Ellen Crosby: The Bordeaux Betrayal

“Coming.”

I had taken this tour so often over the years I could practically give it, but Mick, who had moved to Virginia six months ago, had never been to Mount Vernon. We began in the dining room, the largest room in the house, which had been restored to its original colors—two eye-popping shades of Washington’s favorite green. I was glad to see Mick interested in the docent’s talk, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Joe and that blonde.

It didn’t take long before I found out who she was. Someone jostled an elderly woman as the group moved out of the dining room. The book she’d been holding hit the floor and landed at my feet. I picked it up. European Travels with Thomas Jefferson’s Ghost by Valerie Beauvais.

Joe had been making out with the guest of honor.

“Thank you so much, dear.” The woman smiled, pearl-white teeth in a face as wrinkled as old fruit. “So clumsy of me.”

“So clumsy of whoever bumped into you.” I’d picked up the book facedown so I was staring at the author photo. No wonder they’d splashed it on the back cover. She had the racy good looks of a fashion model, a slightly lopsided smile, and a sly, almost naughty expression like she’d been talking dirty with the photographer. Stunning but tough-looking. By the time our tour finished winding in and out of the house and up two flights of stairs, I decided I didn’t like Valerie Beauvais.

Turned out I had company. After we’d seen the house, everyone spilled out on to the lawn where buffet tables had now been set up for dinner. I saw Ryan Worth, wine critic for the Washington Tribune, sitting in one of the Windsor chairs lining the piazza. He got up and waved, heading toward Mick and me. On the way he flagged down a waiter holding a tray of champagne flutes. Ryan handed a glass to me, then helped himself to two more for Mick and himself.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he said to the waiter. He clinked his glass against ours. “Tell me why you two have to be here. I came because I’m getting paid to introduce the guest of honor.” He looked like he’d been asked to gargle with Drno.

Ryan wrote “Worthwhile Wines,” a weekly column that was syndicated in more than two hundred newspapers, a statistic he frequently enjoyed quoting. Short, wide, in his late thirties, with thinning black hair, his Van Dyke and pursed-lip smile made him appear slightly sinister, or else like he knew something I should but didn’t. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of wines and wine history, though sometimes he took himself too seriously, acting as though he were sharing information he’d brought down from the mountain on stone tablets. Still, I respected him. He knew his stuff.

“I’m here because Lucie dragged me,” Mick said.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “We’ve been over this. Dinner and a talk. How bad can it be?”

“Obviously you’ve never heard Valerie.” Ryan covered his mouth and faked a yawn. “She may look like a babe but she can clear a room faster than someone yelling ‘fire.’ As for her book—”

“Talking about me behind my back?” Valerie Beauvais had a husky Bacall-like voice with a hint of a drawl. “Hello, Ryan. I hear you’ve got the pleasure of introducing me tonight.” Her smile seemed to mock him.

Close up, her eyes were even more arresting as she took us all in, dismissing me and settling suggestively on Mick, as though there were already some private joke between them. I wondered where Joe was.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Val,” Ryan said. “I’m not doing it for free. Besides, your publicist groveled and I took pity on him.”

For a moment she seemed startled, then her eyes grew hard. “Funny. He said the same thing about you.” She focused a slow-burn smile on Mick, ignoring Ryan. “I don’t think we’ve met. Valerie Beauvais.”

She held out her hand and Mick shook it. “Mick Dunne. And Lucie Montgomery.”

Valerie didn’t shake my hand. “I’ve heard of you,” she said. “You own a vineyard and you’re holding that auction.”

Who had told her that? We’d barely publicized the auction, a fund-raiser for a program for homeless and disabled kids in the D.C. metro area. One of my former college roommates, now the program’s executive director, came to me for help after I’d raised a bundle of money for the local free clinic last spring.

“That’s right,” I said to Valerie.

“How’d you manage to get that bottle of Margaux?” she asked. “You must be very persuasive.”

It didn’t sound like a compliment. “You’d be surprised,” I said. “And it’s for charity.”

In 1790, Thomas Jefferson ordered a shipment of wine for himself and his good friend George Washington from four of the greatest French wine estates in Bordeaux—Châteaus Lafite, Margaux, Mouton, and d’Yquem. Apparently some—or perhaps all—of the shipment never made it to either Mount Vernon or Monticello. One bottle, with the initials “G.W.,” the year, and “Margaux” etched in the glass, turned up more than two centuries later in the private collection of Jack Greenfield, owner of Jeroboam’s Fine Wines in Middleburg, Virginia. A week ago Jack called me and offered the wine for our auction. That was the good news. The bad news was that it was in poor condition. More than likely, he’d said, it had turned—now probably a bottle of very old, very expensive red wine vinegar.

Still, it represented liquid history. And it would be the jewel in the crown for our little charity auction. When Ryan heard the news, he’d offered to write about it in “Worthwhile Wines.”

“You’ll get national attention thanks to me,” he said. “Syndicated in—”

“I know. More than two hundred newspapers,” I said. “Thanks. That would be fabulous publicity.”

But his column didn’t run until tomorrow. Someone had already told Valerie about the wine. Her smile was gloating. She knew I had no intention of asking how she’d found out.

Ryan polished off his champagne and grabbed another flute from a passing waiter. “Anyone else? No?” He gulped more champagne and stared hard at Valerie. “God, Val, you’re priceless. Just because you have to sleep around to get what you want doesn’t mean everyone else does. Who told you about the Margaux? I wrote about it in my column, but it isn’t out yet.”

She laughed like he’d just told an off-color joke that she’d enjoyed. “I had lunch with Clay Avery at a place called the Goose Creek Inn. He let me read it,” she said. “You know he wants me to write for the Trib, don’t you? Sorry, but he’s bored rigid with your columns and all that trivial crap you write about. Plus, he says you’re a pompous ass.” She winked. “Guess you ought to start calling it ‘Worth-less Wines,’ huh? You might want to dust off your résumé. Don’t tell Clay I told you.”

Clayton Avery owned the Washington Tribune, but he’d retired from actively managing it. He still had an eye for the ladies—the younger, the better—so I could easily imagine him taking Valerie out to lunch and letting her flirt with him. What I couldn’t imagine was Clay, a true Southern gentleman, telling Valerie what he thought of his wine critic in such crass terms.

Ryan’s face turned a mottled shade of red. “Maybe Clay had a little too much to drink at lunch, but I doubt he’d hire you,” he said. “If an original thought ever ran through your head, Valerie, it would be lonely. And that includes your Jefferson book. Has your editor discussed the plagiarism with you yet?”

For a second I thought she might throw her champagne at him, but then she must have remembered that he was introducing her after dinner.

“You’ll pay for that.” Her lips barely moved. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Excuse me. I’m at the head table. Don’t screw up my introduction, Ryan. Try to stay sober. I’ve heard stories about you, too.”