Read Chapter 5: The Foreman's Absence

The morning sun threw long shadows across the courtyard as Élise stepped out of the château, the silver cup wrapped in a handkerchief at the bottom of her carpetbag. She had not slept. The weight of what Julien had told her—and what he had refused to tell her—had pressed down on her chest like a stone.

The courtyard was empty save for a mangy cat licking dew from the flagstones. But from beyond the low stone wall that bordered the domaine, she heard voices. Men's voices, rough and unhurried, speaking in the singsong cadence of the region.

She followed the sound around the side of the main house, past a tangle of rose bushes that had gone wild, and found herself at the edge of the working yard. A handful of men stood in a loose circle around a rusted tractor, their shirts stained with sweat despite the early hour. They stopped talking the moment they saw her.

One of them, a wiry man with a deeply lined face and a cap pulled low, nodded at her. "Madame."

"Good morning," she said, smoothing the front of her dress—a pale blue cotton, sensible enough for the country, though she could feel the men measuring her against the dust and diesel around them. "I'm Élise Delacroix. I wanted to introduce myself properly."

The men exchanged glances. The wiry one removed his cap, revealing a shock of white hair. "I'm Baptiste. Foreman's not here, so we're just getting the equipment sorted before the day heats up."

"Foreman," Élise repeated. "André, isn't it? I saw his name in the records."

Baptiste's eyes flickered. "You won't see him, madame. He's gone."

"Gone where?"

A heavier man with thick forearms spat on the ground. "That's the question, isn't it."

"Gérard," Baptiste warned.

"What? She should know." Gérard turned to Élise, his jaw set. "André disappeared about a year ago. Packed his bag one night and walked out. Left his tools, left his pay, left his cottage. Just... gone."

Élise felt the small hairs on her arms rise. "Did no one report it?"

"The gendarmes came," Baptiste said carefully. "They searched the hills. Found nothing. Mademoiselle Joséphine—your aunt—she said he had personal business and would return when he was ready. But he never did."

"And you believed that?"

Another silence. The men looked at their feet, at the tractor, at anything but her. Gérard finally shrugged. "Mademoiselle was not the kind of woman you questioned. If she said André went of his own accord, we nodded and went back to work."

Élise studied their faces. There was something careful in the way they spoke, a guardedness that suggested they knew more than they were saying—or that they were afraid to speculate. She thought of the ledger in her room, the string of payments to the merchant in Avignon. "Was André close to my aunt?"

Baptiste's jaw tightened. "He was her right hand for thirty years. Knew every vine on this property like his own children. When she took ill, he was the one who sat with her at night."

"And when she died," Élise pressed, "he simply vanished. Before or after?"

"After," Gérard said quietly. "Thirteen days after the funeral."

The number landed like a blow. Thirteen days. Long enough to see her buried, to attend the service, to make arrangements. Then gone. The hair on her arms rose fully now. She had come south expecting a broken vineyard and a hostile winemaker. Instead she had inherited a puzzle with jagged edges.

"Madame."

The voice came from behind her. Julien. He had approached without her noticing, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, a smear of dirt across his cheek. He was holding a pruning knife and looking at the men with an expression she could not read.

"I need to speak with you," he said. "Inside."

The men scattered back to their tasks with visible relief. Julien waited until they were out of earshot, then jerked his head toward the house. Élise followed, her heels clicking against the stones. He held the back door for her—a small courtesy, but one that felt more like a barrier.

"You're asking questions about André," he said once the door closed behind them. His voice was flat, but something moved behind his eyes.

"I'm trying to understand what happened. He was the foreman. He worked here for thirty years. And no one seems to know where he went."

"I know."

The words hung between them. Élise waited, but Julien offered nothing more. "Then tell me."

He set the pruning knife on the kitchen table, his movements deliberate. "André came to me the night he left. He was carrying a suitcase and he looked—" Julien stopped, jaw working. "He looked like a man who had seen something he shouldn't have."

"What did he see?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't say. He asked me to look after the vines, to keep the domaine running until whoever came next arrived. And he said to tell Mademoiselle Joséphine's heir—" Here Julien paused, meeting her eyes with something close to pity. "He said to tell her that the cup was only the beginning."

The words hit Élise like a slap. "He knew about the cup?"

"Everyone who mattered knew about the cup." Julien's voice was low now, rough. "The question is why you have it now."

Élise reached into her memory of the cellar, the dim light, the silver glinting against the darkness of the ledger's cover. "Joséphine hid it in her desk. It was engraved with an 'L'. Julien, who is L?"

Julien was quiet for a long moment. Outside, the men's voices rose again, something about the tractor's carburetor, mundane and human. Inside, the silence stretched.

"I don't know his name," he finally said. "But I know what he does. He's a fixer. A man who solves problems for people in the wine trade—people who can't go to the authorities. Mademoiselle Joséphine dealt with him once, years ago, after the war. It was something that had to be kept quiet."

"What kind of something?"

"The kind that gets a man killed if he talks about it."

Élise felt her blood go cold. "André talked."

"Thirteen days after the funeral." Julien held her gaze. "I'm not a superstitious man, madame. But I know that when a man who has spent thirty years in one place walks away without word, without taking his tools, without saying goodbye to anyone but me—something is wrong."

"You think this fixer—this L—silenced him."

"I think André knew something about your aunt that was worth killing for." Julien stepped closer, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. "And I think the day that cup was found, you walked into the middle of a game that has been playing for over a decade."

Élise's hand went unconsciously to her carpetbag, where the silver cup lay wrapped in cloth. She had planned to take it to Avignon, to ask questions, to find this merchant and discover what her aunt's final settlement had meant. Now she understood why Julien had warned her not to go alone.

"What do you know about my aunt?" she asked.

Julien's face flickered. Something raw surfaced before he masked it. "I knew her better than she let anyone see. And I know she was not the woman the village thought she was. She was colder, more calculating, and more afraid than anyone realized. Whatever she was hiding, she went to her grave keeping it."

"Then why did she leave the domaine to me? I never met her. I didn't know she existed until the notary's letter."

Julien's mouth twisted. "That," he said, "is the one thing I asked her about on her deathbed. And she told me that you were the only person she could trust with what she'd hidden. Because you asked no questions. Because you never came looking."

The words landed in Élise's chest with a strange ache. She had never known her aunt existed. And yet her aunt had known her, watched her from afar, chosen her across a distance of hundreds of miles and decades of silence. Why?

"Whatever she hid," Julien said, "it is yours now. And whatever it brought down on André is coming for you."

The kitchen clock ticked. The cup burned in its hidden pocket.

"Then I'll make sure it doesn't find me," Élise said. She turned and walked out into the morning, the weight of the silver pressed close to her side, and she knew she would not be able to wait much longer before going to Avignon.