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Chapter One
The sun shone down brightly on the rows of vines that stretched out along the gentle hills and sloping valleys. In the distance, a tractor chugged towards a cluster of ancient stone houses. Occasionally, it was possible to catch a glimpse of the sparkling Dordogne as it flowed towards the city of Bordeaux. It was a perfect scene of French rural life. Peaceful and tranquil.
But right now, Emma King felt anything but tranquil.
“Keep calm,” she told herself as her hand gripped the stick and the gear box protested loudly as she gave it a shove. “Fourth is definitely here somewhere.”
The Fiat 500 she had rented at the airport was exactly the same as her own back home in England, except hers was an automatic. She must have ticked the wrong box when she filled the form in online. It had been years since she’d driven a manual. Now she knew why. She nudged the gear stick again and it made another horrible grinding sound. A bead of sweat trickled down her face. She hadn’t figured out how to turn on the air conditioning either. Everything was on the wrong side in this car. That didn’t normally faze her. She was used to driving in France. However, this visit was proving to be far more stressful than usual and she’d only been here a couple of hours. A horn blared and a red Porsche zoomed by. She swerved. Oh dear, she had been on the wrong side too. She really must concentrate. With another vicious push, she finally found the elusive gear. Sighing with relief, she resolved to remain trundling along at thirty miles an hour. Or should that be kilometres? Either way, she couldn’t face trying to find fifth gear. It was another hassle she didn’t need today. She needed to be on top of her game. Her family’s business depended upon it.
King’s Wines had been set up nearly thirty years ago by her mother and father, Yvette and Edward. They had begun working from a shed on her grandfather’s farm near Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire. Now they were the UK’s largest online wine business. But the business was at risk. Early one freezing March morning, while on their way to London, her parent’s ancient Volvo had skidded on some black ice and hit a tree. Despite the warmth of the sun pouring through the windscreen, Emma shuddered as she recalled receiving that terrible phone call telling her Edward and Yvette were both in hospital. They had been lucky to survive, the police officer who was first on the scene, had told her. Fortunately, her mother was discharged with only cuts and bruises but her father was now confined to a wheelchair while he awaited an operation on his hip. An injury to his head, when it struck the car door, meant he had also lost his sense of taste and smell. For most people, this might be an unpleasant inconvenience, but for a man whose job it is to taste wines, it was a disaster.
Every year Edward and Yvette toured the vineyards of Europe and beyond, in search of the best wines for their customers. When she was a little girl, Emma and her sister Maddie had gone with them. It had been an adventure. The four of them had piled into their trusty camper van and set off to explore the smaller, undiscovered vineyards of Italy, Spain, Germany, and most often, Yvette’s native France. Emma and Maddie were able to visit their mother’s friends and relatives and play with the children of the vineyard owners.
As the years passed and King’s Wines grew, the buying trips took Edward farther afield to Australia, New Zealand, South America, and California. Yvette often had to stay behind while Emma and Maddie were at school, but every summer when term finished, they would once again head across the Channel to France.
Now both sisters worked in the family business. Thanks to Edward’s excellent reputation for picking wines their customers loved, the company now employed over fifty people. They had moved out of the old barn and a purpose-built office, warehouse, and tasting room had been built on the land next to Edward’s family farm.
Once again, Yvette could join her husband on buying trips. In fact, before the crash, they had been on their way to the airport. They had been due to fly to Canada and hopefully buy some of the Niagara region’s ice wine. However, the accident and Edward’s injuries, meant the task of buying for the business had fallen to Emma.
Emma knew about wine. She had been raised around it; the sight, the smell, the language of it. Even now, thinking of the names of the grapes growing all around her: Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet-France gave her a thrill of excitement. When she had studied wine and hospitality at the famous college at Lausanne in Switzerland, she had come first in her class for wine tasting. She knew she had a good palette but to be given the responsibility of choosing wine for the entire year’s budget was overwhelming.
Normally, she ran the tasting events for King’s Wines from their headquarters in the Cotswolds. For now, her mother had taken over organising those. Although Yvette was French, she would readily admit her palate wasn’t up to the task of picking the best wines Bordeaux had to offer, and even if it were, Emma knew she wouldn’t want to leave Edward so soon after the accident.
Maddie, Emma’s younger and much more organised sister, was in charge of the administrative side of the business. She had packed Emma off with a folder full of spreadsheets and financial projections. Maddie had a degree in accountancy and had carefully worked out exactly how the budget should be divided for this buying trip. However, both sisters were well aware that all Maddie’s plans would count for nothing, if any of the wines Emma tasted turned out not to be up to the King’s high standards. If, heaven forbid, this year’s offering from the Pauillac or Margaux châteaux turned out to be disappointing, she would need to find a suitable alternative and adjust the finances accordingly. Alternatively, if this year’s Sauternes were exceptional and the price was pushed up, she would need to quickly decide if they warranted a larger chunk of the budget.
She took a deep breath and concentrated on the narrow country road ahead. If she thought about how much everyone was relying on her, she would panic even more. Suddenly, a large black Mercedes loomed up in her rearview mirror, beeping its horn and flashing its lights impatiently.
“Oh, just get on and overtake, will you? There’s plenty of room,” she muttered, resisting the urge to stick two fingers up to the other driver. A second later, the Mercedes roared by, leaving Emma to continue on her way.
Finally, she turned a corner in the road, and smiled as she realised, she’d reached her destination. Château Montfleur was a beautiful, seventeenth-century, three-storey building with elegant turrets at each corner. Its pale stone walls glowed almost white in the bright June sun. It always made Emma think of the castles in the fairytales her mother had read to her as a child. For the next few nights, it was to be Emma’s home. She, along with several other international buyers, merchants, and wine critics, would be using the château as their base while they visited various other vineyards in Bordeaux. Every spring, they were invited to taste, rate, and hopefully, buy the wine from the previous year. Although most of the wine they did buy, especially the grand crus, would improve with age and wouldn’t be drunk for at least five years.
Emma slowed down as she drove through the gateway of the château and wound down her window.
“Bonjour Thierry!” she called to the grey-haired man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, who was tending the vines. In return, he tipped his hat and waved. Thierry had been working at the château for as long as she could remember. He’d let Emma and her friends play hide and seek amongst his precious grapes when she was a little girl.
As she trundled up the sweeping gravelled driveway, she noticed the red Porsche and black Mercedes were already parked there alongside an array of Range Rovers, BMWs, and Bentleys. There would be about fifty people attending the tasting, and almost twenty of those would be staying at the château. She hoped the Porsche and Mercedes drivers wouldn’t be amongst them.
Gritting her teeth, she managed to squeeze the Fiat into a tiny space between an Audi and a Ferrari. She stepped out and stretched and was immediately greeted by the sound of loud woofing. A second later, Hugo, the golden retriever, came charging down the stone steps, his tail wagging furiously as he lolloped towards her. Emma bent down to ruffle his ears while he tried to lick her face. Hugo was closely followed by his owners, Henri and Céleste Montfleur. The château had been in Henri’s family for years and they always hosted this gathering during the buying season. They also produced some of the best Saint-Émilion wine and were the first château to supply her parents’ fledgling business. Céleste was a childhood friend of her mother’s and had flown over to visit her parents as soon as she heard about the accident. Her hosts were like family to Emma. Now they both enveloped her in a joint embrace.
“Ma chérie, Emma, we are so sorry your father cannot be here, but so happy you have joined us,” said Henri, bending down and kissing her on both cheeks. “How is he?”
“It’s wonderful to be here,” replied Emma. “And he’s doing well, thank you. But no doubt stressing about me messing up the buying.”
“Nonsense! He has every faith in you, as do we,” Céleste assured her and patted her on the arm. Emma took a second to survey her hosts. The couple were as tall, slim, and elegantly dressed as ever, but Henri’s dark hair was streaked with a little more grey and there were a few more lines at the corners of Céleste’s bright blue eyes. Perhaps the Kings weren’t the only family to have had a difficult time recently.
“I will have someone take your bags to your room,” continued Céleste. “And perhaps you would like to take a moment to refresh yourself,” she suggested, taking Emma by the arm and gently leading her up the steps and through the double doors of the château and into the beautiful marble reception hall.
Emma gratefully slipped into the cloakroom and stared critically at her reflection in the ornate gilt mirror hanging on the wall. Her face was pink and shiny and her shoulder-length blonde hair had lost all sign of the sleek blow dry she’d attempted that morning. It looked like she’d been raking her hands through it for the last hour, which, of course, she had been. After wasting a good five minutes searching through her overly large and bulging handbag for her hairbrush, she remembered that it was in the case that had been taken upstairs. With a sigh of resignation, she reapplied her lipstick and dabbed her face with powder from her compact. She rummaged in the bag again for her sunglasses and placed them on her head. It went a little way to taming her hair. Then she removed the battered pair of Converse that she’d worn to drive in and squeezed her feet into a smart pair of court shoes with a low heel instead. Finally, she straightened her dress, which was still damp with sweat and sticking to her legs. For about the millionth time in her life, she wished she’d inherited some of her French mother’s sense of style. Both Yvette and Emma’s sister, Maddie, could throw on an old T-shirt and jeans and manage to look effortlessly chic. But even if Emma spent hours pampering herself and agonising over her outfit, she never achieved glamour, just gaucheness. She definitely took after her father instead. He was slightly chaotic and clumsy too. At least she had inherited his palate, or she very much hoped she had.
Reluctantly, she stepped out of the cloakroom. Her hosts were nowhere to be seen, but coming towards her was Heloise, their beautiful twenty-year-old daughter. Heloise and her older brother, Oscar, always helped out their parents at these events, and Emma had known them all her life. Heloise was like her mother, blonde, slim, and graceful, but not so tall. She was concentrating on carrying a tray of canapés in one hand, but her face broke into a huge smile when she saw Emma.
“Emma! I’m so happy you are here,” she said. “But I was so sorry to hear about your parents’ accident.”
“Thank you. It’s good to see you too,” replied Emma, carefully hugging her younger friend. When she was eighteen, Heloise, who had always dreamt of being a ballerina, had been badly injured when the stage she was dancing on had collapsed. Despite several operations, she was still unable to use her left arm. “How are you?”
“I’m well,” replied Heloise, then lowering her voice, “but it’s been a difficult few months for maman and papa. La Chartreuse, the neighbouring estate, has always let us rent some of their land, but recently it has changed hands and the lease has ended. They are worried the new owner will no longer continue with the arrangement.”
“Oh no!” said Emma. No wonder Henri and Céleste had looked a little careworn. She knew the vines on La Chartreuse’s land produced nearly half their wine. Losing them would be a disaster. “Have they met the new owner?” she asked, but before Heloise could answer, there was a burst of laughter from the petit salon.
“I’ll tell you more later,” she said with a sigh. “I’m meant to be circulating.”
“I suppose I should be too,” replied Emma, grimacing as she headed towards the laughter.
“Oh Emma, wait,” Heloise whispered after her and ran her tongue over her front teeth before nodding at the large mirror above the fireplace. Emma turned, peered at her reflection and groaned. How had she managed to get lipstick on her teeth already? She rubbed the pink mark off with her index finger and threw Heloise a grateful smile before taking a deep breath. Large social events always made her a little nervous, especially ones she knew would include some of the most intimidating names in the wine world.
She hoped she might sneak unnoticed into the reception, but it wasn’t to be. As soon as she stepped through the doors of the petit salon, a woman dressed in black, with a sharp black bob and bright red lipstick, spotted her immediately.
“Emma King! I thought it was you driving that silly little car on the wrong side of the road,” she called out in a loud, brittle voice.
“Hello, Veronica,” replied Emma reluctantly. Veronica Biddy wrote a usually scathing wine column for one of the broadsheets back home. It was called Veronica on the Vine, but Emma and her sister privately called it Biddy on the Bottle. Veronica was feared throughout the wine world. A bad review from her could wreck a vineyard’s reputation, and she was every bit as rude in person as she was in print.
What made it worse was that the man she was standing very close to was Nico Lambert. Nico was as tall, tanned, and handsome as when Emma had first clapped eyes on him at L’ecole du Vin in Lausanne almost ten years ago. They had attended almost all the same classes, but he’d hung out with the other cool kids. The girls he’d dated had all had long, glossy hair, perfect nails, and a year-round golden tan. Back then he’d wandered around the place in designer jeans with a cashmere sweater draped over his shoulders, smoking a Gauloises. He’d offered her one at a party once, and attempting to impress him, she’d accepted. However, not being a smoker, she had instead wafted the lit cigarette around and managed to set fire to her own hair. She felt herself blush at the memory of it as he kissed her on both cheeks.
“It is good to see you again, Emma,” he began politely. “I also saw you in the Fiat and flashed my lights to warn you about your driving. I still do not understand why you English have to be so awkward and drive on the left. Would it not be simpler if you decided to be like the rest of Europe and drive on the right?”
“It certainly would for those of us who get confused whenever they cross that narrow stretch of water,” said Veronica with a sarcastic laugh.
Emma suddenly realised Nico and Veronica must have been the black Mercedes and red Porsche drivers. Just her luck! She ignored Veronica and addressed Nico instead.
“That’s not exactly loyal. Your mother’s English!” Nico’s mother had been a famous model before she married his father, the owner of a collection of Europe’s most luxurious hotels. Nico shrugged.
“Yes, but she had the good sense to marry a French man and leave behind that grey wet rock you call home,” he replied. This comment set Veronica off cackling again. Fortunately, Emma was saved by the arrival of Paddy Brompton, an old friend from home.
“Hello there, Emma. You look jolly nice,” he said, giving her a hug and planting a kiss on her cheek.
“Thanks, Paddy,” she replied with a grateful smile, even though she knew he was only being polite. The cotton floral dress and pink cardigan had seemed a good idea when she was packing that morning. It was the sort of thing she would wear for a garden party at home in England, but now, seeing herself in the mirrors that lined the walls of the petit salon, she could see it clashed horribly with her red face. She felt silly next to the French women in their elegant shift dresses and trouser suits in cream, navy, or black. However, Paddy was always polite. He was the head buyer for Fox Cavendish, one of London’s oldest wine merchants, and a few years older than Emma. He always wore a bowtie and brightly coloured waistcoat over his ever-expanding waistline. The large glasses perched on his nose gave him the appearance of a startled owl.
“How’s the old man doing?” he asked.
“Much better, thanks,” she replied. Paddy had been one of the first to offer her family his help after the accident. He’d even travelled to Gloucester to run one of their tasting events while Emma and Maddie were at the hospital with their parents.
“Your father has not been well?” enquired Nico.
“He had a car accident. He needs an operation on his hip and his sense of smell and taste haven’t returned yet,” she explained.
“Quelle domage!” he exclaimed. “How can he taste wine?”
“He can’t. That’s why I’m here.”
“So, if King’s Wines aren’t up to their usual standard this year, we shall know who to blame,” sniped Veronica. Emma tried to think of a withering retort, but failed and luckily, Paddy saved her once again.
“Kiara’s out on the terrace. I know she’s looking forward to seeing you. Why don’t we go and say hello?” he suggested, gently steering her away.
“Thanks,” whispered Emma when they were out of earshot. “Horrible woman!”
“She can be a bit much, can’t she?” he agreed. It was the closest she’d ever heard him get to insulting someone.
The two of them made their way through the crowded room and stepped through the glass doors, out into the sunshine. The terrace overlooking the vines was empty except for another friend from her Lausanne days. Kiara Patel, or Kiki to her friends, had been her roommate. In fact, it was Kiki who had cut off the singed bits of hair after the Gauloises incident, leaving Emma with a wonky fringe for the rest of that term. Her father owned a chain of supermarkets in India and he had decided his youngest daughter should be the wine buyer for his empire. However, Kiara’s real passion was the successful social media account she ran called the Kolkata Corkscrew. It was here that she regularly posted photos, videos, and stories about her wine adventures. Emma guessed she must be working on that now. She was carefully balancing on the low wall at the edge of the terrace with her phone angled above her head as she took a picture of herself with the vines stretching out behind. Her long dark hair had been dyed red at the ends and, unlike the other guests, she was dressed casually in black leather trousers, a black vest top that showed off her tattoos, and lots of gold jewellery. She jumped down as soon as she saw Emma and ran over and threw her arms around her.
“Hey! I’m so pleased you made it! How are you doing?”
“Much better now that Paddy rescued me from Veronica,” replied Emma. Kiara made a face.
“She’s such a poisonous woman! Whenever she opens her mouth, I expect her to hiss, not speak. Last year, she stayed at a hotel in Bordeaux so I barely saw her, but this year she’s staying here. Apparently, she’s after a certain gentleman. You have to pity the poor guy she has in her sights.”
Emma’s stomach lurched at the thought it could be Nico. Then told herself not to be so silly. Paddy began shaking his head solemnly as he adjusted his glasses.
“I’m afraid I shall have to be firm with her. I shall say ‘Veronica, I’m flattered, but you must wait your turn and get in line behind all the other ladies,’” he said, sounding so earnest he made Kiara and Emma laugh. Poor Paddy was notoriously unlucky in love and the thought of him being pursued by the terrifying Veronica was hilarious.
“What about you, Kiara?” asked Emma. “How’s it going with Ricardo?”
“It’s over, thank goodness. He was getting far too clingy. I was relieved when he said he was going home.”
“To Brazil?”
“No, Emma, Argentina. You’re thinking of Carlos. He was before Ricardo, although I admit there was a slight overlap.”
As Emma stood in the warmth of the late afternoon sun, catching up on the latest details of Kiara’s complicated love life and listening to all Paddy’s wine-related gossip, she began to think this trip might not turn out to be as daunting as she’d feared.
End of Excerpt
