The Champagne Queen (The Century Trilogy Book 2) Read Free Page B

chérie ! Did you miss me?” he called, turning the door handle expectantly. Isabelle was sitting on the edge of the bed, and her expression was not relaxed. She was in another one of her moods. He went over to her and leaned down to kiss her, but she fended him off.
    “How can you do this to me?” she railed. “I sit around here bored out of my mind, while you go off and have the time of your life!”
    Oh, for God’s sake. One would think he’d been gone for months! Leon had trouble stifling a grin at the dramas she managed to conjure up. His beloved wife really could make a mountain out of any molehill.
    “Why aren’t you downstairs? Mother has chestnuts on the stove, and the whole house smells wonderful,” he said as he pulled off his mud-splattered trousers and threw them on the floor. In the last few months, he’d discovered that the best approach to Isabelle’s moods was to ignore them. “Now I’m back again.” In his underwear, he sat beside her on the bed and kissed her neck. How wonderful she smelled, of peaches and vanilla. Leon felt his excitement quicken, as it always did when he was close to Isabelle. The scent of her perfect skin, her long red hair tumbling wildly down her back—thank God she hadn’t wrapped her magnificent mane into one of those braids he hated. He traced his middle finger slowly down her back.
    “ Chérie , I’m sorry, and I would be only too happy to atone for my sins . . .”
    But instead of giving in to his cooing, Isabelle abruptly turned away. “Leon, really, it’s not all right, you going out every day and riding for hours while I sit here with the walls closing in. You could certainly take care of me a little more.” Her voice was unusually doleful.
    “Are we both supposed to sit around and be bored?” Leon replied. “Everybody knows that life on the land is bleak in winter. But in two or three months, spring will be here, and it will be a completely different world.”
    “Waiting for spring is the last thing I want to do. I’m thirsty for a change of scene and a breath of city air . . . or I’ll die like a primrose you forgot to water,” she said angrily. “And then there’s this stupid letter that came for you that I’ve been going crazy about all day.” She told him all her horrible suspicions about what was in the letter.
    Leon’s brow creased. “That can only be the invitations for the races in Kaiserslautern and Worms. Or a newspaper report about the New Year’s race in Mainz, which I won, after all!” he said proudly.
    Isabelle snorted. “Don’t you have anything in your head anymore except your races? Why don’t you go downstairs and get the letter, and then we’ll both know.”
     
    “It’s from a notary in Pirmasens. Strange . . . ,” Leon murmured when he was sitting beside Isabelle on the bed again a few minutes later. He opened the envelope, careful not to tear the papers inside. “I’m supposed to go there in two days!” He looked up with a grin. “See? Your wish for a little city air is my command.”
    “An appointment with a notary? What in the world could it mean?” Isabelle was looking excitedly over his shoulder.
    Leon looked up at her with a frown. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”
     
    One of their neighbors offered to drive Leon and Isabelle into the city in his carriage. Wearing her best dress and wrapped in her warmest coat, Isabelle eyed the decrepit vehicle suspiciously. Sun, rain, and other weather-related phenomena had left their marks on it, making the wood molder and causing deep cracks that ran from the front axle all the way back. And it was supposed to get them to Pirmasens?
    As fragile as the coach was, the horses that the farmer harnessed in front of it were a pair of young and frisky three-year-olds that leaped ahead in fright at every shake of a branch. The carriage groaned ominously, and Isabelle feared a broken axle or worse. Although he cursed aloud, the driver did his best to keep