or sniffed the silky bouquet of Château Renard’s pinot noir. She gave the wine a swirl and held it to her nose, needing its cleansing power more than ever. “He doesn’t like being told no, even when he’s wrong. And he cannot abide being made to look like a fool. Not by a woman. I’m convinced it’s why he paid some fly-by-night Fay to spellbind me and keep me silent. He must have.” She exhaled at the weight of the implication. “Whoever the witch was, she blindsided me in the road just before I reached home. I’d stopped to slip into the shadow world to see how he was faring. She attacked while my sight was focused elsewhere for the briefest of moments. That ‘no’ cost me everything.”
The old woman massaged her temples, as if she suffered from the sudden onset of a headache. “Could have been one of the Charlatan clan. They usually stay north in the city, but they’ll do work for hire. Crude lot they are, too, and more cunning than one might give them credit for,” she added, rubbing her eyes to be free of the pain. “And not the sort to study how a curse might be weakened by ingesting one’s own toxic skin. Which toads are naturally wont to do.”
Elena shuddered at the thought of the warty, poisonous skin sliding down the back of her throat. She took a sip of the wine to chase the memory from her mouth, but if she was looking for relief she was vividly disappointed. None of the musky hues of spice and rose petals the Renard vineyard was famous for hit her palate. It was all chalk and mushrooms. An off bottle?
Then a worse thought hit her as she swallowed. What if there was nothing wrong with the wine? What if her senses had been permanently disfigured by the curse? She’d kill him twice.
She lifted her glass in silent panic to study the wine’s opacity against the light. She was still forming her fear into words when the back door opened and the worker whose brouette she’d shared walked inside. A wet wind followed, billowing the curtains and spitting snowflakes onto the floor tiles. The man shut the door and brushed his wet cap against his trousers before hanging it on the peg on the wall. His brusque entrance had her set aside the sour wine as well as her growing alarm.
The worker halted and apologized for interrupting as he dried the snow off his glasses using his shirttail. He snuck a glance at her while he polished the lenses, and she couldn’t help but notice the fine features of his face—the proud brow that tightened in thought, the geometric planes of the cheeks, and a jawline taut from firm self-confidence.
Grand-Mère hastily stood. “This is Elena Boureanu. I’m sure I’ve mentioned her before.” She hurried back to her mixing bowl at the counter and began measuring more flour. “Elena, this is Monsieur Jean-Paul Martel. He’s—”
“Yes, we spoke briefly in the field. You must be the new foreman.”
“Something like that.” He slipped his glasses back on and then pressed his fist under his nose. His less than discreet gesture suggested he’d picked up on the scent of goat dung saturating the hem of her coat. “A pleasure to meet you, Mademoiselle Boureanu,” he said curtly, then in a more polite tone added, “I’ll let you return to entertaining your guest, Ariella. Let me know when supper is ready.”
Once he left, Elena watched Grand-Mère fret over having no more milk in the icebox. With the taste of bad wine still souring her thoughts, she asked, “Have you grown so desperate for good help that workers now have the run of the main house?”
“Jean-Paul isn’t just a worker.” Grand-Mère’s elbows moved up and down as she worked water into the dough for biscuits. “He likes to eat promptly at five o’clock so he can go out and walk the fields one more time before dark.”
“Why didn’t you tell him who I am?”
The old woman paused to glance at the swirling snow as a gust of wind whipped against the window. Her shoulders fell and her body stilled, as if she could no longer bear to hold them up. “I’ve made a terrible mess of everything.”
She looked to the sky as if it might offer absolution and then confessed all that had gone wrong. The last five seasons at the vineyard had been failures. Either the grapes had been pinched from