Vintage (41 page)

“I’m very pleased with it so far,” Madeleine confided.

“So you should be. I know it’s going to be excellent.”

Madeleine tucked her hand through his arm and gave him a little squeeze.

“I’ve got something else to show you,” she told him then.

“Steady … ”

“Don’t get too excited. It’s more wine.”

She led him through another dark, damp corridor to that part of the
crayères
where her father had kept his own wine.

“Papa’s personal collection,” Madeleine explained. “I decided it was about time I went through it properly and
tried to match up what’s in here with the bottles listed in his inventory. I’m about halfway through.”

“Perhaps I should come and help you. Though it would be a terrible hardship to have to spend a great deal of time down here in this dark, cold place.”

He took a step closer to Madeleine.

“I should have warned you to bring a sweater,” she said.

“You know the best way to get warm is by taking your clothes off and snuggling up to another naked person.”

“Is it really?” asked Madeleine drily. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

She handed Mackesy the inventory. Fifty pages in her father’s spidery handwriting dating back to the sixties. Mackesy flicked through the little book and nodded approvingly at some of the names.

“Where you see a little pencil star,” said Madeleine. “That’s a bottle that I’ve already accounted for.”

“Looks like some interesting stuff,” said Mackesy. “There’s certainly plenty of it.”

The rack containing Constant Arsenault’s personal collection was ten bottles deep and twenty bottles high.

“Let’s see what we have here.”

Placing the inventory list on the floor, Mackesy carefully slid a bottle of red wine—a magnum—from the bottom of the rack, making sure not to disturb the settled sediment as he did so. He blew a cloud of dust from the label. A smile tweaked at the corners of Madeleine’s mouth as she anticipated the moment when Mackesy realized exactly what he was holding. His eyebrows indicated his surprise. Madeleine confirmed with a nod and a grin.

“I couldn’t believe it either,” she said. “Château Mouton Rothschild 1945. And there are six of them!”

“Wow,” said Mackesy.

“The crate too. Though that’s in bits. Could easily be put back together though.”

“Incredible.”

Mackesy peered closely at the label.

“It’s worth, what, thirty thousand pounds a bottle.”

“If it’s real.”

“Of course.” Madeleine nodded.

Mackesy got out his glasses.

As Mackesy continued to study the bottle, Madeleine started to get twitchy. She paced the little chalk-walled room. Eventually, she could stand it no longer.

“It is the real thing, isn’t it?”

“Hmmm.” Mackesy took off his glasses. “I have to say I’m not sure. Perhaps we should take this up into the daylight.”

“OK.”

Madeleine led Mackesy back to the metal ladder that ascended to the winery.

“You go first,” he said. “I’ll bring up the rear.”

“I’m sure you’d love to,” said Madeleine. “But my concern, as patron of Champagne Arsenault, for the safety of my guests dictates that I make sure you leave the
crayères
ahead of me.”

Mackesy did as he was told.

They sat down on a bench in the courtyard and Mackesy got out his glasses a second time, for another look at the Mouton.

“Nope.” He shook his head.

“What do you mean by ‘nope’?”

“This is my speciality,” said Mackesy. “I’ve seen hundreds of bottles and there’s something not quite right about this one.”

“In what way?”

“It’s just an instinct. It’s hard to explain. But when you’ve handled as many bottles of Mouton as I have, you
simply get a feel for the real thing. It’s like when an art historian looks at a counterfeit painting. A good one. All the details are right but somehow it doesn’t quite add up.”

“You’re telling me that my father bought fake Mouton?”

Mackesy nodded.

“I’m ninety-nine percent certain this isn’t the real McCoy.”

“But he wouldn’t have been so stupid. My father lived wine.”

“Indeed he did. But it’s a very convincing fake. All sorts of people would have been fooled. I suspect this particular bottle dates from the seventies.”

“Rats,” said Madeleine. “I thought I was sitting on a fortune.”

“There’s a one percent chance that you are.”

“That’s not really what I was after.”

“I’m sorry. Let me take you to dinner in Paris to commiserate.”

Madeleine hesitated, but only for a moment. There was no harm in going for dinner, was there? She had to go into Paris to run some errands, in any case, and a trip in the DB4 would be infinitely more interesting than the TGV. She could get the last train home.

“I’ll just get changed,” she told him.

Mackesy made a reservation at Macéo, on the Rue Des Petits Champs. Mackesy knew Mark Williamson, the quietly charming owner, well.

“He’s guaranteed us a corner table,” Mackesy told Madeleine.

“Not that we need one,” she reminded him.

Madeleine liked Macéo. The main room was quietly elegant with a beautiful view of the gardens of the Palais Royal. The maitre d’ led them to a table tucked away in the
corner, in the Bibliothèque Salace, where a preserved melon belonging to the author Colette had pride of place beneath shelves groaning with erotic literature.

“I’ve read them all,” said Mackesy. He ordered champagne.

“What are we celebrating?”

“There’s always something.”

Madeleine bit her lip and looked up, as though she were trying to think what that day’s celebration might be in aid of.

Axel Delaflote, she thought suddenly. “Why on earth had he popped up in her mind again?

Probably for the simple reason that he was standing not twelve feet away from her.

Madeleine sat bolt upright.

“What is it?” Mackesy asked, as he turned in the direction of Madeleine’s gaze.

The maitre d’ was leading Delaflote and his date to the table right next to theirs. The woman, who was walking ahead of the men, clocked Madeleine immediately and gave her the once-over, as women are prone to do. Madeleine couldn’t help staring in return. Delaflote’s date was stunning. And familiar. At least six feet tall in her high heels. Straight blond hair that hung almost to her waist. Her dress—vintage Hervé Leger, Madeleine recognized at once—revealed dangerous curves. She could be a model.

The girl sat down and surveyed the room with the peculiar grace of a giraffe looking out over the savannah. Delaflote was about to sit down himself when he noticed Madeleine.

“Madeleine!” He went to kiss her. She subtly avoided his approach. “What a pleasure. This is Viviane Caine,” Axel introduced his date to Piers.

“Piers Mackesy. I think we’ve met somewhere before,” he said to Viviane.

“I doubt it,” she drawled in a Texan accent. “You probably just recognize me from the new Guilty Secrets campaign. Most guys do.”

“Ah. Perhaps,” said Mackesy, looking slightly crushed.

“Well, I hope you enjoy your meal,” said Madeleine, getting up suddenly. “May I recommend the quail? Always good here. Though watch out for the small bones, Axel. I wouldn’t want you to choke. Come on, Piers.”

Mackesy looked confused. “But … ”

“We should get to that party you were talking about before the hostess is too drunk to notice we turned up.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mackesy. “The party.”

He reluctantly left his gazpacho.

“Good-bye, Axel. Viviane.”

Viviane managed a lazy smile before turning back to her menu.

“Good-bye, Madeleine,” said Axel. “You’ll be ready to talk to me soon, I hope. You have my number.”

“Oh yes,” said Madeleine. “I’ve got your number.”

“What was that all about?” Mackesy asked when they got outside.

“Can we just go for a walk?” Madeleine asked.

“Of course. That was Randon’s man, wasn’t it?”

Madeleine nodded tightly.

“You cut him dead. What did he ever do to you?”

“You mean, apart from tell me I don’t know how to run a champagne house?”

“Which you clearly do,” Mackesy said quickly.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then I won’t make you.”

But she couldn’t not think about it.

She and Mackesy strolled through the dark streets around the Church of the Madeleine. It was starting to
rain. Mackesy tried to lighten the moment with gossip about wine world acquaintances.

“Ah, Casanova’s street,” he said as they turned into Rue Danielle Casanova.

“Oh for goodness” sake. Danielle Casanova,” said Madeleine. “The
resistance fighter
not the roué.”

Mackesy shrugged. “I was just trying to make you smile.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Maybe I should try something different.”

Without asking for permission, he pulled Madeleine toward him and planted his lips firmly upon hers.

Madeleine rewarded him with a thump.

“Shit. I forgot. Must have more integrity.” Mackesy rolled his eyes as Madeleine stormed off in the direction of L’Opéra.

He caught up with her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s OK. I’m sorry I thumped you. Which hotel are you staying in?”

Mackesy looked at her quizzically.

“Which hotel?”

“The Hyatt Madeleine,” he said. “I liked the name.”

“Isn’t that in this direction?” Madeleine jerked her thumb toward the Rue Malesherbes.

“Yes, but … The station is in this direction … I should get you back to Champagne.”

“Let’s go to your place,” Madeleine said.

“What? You want to? For a nightcap?”

“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

She stuck out her arm and hailed a taxi.

In the back of the car, Madeleine took Mackesy by the collar and pulled him toward her. They started kissing.

“Are you sure?” Mackesy murmured into her mouth.

“I am.”

Madeleine let Mackesy press his body hard against hers as the cab crawled through the glittering wet streets. The rain was slowing the traffic down but the lovers couldn’t wait.

The taxi driver kept his eyes on the road as Madeleine unzipped Mackesy’s fly and slipped her hand inside his trousers. Just a few minutes of kissing but he already had an enormous erection. Meanwhile, Mackesy lifted the hem of Madeleine’s skirt and slid his hand up her smooth stocking-clad leg to the red silk knickers she had bought just that afternoon in Galeries Lafayette in an emergency shopping trip. Red knickers for good luck, the girl at the counter had said. They certainly seemed to be working.

By the time the taxi journey ended, Mackesy was just about ready to fuck Madeleine right there in the back of the car. But she tucked his penis back into his trousers and he managed to look presentable as he dealt with paying the fare, hopping from one foot to the other impatiently while the driver counted out change. Meanwhile, Madeleine dashed across the pavement to the safety of Mackesy’s hotel. All the buttons on the front of her new black dress were undone, exposing the red slip that matched her knickers.

Mackesy opened the door to the lobby and ushered Madeleine inside with his hands on her buttocks. She laughed at his cheek.

They continued to kiss in the mirrored elevator to the seventh floor where Mackesy had his room. While he was busy kissing every bare inch of her skin he could find, Madeleine caught a glimpse of herself over his shoulder. She was surprised at the wild woman looking back at her. Her hair had come loose. Her lips were red and swollen from kissing. Her cheeks were flushed. She felt so turned
on that she ground her pelvis against Mackesy’s thigh like a stripper in some cheap nightclub.

The elevator doors opened and the couple stumbled out onto the landing, still kissing as Mackesy fumbled in his pocket for his key.

They half danced into his suite, shedding more clothes as they went. Mackesy pulled off his shoes without untying the laces. Madeleine meanwhile unfastened his belt and pulled his trousers down to his knees.

With buttons all the way down the front from collar to hem, Madeleine’s dress was extremely easy to wriggle out of. It wasn’t long before she stood before Mackesy in just her red slip. Tiny knickers. Stockings. Black. Seamed. And her brand-new black Louboutin pumps with their red soles that matched her underwear.

Mackesy looked as though he was about to say something but settled instead for growling into the side of Madeleine’s neck. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed until she could barely breathe. Then he smothered her neck and breastbone with yet more kisses. Madeleine let herself melt beneath Mackesy’s ardent attentions. She felt as light as the dress she had just discarded when he scooped her up and carried her into the bedroom.

Once there, Madeleine kicked off her shoes and stretched out luxuriously on the chocolate-colored satin bedspread. Mackesy was completely naked by now. His erection stood out so proudly in front of him that Madeleine couldn’t resist draping her knickers from it, like a flag. He modeled them for her while Madeleine took in the body that had been hinted at by those lovely suits: his broad chest with its tidy smattering of dark hair, his strong legs, his big shoulders. His stomach was impressively muscled for a man in his forties. Sexy as hell.

She wondered whether he was appraising her in the
same way as his gaze wandered from her face to her breastbone and lower, to the tops of her thighs. Subconsciously she brushed her hand across her breasts, outlining their perfectly rounded contours. Advertising their soft warm perfection. Did he find her as attractive as she found him?

His body gave him away. Mackesy tossed Madeleine’s knickers into the corner of the room. His erection was still enormous.

“My turn to tease you,” Mackesy growled, kneeling on the floor beside the bed. He pulled Madeleine so that her bottom rested on the edge of the mattress. Her feet were on the floor. He parted her knees and positioned himself between them. He pushed the red silk slip out of the way, exposing Madeleine’s pelvis and the neat little triangle of her pubic hair. Placing his hands on either side of that triangle, Mackesy carefully spread Madeleine’s labia to expose her rosebud clitoris and bent his head toward it.