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      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘ARE you okay?’

      Lee smiled, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. Her parents had named her, rather foolishly she sometimes thought, ‘Annabel-Lee,’ but she was ‘Lee’ to everyone who knew her, a tall, slender girl with long brown hair the colour of beechwoods in autumn, and as glossy as polished chestnuts. Her eyes were green, faintly tip-tilted and fringed with thick curling lashes—witch’s eyes, her father had once called them, and her mouth curved generously. No one looking at her mouth could doubt that she had a warm, deeply passionate nature.

      Below them the Channel glinted silver in the morning sun. Excitement bubbled up inside her, as frothy and tingling as champagne.

      ‘There’ll be a hire car waiting for us at the airport.’ Michael Roberts, her boss, told her. ‘We’ll drive straight down to the Loire.’

      Michael was the chief wine buyer for a prestigious supermarket chain and Lee was his assistant. She had been working for him for six weeks, but this was her first ‘field trip’, so to speak. Michael was in the middle of some delicate negotiations with a wine-grower in the Loire Valley, who so far had been reluctant to allow his grand and premier cru wines to be sold anywhere but in the most exclusive specialised wine shops. Michael was hoping to persuade him that while these first-class wines should quite rightly continue to be sold to the connoisseur, the English wine-drinking public was growing considerably more discerning and deserved to be able to purchase good wine.

      There was considerable rivalry between the various supermarket chains concerning the quality of wines their buyers managed to secure for their customers, and to be able to add the Château Chauvigny label to their range would be a feather in Michael’s cap.

      After lengthy negotiations the Comte de Chauvigny had invited Michael to visit the vineyards and taste the new wines, and Michael was hopeful that this meant that the Comte was prepared to do business with them.

      ‘At this time of the year we’re likely to be the Comte’s only guests,’ Michael warned Lee, as the seat belt warning lights flashed up, signalling the end of their journey. ‘The grand and premier cru wines will be tasted later in the year by the connoisseurs lucky enough to be able to buy them. What does that fiancé of your’s think about you and me flying off to France together?’ he asked with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘You’re quite a career girl, aren’t you? How will that tie in with marriage to a Boston Brahmin with a banking empire to inherit?’

      ‘Drew knows how much my career means to me,’ Lee said firmly. She had first met her fiancé when she had been working at a vineyard in Australia. They had fallen in love almost at first sight, and there had been little time to discuss such mundane matters as the finer details of their future together. Their time had been short. Lee had already been accepted for her present job, and Drew had been tied up in delicate negotiations for the amalgamation of the banking empire headed by his father, with a Canadian associate.

      Until these negotiations were completed there could be no question of their marriage taking place. Drew’s family came of Pilgrim stock and their wedding would figure largely in Boston’s social calendar. Lee had been a little amused by Drew’s insistence that their wedding should be so formal, but had good-naturedly agreed to all Drew’s proposals. She frowned slightly as she remembered that it was her turn to phone him. Their transatlantic phone calls were a weekly ritual, and she had already warned Drew that this week’s would have to be brief as she would be in France.

      The aircraft was descending. Soon they would be landing. She was in France to do a job, Lee reminded herself, and not daydream about her fiancé. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. This job was important to her and she badly wanted to do well. So far she knew that Michael was pleased with her, so why did she have this vague feeling of anxiety?

      Their hire car was a dark blue Renault, and they were going to share the driving. It would take them several hours to reach Chauvigny Michael had warned her. The bright May sunlight touched her hair, burnishing it with gold, and Michael smiled appreciatively. For the journey she was wearing a soft rose-pink linen suit—smart and casual—toned with a cream georgette blouse. She moved with a natural elegance, her legs long and slender as they carried her towards the car.

      By mutual consent they had decided not to stop for a meal en route. French lunches were notoriously long-lasting affairs and they had already eaten on the plane. After Orléans Lee took over from Michael. She was a good driver; careful but with enough élan not to be panicked by the French habit of disconcerting overtaking, and soon learned to leave enough room between the Renault and the car in front to allow for any mishaps.

      Michael Roberts watched her as she drove, amused by her total concentration. He had never had a female assistant before, but her qualifications and experience had been far superior to those of the other applicants for the job. A wine buyer needs a love of wine; a knowledge of its creation, and most of all that unlearnable ability to discern the superior from the very good, plus a large helping of intuition. The applicants for the job had all been requested to sample several different wines and then make their observations on them. Lee’s observations had been far superior to those of the other contenders. She had what was known in the trade as a ‘nose’. At first Michael had been dubious about her appointment. Above all else buying wine was a serious business, and who could behave seriously with a beautiful woman like Lee? Especially Frenchmen, by whom the