Page 40 of Dagger’s Shield

“Seventeen eighty-nine,” Bertrand said, giving a bottle a quarter turn. “My family bought this land the same year the Revolution started—the year the people of Paris stormed the Bastille and the old order began to fall.”

“Back then, the Catholic Church owned most of the land, yes?” I asked.

Bertrand nodded. “Oui. They controlled the best vineyards in Burgundy. The monks had planted these hills hundreds of years before, but when the revolution came, the church knew it would lose everything, so they sold what they could, fast and cheap, before it was taken from them. My family bought the vineyards for almost nothing, and we’ve made wine here ever since.”

He removed another bottle from the rack, held it to the light, then returned it like it was made of bone china. “My grandfather put aside at least a case from every vintage.” He waved his arms and grinned. “As you can see, it is a lot of wine.”

I nodded, glancing at my watch when Bertrand turned around and motioned for me to follow. It had been twenty minutes since we’d left the chateau. Maëlle would need at least an hour. Probably more if the records she was searching for were buried in filing cabinets or locked drawers.

“Domaine Valais has survived a lot,” I said, following him deeper into the vault. “Two world wars. Phylloxera.”

Bertrand seemed surprised by my knowledge. “In eighteen seventy, it nearly finished us.” He laid a hand on the nearest rack. “The louse came over from America on imported cuttings and killed most of the vines in France within twenty years. What saved us was grafting our vines onto American roots immune to the infestations. Everything on the estate still grows that way.”

He kept moving, and I kept pace.

“My great-grandfather refused to replant. He said Valais vines had outlasted the Revolution and Napoleon, so they’d outlast an insect. The stubborn fool nearly bankrupted us. My grandfather was the one who finally did what had to be done.”

“Did you keep any of the original stock?”

“Oui. A few rows, up on the north slope. The disease never reached them.” He took a bottle from the rack and showed me the year. “Nineteen fourteen. The war had started, and every man on the estate left to fight. My grandfather went with them. The women stayed and did all the work. They tended the vines, brought in the grapes, and made the wine themselves. This is one of their bottles. The estate would have gone under without them.”

He turned the bottle in his hands. I found it interesting that he bragged about the women who’d saved Valais, but it had never once occurred to him that his own daughter could run it.

“This parcel was the first my family bought,” Bertrand said when we came up from the vaults and went outside. “We bottle what’s grown here on its own and sell it for twice what the rest brings.”

“Is the wine that much better?”

He shrugged. “The story is.”

We walked up to the top of a rise where the valley opened below us.

“Your daughter is one of the smartest, most capable people I know,” I said, not that I’d really planned to initiate a conversation of this nature.

“She plans lovely holidays for people with too much money.”

I wished I could tell him how wrong he was. Maybe someday he’d know what his daughter really did for a living and how close she’d come to dying.

“Do you love her?” The vulnerability in his voice surprised me as much as his question had.

“I do.” With all the lies we’d had to tell, it felt good to be truthful, even if it was to Maëlle’s father, instead of her. But now that I’d admitted it, as much to myself as to him, it was freeing. Whether she’d ever feel that way for me didn’t matter. I loved her, and that meant wanting her to be happy, even if I wasn’t the man she chose to spend her life with.

“She’s headstrong,” he said, and I chuckled.

“Maëlle said all Frenchwomen are.”

“I don’t know about that.” He was looking out at the vineyards rather than at me. “She’s her mother’s daughter.”

She was, and that meant she was determined to never get involved with a man like her father. Never to have a relationship like her parents shared.

Which meant it was up to me to prove I wasn’t, and wouldn’t be, anything like Bertrand Valais.

From the vineyards, Bertrand led me to another building I hadn’t yet been in. It was single-story, entirely made of stone, and appeared even older than the others we’d toured. A sign near the entrance read Caveau—the tasting room.

“You must see this,” Bertrand said, pushing the door open. “We’re busy today,” he said as he motioned for me to go ahead of him. Moments after we stepped into the main tasting area, every head in the room turned in our direction and all conversation stopped.

While all eyes were on me, the only ones I cared to notice were Maëlle’s. She was standing behind a long zinc bar, and Rémy was beside her. When our eyes met, I raised a brow, then looked from her to him and back again. She shrugged once.

Bertrand cleared his throat and greeted the customers, first in French and then in English.