Jewels

“I think she’s right,” Julian added. “We can’t just sit here being self-satisfied. That’s the surest way to kill the business. Actually, I think we should have thought of this long ago, without Isabelle. This is just very good timing.”

By nightfall they had agreed, although Phillip only grudgingly. He thought another branch somewhere in England made more sense than Rome, which all of the others vetoed. Somehow he never really believed that there was any other place worth a damn, except England

Sarah called Isabelle herself that night, and gave her the news, and you would have thought she had given her the moon. The poor child was starving, for life, for love, for direction, for affection. Sarah promised to come to see her the following week, to discuss their plans. And when she did, she was intrigued that for the entire five days of her stay, she never saw Lorenzo.

“Where is he?” Sarah finally dared to ask.

“In Sardinia with friends. I hear he has a new mistress.”

“How nice for him,” Sarah said tartly, suddenly remembering Freddie coming across the lawn at their anniversary party with his hookers. She told Isabelle about it for the first time, and her daughter stared at her in amazement.

“I always knew you were divorced. But I never really knew why. I don’t think I ever thought of it when I was growing up. I never thought that you could make a mistake or be unhappy….” Or be married to a man who would bring prostitutes to her parents’ home. Even forty years later it was quite a story.

“Anyone can make a mistake. I made a big one. So did you. But eventually, I got out of it, with my father’s help. And I met your father. You’ll meet someone wonderful one day too. Wait.” She kissed her gently on the cheek and went back to the Excelsior, where she was staying.

For the next year they worked frantically on the space they rented on the Via Condotti. It was larger than the two other stores, and extremely glamorous. It was a real showplace, and Isabelle was so excited, she could hardly stand it. It was almost like having a baby, she said to friends. It was all she could eat, think, drink, talk about, and she didn’t even care anymore that she never saw Enzo. He made fun of it, and told her she was going to fall flat on her face. But he hadn’t reckoned with Sarah.

She hired a PR firm to woo the Italian press, she had Isabelle give parties, get involved in Roman society in countless ways she had never thought of. She gave to charities, gave lunches, and attended important events in Rome, Florence, Milan. Suddenly Lady Isabelle Whitfield, the Principessa di San Tebaldi, became one of the most sought-after people in Rome. And by the time they were ready to open, even her husband was paying attention. He was telling his friends about the store, talking about the fabulous jewels he was selecting himself, and the people who had already bought from him. Isabelle heard the tales, but she paid no attention. She was too busy working night and day, checking plans, talking to architects, hiring staff. Emanuelle had come to Rome for the last two months to help her, and they had hired a capable young man, a son of an old friend of hers who had worked for Bulgari for the last four years in a position of importance. They stole him easily, and he was going to help Isabelle run it. He couldn’t believe his good fortune, and he was in awe of her, but in a short time they became good friends, and Isabelle liked him. He was smart, he was good, he was nice, and he had a great sense of humor. He also had a wife and four children. His name was Marcello Scuri.

The opening party they gave was the hit of Rome, and absolutely everyone in Italy was there, and several of their loyal customers from London and Paris. People came from Venice, Florence, Milan, Naples, Turin, Bologna, Perugia. They came from all over the country. Her year of carefully laid groundwork had paid off, and Sarah’s foresight had been brilliant. Even Phillip had to grudgingly admit that it was a fabulous store, and Nigel said when he saw it that if he died at that exact moment, he would die happy. It was so totally perfect for Rome, the jewelry so beautiful and so stunning, the perfect mix of old and new, showy and discreet, merely expensive and truly astounding. Isabelle was thrilled with the success of it, and so was her mother.

The young director, Marcello, did a splendid job, and so did Isabelle. Emanuelle was very proud of both of them. And both of Isabelle’s brothers praised her for her excellent results. She had done a wonderful job. And three days later when they left her to return to their own stores, the shop was off and running.

Emanuelle had already gone back the day before, to deal with a minor crisis in the Paris store. There had been a break-in, but miraculously, due to the remarkable security system of bulletproof glass and locking doors, nothing was taken. But Emanuelle had felt she should be there to bolster everyone’s spirits. The staff at the store had been pretty shaken. Protecting their stores from theft was becoming more and more complicated. But so far, in both of their shops, they had excellent security, and had been very lucky.

Sarah was still thinking of how well the opening in Rome had gone as she and Julian boarded the plane to Paris. She asked him if he’d had a good time, and he said he had. She had seen him talking to a very pretty young principessa early on, and later a well-known Valentino model. The women in Rome were certainly beautiful, but she’d had the feeling for a while that Julian was slowing down. He was about to turn thirty, and there were times when Sarah suspected that he was actually behaving. He had been quite wild for a while, but according to what she read about him in the newspapers, not lately. And as they prepared to land at Orly, he explained why.

“Do you remember Yvonne Charles?” he asked innocently and Sarah shook her head. They had been talking about business a moment before, and she couldn’t remember if the woman he mentioned was a client.

“Only the name. Why? Have I met her?”

“She’s an actress. You met her at the anniversary party last year.”

“Along with perhaps a thousand other people. At least I know I’m not slipping.” But then suddenly she did remember her, not from the party, but from something she’d read in the papers. “Didn’t she have a very scandalous divorce a few years ago … and then marry again later? Seems to me I read something about her…. Why?”

He looked very uncomfortable for a moment as the plane came in for a landing. It was unfortunate his mother still had such a good memory. But at sixty-four she was as sharp as she had ever been, as strong, and in a softer way, just as pretty. He was crazy about her, but there were times when he wished she didn’t pay such close attention to details.

“Something like that …” he answered vaguely. “Actually, she’s getting divorced again right now. I met her between two marriages”—or possibly during, knowing him—“and we just ran into each other again a few months ago.”

“What good timing.” Sarah smiled at him, sometimes he still seemed so young to her. They all did. “How lucky for you.”

“Yes, it is” There was something in his eyes suddenly that scared her. “She’s a very special girl.”

“She must be, with two marriages under her belt already. How old is she?”

“Twenty-four. But she’s very mature for her age.”

“She must be.” She didn’t know what to say to him, or where he was leading her, but she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like it.

“I’m going to marry her,” Julian said quietly, and Sarah felt as though the bottom had just dropped out of the plane as the wheels hit the runway.

“Oh?” She tried to look nonplussed, but she could feel her heart beating too hard as they landed. “When did you decide this?”

“Last week. But we were all so busy with the opening, I didn’t want to say anything until after it was over.” How considerate of him. How wonderful for him to marry a girl who was already twice divorced, and tell her. “You’re going to love her.” She hoped he was right, but she hadn’t liked any of their mates so far. She was beginning to give up on the hope that she would ever have in-laws she could even tolerate, let alone be fond of. So far she hadn’t done well at all.

“When am I going to meet her?”

“Soon.”

“How about Friday night? We could have dinner at Maxim’s before I leave Paris.”

“That would be fine.” He smiled warmly.

And then, she dared to ask him something she knew she probably shouldn’t. “Have you made up your mind?”

“Absolutely.” She’d been afraid of that. And then he saw her face and laughed. “Mother … trust me …” She wished she could, but she had a feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that he was making a mistake. And when they met at Maxim’s on Friday night, she was certain of it.

There was no denying that the girl was beautiful, she had the cool, icy blond beauty one imagines the Swedes have. She was long, tall, thin, with creamy skin, big blue eyes, and pale blond hair that hung straight to her shoulders. She said she had been a model at fourteen, but then she got into the movies, and she had been acting since she was seventeen. She had been in five movies in seven years, and Sarah remembered vaguely that there had been a scandal involving her sleeping with a director when she was underage. And then there had been something about her first divorce, from an equally naughty young actor. Her second husband had been a more interesting choice. She had married a German playboy and she had been trying to take him for a great deal of money. But Julian insisted that a settlement had just been made. And they would be able to marry by Christmas.

Sarah did not find herself anxious to celebrate. She wanted to go home and cry. It was happening again. One of her children was blindly walking into someone else’s trap and absolutely refused to see it. Why couldn’t he have an affair with her? Why did he have to delude himself that this was a girl to marry? It would have been obvious to Helen Keller that she wasn’t. She was beautiful, and incredibly sexy, but her eyes were cold, and everything about her was calculated and planned. There was nothing spontaneous or sincere or warm, or caring about her. And Sarah suspected from the way she looked at him, that she liked him, she wanted him, but she didn’t love him. Everything about the girl suggested that she was a taker and a user. And Julian deluded himself that she was an adorable little girl, and he loved her.

“Well?” he asked happily when Yvonne went to powder her nose at the end of dinner. “Isn’t she terrific? Don’t you love her?” He was so blind, it exhausted her. They all were. She patted his hand, and said she was a beautiful girl, which was true. And the next day, when he picked up some papers from her, she tried to talk about it discreetly.

“I think marriage is a very serious thing,” she began, feeling four hundred years old and incredibly stupid.

“So do I,” he said, looking amused by his mother being so pedantic. It wasn’t like her. Usually she was pretty direct, but she was afraid to be now. She had learned that lesson once, no matter how right she had been, and she didn’t want to lose him. But with Julian, she knew, it was different. Isabelle had been hot-headed and young, and Julian adored his mother, and was less likely to reject her completely. “I think we’re going to be very happy,” he said optimistically, which gave Sarah the opening she needed.

“I’m not as sure. Yvonne is an unusual girl, Julian. She’s had a checkered career, and she’s been taking care of herself for ten years.” She had run away from home at fourteen, she’d explained, and had given up school to model. “She’s a survivor. She’s looking out for herself, maybe more than even for you. I’m not sure she really wants what you do, when you think of marriage.”

“What does that mean? You think she’s after my money?”

“Possibly.”

“You’re wrong.” He looked angry at her. She had no right to do this, as far as he was concerned. But she thought she did, because she was his mother. “She just got half a million dollars from her husband in Berlin.”

“How nice for her,” Sarah said coolly. “And how long were they married?”

“Eight months. She left him because he forced her to have an abortion.”

“Are you sure? The newspapers say that she left him for the son of a Greek shipping tycoon, and he then dumped her for some little French girl. Complicated group of people you run with.”

“She’s a decent girl, and she’s had a tough time. She’s never had anyone to take care of her. Her mother was a whore, and she never even knew her father. He left before she was born, and her mother ditched her when she was thirteen. How can you expect her to have gone to some prissy little finishing school, like my sister?” His sister had made her own mistakes in spite of that, but this girl wasn’t making mistakes. She was making intelligent, calculating decisions. And Julian was one of them. You could see it.

“I hope you’re right. I just don’t want you to be unhappy.”

“You have to let us lead our own lives,” he said angrily. “You can’t tell us what to do.”

“I try not to.”

“I know.” He forced himself to calm down. He really didn’t want to fight with her. But he was sad that she hadn’t been more impressed by Yvonne. He’d been crazy about her from the first moment he saw her. “It’s just that you always think you know what’s right for us, and sometimes you’re wrong.” Though he hated to admit it, not often. But still, he had a right to do what he wanted.

“I hope I’m wrong this time,” she said sadly.

“Will you give us your blessing?” That meant a lot to him. He had always adored her.

“If you want it.” She leaned forward and kissed him, with tears in her eyes. “I love you so much … I don’t ever want you to suffer.”

“I won’t.” He beamed. He left then, and Sarah sat alone in her apartment for a long time, thinking of William, and her children, and wondering miserably why they were all so stupid.

Chapter 28

ULIAN and Yvonne were married in a civil ceremony performed at the mairie of La Marolle at Christmas. And then they all went back to the château, and had a sumptuous lunch. There were about forty guests, and Julian looked blissfully happy. Yvonne wore a short, beige lace dress by Givenchy, which reminded Sarah vaguely of a short modern version of her own when she married William. But all similarities ended there. There was a hardness to the girl, and a coldness that genuinely frightened Sarah.

It was obvious to Emanuelle, too, and the two women stood and laughed together ruefully in a quiet corner. “Why does this keep happening to us?” Sarah said, shaking her head and looking at her old friend, who put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“I told you … every time I look at you, I count my lucky stars that I never had children.” But it wasn’t entirely true. There were times when she envied her, particularly now as she got older.

“They certainly make me wonder sometimes. I don’t understand it. She’s like ice, and he thinks she adores him.”

“I hope he never sees the truth,” Emanuelle said quietly, and she didn’t tell Sarah that he had bought her a thirty-carat canary diamond ring for their wedding, and he had two matching bracelets on order. She was doing very well, and Emanuelle was sure that this was only the beginning.

Isabelle had come to the wedding, too, without Lorenzo this time, and she was full of tales of the store in Rome. Everything was going brilliantly, and she was only annoyed that they had to spend so much money on guards. The situation in Italy, with the terrorists and the Red Brigade, made things difficult. But business was booming. Phillip had even had the grace to admit he’d been wrong, but not the spirit to come to his brother’s wedding. But Julian didn’t mind. All he saw, all he knew, all he wanted was Yvonne. And now he had her.

They were going to Tahiti for their honeymoon. Yvonne had said she’d never been and always wanted to go there. And they were going to stop in Los Angeles on the way home, to see his Aunt Jane, Sarah’s sister. Sarah hadn’t seen her in years, but they still kept in close touch, and Julian always maintained a family spirit. And conveniently, Yvonne wanted to go to Beverly Hills to go shopping.

Sarah saw them off, with the rest of the guests. And Isabelle stayed at the château until New Year’s, which pleased Sarah. They celebrated Xavier’s sixteenth birthday with him, and Isabelle said it seemed difficult to believe that he was so grown-up, she still remembered when he was a baby, which made Sarah laugh.

“Think how I feel when I look at you and Julian and Phillip. It seems like only yesterday when you were all small…” Her mind drifted off for a minute then, as she thought of William and those years. They had been so happy.

“You still miss him, don’t you?” Isabelle asked softly, and Sarah nodded.

“It never goes away. You just learn to live with it.” Like losing Lizzie. She had never stopped loving her, or feeling the loss, she had just learned to live with the pain day by day, until it became a burden she was used to. But Isabelle knew something about that too. The absence of children in her life was a constant pain in her heart, and her hatred for Lorenzo weighed on her whenever she let herself think of it, which lately, was less and less often. Mercifully, she was too busy with the store now to think of much else. And Sarah was thrilled they had opened a store in Rome for Isabelle to run.

She was sad to see her go, and life went on peacefully after that. That year seemed to fly by, as it always did. And then suddenly, it was summer, and they were all coming to visit for her birthday. She was going to be sixty-five, and for some reason she dreaded it, but they had all insisted on coming to the château, and helping her to celebrate it, which was her only consolation.

“I can’t bear thinking I’m so old,” she admitted to Isabelle when they arrived. Lorenzo had come, too, this time, which seemed too bad. Isabelle was always more tense when he was around, but they had a lot to talk about, about the store, which kept her distracted.

Phillip and Cecily came, too, of course. She was in high spirits, and talked endlessly about her new horse. She was involved with the English Olympic equestrian team, and she and Princess Anne had just gone hunting together in Scotland. They were old friends from school, and Cecily seemed not to even notice the fact that Phillip neither listened nor spoke to her. She just went on talking. Their children had come too. Alexander and Christina. They were fourteen and twelve, and Xavier was a good sport about keeping them amused, although he was older. He took them swimming in the pool, played tennis with them, and teased them by making them call him “Uncle” Xavier, which amused them.

And then finally, Julian and Yvonne arrived, in his brand-new Jaguar. She was looking prettier than ever, and rather languid, and Sarah couldn’t decide if it was due to the heat, or boredom. It wasn’t likely to be an exciting weekend for any of them, she mused, and she felt guilty for bringing them there. At least she could tell them about her trip to Botswana with Xavier. It had been fascinating, and she’d even visited relatives of William in Cape Town. She’d brought home small presents for everyone, but Xavier had brought home some extraordinary fossils and rocks, some rare but rough-cut gems, and a collection of black diamonds. He had a real passion for stones, and an eye for them, an immediate instinct for their value, in the roughest state, and how they would have to be cut to preserve them. He had particularly loved the diamond mines they’d visited in Johannesburg, and had tried to talk his mother into bringing home a tanzanite the size of a grapefruit.

“I had no idea what to do with it,” she explained, after telling them the story.

“They’re very popular in London now,” Phillip said, but he was not in the best mood. Nigel had been ill recently, and was talking about retiring at the end of the year, which was bad news for him. He told his mother that he would be impossible to replace after all these years, and she didn’t remind him of how much he’d hated him at first. They would all miss him, if he left, and she still hoped he wouldn’t.

They went on talking about the trip to Africa for a while, over lunch on their first day there, and then she apologized for boring them. Enzo was staring at the sky, and she could see that Yvonne was restless.

Cecily said she wanted to see the stables after lunch, and Sarah informed her that there was nothing new there, just the same old tired horses, but Cecily went anyway. Lorenzo went to take a nap, Isabelle wanted to show her mother some sketches she’d designed, and Julian had promised to take Xavier and Phillip’s children for a ride in his new car, which left Phillip and Yvonne on their own, feeling somewhat awkward. He had only met her once before since they’d been married, but he had to admit she was a smashing-looking girl. Her blond hair was so pale, it looked almost white in the midday sun, as he offered her a tour of the gardens. And as they strolled, she referred to him as “Your Grace,” which he didn’t seem to mind or find inappropriate, but then again, she loved being Lady Whitfield. She told him about her one brief experience in Hollywood, and he seemed fascinated, and as they walked and talked, she seemed to move closer to him. He could smell the shampoo in her hair, and as he looked down at her, he could see right down the front of her dress. It was almost all he could do to control himself suddenly as he stood next to her, she was an incredibly sensuous young woman.

“You’re very beautiful,” he said suddenly, as she looked up at him almost shyly. They were at the very back of the rose garden by then, and the air was so hot and still, she wished they could take their clothes off.

“Thank you.” She lowered her eyelids then, her long lashes brushing her cheek, and unable to stop himself, he suddenly reached out and touched her. It was almost more powerful than he, a desire so great that he couldn’t control it. He slipped a hand into her dress, and she moaned, moving closer to him until she leaned against him. “Oh, Phillip …” she said softly, as though she wanted him to do it again, and he did. He took both her breasts in his hands, and fondled the nipples.

“My God, you’re so lovely,” he whispered, and then slowly he pulled her down on the grass next to him, and they lay there, feeling each other’s passion mount until they were both frenzied.

“No … we can’t …” she said softly, as he pulled her thin silk underwear down past her knees. “We shouldn’t here …” It was the location she was objecting to, but not the act, or the person. But he couldn’t stop himself by then. He had to have her. He was exploding with desire for her, and at that exact moment, as they lay there in the brilliant sun, nothing could have stopped him. And as he entered her slowly, achingly, and then with overwhelming force, she pressed hard against him, urging him on, enticing him, torturing him with desire and then teasing him until he shouted in the still air, and then it was over.

They lay panting side by side afterwards, and he looked at her, unable to believe what they’d done, or how extraordinary it had been. He had never known anyone like her. And he knew he’d have to have her again … and again… As he looked at her he wanted her yet again, and he felt himself harden, and plunged into her without a word. The only sound he heard was her delicious moaning, until they came again, and he held her.

“My God, you’ve incredible,” he whispered to her, wondering finally if anyone had heard them, but no longer caring. He was impervious to everything except this woman who drove him to near madness.

“So are you,” she breathed at him, still feeling him throb inside her. “It’s never been like this for me,” she said, and he believed her, and then something occurred to him, and he pulled himself slowly away to see her better.

“Not even with Julian?” She shook her head, and something in her eyes told him that there was something she wasn’t saying. “Is something wrong there?” He looked hopeful and she shrugged and clung adoringly to his older brother. She had figured out long since that a lord was not a duke, and a second son was not his older brother. And she liked the idea of being a duchess, and not merely a lady.

“It’s … it’s not the same thing …” she said sadly. “I don’t know.” She shrugged, looking distressed. “Maybe there’s something wrong with him … we have no sex life …” she whispered. Phillip looked at her in astonishment, with a happy smile.

“Is that right?” He looked so pleased. Julian was a sham His reputation meant nothing. All these years of hating him. For nothing. “How amazing.”

“I used to think that … maybe he was gay.” She looked ashamed, and her extreme youth touched him. “But I don’t think he is. I think he’s just nothing.” Several thousand women would have screamed with laughter at what she had just said, but she was a better actress than any of them thought, particularly Phillip.

“I’m so sorry.” But he wasn’t sorry at all. He was thrilled. And he hated to pull away from her, and put their clothes on. He had merely unzipped his own, but they had to look for a moment in the rose bushes for her silk panties, and as they did, they laughed, wondering what his mother would think if she ever found them. “I daresay she’d think the gardener was having some fun.” He grinned, and Yvonne laughed so hard at what he said that she fell on the ground again, and rolled in the soft grass, her long lean thighs beckoning him, and he took her again without hesitation. “I daresay we should go back,” he said eventually, with regret. But his whole life had just changed, in the past two hours. “Do you suppose you could get away from him tonight for a while?” he asked, wondering where they would go. Maybe a local hotel. And then he had a better idea. The old barracks in the stables. There were still dozens of mattresses there, and blankets they used for the horses. But he couldn’t bear the thought of spending a night without her, and the forbiddenness of it made it even more enticing.

“I can try,” she said hopefully. This was the most fun she’d had since she’d gotten married… this time. And it was her specialty. The Double Entendre Extraordinaire. She loved it. Her first husband had been a twin. And she had slept with his brother, and his father, before he left her. Klaus had been more complicated, but very amusing. And Julian was sweet, but so naive. She had been bored since May. And Phillip was the best thing that had happened to her all year … possibly ever.

They walked back by the road, side by side, brushing hands, seeming to make normal conversation, but in an undertone she kept telling him how much she loved him … how good it had been … how wet she was … and how she could hardly wait until that night. … By the time they got back to the house she had driven him into a frenzy. He looked flushed and vague as Julian drove into view in the Jaguar.

“Hi there!” He waved “What have you two been up to?”

“Looking at the rose gardens,” she said sweetly.

“In this heat? You’re brave.” The young people got out of his new car then, and he noticed how hot and miserable his brother looked and he almost laughed at him, but he didn’t.

“Poor baby, did he bore you to death?” he asked, after Phillip left. “It’s just like him to drag you around the property to look at gardens on the hottest day of the year”.

“He meant well,” she whispered, and they went upstairs to make love before dinner.

Dinner that night was a jolly affair. Everyone had had a good day and was in high spirits. Cecily had managed to find some old German military saddles in the barn which fascinated her, and she even asked Sarah if she could take one back to England, and Sarah said she was welcome to anything she liked. Xavier had gotten to drive Julian’s new car, the younger children had had a good time, too, and in spite of Lorenzo being there, Isabelle looked relaxed and happy. The newlyweds seemed in fine spirits too. Phillip was a little quiet, which wasn’t unusual for him. And even the birthday girl seemed to have made her peace with what she referred to as “those appalling numbers.” But she was so happy to see them all, that suddenly the birthday seemed less important And she was sorry they would all be leaving again the following afternoon. Their visits were always so short, but at least nowadays, with Isabelle having returned to the fold, they were fairly pleasant.

They sat in the drawing room for a long time that night, Julian asking her questions about the Occupation during the war, and he was fascinated with some of her stories. Cecily wanted to know how many horses they’d had quartered there and what kind, and Yvonne kept standing behind Julian and rubbing his shoulders. Enzo was dozing in a comfortable chair, and Isabelle played cards with her youngest brother, as Phillip drank brandy and smoked cigars and stared out the window at the stables.

And then, eventually, Julian understood what Yvonne had in mind, and they disappeared upstairs quietly, with a last kiss to his mother. Cecily was the next to leave. She said she was still exhausted after her recent trip to Scotland. And eventually Phillip disappeared too Enzo dozed on, and Isabelle and Sarah chatted for a long time, after Xavier went to bed. The house was quiet, and there was a full moon. It was a beautiful night for her birthday. They had eaten cake and drunk champagne, and she loved being surrounded by her children.

And all the while, upstairs, Yvonne was using all her most exotic tricks to torture her husband. There were things she had learned in Germany that she loved to do to him that absolutely drove him crazy. And half an hour later, he was so exhausted and so sated that he was sound asleep, and she slipped quietly out of the room with a smile. She was wearing jeans, and a very skimpy T-shirt, as she ran to the stables.

Cecily was also asleep by then. She had taken sleeping pills, which she liked to do, to ensure that she slept well. She thought it was worth the occasional hangover in the morning. And she was already snoring by the time Phillip left the room, still wearing the same clothes he had worn at dinner. He knew the back paths well, and only a few twigs crunched beneath his feet, but there was no one to hear him, and he entered the stables through the back door, pausing for a moment to adjust his eyes to the darkness. And then he saw her, only a few feet away from him, beautiful and shimmering pale in the moonlight, like a ghost, totally naked, as she sat astride one of the German saddles. He got up behind her then, and pulled her close to him, and he ground against her that way, for a short time, feeling the satin of her flesh, as his desire mounted, and then he pulled her off her seat and carried her to one of the mattresses in the stalls. It was where the German soldiers had lived, and where he made love to her now, pounding into her, and begging her never to leave him. They lay together for hours, and as he held her he knew his life would never be the same. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t let her go … she was too extraordinary and too rare …too powerful … like a drug he needed to survive now.

Isabelle went up to bed after one o’clock, after finally waking Lorenzo. He apologized, and walked sleepily up the stairs, as Sarah sat alone in her living room, wondering what would happen.

They couldn’t go on forever like that. Sooner or later, he would have to let her leave him. He was holding her hostage, and Sarah didn’t intend to let him do that forever. Just thinking of it made her angry. Isabelle was such a beautiful girl, and she had a right to more of a life than he was willing to give her He had been every bit as bad as they feared, and worse. And as Sarah thought of it, she let herself out onto the patio in the moonlight. It reminded her of some of the summer nights during the war, when Joachim was still there, and they had talked late into the night about Rilke and Schiller and Thomas Mann… trying not to think of the war, or the wounded, or whether or not William was still alive. As she thought of it, she began to walk instinctively toward the cottage. No one lived there anymore. It had been unused for a long time. The new caretaker’s cottage was closer to the gate, and a good deal more modern. But she let the old one stand, out of sentiment. She and William had lived there first, while they worked on the château, and Lizzie had been born and died there.

She was still thinking of that time, as she took a little stroll before going to bed, when she heard a noise as she passed the stables. It was a low moan, and she wondered if an animal was injured. They kept half a dozen horses there, in case anyone wanted to ride, but most of them were old and not very exciting. She quietly opened the door, and there didn’t seem to be anything there, the animals were all quiet again, but then she heard noises again, coming from the old barracks. They sounded like weird unearthly sounds, and she couldn’t fathom what they were, as she made her way slowly toward them. It didn’t even occur to her to be afraid, or to pick up a pitchfork or something to protect herself with if it was an intruder or a rabid animal. She just walked into the stall it came from and snapped on the light, and found herself staring at the entwined bodies of Phillip and Yvonne, both of them entirely naked, and there was no question in anyone’s mind what they were doing. She stared at them in amazement for an instant, and saw the look of horror on Phillip’s face, before she turned away to let them dress, but then she turned back to them in total fury.

She addressed herself to Yvonne first, and without an instant’s hesitation. “How dare you do this to Julian? How dare you, you tramp, with his own brother, in his own home under my roof! How dare you!” But Yvonne only tossed her long, blond hair over one shoulder and stood there. She hadn’t even bothered to get dressed, and she stood there without shame in all her naked beauty.

“And you!” She turned to Phillip then. “Always sneaking around … always cheating on your wife, and consumed with jealousy for your brother. You make me sick. I am filled with shame for you, Phillip.” And then she looked at both of them as she stood there shaking, for Julian, for herself, for what they were doing to each other’s lives and their complete lack of respect for everyone around them. “If I discover that you are continuing this, that this happens again, anywhere, I will tell Cecily and Julian immediately. And I will have you both followed in the meantime.” She had no intention of doing it, but nor did she intend sanctioning their infidelities, particularly not in her own home, and at the expense of Julian, who didn’t deserve it.

“Mother, I … I’m terribly sorry.” Phillip had managed to cover himself with a horse blanket by then, and he was mortified at having been discovered. “It was one of those unusual things … I don’t know what happened …” he blustered, on the verge of tears.

“She does,” Sarah said brutally, looking straight at her. “Don’t ever let it happen again,” she said, looking deep into her eyes. “I warn you.” And then she turned on her heel and left. And once she had left them, and was outside again, she leaned against a tree and cried, out of grief and shame and embarrassment for them, and herself. But as she walked slowly back to the château, all she could think of was Julian and the pain he had coming to him. How foolish her children were. And why was she never able to help them?

Chapter 29

VONNE was unusually quiet with Julian on the ride home from the château. She didn’t seem upset, but she just didn’t talk much. There had been an odd atmosphere in the air the day they left, almost like a storm, Xavier had said innocently to his mother after they were gone. But the weather was hot and relentlessly sunny. Sarah had said nothing to anyone about what she’d seen, but Phillip and Yvonne knew. That was enough. And the others just moved along, oblivious to what had happened the night before in the stables, which was just as well. Everyone would have been stunned, except maybe Lorenzo, who would have been amused, and Julian who would have been devastated.

And when they got to Paris, Julian asked Yvonne gently if anything had happened to upset her.

“No.” She shrugged. “I was just bored.” But when he tried to make love to her that night, she resisted.

“What’s wrong?” He persisted in asking her, she had been so enthusiastic about it the night before, and now suddenly she was so cool. She was unpredictable all the time, mercurial, but he liked that. Sometimes he liked it best when she resisted him, it only made her more exciting. He reacted that way to her resisting him now, but this time she wasn’t playing.

“Stop it … I’m tired … I have a headache.” She had never used that excuse before, but she was still annoyed about the performance the night before, with Sarah acting like she owned the world and threatening them, and Phillip grovelling to her like a child. She had been so angry, she had slapped him afterwards, hard, and he had gotten so excited they’d made love again. They hadn’t left the stables until six o’clock that morning. And now she was tired and annoyed that all of them were so affected by their mother. “Leave me alone,” she repeated to him. They were all nothing but mama’s boys, and their damn snob of a sister. She knew that none of them approved of her. But she didn’t care. She was getting what she wanted. And now maybe she’d get more of it, if Phillip did what he said he would, and came to see her from London. She could still use her old studio on the Île Saint Louis, or go to the hotel where he stayed, or make love to him right here in Julian’s bed, if she wanted, no matter what the old bitch said. But she was in no mood for any of them just then, least of all her husband.

“I want you now…” Julian was teasing her, excited by her refusal, and sensing something animal and strange, like a predator who had somehow come too near him. It was as though he sensed someone else’s scent on her, instinctively, and he wanted her now to make her his again. “What’s wrong?” he kept asking, trying to excite her with his deft fingers, but she kept him away this time, which was rare for her.

“I forgot to take the pill today,” she said, and he whispered huskily as he brushed against her.

“Take it later.” But the truth was that she had run out the day before, and now she wanted to be careful for a few days. She’d had enough abortions to last a lifetime, and the one thing she didn’t want was brats. Julian’s or anyone else’s. And when he pressed her about it eventually, she was going to quietly go and get her tubes tied. That would make things easier, but for right now things weren’t quite that easy. “Never mind the pill.” He played with her, and turned her over to face him, and then as he did, just as his brother had the night before, he was overwhelmed with desire for her, just as men always had been, since she was twelve and she began to learn just exactly what it was they wanted. She knew what Julian wanted now, but she didn’t want to give it to him. She preferred torturing him. She lay with her legs open, and her eyes wide, and if he came near her, she was going to hit him. But he couldn’t stop himself by then. She had pushed him too far, denying him, and lying there, naked and lovely, with her legs apart, her body calling to him, while she pretended not to.

He took her quickly and hard, and she was surprised by the force of it, as she shuddered with pleasure, too, and then afterwards groaned at how stupid she had been. But she always was and this time she was really angry.

“Shit!” she said, as she rolled away from him.

“What’s wrong?” He looked hurt, she was behaving very strangely.

“I told you I didn’t want to do it. What if I get pregnant?”

“So?” He looked amused. “We have a baby.”

“No, we don’t,” she spat at him. “I’m too young … I don’t want a baby now. We just got married.” She wasn’t ready yet to tell him more than that, and she knew how much he wanted children.

“All right, all right. Go have a hot bath, or a cold shower, or a douche or something, or take the pill. I’m sorry.” But he didn’t look it as he kissed her. He would have liked nothing better than to get her pregnant.

But three weeks later, he came home unexpectedly in the afternoon, and found her retching over the toilet.

“Oh, poor baby,” he said, helping her to bed. “Is it something you ate, or flu?” He had never seen her so sick, as she looked at him with eyes filled with hatred. She knew it too well. It was the seventh time for her. She’d had six abortions in the last twelve years, and she was going to have another one this time. She got sick from the first moment, the first hour, and she always knew, as she did this time.

“It’s nothing,” she insisted, “I’m fine.” But he hated to leave her again, to go back to the office. He made her soup that night, and she threw that up too. The next morning she wasn’t much better, so he came home early without warning to take care of her. She was out when he answered the phone, and the receptionist at her doctor was calling to confirm that her abortion was the following morning.

“Her what?” he shouted into the phone. “Cancel it! She won’t be there.” He called his office then, cancelled the rest of his afternoon, and waited for her. She came back at four, and she was in no way prepared for his fury when she walked back into the apartment.

“Your doctor called,” he explained, and she looked at him, wondering if he knew, but only for an instant. After that, there was no doubt at all as to what he knew or how he felt about it. He was livid. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

“Because it’s too soon … we’re not ready for it … and …” She looked at him and wondered if he’d believe her. “The doctor said it was too soon after the abortion Klaus forced me to have.”

He almost bought it for an instant and then he remembered. “That was last year.”

“I haven’t fully recovered yet.” She started to cry. “I want our baby, Julian, but not yet.”

“Sometimes these choices aren’t ours to make, and we have to make the best of it. I don’t want you to have an abortion.”

“Well, I do.” She looked at him stubbornly. She wasn’t going to let him talk her out of it. Besides, this was no time for her to be pregnant. Phillip was coming over to see her and she didn’t want a big belly now, or a baby at the end of it, or any of it. She wanted it out of her body, now, or at the very least by the next morning.

“I’m not going to let you do this.” They fought about it all night, and he refused to go to work the next day, for fear that she’d go to her doctor, and then when she realized how serious he was, she really got nasty. She was fighting for her life, or she thought she was, and she cut him to the quick as he listened.

“Listen, dammit, I’m going to get rid of it no matter what you do … it probably isn’t even your baby.” Her words stunned him, like a knife to his heart, and he backed away from her as though he’d been shot, unable to believe her.

“Are you telling me this is someone else’s child?” He stared at her in horror and amazement.

“It could be,” she said, without expression or feeling.

“Do you mind if I ask whose? Has that little Greek shit been back again?” He had seen him twice before they were married and he knew Yvonne thought he was very sexy. But suddenly she thought it was all a big joke. His baby was probably actually the next Duke of Whitfield, not the son of the second son at all, but the son of His Grace, the Duke of Whitfield. She started laughing until she couldn’t stop, she was hysterical, and then, beside himself, he slapped her “What’s happening to you? What have you been doing?” But she had given up by then, she knew that she had lost with Julian the moment she refused to have his baby. There was nothing more to get from him now. The game was over. It was time to concentrate on Phillip.

“Actually”—she grinned evilly at him—“I’ve been sleeping with your brother. The baby is probably his, so you don’t need to worry about it anymore.” But as Julian stared at her in horror and grief, he sat down on the bed and started to laugh at the same time he started to cry, as she watched him.

“That’s really very funny.” He wiped his eyes, but he was no longer laughing.

“Isn’t it? Your mother thought so too.” She decided to tell him everything now. She didn’t care. She had never loved him. It had been good for a while, but now they both knew it was over. “She found us in the stables at the château. Fucking.” He reeled at the word she used and the image it conjured.

“My mother knows about this?” He looked horrified. “Who else knows? Does Phillip’s wife?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I suppose we should tell her if I’m going to have his baby.” She was taunting him with that, because she wasn’t going to have anyone’s child, unless, of course, Phillip agreed to divorce Cecily and marry her, then she might agree to have his baby. It was called marrying up, and as an incentive, she might agree to have the baby.

But Julian was looking at her with broken eyes. “My brother had a vasectomy years ago, because his wife didn’t want any more children,” he said tonelessly. “Did he tell you that? Or didn’t he bother?” Julian knew just when it had happened and that it was his child. It had happened the night she had forgotten to take the pill and he had forced her. But then something else occurred to him, and he looked up at her with anger and hatred. “I don’t understand how you could do this to me, or why. I would never have done something like this to you.” He wouldn’t have because he was a decent person. “But I’ll tell you one thing now and you’d better believe me. If you married me for my money, you will not get one red cent from me unless you have this baby. If you get rid of it, I’ll see that you never get a penny from me, or my family, and don’t fool yourself, my brother won’t help you. That child inside you is a person, a real life … and it’s mine. And I want it. You can leave after that. You can go to Phillip if you want. He’ll never marry you. He hasn’t got the guts to leave his wife. But you can do anything you want, and I’ll give you a decent settlement. Maybe even a big one. But kill my baby, Yvonne, and it’s all over. You’ll never see a penny from me. And I mean that.”

“Are you threatening me?” She looked at him with such hatred that it was hard to believe he had ever thought she loved him.

“Yes, I am. I’m telling you that if you don’t have that baby, if you even accidentally lose it, I’m not giving you one cent. Keep it, have it, give it to me, and you can have a divorce from me, and a settlement … with honors. … Is that a deal?”

“I’ll have to think about it.” He walked across the room toward her, feeling violent about a woman for the first time in his life, grabbed her long blond hair, and pulled it. “You’d better think fast, and if you kill my baby, I swear I’ll kill you.”

He threw her away from him, then, and left the house. He was gone for hours, and he drank and cried, and when he came back he was so drunk he had almost forgotten what he was upset about, but not quite. And in the morning, she told him that she would go through with it, and have the baby. But she wanted a settlement from him first. He told her he’d call his lawyers as soon as he got to the office. But he made it clear to her that he wanted her living with him, she could move into the guest room, but he wanted to know that she was taking care of herself, and he wanted to be there when she had the baby.

She looked at him venomously and spoke in a hard, vicious tone that left no doubt in anyone’s mind how she felt about him, or his baby.

“I hate you.”

And she hated every single moment of being pregnant. Phillip came over to visit her for the first few months, but eventually after Christmas it just got too awkward. She was no fun for him then anymore, and the situation was too complicated. He didn’t mind Julian knowing what he was about, in fact he rather liked it. But he knew his mother did as well, and he didn’t want to run into her. He told Yvonne they’d go for a holiday in June after she had the baby. And she hated Julian even more after that. As far as she could see, he had ruined everything, and was costing her everything she wanted. She wanted Phillip more than anything in life, and she wanted to be his duchess. He had said he might leave his wife eventually, but just then it wasn’t the right time as her mother was very ill, and she was deeply upset, and with the baby. … He urged her to wait and stay calm, and hearing that only made her more hysterical and angrier at Julian. And then she began calling Phillip every day, taunting him, teasing him on the phone, in the office, at home, at all the most awkward moments possible, reminding him of the things they’d done, and suddenly he was begging for her again, throbbing, pounding, aching, and he could hardly wait till June. She had made him crazy for her again, and now the wait till June didn’t seem quite as painful. They spoke on the phone every day, usually several times, and always sexually, as she told him the things she was going to do to him when they went away after she had the baby. It was what Phillip wanted from her, and he loved it.

She and Julian barely spoke to each other. She had moved to another room, and she looked almost as bad as she felt. She threw up for six months, and then began again two months later. Julian thought that half of it was her resentment and her anger. And he saw the constant calls to Phillip on his bill, but he said nothing. He had no idea what would happen between them and he tried to tell himself he didn’t care, but he did, the whole experience had been incredibly painful. And the only thing that cheered him was the baby she had agreed to have and give him. She wanted no custody, no visitation rights, no claim on the child at all. The baby was Julian’s entirely. For a mere million dollars. Play or pay. And he agreed to pay it After she had the baby.

He had only one conversation with his mother about the whole affair, if only to explain to her why he would be selling some of his stock in the company. Paying off Yvonne was going to completely wipe out his savings, but he knew it was worth it.

“I’m sorry I got myself into this mess.” he apologized to Sarah one day, which she told him was absurd. It was his life, and he owed her no apologies and no explanations.

“You’re the only one who’s been hurt by it. I’m just so sorry it all happened,” she told him.

“So am I … but at least I’ll have the baby.” He smiled ruefully, and went back to the cold war in his apartment. He had already hired a nurse for the child, set a room aside for it, and Isabelle had even promised to come from Rome to help him. He had no idea how to care for a child, but he was willing to learn. Yvonne had already said she was going straight from the hospital to her own apartment. Their deal would be complete then. And her bank account a million dollars richer.

The baby wasn’t due till May, but in late April she started packing up her things, as though she couldn’t wait to leave, and Julian watched her in fascination.

“Don’t you feel anything for this child?” he asked sadly, let alone for him. But he knew the answer to that question long since. All she cared about was Phillip.

“Why should I? I’ve never seen it.” She had no maternal instincts, no feelings of remorse for him. The only thing she was interested in now was continuing her affair with Phillip. He told her he had made reservations in Mallorca for the first week in June. And she didn’t care where they went, just so she was with him. She was going to see to it that she got everything she wanted.

On the first of May, Julian got a call at his office. Lady Whitfield had just checked into the clinic in Neuilly, it was the same one where he had been born, unlike his more enterprising brother and sister who had been delivered by their father at the château.

Emanuelle saw him leave and asked if he’d like her to come with him, but he shook his head and hurried outside to his car, and half an hour later he was at the hospital, pacing up and down, waiting for them to let him into the delivery room, and for a moment he was afraid that Yvonne wouldn’t let him. But the nurse came in to him a few minutes later, handed him a green cotton suit and what looked like a shower cap, told him where to change, and then guided him to the delivery room, where Yvonne glanced up at him between pains with open hatred.

“I’m sorry…” He felt instantly sorry for her, and tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away from him and clutched the table. The contractions were terrible, but the nurse said it was going very well, very quickly for a first baby. “I hope it’s fast,” he whispered to Yvonne, not knowing what else to say to her.

“I hate you,” she spat out between clenched teeth, trying to remind herself that she was being paid a million dollars for this and it was worth it. It was a hell of a way to build a fortune.

Things slowed down then for a while, they gave her a shot, and it dragged on, as Julian sat nervously, wondering if everything was all right. It was so strange being here with this woman whom he no longer loved, and who clearly hated him, as they waited for their baby. It seemed very surreal, and he was sorry he hadn’t asked someone to come with him after all. He felt suddenly very lonely.

Her labor finally picked up again, and Julian had to admit he felt desperately sorry for her, it looked awful. Nature knew nothing of her indifference to this child, or the fact that she wasn’t keeping it, and it was making her pay a price for it nonetheless. She worked long and hard and momentarily even forgot her hatred of Julian and let him help her. He held her shoulders and her hands, and everyone in the room encouraged her until dark, and then suddenly, finally, there was a long, thin wail, and a tiny red face appeared angrily as the doctor held him. Yvonne’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at him, and she smiled for an instant, and then she turned her face away from him, and the doctor handed him to Julian, who cried openly, unashamed, and nuzzled the little face next to his own, as the baby stopped crying the moment he heard him.

“Oh God, he’s so beautiful,” he said in awe of his son, and then he gently held him toward Yvonne, but she shook her head and turned away again. She didn’t want to see him.

They let Julian take the baby back to the room with him, and he held him there for hours until they brought Yvonne back. And she asked him if he would leave, so she could call Phillip. She told the nurse to take the baby to the nursery, and not to bring him to her again, and then she looked at the man whose son she had just borne, and whom she had married, but her face was without emotion.

“I guess this is good-bye then,” she said quietly, but she held out no hand, no arms, no hope, and Julian felt sad for both of them, despite the arrival of the baby. It was an emotional day for him, and he cried easily as he looked at her and nodded.

“I’m sorry things worked out the way they did for us,” he said sadly. “The baby is so beautiful, isn’t he …”

“I guess so.” She shrugged.

“I’ll take good care of him,” he whispered, and then took a step closer to her and kissed her cheek. She had worked so hard for him and now she was giving him up. It tore at Julian’s heart, but not at Yvonne’s. He was the only one crying.

She looked at him matter-of-factly before he left. “Thanks for the money.” That was all he had ever meant to her. And he left her then, to her own life.

She left the hospital the next day. The funds were already in her bank account since that morning. True to his word, he had paid her a million dollars for their baby.

Julian took the baby home with the nurse. He had named him Maximillian. Max. And the baby looked it. Sarah drove up from the château with Xavier that afternoon to see him, and Isabelle flew in from Rome that night, and held him for hours in the rocking chair. In his short life, he had already lost his mother, but he had gained an adoring family who had waited for him lovingly. And Isabelle thought her heart would break with longing as she held him.

“You’re so lucky,” she whispered to her brother that night as they looked down at Max as he slept.

“I wouldn’t have thought so six months ago,” Julian said to her, “but I do now. It was all worth it.” He wondered where Yvonne had gone, how she was, if she was sorry, but he didn’t think so as he lay in bed that night, thinking of his son, and how lucky he was to have him.

Chapter 30

HE family reunited for Sarah’s birthday again that year, although not all of them. Yvonne was gone, of course, and Phillip had discreetly stayed away, after making excuses that he was just too busy in London. Sarah had heard a rumor from Nigel, who was still at work, that Phillip and Cecily were having a trial separation, but she didn’t say anything to Julian.

Julian came with Max, of course, and a nurse, but he did most of the work himself, and it was obvious that he loved it Sarah watched admiringly as he changed Max, bathed him, fed him, dressed him. The only painful thing was seeing Isabelle watching him. There was still a longing in her eyes that cut Sarah to the core. But they were freer to talk now, she had come to the château that summer without Lorenzo. It was also a special summer for all of them, because it was Xavier’s last one at home. He was starting Yale a year early, in the fall, at seventeen, and Sarah was very proud of him. He was majoring in political science with a minor in geology. And he was talking about doing his junior year somewhere in Africa, as a special project.

“We’re going to miss you horribly,” Sarah admitted to him, and everyone agreed with her. She herself was going to spend more time in Paris and less at the château, so she wouldn’t be so lonely. At sixty-six, she liked to claim that they all ran the business entirely, but she still kept a strong hand in it, as did Emanuelle, who had just turned sixty, which Sarah found even harder to believe than her own age.

Xavier was very excited about going to Yale, and Sarah couldn’t blame him. He would be coming back at Christmastime, and Julian had promised to go over and visit him when he had to go to New York on business. The two were chatting about it, as Sarah and Isabelle drifted off to the garden for a chat, and Isabelle asked her discreetly what was happening with Phillip. She had heard the rumor of his separation, too, and echoes of his affair with Yvonne had reached her through Emanuelle the previous summer.

“It was an ugly business,” Sarah said with a sigh, still shaken by it. But Julian seemed to have come out of it pretty well, especially now with the baby.

“We don’t make life easy for you, Mother, do we?” Isabelle asked ruefully and her mother smiled. “You don’t make life easy for yourselves.” But Isabelle laughed as she said it.

“There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Oh? Has Enzo finally agreed to move out?”

“No.” Isabelle shook her head slowly, and her eyes met her mother’s. But Sarah saw that she looked more peaceful than she had in a long time. “I’m pregnant.”

“You’re what?” This time Sarah was stunned, she had thought there was no hope of it. “You are?” She looked amazed and then thrilled as she put her arms around her. “Why darling, how wonderful!” And then she pulled away from her again, a little puzzled. “I thought … what did Lorenzo say? He must be beside himself.” But the prospect of cementing the marriage further wasn’t entirely good news to Sarah.

Isabelle laughed again in spite of herself at the absurdity of the situation. “Mother, it’s not his.”

“Oh dear.” Things were getting complicated again. She sat down on a little wall and looked up at Isabelle. “What have you been up to now?”

“He’s a wonderful man. I’ve been seeing him for a year…. Mother … I can’t help it … I’m twenty-six years old, I can’t lead this empty life. … I need someone to love … someone to talk to. …”

“I understand,” she said quietly, and she did. She had hated knowing how lonely Isabelle was and how little hope there was for her. “But a baby? Does Enzo know?”

“I told him. I was hoping it would make him so angry he’d leave, but he says he doesn’t care. Everyone will think it’s his. In fact, he told two of his friends last week and they congratulated me. He’s crazy.”

“No, greedy,” Sarah said matter-of-factly. “And the baby’s father? What does he say? Who is he?”

“He’s German. From Munich. He’s head of a very important foundation there, and his wife is very prominent and she doesn’t want a divorce. He’s thirty-six, and they had to get married when he was nineteen. They lead totally separate lives, but she doesn’t want the embarrassment of a divorce. Yet.”

“How does he feel about the embarrassment of an illegitimate baby?” she asked bluntly.

“Not great. Neither do I. But what choice do I have? Do you think Lorenzo will ever leave?”

“We’ll try. And what about you?” She looked at her daughter searchingly. “Are you happy? Is this what you want?”

“Yes, I really love him. His name is Lukas von Ausbach.”

“I’ve heard of the family, not that that means anything. Do you think he’ll ever marry you?”

“If he can.” She was honest with her mother.

“And if he can’t? If his wife won’t let him go? Then what?”

“Then at least I have a baby.” She had wanted one so badly, especially when she saw Julian with Max.

“When is it due, by the way?”

“February. Will you come?” Isabelle asked softly, and her mother nodded.

“Of course.” She was touched to be asked, and then suddenly she wondered. “Does Julian know about all this?” The two were always so close, it was hard to believe he didn’t. Isabelle said that she had just told him that morning. “What does he say?”

“That I’m as crazy as he is.” She smiled.

“It must be genetic,” Sarah said as she stood again, and they walked back to the château. One thing was certain, at least. Her children were never boring.

In September, Xavier left for Yale, as planned, and Julian went to New Haven in October to see him. He was doing well, loved the school, and had two very nice roommates, and a very attractive girlfriend. Julian took them out to dinner, and they had a good time. Xavier loved his American life, and he was planning to go to California to visit his aunt for Thanksgiving.

When Julian went back to Paris he heard that Phillip and Cecily were getting a divorce, and at Christmas he saw a photograph of his brother and his ex-wife in the Tatler. He showed it to Sarah when she was at the shop, and she frowned. She was not pleased to see it.

“Do you suppose he’ll marry her?” she asked Emanuelle when they talked about it later.

“It’s possible.” She no longer had the faith in him she once had had, especially lately. “He might even do it just to upset Julian.” His jealousy for him had never abated, it had grown worse over the years instead of better.

Xavier came home at Christmas and the days flew by, as usual. And when he left to go back to school, Sarah went to Rome, to keep an eye on the store and help Isabelle get ready for the baby.

Marcello was still there, working very hard, as Isabelle prepared to leave. And as it had been from the first, business was booming. Sarah smiled when she saw her daughter, rattling off instructions to everyone in Italian. She looked beautiful, and prettier than she ever had before, but she was absolutely enormous. It reminded her of when she’d been pregnant with her own children, who were always so large. But Isabelle seemed sublimely happy.

Sarah invited her son-in-law to lunch shortly after she arrived. They went to El Toulà, and shortly after the first course, Sarah got to the point. She didn’t mince words with Lorenzo this time.

“Lorenzo, we’re grown-ups, you and I.” He was very close to her age, and Isabelle had been married to him for nine years now. It seemed a high price to pay for a youthful mistake, and she was anxious to help her end it. “You and Isabelle haven’t been happy for a long time. This baby is… well, we both know the situation. It’s time to call it a day, wouldn’t you say?”

“My love for Isabelle will never end,” he said, sounding melodramatic as Sarah made a supreme effort not to lose her temper.

“I’m sure. But it must be very painful for both of you, and you certainly.” She decided to change tack with him and treat him as the wounded party. “And now this terrible embarrassment to you, with the baby. Wouldn’t you think it a good time to make some wise investments, and agree to leave Isabelle to a new life?” She didn’t know how else to say it. “How much” seemed a little blunt, though it was tempting. She was sorrier than ever that William wasn’t there to help her. But Enzo had gotten the point.

“Investments?” he asked, looking hopeful.

“Yes, I was thinking that American stock might be important for you to have, in your position. Or Italian, if you prefer it.”

“Stock? How much stock?” He had stopped eating in order to listen to every word she was saying.

“How much do you think?”

He made a vague Italian gesture as he watched her. “Ma … I don’t know … five … ten million dollars?” He was trying her out and she shook her head.

“I’m afraid not. One or two perhaps. But certainly no more than that.” Negotiations had begun, and Sarah was pleased with the way things were going. He was expensive, but he was also greedy enough to do what she wanted.

“And the house in Rome?”

“I’d have to discuss it with Isabelle, of course, but I’m sure she could find another one.”

“The house in Umbria?” He wanted everything.

“I really don’t know, Lorenzo. We’ll have to discuss that with Isabelle.” He nodded, not disagreeing with her.

“You know, the business, the jewelry store, it is going very well here.”

“Yes, it is,” she said vaguely.

“I would be very interested in becoming partners with you.” She wanted to stand up and slap him, but she didn’t.

“That will not be possible. We are talking about a cash investment, not a partnership.”

“I see. I will have to think about it.”

“I hope you do,” Sarah said quietly as she paid for the check, he made no move to take it from her. And Sarah said nothing to Isabelle about the lunch. She didn’t want to raise false hopes in case he decided not to take the bait, and maintain the status quo instead. But Sarah fervently hoped he wouldn’t.

The baby was still a month away, and Isabelle was anxious to introduce her to Lukas. He had taken an apartment in Rome for two months, looking into a project there, so he could be with her when she had the baby. And Sarah had to agree with her. She had done well this time. His only flaw was his wife and family in Munich.

He was tall and angular and young, with dark hair like Isabelle’s, he loved the outdoors, and skiing, and children, and art and music, and he had a wonderful sense of humor. And he tried to talk Sarah into opening a store in Munich.

“That’s not my decision anymore,” she said, laughing, but Isabelle wagged a finger at her.

“Oh, yes, it is, Mother, and don’t you pretend it isn’t.”

“Well, not mine alone at least.”

“What do you think then?” her daughter pressed her.

“I think it’s too soon to make that decision. And if you go to open a store in Munich, who will run Rome?”

“Marcello can run it blindfolded without me. And everyone loves him.” Sarah did, too, but opening yet another store was still a very big decision.

They spent a wonderful evening together, and Sarah told Isabelle afterwards that she was crazy about Lukas. She had another lunch with Lorenzo after that, but so far, he had made no final decision. Sarah had asked her discreetly how she felt about their two houses, and Isabelle had admitted that she hated them both, and didn’t care if Enzo took them, as long as she got the escape she wanted.

“Why?” she asked her mother, and Sarah was vague with her. But this time, at lunch, she pulled out her ace card and reminded Lorenzo that it would be grounds for an annulment in the Catholic Church, if Isabelle sought one on the basis of fraud, citing that he had entered into marriage knowing that he was sterile, but having concealed it from Isabelle. Sarah eyed him quietly but firmly, and almost laughed as she waited for him to panic. He tried to deny that he had known, but Sarah held her ground and didn’t let him. She reduced the cash offering from two million dollars to one, and offered him both houses. And he said he’d let her know, as he left her with the check and vanished.

Julian called them every few days to see how Isabelle was and if the baby had come, and by mid-February, Isabelle was going crazy. Lukas had to go back to Munich in two weeks, and the baby hadn’t come, and she was getting bigger by the minute. She had stopped work and she had nothing to do, she said, except buy handbags and eat ice cream.

“Why handbags?” her brother asked her, mystified, wondering if she had developed a new fetish.

“They’re the only thing that fit. I can’t even wear shoes anymore.”

He laughed at her, and then sobered when he told her that Yvonne had called him to tell him she was marrying Phillip in April. “That ought to be interesting in years to come,” he said ruefully to his sister. “How do I explain to Max that his aunt is really his mother, or vice versa?”

“Don’t worry about it. Maybe you’ll have found him a new mother by then.”

“I’m working on it,” he said, trying to sound light-hearted, but they both knew he was still deeply upset about Yvonne and Phillip. It had been a terrible blow to him, and a terrible slap in the face from Phillip, which was really why he’d done it. That and the fact that Julian’s wife had literally driven him crazy. “He must have always hated me a lot more than I realized,” he said sadly to his sister.

“He hates himself most of all,” she said wisely. “I think he’s always been jealous of all of us. I don’t know why. Maybe he liked having Mother to himself during the war or something. I just don’t know. But I can tell you one thing. He’s not a happy person. And he’s not going to be happy with her. The only reason she’s marrying him is so that she can be the Duchess of Whitfield.”

“Do you think that’s really it?” He wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse, but at least it was some explanation.

“I’m sure of it,” Isabelle said without hesitation. “The minute she met him you could hear bells going off that this was the big time.”

“Well, he’s getting a great piece of ass anyway.” He laughed, and she chuckled.

“You sound like you’re feeling better.”

“I hope you feel better soon too. Get rid of that baby,” he teased her.

“I’m trying!”

She did everything she could. She walked miles with Lukas every day, she went shopping with her mother. She did exercise, she went swimming in a friend’s pool. The baby was three weeks overdue and she said she was going to go crazy. And then finally, one day, after an endless walk, and a bowl of pasta in a trattoria, she started to feel things happen. They were at Lukas’s place, where she was staying. She hadn’t even spoken to Lorenzo in two weeks and she had no idea what he was up to, nor did she care now.

Lukas made her get up again as soon as she said something to him that night, and made her walk around the apartment, insisting that it would get things going. She called her mother at the hotel, and she came over in a taxi, and they sat around until midnight, drinking wine and talking, and by then Isabelle was starting to look distracted. She wasn’t laughing at their jokes, or paying much attention to what they said, and she started getting irritable with Lukas when he asked her how she was feeling.

“I’m fine.” But she didn’t look it. Sarah was trying to decide whether to go or stay, she didn’t want to intrude on them, and just when she had decided to leave, Isabelle’s water broke, and the pains suddenly got much worse. It made Sarah think of the past and when Isabelle herself had been born with such force and such speed, but she had been Sarah’s fourth child, and this was her first. It wasn’t likely to be as speedy.

But when they called the doctor at the Salvator Mundi Clinic he said to come then, and not wait much longer. And as they all left for the via delle Mura Gianicolensi in Lukas’s car, Sarah looked at her daughter with excitement. She was finally going to have the baby she had wanted for so long. She only hoped that one day she would have Lukas too. She deserved him.

The nurses at the hospital were very kind, and they settled Isabelle in their birthing room, which was all very modern. It was a big, friendly suite, and they offered Sarah and Lukas coffee while they got Isabelle settled. Isabelle was feeling very uncomfortable by then, and an hour later she said she was feeling terrible pressure. And through it all, Lukas talked to her, and held her hands, and wiped her forehead with damp cloths, and her lips with Chapstick. He never left her alone or stopped talking to her for a moment, as Sarah watched them. It was wonderful to see them so close and so much in love, and once or twice, he almost reminded her of William. He wasn’t as distinguished, or as handsome, or as tall. But he was a good man, and a kind, intelligent one, and it was obvious that he loved her daughter. She liked him more every time she saw him.

And then finally, Isabelle began to push, as she crouched on the bed with Lukas holding her, and then she lay back again and he held her shoulders and rubbed her back. He was tireless, and Sarah felt useless, and then suddenly Isabelle worked even harder and the whole room seemed to buzz with action and encouragement, and then they saw the head. Sarah saw the baby come out herself. It was a little girl and she looked just like Isabelle, as Sarah began to cry, and looked at her daughter. Isabelle had tears of joy streaming down her face, as Lukas held her and she held her baby. It was a beautiful sight, an unforgettable moment, and when Sarah went back to her hotel at dawn, she felt bathed in love and tenderness for them.

The next morning when she called Lorenzo and asked him to come to see her, she resolved to pay him anything he wanted. But he had gotten the point at their last lunch. He wanted both houses, and they settled for three million dollars. It was a high price to pay to get rid of him, but Sarah didn’t doubt for a moment it was worth it.

She told Isabelle that afternoon when she went back to the hospital, and a huge grin of relief broke out on her face. “Do you mean it? I’m free?” Sarah nodded as she bent to kiss her. Isabelle said it was the best gift she could have given her. And Lukas smiled at her as he held their baby.

“Maybe you’d like to come back to Germany with me, Your Grace,” he said hopefully, and Sarah laughed.

Lukas extended his stay in Rome by another two weeks, but then he had to go back to Germany and attend to his business. Sarah stayed until Isabelle came home from the hospital and helped her find a new house. And Sarah fell in love with the baby. Her two latest grandchildren had been a huge hit with her, she raved to Emanuelle, little Max was the cutest thing she’d ever seen since Julian was running around, and little Adrianna was a real beauty.

And this year, on Sarah’s birthday, there was a most interesting group present. Isabelle came alone with the baby. And Julian with Max. Xavier was in Africa again for the summer, but he had shipped home two extraordinary emeralds for her, with exact instructions about how to cut them. They were going to make two huge, square rings, and he thought it would be fabulous if she wore one on each hand. She explained the whole idea to Julian when she showed him the stones and he was impressed. They were beauties.

Phillip came with Yvonne, which wasn’t easy for Julian, but they were married now. And Sarah sensed that there was a certain meanness which made Phillip come to the château with her, and shove it in Julian’s face. But Julian handled it very well, as he did everything. He was such a decent person that it would have been hard for him not to. And interestingly, Yvonne showed absolutely no interest whatsoever in the child she had borne die year before. She never even looked at him while she was there. She spent most of her time getting dressed and putting on her makeup, and complaining about her room, it was either too warm or too cold, or the maid hadn’t helped her. And she wore an inordinate amount of jewelry, Sarah thought, which was intriguing. She was obviously making Phillip spend his pennies on her, and she made everyone call her Your Grace, constantly, which amused them, especially Sarah, who called her that, too, and Yvonne seemed not to notice that everyone was laughing, even Julian.

But as usual, it was Isabelle who really surprised her, as she and Sarah played with Adrianna one afternoon on the lawn. She was six months old and just crawling, and she was very busy trying to eat a blade of grass when Isabelle told her mother that she was pregnant again, and the baby was due in March this time.

“I assume it is Lukas’s baby, isn’t it?” she asked calmly.

“Of course.” Isabelle laughed. She adored him, and she’d never been happier. He was spending about half of his time in Rome and the other half in Munich, and it seemed to be working out pretty well, except for the fact that he was still married, though barely.

“Is there any chance he’ll be getting divorced soon?” her mother asked, but Isabelle shook her head honestly.

“I don’t think so. I think she’s going to do everything she can to resist it.”

“Does she realize he has a family somewhere else? With two children? That might get the point across.”

Isabelle nodded. “Not yet. But he says he’ll tell her, if he has to.”

“Isabelle, are you sure?” Sarah asked. “What if he never leaves her, if you’re alone with these children forever?”

“Then I’ll love them, and I’ll be happy to have them, just like you when you had Phillip and Elizabeth, and Daddy was away during the war, and you never knew if you’d see him again. Sometimes there are no guarantees,” she said wisely. She was getting smarter. “I’m willing to accept that possibility.” Sarah respected her for it, her life was certainly not conventional, but it was honest. And even Roman society seemed to have swallowed what had happened. She was back at the shop part-time, and designing jewelry, too, and things were going extremely well. She was still talking about a branch in Munich. Maybe if she ever married Lukas they would open a store there. There were some very knowledgeable people there and a real market for good jewelry.

Her divorce was due to come through by the end of the year, which meant that this baby would not have Enzo’s name, which was another obstacle for her to overcome, but Isabelle seemed ready to face it. Sarah wasn’t worried about her when she flew back to Rome with Adrianna. And after they all left, she found herself thinking, as she often did, what interesting lives they led. Interesting, but not easy.

Chapter 31

AVIER graduated from Yale three years later with honors, and his family was there to see him do it, or most of them anyway. Sarah and Emanuelle had arrived together. Julian had come to Yale, of course, and he’d brought Max, who was four, and busily embarking on destroying his surroundings wherever he went, and Isabelle had come, but she hadn’t brought the children. She was pregnant again, and they were used to seeing her that way by then. This was her third child in four years. And Adrianna and Kristian were in Munich with Lukas. He still hadn’t divorced his wife, but Isabelle seemed at peace with the situation. And predictably, Phillip and Yvonne hadn’t bothered to come. She was at a spa in Switzerland, and he said. He was too busy, but he sent Xavier a watch from their new line at Whitfield’s. Julian had designed it.

It was a lovely ceremony at Yale, and afterwards they all went to New York and stayed at the Carlyle. Julian kept teasing Xavier that it was time for him to open a shop in New York, and his brother diplomatically said maybe he would one day, but they all knew that he wanted to roam the world first. He was going back to Botswana the minute he left New York. He was flying to London and then straight down to Cape Town. And all he wanted for the next few years was to find rare stones for Whitfield’s. After that, maybe he’d settle down, but he made no promises to anyone that he ever would. He was far too happy in a jungle with a pick and a gun and a backpack to ever want the responsibility of a store like the ones in Paris and London and Rome. He much preferred being their man on the prowl, out in the wilderness somewhere. It suited him far better, and they respected him for that, although he was certainly different.

“I think it was that Davy Crockett hat you had when you were a kid,” Julian teased him. “I think it went to your brain or something.”

“It must have.” Xavier smiled, always unruffled by them. He was a handsome boy, and of all of them he looked the most like William, yet in all other ways he was the least like him. He had had a very interesting girlfriend at Yale. She was going to Harvard Medical School in the fall, but in the meantime, she had agreed to join him in Cape Town. But nothing was serious with him for the moment, except his travels, and his passion for stones. Sarah had worn the two enormous emerald rings that he’d found for her, to his graduation. She wore them almost every day, and she loved them.

Isabelle and Julian got a sitter for Max, and managed to have a drink in the Bemelmans Bar that night, as Bobby Short played in the next room, where Sarah and Emanuelle were. Xavier had gone to Greenwich Village with his girlfriend to have dinner.

“Do you think he’ll ever marry you?” Julian asked her honestly, looking at her big belly, but she only smiled and shrugged.

“Who knows? I’m not sure I care anymore. We’re as good as married. He’s there whenever I need him and the children are used to his coming and going.” She spent a lot of time in Munich with him now, whenever she could. It was a totally comfortable arrangement, and even Sarah had adjusted to it. Lukas’s wife had known about Isabelle for the past two years, but she still refused to divorce him. They had some very complicated family business dealings together, and some land holdings in the north they’d invested in, and she was doing everything she could to tie up his money and stop him from divorcing her. “Maybe one day. In the meantime, we’re happy.”

“You look it,” he had to admit. “I envy you all these kids.”

“What about you? I’ve been hearing little rumors in Rome,” she teased him.

“Don’t believe everything you read.” But he blushed as he said it. At nearly thirty-six, he had never remarried, but there was a woman he was very much in love with.

“Okay, then tell me the truth. Who is she?”

“Consuelo de la Varga Quesada. Mean anything to you?”

“Vaguely. Wasn’t her father the ambassador to London a few years ago?”

“Right. Her mother’s American, and I think she might be a vague cousin of Mother’s. Consuelo’s wonderful, I met her last winter when I went to Spain. She’s an artist. But she’s also Catholic, and I’m a divorced man. I don’t think her parents were too thrilled when she told them.”

“But you were never married in the Catholic Church, so in their eyes you were never married.” She was an expert on all that, after divorcing Lorenzo. At least that part of her life was over.

“That’s true. But I think they’re being cautious. She’s only twenty-five years old, and oh, Isabelle, she’s such a sweet girl, you’d love her. She adores Max, and she says she wants dozens of children.” She looked like a little girl herself, when Julian showed his sister a picture of her. She had huge brown eyes and long brown hair, and a smooth olive complexion that made her look faintly exotic.

“Is this serious?” If it was, it was the first really serious affair he’d had since Yvonne. For a long time, he had gone back to just playing.

“I’d like it to be. But I really don’t know how her parents are going to feel about me. Or how she will.”

“They should feel very lucky. You’re the nicest man I know, Julian,” she said, and kissed him gently. She had always loved him dearly.

“Thank you.”

The next morning they all flew away again, like birds to their own destinations. Julian to Paris, and then to Spain, Isabelle to Munich to be with Lukas and her children, Sarah and Emanuelle back to Paris too. And Xavier to Cape Town with his girlfriend.

“What a migratory bunch we are, spread all over the world, like nomads,” Sarah said as they took off on the Concorde.

“I wouldn’t call it that.” Emanuelle smiled at her. She and the Minister of Finance were about to go on a long vacation. His wife had finally died that year, and he had just asked her if she would marry him. It had actually come as a shock to her after all these years. But she was sorely tempted. They had been together for so long and she really loved him.

“You should marry him,” Sarah urged her as they drank champagne and ate caviar.

“After all these years, the aura of respectability might be too great a shock to my system.”

Sarah patted her hand and grinned. “Try it.”

When they landed, Sarah went back to the château, thinking about all her children. She only hoped that Isabelle didn’t wait as long to get married as Emanuelle had. It amused her to think of Emanuelle married now … how long they had been friends … how far they had come … how much they had learned together.

Chapter 32

ARAH moved slowly back toward the window again, to watch them. How funny they were … how different … how beloved. It made her smile to watch them as they emerged from their cars. Phillip and Yvonne from the Rolls, she looked beautiful and overdressed and overjewelled, as usual. At thirty-five, she was aging well, she still looked like a girl of twenty, but she worked hard at it, as she did everything she did. She thought of herself, and no one else, and what she wanted. Phillip had learned that lesson a long time since. He was still enthralled with her after nine years, but his duchess was most emphatically a mixed blessing. There were times when he wondered if Julian had actually been glad to be rid of her. It disappointed him to think so.

Isabelle arrived just after them, in an absurd van they had rented at the airport. She and Lukas unloaded prams and bicycles and baby things. There were their three children, and two by his former marriage. She looked up at the upstairs window then, as though sensing that Sarah was there, but she didn’t see her. Isabelle smiled at Lukas briefly as he handed her the baby and took their bags into the château. Their children were chattering loudly as they ran upstairs, wondering where their grandmother was, and then growing distracted before they found her. Isabelle stood for a moment and smiled at Lukas, as the noise echoed in the halls around them. Her marriage to him finally had been fruitful.

Julian arrived in the Mercedes 600 his father-in-law had insisted on giving him. It was an impossible car, in need of constant repair, but beautiful, and it held all his children. Consuelo held the two little girls’ hands as Julian helped her out, and they followed her, giggling, and looking just like their father. He was teasing Max, who was nine and very handsome. And as Consuelo turned you could see the full belly she carried well on her small frame. The new baby was due in the fall. Their third in four years. Julian and Consuelo had been busy.

And then at last, Xavier, his backpack over his arm, in an old jeep he had borrowed somewhere. He had a deep tan, and he had grown to be a strong, powerful man. She looked at him, overwhelmed with memories as she saw him. If she closed her eyes just a tiny bit, it was William coming toward her.

As she looked at them, she thought of him, the life they had shared, the world they had built, the children they had loved, who had stepped out into the world on their own, stumbled, and then righted themselves again. They were all strong, good, loving people. Some more than others, some were easier to understand, or easier to love. But she loved all of them. And as she again passed the table where the photographs were, she stopped to look at all of them … William … Joachim and Lizzie … they were still there in her heart too. They always would be. And then there was one of her, in her mother’s arms … brand-new … newborn … seventy-five years ago tomorrow.

Remarkable. It was amazing how fast it all went, how the moments flew … the good with the bad, the weak, the strong, the tragedies, the victories, the wins and the losses.

She heard a soft knock on the door of her room then. It was Max with his two little sisters.

“We were looking for you,” he said excitedly.

“I’m so glad you’ve come.” Sarah smiled at him, as she walked toward him, looking proud and tall and strong. She pulled him quickly into her arms and gave him a big hug, and then kissed both of his sisters.

“Happy Birthday!” they said, and as she looked up, she saw Julian in the doorway, and Consuelo … and Lukas and Isabelle, Phillip and Yvonne, and Xavier … and if she closed her eyes, she could still see William. She could feel him there with her as he had always been, at her side, in her heart, every moment.

“Happy Birthday!” they all shouted in unison, and she smiled at them, unable to believe that seventy-five precious years had passed so quickly.

a cognizant original v5 release october 06 2010

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Copyright © 1992 by Danielle Steel

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eISBN: 978-0-307-56654-6

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v3.0

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32