Prescott seemed content to savor his Malmsey in silence, so I, too, settled deeper into the sofa and drank mine. Finally he said in a rich drawl, “I’m sure you’ve been wondering why I invited you here.”

“The thought did cross my mind.”

He grinned. “I’m about to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

Which meant he intended to make sure I didn’t turn him down. I sat up straighter, on full alert.

“I see. And what offer would that be?”

“I want to buy the Madeira your great-uncle Ian bought back in the 1920s. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. My family has been trying to purchase it from yours for nearly a century. Ian wouldn’t sell it and neither would any of your kin, including your daddy. But I’m an old man now, Lucie. I want those bottles.” He shifted so he was sitting on the edge of his chair and fixed his eyes on mine. “Name your price. I will pay it. Anything. Surely it can’t mean as much to you, to your generation, as it means to me.”

“I’m sorry—”

He cut me off. “I mean it, Lucie. Do not turn me down. Any price. Whatever you want.” He added, as if to soften his words, “After all, we are related, you know. You’d still be keeping it in the family.”

I set my glass on the glass-topped geode. “What I was about to say was that I have no idea what you’re talking about. What Madeira?”

For a moment he looked stunned. Then he burst out laughing. “I must need new hearing aids. I thought you said you don’t know what I’m talking about, but you’re just pulling my leg, darlin’. You’re not serious.”

“I’m absolutely serious,” I said. “If my father knew about some old bottles of Madeira as you said, I wouldn’t be surprised if he either drank them or sold them to someone he owed money to. You knew Leland. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—hold on to something that precious or valuable. He always needed cash to finance his gambling habits. The vineyard was a financial ruin when I inherited it, if you remember.”

But he was focused on the wine, not my father’s wayward behavior. “You know nothing about that Madeira? You’re quite sure?”

I nodded. “How did Ian Montgomery get hold of one-hundred-year-old bottles of Madeira?”

Prescott almost didn’t need to tell me. Ian was my namesake Lucky’s brother, a gambler and a risk-taker like my father had been. However, unlike my father—and gifted with the same good fortune Lucky had—everything Ian touched turned to gold.

Before he could answer, I took a guess. “He won them in a bet.”

“Close,” Prescott said. “And these days they’re not one-hundred-year-old bottles, either. They date from 1809, which makes them—”