charles, that meant keeping the property as his father had left it.
Bell asked gently whether for the good of the château Charles might not adopt some of the new, labour-saving technology. She meant that perhaps his father’s wishes could be more liberally interpreted.
The blue eyes snapped with sudden anger and his mouth tightened into a hard line.
‘Never. We have made some of the greatest wines in the world in exactly the same way for hundreds of years. Why should I imagine that I have the right to change everything, for the sake of a few extra bottles or a few more francs?’
Bell looked down at her plate. Charles de Gillesmont was not the kind of man who would suffer an argument about his heritage.
Then, seeing her discomfort, he reached out and put his hand over hers.
‘You are such a child of the twentieth century, Bell. You have so much … freedom, to be the kind of person you want. But can’t you understand how it is for me?’
Bell nodded. Yes, in a way she could, and she could sympathize. Yet – beyond that – with Charles’s deep-rooted certainty and her own needle-sharp newness, what a team they could make against the rest of the world.
‘I do understand,’ was all she said.
Charles lifted her hand, turned it over and kissed the palm in a gesture as openly sexy as if he had reached across the table to unbutton her dress.
‘You do understand,’ he breathed. Around the room the eyes of the other diners returned discreetly to their plates.
Afterwards, outside the unmarked green door, they turned without speaking and strolled towards the Quai des Chartrous.
The watery, dockside tang of sea air penetrated the pall of exhaust fumes, and food smells from the clustering restaurants, beckoning them on.
Beside the oily, grey-blue water they fell into step, still in silence.
When Bell glanced at him she saw that Charles was frowning. When the sensuality of his mouth and the humanity in his eyes were masked, he looked as cold and aristocratic as the profile on an ancient coin.
At length he turned to look at her.
‘I seem always to be asking you to understand things, Bell. I know you can, and will. That’s why I feel myself drawn to you, as I haven’t to anyone else … for years and years.’
Bell was watching him, waiting. He took a deep breath.
‘Do you understand what it means, being a Catholic?’
So that was it. She had known it all along, really.
Yet Bell listened in silence as Charles talked about his faith, knowing that he was offering her a rare confidence.
As a child, he told her, Catholicism had seemed the simplest, most natural thing in the world. As much a part of life as eating and drinking. God had been safely in his heaven, watching and knowing and forgiving of the little, innocent childhood sins. The faith had seemed to Charles, as a small boy, like a magic talisman with its comforting, opaque rituals.
It was only with adulthood that the tests had come.
Then Charles, made aloof and lonely by his upbringing except for the closeness of Juliette, had fallen in love. Or thought he had.
He was nineteen years old.
Jeanne was older, the daughter of a baker. She had a pale, ethereal beauty that was utterly at odds with her robustly passionate nature. They had become lovers almost at once.
Charles was enthralled but at the same time tortured with guilt. Jeanne had had her sights set firmly on marriage, but Charles even at the height of his passion knew that that was impossible. For weeks he had wavered, tasting the illicit delights that Jeanne was only too pleased to share with him. He stayed away from church, promising himself that each time they made love it would be the last.
Then he had steeled himself to make his confession.
His priest had told him exactly what he had known all along. There must be no more Jeanne.
She had fought to keep him, using every weapon in her armoury, but he had kept faith.
Then he had missed her, achingly, month after month.
Almost ten years later he had met Catherine, who had the same dark beauty as Jeanne. The moment he saw her he was reminded of his old, agonizing love. Yet here was Catherine whose family was as old as his own, and she was young, rich, and a virgin.
She was perfect.
Charles, at his most imperious, had swept her off her feet. Within weeks they were married with the full panoply and the blessing of their Church on their heads.
Once again, devastatingly, Charles had made the mistake of confusing sex with love. His faith was about to be tested as it never had been before.
Bell and Charles had stopped walking and were leaning on a low stone wall. In front of them a forest of fishing smacks, festooned with drying nets, was bobbing on the water. Charles went on talking in a low, husky voice that told Bell how painful these memories were.
His marriage to Catherine had broken down almost before it had begun, in a cruel flood of disappointment and mutual destructiveness. In the confusion of all the terrible things that had happened over those months Charles had almost abandoned his faith. Then, in despair, he had snatched at it again. He had found that it held, and it became the centre of permanence in his life. His belief remained, even though he was left with nothing else. And by a bitter irony that very faith kept him married to a woman he could never live with, and from whom he could never be free.
Charles’s dark gaze travelled over Bell’s intent face and stopped at her mouth. Through the blood rushing in her ears she heard him say, ‘For so long, it’s been all that I have – except for Juliette. It just isn’t possible for me to pretend, to you or to myself, that I’m not married. Even to kiss you, as I did last night, even to think about you as I have, is …’
‘A sin.’ Bell finished the sentence off for him. ‘Charles, I am an outsider. I can only admire the strength of your faith without understanding it. But how, why, is it wrong for us to feel as we do, to want to know each other better, provided that it doesn’t hurt anyone else? Does God want you to go on being alone, denying yourself the … the comforts of a human relationship because of one honest mistake?’
She saw that there was amusement in his face and felt a prickle of irritation.
‘So, I sound naïve. I don’t know the priestly language to dress up what I want to say. But must there be so much difficulty? Why can’t we just … see what happens?’
Charles took her hand in his.
‘You
