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her nose over the rim, wanting to dissect its aromas. Wanting to impress Laurent with her sophistication and intuition. Unfortunately, her scientist’s brain was taking over. ‘I’m getting… Hang on…’ Could she risk saying, ‘phenylpropene compounds’? Exactly what she was picking up, though most people would experience them as clove and nutmeg. Come on, Shauna, let the poetry flow. ‘It’s like opening a spice cupboard at Christmas. I think I can taste vanilla.’ Laurent raised an eyebrow, sabotaging her confidence. ‘No – I don’t know. You tell me.’
    He swirled his tumbler under his nose. ‘Seductively full-bodied, bright to the palate, with a long finish of smoke and, yes, vanilla. Spicy, as you say. That’s down to the compound eugenol.’
    She knew that. Now she wished she’d said it.
    ‘There are hints of caramel and toffee…’
    That would be Furfural and 5-Methylfurfural. Evidently, she and Laurent had studied the same food science modules.
    Laurent drank from the glass, and rolled the liquid around his mouth before swallowing. ‘A back note of coconut, which is derived from oak lactones.’
    ‘From the casks?’
    ‘Not really.’ He surveyed the barrels, explaining, ‘French white oak, irreplaceable. They date from my grandfather’s time but they’re exhausted. I don’t mean they leak, they’re just neutral as far as flavour goes. So I use these.’ He produced a bundle of oak staves that resembled a dismantled window blind. ‘If you cannot bring the wine to the oak, you bring the oak to the wine. These slats go in the casks until the wine has the flavour and body I’m looking for.’
    ‘You love your work, don’t you?’
    He didn’t answer straight away. ‘Love is too simple a word. I would do this even if I made no money from it. But love can tie you. It rubs sores in your flesh, so no, I would not say it is love. More, a life’s voyage. How do you feel about your work?’
    ‘Passionate. I could never imagine doing anything else.’
    He frowned, as if her ready answer unsettled him. ‘I had a dog once,’ he said, looking towards the door. She followed his gaze, half expecting a four-legged ghost to amble in. ‘She was a Pyrenean Mountain Dog I called Saskia. She wasn’t much more than a puppy when I found her tied to a fallen log in the woods. The cord had cut into her flesh. She’d been there for days, I think. When I rescued her, she tried to climb into my arms. Now, that was love.’ He smiled, though sadly.
    ‘You kept her here?’
    ‘I kept her wherever I was. Nobody dared part us. She died aged ten, when I was twenty-one. I went to America after that.’
    Suspecting he was talking of love in all its forms, she navigated the subject to safer waters. ‘When will you know if your Tour de Chemignac is ready to bottle?’
    ‘Tomorrow. But now, shall we go to bed?’
    Her throat tightened. She couldn’t get a word out. Laurent waited, his expression guileless, his thick lashes intensifying the black radiance of his eyes. She needed to say something. ‘I don’t – I mean, I think I need to know you better.’
    His brows pulled together as he considered her reply. He shook his head. ‘I meant, to our separate beds. I apologise. When I’m tired, I stumble over my English.’
    Her face caught fire. ‘I really didn’t think you meant it.’ But she had. ‘I mean, I was a bit shocked because I haven’t – I mean, I don’t…’ Oh help, this is digging a mine-shaft. ‘What I mean is, I don’t—’
    ‘Want to. Very wise. Go out ahead of me and I’ll turn off the lights.’

    T hey walked side by side back towards the château, she with her hands pressed to her flanks, he with his clasped behind his back. We’re doing a cracking impression of the Queen and Prince Philip, she thought. Dawn had brought streaks of pale pink to the eastern skyline, while to the west, above the forest, stars still pricked the purple-dark. Shauna stopped, frowned. Was that a