Pendergast went rigid. His eyes looked into hers, the firelight reflecting in flashing, silvery shards.
Equally slowly, equally deliberately, she began guiding his hand upward under her dress.
There was a moment of stillness. And then, he turned toward her with such suddenness that his wineglass dashed against the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces. One hand tightened on the inside of her thigh, while the other hand grasped the front of her dress with nearly enough force to tear buttons away. His lips crushed hers... and then, just as abruptly, he drew back. Almost before she could comprehend what was happening, he had risen from the bed in a smooth motion. Now, inexplicably, he began retrieving the fragments of his wineglass and dropping them into the wastebasket with hands that shook ever so slightly. Constance simply watched him, not moving, stunned and unable to think.
“I am terribly sorry, Constance,” she could hear him saying. “I believe I may have damaged your dress.”
Still, she couldn’t find any words.
“You must understand. I am a man, you are a woman... I have greater affection for you than for any other living soul...” He continued picking up the glass as he spoke.
She found her voice. “Stop fussing.”
He paused, standing between the table and the dying fire. His face was flushed. “I feel that the peculiar nature of our relationship precludes our acting on any feelings that we might...”
“Do shut up.”
He fell silent. He remained standing, looking at her.
Constance rose. She felt confusion first, then embarrassment, and finally humiliation and anger. She stared at him, her body trembling.
“Constance?”
With a sudden, violent, backhanded movement, she dashed the other glass from the table, shattering it against the hearth. “Pick that up, too, why don’t you?”
Then she turned, strode toward the door, and flung it wide.
“Wait!” Pendergast cried after her. “Don’t leave—”
But the rest of the sentence was cut off as she slammed the door and ran downstairs toward her own room.
42
Percival Lake returned from the window that looked out over the bluffs to the raging Atlantic below. It was turning out to be quite the storm. Every sweep of the lighthouse’s beam cast a fleeting radiance across the distant dunes and ocean, illuminating the line of white rollers marching in and thundering up the beach. The lights of the house were out, but the lighthouse had its own emergency generator, supplied by the Coast Guard, which kept it going no matter what the weather.
He turned from the window and watched Carole lighting the last of the candles, which flickered along the mantelpiece and on tables in the living room. That, combined with the warm glow from the fire in the massive stone fireplace, gave the room a delicious atmosphere. Blackouts were common out where they were, at the very end of the line. Lake enjoyed them... as long as they didn’t go on too long.
Carole straightened up. She had seemed nervous and overwrought the last few days, but now was back to her splendid self. “I just love candlelight,” she said.
Lake came over and put his arm around her. “I have an idea. A very special idea.”
“I know what your ‘special ideas’ are all about,” she said, giving him an elbow.
“Well, this one is different. Come with me.” He plucked up a candle in a holder and, leading her by the arm, went to the cellar door. “Come.”
He led her down the narrow stairs. At the bottom, the sound of the storm was muffled, the creaking of the joists in the old house louder.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked.
“You’ll see.”
He went down the basement corridor, past his sculpture studio, and into the oldest section of the basement. It was still a wreck from the theft, the shelves that had held the bottles lying on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and the smell of wine. The niche Pendergast had discovered still stood open, gaping, the rusted chains hanging within. To think that all those precious bottles were at the bottom of the ocean! He bypassed the empty shelves and went to the wooden case of Chateau Haute-Braquilanges.
“Hold this.” He gave her the candle as he bent down and removed the top. The bottles were nestled in their wooden holders. One holder was empty: the bottle he had given to Pendergast. Reaching in, he grasped another and held it up.
“Since I’ve broken the case, let’s drink another.”
“Really? Isn’t it worth, like, ten thousand dollars?”
“Much, much more. But we’re not getting any younger — and what is wine for if not to drink?”
“Maybe you’re not getting any younger,” she said, laughing. “Anyway, even after all this time I don’t know a thing about wine. You’d be throwing it away on me.”
He put his arm around her. “That’s where you’re wrong. My dear, you and I are going to rebuild this collection. We’re going to travel to Italy, France, and California, tasting and buying wine and shipping it back. You need to educate your palate. And what better way to do it than to begin with the greatest wine ever made?” He gave her a squeeze.
“That sounds lovely. Okay, you’ve convinced me.”
“That was easy.”
They turned to go. As they passed the open niche, Lake paused. “To think a fortune in jewels was sitting right there, under our noses. Too bad we didn’t find it ourselves.”
He felt Carole give a shudder. “I’m glad we didn’t. Think of all those mothers and babies, butchered. Talk about blood gemstones. Bad juju for sure.”
“True.”
Cradling the bottle, careful not to disturb its sediments, he brought it up the stairs and into the living room, setting it down with exquisite care on the table in front of the fire. He removed the lead capsule and wiped off the neck of the bottle with a damp cloth. The cork looked good, no signs of leakage or mold. Then, again with care, he inserted the tip of a corkscrew into the center of the cork and slowly twisted it in, hooked the edge of the lever against the side of the bottle, and — with bated breath — eased it out.
This was the moment of truth. He hadn’t mentioned it to Carole, but the chances were good that a wine this old had already turned to vinegar, or at the very least had become corked. But as he inhaled the scent, he took in a rich variety of aromas that not only indicated the wine was fine, but were of staggering nuance and complexity. He took another sniff, marveling at the layering of characteristics.
“Well, well,” he murmured.
“Is it good?”
He nodded, bringing over a decanter. As if handling a baby, he carefully decanted the wine, leaving an inch left around the punt. He then poured out two glasses. They both took a good drink. The wind shuddered the house, rattling the windows. The lighthouse beam swept across the sea, then swept again.
In silence, they enjoyed the wine, without the usual wine chatter about this taste or that smell. Lake liked that. There was way too much talk about wine drinking. It was like those people who talked incessantly in museums; God forbid they should simply look, for a change.
He was delighted to see how much Carole was enjoying the wine. Yes, she could learn. They would travel and taste and buy. It would give them something to bond over, which, if truth be told, he’d found rather lacking in their relationship. It would be a wonderful experience... and it would help him finally accept the loss of his wife. This would be the way he would at long last overcome that hole in his heart, that seemingly permanent feeling of loss.