“Good God, no! I never even thought of that. But I know they’re talking to Joe. He, uh, spent the night with the woman—Valerie Beauvais—before she was killed.”
“How is your cousin handling all this news?”
“Not well,” I said. “And, to be honest, I’m not sure she knows yet about Joe staying with Valerie.”
“Then we must protect her,” he said.
“And you must act like you don’t know anything until she tells you.”
“Ma puce,” he said, “I have spent my entire career in the diplomatic service. I have pretended ignorance in front of kings and generals and dictators when it was necessary. I can handle your cousin.”
I smiled. “I’m sure you can.”
But he did look predictably annoyed when Dominique fussed over him as we arrived at the restaurant, fretting that he looked too tired to be out so late and promising we’d be served immediately so he could go home and right to bed. The first chance he got when she wasn’t looking, he rolled his eyes at me and winked. Then no sooner did she bring us to her table and seated us when she flew off to solve a crisis in the kitchen.
“She needs a holiday,” Pépé said to me. “She will kill herself if she doesn’t take some time off. I don’t think she looks well at all.”
“She’s chain-smoking again. I think she started when she and Joe broke up.”
We ordered after she returned to the table. Dominique handed our grandfather the wine list.
“Are you going to choose a Burgundy, Pépé?” she asked, smiling.
In the 1930s two Frenchmen from the town of Nuits-Saint-Georges in Burgundy founded a society known as the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin—the Brotherhood of the Knights of Wine-tasters—in order to help the wines of that region survive an economic crisis. After the war my grandfather had become a member of this elite group and he knew his wines.
“I think we’ll have a Clos de Vougeot with dinner,” he said after consulting with us about our main courses. “And une coupe de champagne as an aperitif.” He glanced at Dominique over the top of his reading glasses. “Dinner is on me.”
“It’s my restaurant—” Dominique said.
“I know that. But I am taking you both out to dinner.”
“You can’t—”
I kicked her under the table. “Thank you,” I said. “That’s very kind. We’re delighted to accept.”
He beamed. “My pleasure. I don’t often have the opportunity to dine with my beautiful granddaughters any more.”
Ryan Worth showed up as the sommelier arrived to uncork our dinner wine.
“Evening, all,” he said. “Celebrating something? Excellent choice of wine.”
Dominique introduced Pépé, who stood and shook Ryan’s hand. “My grandfather, Luc Delaunay,” she said. “Visiting from Paris.”
“Didn’t mean to interrupt a family gathering,” Ryan said. “I’m here to have dinner with Shane Cunningham and that delicious-looking California wine buyer he’s going out with.”
“I saw her when she came in with Shane,” Dominique said. “She’s stunning.”
I looked from Dominique to Ryan. “You’re talking about Nicole Martin?” My voice rose and the couple at the next table stopped talking to stare at us. Dominique touched a finger to her lips and frowned. I lowered my voice. “She’s a wine buyer?”
“Since you seem to have met her, I’m surprised you didn’t know,” Ryan said. “She’s in town to buy the Washington bottle.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.” He looked puzzled. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell you. She’s a private buyer for über-rich collectors, mostly from California. Some client with pockets all the way to China told her not to come home from your auction without it. She’s quite the barracuda when she goes after something from what I hear.” He straightened his tie, suddenly self-conscious. “Shane said she’d like to pick my brain about that bottle.”
“I bet she would,” I said.
“Sorry to dash, but they’re waiting. Excuse me, folks.” He switched to French and said to Pépé, “You seem to have excellent taste in wine, sir, so perhaps you’d be interested in knowing that I’m the wine critic for the Washington Tribune. It’s one of our better-known American newspapers. My column is syndicated in more than two hundred papers throughout the country. A connoisseur like yourself might be interested in some of my reviews.”
I avoided making eye contact with my grandfather. Dominique had a brief fit of coughing.
“I’m sure I would learn a lot from you, Mr. Worth,” Pépé said. “I’ll ask my granddaughters for copies so I can read them while I’m here.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll pull together a few recent ones and give them to Lucie. She can pass them along to you,” he said. “At the risk of sounding immodest, they’re quite good.”
He left and Dominique and I grinned. “You were very polite,” Dominique said. “You’ve probably forgotten more about wine than he knows.”
“I hope his reviews are better than his French,” Pépé said. “Il parle français comme une vache espagnole.” I covered my smile with my hand at a uniquely French insult. He’d said Ryan spoke French like a Spanish cow. “As for you, ma chère Dominique, just since I’ve been here you are too busy to stay at the table with us for longer than a few minutes and you look exhausted. I’ll have you know the old man has forgotten nothing. And you, Lucie, what Washington wine? What auction? You’ve said nothing to me about this.”
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for explanations. Our grandfather may have feigned polite ignorance with dictators, but his own flesh and blood didn’t get off so easily.
“I’ll go first,” I said to Dominique, letting her off the hook.
The auction intrigued him, especially Jack’s donation of the Margaux. I avoided mentioning Valerie’s remark about its provenance in front of my cousin because I didn’t want to involve Joe. I’d tell him about it later. But I did say that Jack had no idea where the bottle came from.
“Jack Greenfield said he found it in a wine cellar belonging to his family’s import-export business after his father passed away,” I said. “In Freiburg. He told me the bottle is in such poor condition because whoever possessed it before he did didn’t take care of it.”
Pépé shrugged. “I find that quite plausible. A lot of the wine-producing châteaus didn’t keep records of where their wines were sold until recently, nor modernize the way you Americans have done. Don’t forget, until the 1950s some vineyards were still using cattle to plow their fields.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“Wherever it came from,” he said, “it’s an extraordinary donation, even if the wine has turned. The person who acquires it will possess a memory bottle connected with two of your most famous Founding Fathers. The value is inestimable.”
“A memory bottle,” I said. “I’ve never heard that before.”
“Every year on our wedding anniversary your grandmother and I drank a bottle of Clos du Vougeot from the year we were married. It’s what we drank at our wedding reception. We called it our memory bottle.”
“You never told us that,” Dominique said.
“I think it’s very romantic,” I said.
“It was.” Pépé smiled. “And of course there is such a strong link between wine and memory. I’m sure you both know that. Most of what people think they taste in wine is actually what they smell. Because scent is the strongest of the five senses, it can trigger memories we’d scarcely remember otherwise.” He picked up his wineglass. “Who knows when we’ll be together again, mes enfants? I think we should drink our own memory bottle tonight.”
We touched glasses. I drank, but there was a lump in my throat. Dominique brushed something out of her eye. Though he seemed hale and hearty, I knew that it had been my grandfather’s gentle way of reminding us he was slowing down and would not always be with us.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of my wine, willing myself to memorize that link to this night and to him. When I opened them, I saw Dominique was doing the same. Our eyes met across the table.