“I only want what’s best for you,” she told him as she kissed him, and he went into the city then, and she went back to Paris that afternoon with her two younger children. She took them back to the château, and left them with Julian, and then she went back to Paris for a few days to attend to business, but her heart wasn’t in it anymore, and all she wanted to do was go back to the château and visit his grave, which Emanuelle told her was morbid.

It took her a long time to feel like herself again, and it was only that summer that she felt halfway normal. And then Phillip announced to them that he was marrying Cecily Hawthorne. Sarah was sorry for him, but she would never have said so. They were going to live in his London flat, and spend a great deal of time at Whitfield. She would keep her horses there, but Phillip assured his mother that she could use the hunting box whenever she wanted. He and Cecily were taking over the main house of course. He never even mentioned the other children.

Sarah didn’t have to make any wedding plans. The Hawthornes did all that, and the wedding was held at their family seat in Staffordshire. The Whitfields arrived en masse, and Sarah took Julian’s arm. It was a Christmas wedding, and she had worn a beige wool Chanel suit for the wedding breakfast.

Isabelle was wearing a sweet white velvet dress, with a matching coat trimmed in ermine, and Xavier was wearing a little black velvet suit from La Châteleine in Paris. Julian looked incredibly handsome in his morning coat, as did Phillip. And the bride looked very nice in her grandmother’s lace dress. She was a little too tall for it, and the veil sat oddly on her head, and if Sarah had had someone to gossip with, like Emanuelle, who hadn’t come, she would have admitted that she looked awful, like a great dry stick of a girl, with no charm and no sex appeal whatsoever. She hadn’t even bothered to wear makeup. But Phillip seemed very pleased with her. The wedding was the week before Christmas, and they were spending their honeymoon in the Bahamas.

Sarah couldn’t help wondering what William would have thought of them. It depressed her as she went back to Claridge’s that night, that she didn’t like the first daughter-in-law she had, and she suddenly wondered if she’d have any better luck with the others.

It was an odd life. These children, who did such strange things. Who led their own lives, in their own way, with people who appealed to no one but themselves. It made her even lonelier for William as they flew back to Paris, and drove to the château. It was the first Christmas they’d spent without him … a year since he’d died … and Xavier would be two years old on New Year’s Day. Her mind was full of memories as they drove home. But as she pulled up slowly in front of the château at dusk, she saw a man standing there, who looked so familiar to her and yet so different. She wondered if she was dreaming, as she stared at him. But she wasn’t. It was he … and for a moment he looked as though he had barely changed. He walked slowly toward her with a gentle smile, and she could only stare at him. … It was Joachim.






Chapter 24





S Sarah stepped out of the Rolls in front of the château, she looked as though she had seen a ghost, and in some ways, she had. It had been almost twenty-three years since she’d seen him. Twenty-three years since he’d kissed her good-bye, and taken his troops back to Germany. She had never heard from him again, or known if he had lived or died, but she had thought of him often, particularly when she thought of Lizzie.