Francesca

PROLOGUE

BRODEY HOUSE BICENTENNIAL

The magnificent eighteenth-century baroque palace of the Brodey family, situated on the banks of the River Douro in Portugal, will soon be en fête for a whole week to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of their company.

The House of Brodey, famous the world over for its fine wines, especially port and Madeira, has now diversified into many other commodities and is one of the biggest family-owned companies in Europe. Originally founded in the beautiful island of Madeira, the company spread to Oporto when Calum Lennox Brodey the first went there two centuries ago to purchase thousands of acres of land in the picturesque Douro valley. That land is now covered with the millions of grape-vines that produce the port on which the family fortune is based.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Just like any family, every member of the Brodey clan will be in Oporto to welcome their guests from all over the world to the festivities.

Patriarch of the family, Calum Lennox Brodey, named after his ancestor, as are all the eldest sons in the main line, is reported to be greatly looking forward not only to the celebrations but also to the family reunion. Old Calum, as he’s popularly known in wine-growing circles, is in his eighties now but still takes a keen interest in the wine-producing side of the company, and is often to be seen by his admiring workers strolling among the vines to check on the crop or tasting the vintage in the family’s bottling plant near Oporto.

STILL HAUNTED BY THE PAST

Although the anniversary will be a happy one, in the past there has been terrible tragedy within the family. Some twenty-two years ago Old Calum’s two eldest sons and their wives were involved in a fatal car-smash while on holiday in Spain, all four being killed. Each couple had a son of roughly the same age and Old Calum bravely overcame his grief as he took the boys into his palace and brought them up himself, both of them eventually following in his footsteps by joining the company.

It was rumoured at the time of this overwhelmingly tragic accident that old Mr Brodey looked to his third son, Paul, to help run the business. Paul Brodey, however, was hooked on painting and is now a celebrated artist. He lives near Lisbon with his wife Maria, who is half Portuguese and is herself a well-known painter. The good news is, though, that their only child, Christopher, has joined the family firm on the sales side and is based mainly in New York.

Only one of Old Calum’s grandsons now shares the splendour of the palace, which is mainly decorated in Renaissance style, with him. This is the only child of his late eldest son, who, following the family tradition, is also called Calum—Young Calum, in this case. The younger Calum Brodey, around thirty years old and one of the most eligible bachelors in the country, if not in Europe, has virtually taken over the running of the company, but will be gracefully taking a back seat to his grandfather during the week’s festivities.

MARRIAGE IN MIND?

Another extraordinary tradition peculiar to the family is that all the men maintain their links with their mother country by marrying blonde English girls. Every son of the family for the past several generations has travelled to the UK and returned with a beautiful ‘English rose’ on his arm. Will Young Calum and Christopher carry on the tradition, we wonder?

The third Brodey grandson, Lennox, who now lives in Madeira with his beautiful and adored wife Stella, who is expecting their first child later this year, will be among the family guests. Stella, of course, is a blonde and lovely English girl.

Old Calum’s fourth child, his elegant daughter Adele, is married to the well-known French millionaire, the gallant and still handsome Guy de Charenton, an assiduous worker for the Paris Opera and for the many charities that he supports.

Although the Brodey family has many connections with the upper echelons of society, especially in England, it was Adele’s daughter and only child, the sensationally beautiful Francesca, who finally linked it to the aristocracy with her marriage to Prince Paolo de Vieira a few years ago. This marriage, which took place in the Prince’s fairy-tale castle in Italy, looked all set to have the proverbial happy ending, but, alas, this wasn’t to be and the couple parted after only two years. Since then Francesca’s name has been linked with several men, including lately Michel, the Comte de la Fontaine, seen with her on her many shopping trips in Paris and Rome.

To all the glamorous members of the Brodey family we extend our warm congratulations on their anniversary, and we are sure that all their lucky guests will have the most lavish and memorable time at the bicentennial celebrations.

CHAPTER ONE

THEY were all there—the Brodeys—gathered together in the beautiful gardens of their magnificent baroque palácio near Oporto. All of them had come to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the House of Brodey.

Even Francesca, the princess, was there.

Calum Lennox Brodey, the head of his house and an old man now, looked across at his only granddaughter with a mixture of pride and exasperation. Tall and fair, slim and elegant, she was as beautiful as any man could wish his descendant to be. She was also totally spoilt, by him as much as by her parents, he had to admit that, and also by the family’s wealth and position. A waiter came up and offered him another glass of iced white port, the port grown and matured in the family’s own vineyards, here in Portugal, and on which their fortune was based. He took the glass and automatically smelt the richness of the wine before he sipped it.

Several of Old Calum’s guests stood around him as he stood and chatted affably, but his eyes often went to where Francesca—in her brightly coloured outfit, followed always by that lap-dog of a French count—also circulated among their guests. The man was all wrong for her, of course, just as her ex-husband had been. But the girl had insisted on marrying her Italian prince. She had a will of her own, and whatever she wanted she always got, including whichever man she wanted. Except once. Not that getting her own way seemed to have made her happy, he thought with an inner sigh.

Unaware of her grandfather’s thoughts, Francesca was enjoying herself. It was good to be back at the palácio where she had spent so many happy holidays in the past; good to be with her Brodey relations for this week of festivities, a lunch party for people in the wine trade, many of whom would be staying in Oporto for the whole week so that they could also attend the gala ball which was to be the highlight of the celebrations.

Glancing round to see that everything was going well, Francesca caught her grandfather’s eye and smiled at him. She was tall enough to do so, taller than many of the guests, and able to see over their heads. Noticing some people standing apart at the far end of the lawn, she excused herself from the group she was with and began to walk towards them, taking a glass of port from a waiter as she did so. Michel followed her and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

‘Francesca, chérie, why don’t you show me round these beautiful gardens? No one will miss us for a few minutes. There is something that I wish to ask you.’ He gave her one of his most charming smiles. ‘Something, I think, that your family would—’

But she shook him off before he could finish. She wasn’t in the mood and was already wishing that she hadn’t invited him to the party. Not only this party: he too was staying for the whole week. She could have refused to invite him, she supposed, but she had been seeing so much of him lately and he’d said that it would be a good opportunity for him to meet her family. And to sum up how much they were worth, she thought cynically.

Coming up to the guests who were standing apart, she gave them a warm smile and said, ‘Hello, I’m Francesca de Vieira, Calum Brodey’s granddaughter. I don’t think we’ve met.’

She was good at putting people at their ease, good at being sociable. Her mother had beautiful manners and had instilled them into her from childhood. Her parents were here somewhere, working their way through the guests, as they all were. Her mother, though, was still angry with her at the moment, hadn’t yet forgiven her for divorcing the prince and the unwelcome publicity surrounding it. But she was more angry at the divorce than the publicity, Francesca thought fairly. Her mother didn’t believe in divorce. Nor did Francesca, if it came to that; but when living with someone got to the stage when you dreaded the hell of each new day, then the only way out was a divorce. She would have done it cleanly, but Paolo, angry and vindictive, had made it messy.

The gossip papers were now saying that she would marry Michel—the Comte de la Fontaine, to give him his full title. She wasn’t yet sure herself whether she was going to or not. He was a little old for her—in his late thirties compared to her twenty-four—but he was good-looking and charming in a very French way, and kept himself very fit. And he was, of course, tall—an important factor when she was so tall herself. But maybe she shouldn’t have let him persuade her into inviting him this week. In Paris, Michel had been entertaining enough; here, alongside her cousins, he somehow seemed completely out of place. Perhaps it would have been better to have a break from him, so that she could think about what she wanted to do.

Before long, other guests had drifted to join the group round her. Mostly men, attracted by her beauty, by her title, her status, and also by one or two revelations the prince had made about their private life and which the gossip columns had snapped up. But then, Francesca had always attracted men; unfortunately she was beginning to find that they no longer attracted her. Maybe that was what a bad marriage did for you. Maybe Michel really was in love with her, as he kept saying he was, and wasn’t thinking about his château back in France that was badly in need of repair.

There were other men, too, who had tried to get close to her since her marriage had ended, some even before it had ended. All of them moved in the jet-set circles of various countries of which she had become a part, but sometimes it seemed as if every man was the same and there was none that she could really trust, none that she was sure wanted her only for herself.

Only when she was with her big Brodey cousins could she really relax. The four of them—herself, Young Calum, Chris and Lennox—had spent part of every year together here when they were children, under their grandfather’s genial, easygoing wing. They had run through the gardens, sailed on the river, worked on the grape-vines in the quintas, treading the grapes when the harvest was done. She was the youngest, and of course the only girl, so her cousins had looked after her, treating her rather like an appealing puppy who followed them and wouldn’t be left behind.

Thinking of her cousins, Francesca looked round for them. Calum was over on the far side of the garden, surrounded by people, and Lennox was fetching a chair for his wife, Stella, who was pregnant with their first child. Marriage had transformed Lennox; prior to meeting Stella, he had been becoming withdrawn, away on his island of Madeira, but he was now so much in love, so overwhelmingly happy, that he wanted the whole world to share it. Francesca smiled as she watched him, then turned to look for Chris, the last of her cousins. He was threading his way through the crowd towards her, and she gave him a warm smile of greeting, then noticed that he had a girl with him. The girl was blonde, petite, and very attractive. Attractive to Chris at any rate; Francesca could read it in his eyes.

‘Francesca, this is Tiffany Dean. My cousin, the Princess de Vieira,’ he said formally.

‘You’re so lucky to be tall, Princess,’ the girl said to her as they shook hands.

‘Please, call me Francesca. And I don’t consider it an advantage. Think what a choice of men you have compared to me.’

They laughed and looked each other over with the brief, indirect glances women used when they were summing each other up, taking in looks, clothes, manner, and coming to an instantaneous opinion on status that was so often right. Compared to Francesca’s flamecoloured trouser-suit, Tiffany was very conservatively dressed in a grey silk suit, and had a shining bell of smooth blonde hair. She looked like a lovely and fragile doll, and made Francesca feel about ten feet tall. She thought that Chris had brought Tiffany to the party, but it seemed that she was here by invitation.

Francesca started to talk to Chris, teasing him, making him grin, but Michel got tired of being ignored and drew her attention to the rest of the guests, who were making their way to another part of the garden where tables had been set for lunch.

‘The buffet is about to be served. Where do you wish to sit?’ he said in French.

Annoyed at his interruption, annoyed that she’d been fool enough to let him come, Francesca snapped back in the same language, ‘If you’re hungry, then go and eat. I’ll come when I’m ready.’

He didn’t go away, of course, just stood there with ostentatious patience while Tiffany put herself out to be entertaining. She did it well, Francesca had to admit as she laughed and listened. She began to like Tiffany, and could see that Chris did too; he hardly took his eyes off the girl. A spark of hidden desolation ran through Francesca; it was bad enough having Lennox married; if Chris and Calum got married as well, she would lose them all, lose the special relationship that had built up between them over the years. No matter that theirs was only a platonic relationship, that it was only cousinly love they felt; it went back as far as she could remember and in some ways was stronger and deeper than any marriage bond could be.

The garden was almost empty now; it was time to break this up. Michel was still standing beside her, so there was no getting rid of him. ‘I suppose we’d better go and eat,’ she said to him. But she wanted to sit with Chris and Calum, so she invited Tiffany to join them, knowing that Chris would come too. ‘Tiffany, you will come and sit with us, won’t you? Now, where’s Calum?’ she asked, looking round.

She saw him across the garden and began to move in his direction. Calum noticed and came across, grinned back at her when she smiled at him, but shook his head when she raised an eyebrow in invitation. ‘Remember Grandfather wants us to split up,’ he reminded her.

Francesca put her arm through his, demonstrating her right to get close to her handsome cousin, and