Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate by Kelly Hunter

guardedly. ‘Better still, why don’t I talk to Rafe and get back to you? You might not need to know about production schedules and estimates of vintage sizes at all.’
    ‘You don’t think he’d go for the idea?’ asked Luc.
    ‘I don’t know what he’d think,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Rafe’s not one for accepting charity. Or for becoming indebted to people.’ She was back to choosing her words carefully. ‘It’s a generous offer, Lucien, and I thank you for it. But I just don’t know if we can accept it.’ She smiled a little wryly. ‘Your father would turn in his grave.’
    ‘My father, for all his good points—and, yes, he did have some—was an extremely short-sighted man. He should have backed Rafe when he had the chance.’
    But he hadn’t. The words lay there in the silence, all the more potent for remaining unsaid.
    ‘I’ll phone Rafe and put the notion to him,’ said Luc. And at Gabrielle’s open-mouthed astonishment, ‘What?’
    ‘You don’t think a mediator might come in handy?’ said Gabrielle. ‘I mean, you haven’t spoken to him in seven years and now all of a sudden this?’
    ‘What makes you think I haven’t phoned him in seven years?’ asked Luc curiously.
    ‘I, ah…Have you?’
    ‘Many times,’ he said, and at Gabrielle’s continued shock, ‘Which bit surprises you most? That Rafe and I have kept in contact or that you didn’t know about it?’
    ‘Both,’ she admitted baldly. Rafael had been so disillusioned when he’d left for Australia. Gabrielle hadn’t thought he’d kept in contact with anyone fromCaverness. Not Lucien, not Josien, and certainly not Simone. ‘What do you talk about?’
    This time it was Luc’s turn to look wary. ‘Everything but sisters.’
     
    As far as exquisite food and fabulous surroundings were concerned, the meal was a resounding success. By mutual, unspoken agreement they’d stripped the conversation of anything remotely concerning the past once they’d settled down to eat, concentrating instead on the present and the future. Simone expanded on her plans for the garden. Luc spoke of the experimental champagne varieties he hoped to trial once he acquired more land. They spoke of the changes that had taken place in the village over the last few years. The new priest, the newly formed men’s choir. The opera diva who’d purchased a crumbling chateau for a song and had kept the local tradesmen in work for years in her effort to restore it to its former glory. Her pockets were deep, according to Lucien. Her youthful face was a testimony to the marvels of modern surgical techniques, according to Simone. She’d had widowed heads of dynastic champagne houses falling over their feet to court her.
    She’d just silenced gossiping tongues completely by marrying a local widowed thatcher some ten years her junior, who came complete with thinning hair, three little ones in tow, not two euros to his name, and a heart—according to the villagers in the know—of pure gold.
    ‘But doesn’t that make her outcast amongst the upper echelons of society here?’ asked Gabrielle, fascinated.‘And what do his friends think of her ? Where do they fit?’
    ‘According to them, together,’ said Simone. ‘The village is slowly coming to terms with it.’
    Gabrielle grinned. ‘Good for them.’
    ‘The villagers or the happy couple?’ asked Luc dryly.
    ‘Both.’
    ‘The village is changing,’ said Simone. ‘There’s new blood in it, a younger generation with fewer ties to the old ways. It’s not as class conscious.’
    Gabrielle eyed Simone curiously. ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘But, Simone, every door has always been open to you. How do you know it’s not as class conscious? People knew who I was the minute I stepped in the village. Knew I was Josien’s daughter and judged me accordingly. I didn’t think much had changed at all.’
    ‘How did they judge you?’ asked Luc, his eyes sharp.
    ‘When I asked for a room I