They all had a good time, staying at the Quisisana, and eating ice cream in the square, and Sarah couldn’t restrain herself from checking out the jewelry shops. She found the prices high, but some of their pieces very pretty. There wasn’t much for her to do there, except eat and read and relax, and spend time with the children. And she felt there was no harm in letting Isabelle go down to the beach club by herself in one of the beach taxis everyone took. She met her there later in the morning with Xavier, who always wanted to visit the little donkeys.

And one morning, when Isabelle went on ahead, Sarah and Xavier stopped a little longer on their way to the square, to do some shopping. They reached the Canzone del Mare just in time for lunch, and Sarah looked everywhere for her daughter, but she couldn’t find her. She was beginning to panic until Xavier found her sandals under a chair, and followed her trail into a little cabana. They found her there, with the top of her swimsuit off, with a man twice her age holding her breast, moaning, as she held the ominous bulge in his bikini

For an instant, Sarah only stared, and then without thinking she grabbed Isabelle by the arm and dragged her out of the cabana.

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing in there?” She raged at her and Isabelle burst into tears, as the man emerged trying to regain his composure as he wrapped himself rather unsuccessfully in a towel. “Do you realize my daughter is sixteen years old?” she said to him in a venomous voice, trying to keep control of herself with difficulty. “I could call the police.” But she knew that the one she should give them was her daughter. She was only trying to frighten him so he didn’t do it again, and she saw that she had hit her mark from his expression. He was a very attractive man, from Rome, and he looked like something of a playboy.

“Signora, mi dispiace … she said she was twenty-one. I am so sorry,” he apologized profusely and looked regretfully at Isabelle, sobbing hysterically as she stood next to her mother. They went back to the hotel, and Sarah suggested in icy tones that she spend the rest of the afternoon in her room, and then they would talk about it again. But as she went back to the beach with Xavier she knew she had to do more than talk now. Phillip and Julian were right. Isabelle needed to go away to school. But where? That was the question.

“What were they doing in there?” Xavier asked with curiosity as they passed the same cabana again, and Sarah shuddered at what she’d seen.

“Nothing, darling, they were playing silly games.”

She kept a short rein on Isabelle after that, and the rest of the holiday wasn’t quite as much fun. But by the next day, Sarah had made several phone calls. She had found a wonderful school for her, near the Austrian border, close to Cortina. She could ski all winter there, speak both Italian and French, and learn to control herself a little better. It was an all-girl school, and there was no brother school nearby. Sarah had asked very clearly.

She told Isabelle about it on the last day of the vacation, and she went through the roof predictably, but Sarah stood her ground, even when Isabelle cried. It was for her own good. If she didn’t do it, she knew that Isabelle was going to do something very stupid before too long, and maybe even get pregnant.

“I won’t go!” she raged. She even called Julian at the shop in Paris. But he stood behind his mother this time. And after Capri, they went to Rome to buy her what she needed. The school term was starting in a few days, and there was no point taking her back to France to get into more trouble. Sarah and Xavier delivered her there, and she looked mournful as she saw the place. It was very pretty, and she had a big, sunny room of her own. The other girls looked very nice. They were French and English and German and Italian, two Brazilians, an Argentine girl, and one from Tehran. It was an interesting group, and there were only fifty girls in the school. Isabelle’s school in La Marolle had given it the highest recommendation, and the headmaster had congratulated Sarah for her good judgment.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me here,” she wailed, but Sarah couldn’t be moved. They left her there, and Sarah herself cried all the way to the airport. And then she and Xavier flew to London to visit Phillip. After leaving her son with his nephew and niece for lunch, she went directly to the London store. Everything seemed fine. She had lunch with Phillip, and she was startled to hear him make several nasty remarks about his brother.

“What’s that all about?” Sarah asked candidly. “What’s he done to get you so annoyed?”

“He and his damn stupid ideas about design. I don’t understand why he has to meddle in that sort of thing,” he ranted on at her, and she answered quietly.

“Because I asked him to. He’s very talented with design. Far more than you and I, and he understands important stones and what you can and can’t do with them.” He had recently set a maharaja’s emerald that had been over a hundred carats, and anyone else would have cracked it. But Julian understood exactly what to do with it, and had overseen every single moment it spent in the workroom.

“There’s no harm in his doing that. You’re good at other things.” Sarah reminded him. He was wonderful at dealing with the royals, and keeping them foremost in that market. Stuffy as he was, they loved him.

“I don’t know why you defend him all the time,” Phillip said irritably.

“If it’s any consolation, Phillip,” she said, refusing to rise to the bait, but disappointed at how jealous he still was. He was worse than ever. “I always defend you too. I happen to love both of you.” He didn’t answer her, but he looked slightly mollified as he asked about Isabelle, and told her he’d heard very good things about the school.

“Let’s hope they work a miracle,” Sarah said softly.

And as they walked back to his office, she noticed a very pretty girl leaving the building. She had long, shapely legs, and wore a very short skirt, that looked like something Isabelle would wear, and she gave him a knowing glance that concealed very little. He looked furious with her while trying to pretend not to know her. The girl was new and had no idea that Sarah was his mother. Stupid bitch, he thought to himself, but in an instant, Sarah had seen the look that passed between them, although she didn’t say anything to him. But he felt obliged to explain it to her, which made their situation even more obvious to Sarah.

“It doesn’t matter, Phillip. You’re thirty-three years old, what you do is your affair.” And then she decided to be brazen anyway, “Where does Cecily stand these days?” He looked shocked and actually blushed at the question.

“I beg your pardon. She’s the mother of my children.”

“Is that all?” Sarah eyed him coolly.

“Of course not, I … she … she’s away at the moment. For heaven’s sake, Mother …that was just a joke, that girl flirting with me.”

“Darling, never mind.” But he was still obviously up to his old tricks, sleeping with tarts, the girls with whom he had “fun,” as he used to say, while being married to the other. She was sorry for him that he hadn’t been able to find both in one, but he never complained to her, so she let the matter drop, and he was relieved.

And the next day, she and Xavier flew back to Paris, where Julian met them at the airport. On the short trip Sarah told her son about seeing the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London with his father when she first met him.

“Was he very strong?” Xavier asked, always fascinated to hear about his father.

“Very.” She assured him. “And very good, and very smart and very loving. He was a wonderful man, sweetheart, and you’ll be like him one day. You already are, in some ways.” And so was Julian.

They had dinner with Julian in Paris on the way home, and he was happy to see them and hear about Isabelle, and the store in London. She said nothing about her encounter with Phillip, or his comments about Julian. She didn’t want to stoke the fires that already raged between them. Eventually Sarah drove back to the château with the car she had left in Paris. Xavier slept during the trip in the car, and she looked at him from time to time, asleep beside her, thinking how lucky she was to have him. While other women spent occasional Saturdays with their grandchildren at her age, she had this enchanting little boy to share her life with. She remembered how distressed she had been when she first found out she was pregnant, and how reassuring William had been … and her late mother-in-law, who had called William a great blessing. And so he had been to everyone who had known him for his entire life, and now this child was to her … her own very special blessing.






Chapter 26





SABELLE wrote to them as seldom as she could, and only when her preceptors forced her to, and she complained bitterly about the school when she did write. But the truth was, after the first few weeks, she loved it. She loved the sophistication of the girls she met there, the places they went, and she loved skiing in Cortina. She met even more interesting people there than she did in France, and although the school kept a short rein on her, she managed to make a lot of friends in the racier Roman set, and she was always getting letters and phone calls from men, which the school made every effort to discourage, but couldn’t stop completely.