They came back to the château for Christmas after the first year, but grudgingly, and Isabelle said nothing to any of them, but she gave her mother a very pretty Buccellati pearl-and-gold bracelet. She and Lorenzo left on Boxing Day to go skiing in Cortina. It was difficult to fathom what was happening with them, and she didn’t even open up with Julian. But it was Emanuelle who finally ferreted out the truth. She flew to Rome, after a business trip to London to see Nigel and Phillip, and afterwards she told Sarah that she thought Isabelle looked dreadful. She had circles under her eyes, she was rail thin, and she never laughed anymore. And each time she saw her, Lorenzo wasn’t with her.

“I think there’s trouble there, but I’m not sure she’s ready to admit it to you. Just be sure to leave the door open, and eventually she’ll come home. I promise.”

“I hope you’re right,” Sarah said sadly. The loss had weighed on her terribly. For all intents and purposes, in the past two years she had lost her last surviving daughter.






Chapter 27





T was an agonizing three years later, before Isabelle came back to Paris again. They came when Sarah invited them to Whitfield’s thirtieth-anniversary party at the Louvre. They had taken over part of it for a party. It had never been done before, and Emanuelle had had to use her government connections to get permission. The entire area around it was going to be closed, and it was going to take hundreds of museum guards and gendarmes to make it work. But Sarah knew it would. And Lorenzo knew it was an event not to miss. Sarah was stunned when they accepted. Isabelle and Lorenzo had been married for five years by then, and Sarah had almost resigned herself to the distance between them. She concentrated her energies and her affection on Xavier and Julian, and Phillip to some extent, as little as she saw him. He’d been married to Cecily for thirteen years by then, and his affairs were hinted at in the press, but never confirmed, usually, Sarah suspected, out of respect for his position. The Duke of Whitfield, according to some, was allegedly pretty dicey.