Léo paused, hovering over the link below Mathias’s note. Did he want to know? Veronique, with her high public profile due to the reality shows she had appeared on, had done and said so many damaging things over the last year; did he want to read any more of her toxic, narcissistic lies? After all, he had come here – to England, to Feywood – to escape the fallout of their affair.
He knew he couldn’t heal the wounds he had inflicted, but Veronique seemed determined to keep them open and even to create new ones. Leaving the whole sorry mess behind him seemed the only sensible thing to do – for the preservation of his mental and physical health as well as of his professional reputation.
She had attempted to shred that, but thankfully he had built up enough recognition and appreciation of his culinary skills that he had been able to work with Sylvia, who couldn’t care lessabout scurrilous gossip, as long as it didn’t affect their business. His publishers were also keen for him to write this new cookery book about Feywood and didn’t seem to think that sales would be affected, although he still privately harboured reservations. After all, the publication of the book would reveal his English hiding place, and he wasn’t sure if – or when – he would be ready for that. He turned his attention back to the email; he should know what was being said about him. Mathias was a good friend who had seen the aftermath and would not have sent him something distressing without good reason. His finger fell like lead to touch the link, and immediately a garish pink and yellow webpage sprang onto the screen, its headline in French screaming:
LONELY VERONIQUE REVEALS MORE ABOUT LÉO HEARTBREAK IN THE CASTLE OF LOVE!
He groaned. So, she had gone onto the most lurid show on French TV –Le Château d’Amour– and was taking the opportunity to say God knew what about him. The programme was one he had seen only a few clips of, and that was enough for him. It was not, however, easy to avoid hearing about the exploits of the ‘guests’ who went to stay in the ultra-luxuriously appointed castle, being filmed at every moment. They were all single and all minor celebrities in desperate need of airtime to keep the feeble flames of their careers flickering. The premise was not an original one, but still managed to draw in thousands of viewers a week: six men and six women were locked up together and either encouraged to play silly games and challenges or to get bored and drink too much. This, coupled with their drive to be famous, inevitably produced repeated opportunities for showing off, having arguments and falling intoeach other’s only too welcoming arms. Four series in, all the contestants knew from watching their predecessors that the best way to secure future projects was to be as outrageous as possible, and they all engineered ways to snatch screen time from one another. This must be Veronique’s latest bid for attention. He read on:
Last night in the Castle of Love, Veronique broke down in Gilbert’s arms, after they had shared a kiss. She sobbed as she told him that although she found him attractive, she was still pained by her heartbreak after her affair with renowned chef Léo Brodeur.
‘He treated me so cruelly,’ she wept, clinging to Gilbert as her body shook with sobs. ‘He always knew I was married but promised me we would be together. I was so weak, I should never have gone with him, I regret every second of what he led me into. When the story broke, he said it would all be all right, that he would stand by me and, like a fool, I trusted him. Instead, he coldly packed up and left for England, where he is living now in luxury in a stately home. I didn’t even hear from him when my darling husband left me, even though that is what he said he always wanted. He used me and I feel bereft.’ When Gilbert asked what had attracted her to Brodeur, tempting her from her marriage, her voice dropped to a whisper.
‘I don’t know, Gilbert. He was very…persuasive. He had a way of telling me, rather than asking me, what I wanted. I have never spoken about this, but I had suffered several miscarriages and I suppose I was weakened, and vulnerable, and he saw his opportunity.’
Veronique’s marriage collapsed a few weeks after news of the affair with Brodeur became public, and shortly after he fled toEngland. Veronique has always maintained that he wooed her relentlessly, promising her the world and urging her to end her marriage of four years to be with him, only to abandon her once this dream became attainable, but this is the first time she has spoken of her miscarriage trauma, or hinted at Brodeur’s methods.”
His face creasing in disgust, Léo cast a glance at the grainy pictures. There were several of Veronique nestled in Gilbert’s muscly arms and two of himself and her kissing on a bridge. They were the photos that had revealed the affair when they were sold to a similar rag and splashed across the front cover with no warning. Despite his revulsion at what was written, he read it through one more time, then tossed his tablet onto the table. Why was she peddling these vicious lies about him? He understood that she craved fame and attention – God knows he had learnt that to his detriment – but surely she could achieve that, or at least the sort of notoriety that was apparently enough to satisfy her, without dragging his name through the mud at every opportunity?
It may not have even been lunchtime yet, but Léo felt the need for something to fortify him as he chewed over the contents of the article. He knew that there was an open bottle of red wine and went to pour himself a small glass, sipping it as his mind rolled around the words he had read. So, the marriage had ended. That was news to him, although he wasn’t surprised. Her husband’s humiliation had been public and comprehensive, and although the couple had initially stayed together – Veronique ringing to tell him regretfully that she would never see him again as if he wanted to by that point – he hadn’t believed her declaration that she and Charles were closer than ever and deliriously happy. After all the untruths she had toldhim, he wouldn’t have believed anything she said. But he was sorry,again, for Charles, who seemed like a decent man. A fresh wave of guilt broke over Léo, and he wondered if yet another apologetic message would go ignored, like the many before it. He couldn’t blame the man, but he would have been so grateful for absolution. He drank some more of his wine, which helped to calm the hot flush of shame at the memories of his own gullible stupidity. No, he did not deserve forgiveness from Charles, and this shroud of guilt was a small price to pay for the part he had played in the destruction of a marriage.
Léo went to have another sip of wine, then looked at his empty glass in surprise. How did that happen? He was feeling a little light-headed, his stomach empty and beginning to rumble, but he wasn’t prepared to go and have lunch at the house, not with the rest of the article to think over. He refilled the glass and got out some bread and cheese. The bread was homemade and the cheese a wonderful local blue, mild yet tangy and extremely moreish. He even felt a pang of guilt at his lunch. Surely he should be suffering more than to be eating beautiful local produce in this gorgeously located old stable block, the home of his new, successful business? Maybe Veronique was right and he was cold and self-serving? But these self-criticisms, once so easy to believe when his mind whispered them to him in the middle of the night, were becoming harder to stomach, especially in the light of articles like this which were, frankly, slanderous. He tore off a hunk of bread and flicked the screen on again with a shudder, to remind himself of her vicious words. What was this, about miscarriages? Apart from one miscarriage, of what she said was his baby – he swallowed the lump that came to his throat whenever he remembered this – she had never mentioned any others to him. He felt tears begin to well up in his eyes and wondered if more wine would help or hinder, and would he even know which either looked like?In vino veritaswas the best approach, he decided. The wine would maybe bringforth the truth of his feelings, and even if thatwasa bit messy, it was probably good for him, cathartic. Veronique had disliked what she witheringly called his ‘tendance trop émotionnelle’, his over-emotional side, but what could he do, he asked the empty room, tipping the rest of the bottle into his glass. He was who he was, and if that meant he felt his feelings, in all their technicolour glory – pah!
‘Is something the matter?’
Léo jolted round on his chair, nearly dropping his glass.
‘Juliet! I didn’t hear you come down.’
‘Are you all right? I thought someone was down here with you. I thought I heard you talking?’
‘Ah, no, just maybe thinking out loud. I am working on recipes, it helps sometimes.’
‘Is that one of them?’
Juliet nodded towards the brightly coloured gossip page open on the tablet in front of him. He hastily switched the screen off.
‘No, no, that was just something a friend sent. Nothing…nothing at all.’
‘All right. Are you going over for lunch?’
‘I think I’ll just have a simple lunch here.’ Juliet said nothing but raised an eyebrow pointedly at the empty wine bottle. ‘What about you?’
‘Yes, I’m going to see if my sisters are around. Enjoy your…lunch.’
When she had left, Léo stopped himself from groaning out loud, in case she heard him through the door and thought he was even crazier – or drunker – than she already assumed him to be. What must he look like, sprawling at the table reading trashy rags, rambling out loud and tucking into the red wine? It would do nothing to improve her low opinion of him. He might as well finish looking at the article. Where was he? Ah yes, themiscarriages. Poor Veronique, if only he had known. Would it have changed anything, though? This he could never know. It had been she who had pursued him so vigorously, no matter what she said in the Castle of Love, but maybe that was some dreadful emotional reaction to her trauma? Maybe he should have been more sensitive, more questioning. A tear escaped and he brushed it away, steeling himself for the final paragraph, which was for him the most painful. To claim that he had made such promises…how could she?
This was not the first time she had accused him in this way, but no matter what he said, still the accusations came. He had racked his brains to try to unpick the truth, torn between his memories and her insistence that he had badgered her to leave her husband and threatened reprisals if she didn’t: his so-called ‘methods’. Because the situation was so obviously wrong and he had ultimately contributed to the collapse of a marriage, although Veronique had lied to him as comprehensively and skilfully as she had to Charles, he felt a terrible weight of guilt. His feelings of remorse were so strong that they overwhelmed reason, and he wanted to take all the blame, in the hope that by doing so, he could somehow put things right.
Reading articles like this one, which he finally closed, did little to help. He just felt bad that he had played a part in Veronique ending up where she was now, a bitter and desperate woman making an exhibition of herself for a few crumbs of attention.
The door opened and Léo jumped off his stool to try and look busy, but it was not Juliet who walked in but Sylvia. Her quick eyes took in the debris on the table and the expression on Léo’s face.
‘Are you all right?’
He sank back onto his stool.
‘I’m afraid I have had something of a shock. I do not think that wine was, perhaps, the best way to manage it, but…’
