“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
But by the end of her first year, Sarah saw a marked change in her, and Emanuelle saw it too. Isabelle wasn’t necessarily better behaved, but she was a little more reasonable and a great deal more worldly. She had a better idea of what she could and couldn’t do, and how to behave with men without giving them an open invitation. In some ways Sarah was relieved, and in others she was worried.
“She’s a dangerous girl,” she said to Julian one day, and he couldn’t disagree with her. “She always reminds me of a bomb about to go off. But now it’s a much more complicated one … maybe a Russian one … or a very delicate missile …”
Julian laughed at the description of his sister. “I’m not sure you’ll ever be able to change that.”
“Neither am I. That’s what scares me,” his mother admitted. “And what about you?” She had been waiting for weeks to see him. “I hear you’re doing a little business with one of our best customers.” They both knew who she meant, and he wondered if Emanuelle had told her. “La Comtesse de Brise is a very interesting woman, Julian, and much more dangerous than your sister.”
“I know,” he confessed with a grin, “she scares me to death, but I adore her.” The late comte had been her third husband in fifteen years, and she was thirty-four years old, and she devoured men. And all she wanted now was Julian. She had bought half a million dollars in jewels in the past month, and she could certainly afford to pay for them, but she was still coming back for more, and die biggest jewel she wanted was him, as her plaything.
“Do you think you can manage that?” she asked him honestly. She was afraid he might get hurt, but so was he, so he was careful.
“For a while I play very carefully, Mother, I assure you.”
“Good.” She smiled at him. They were a busy lot, all of them, with their mischief and their mates, and their affairs. She only hoped Isabelle would make it through the second year of her finishing school in Switzerland. And in fact, she finished the year, and flew home on the day of Whitfield’s twenty-fifth anniversary party, which Sarah was giving at the château, for seven hundred guests from all over Europe. Every possible kind of press would be there, there would be fireworks, and most of Europe’s crowned heads, absolutely everyone who was anyone had been invited. Emanuelle and Julian had helped her organize everything. And Phillip and Nigel and Cecily were flying in for the party.
It was glorious. Everyone who was supposed to came, the food was exquisite, the fireworks extraordinary, and the jewels beautiful, most of them theirs. It was an absolutely perfect evening, and a major victory for Whitfield’s. The press raved, and even before they left, they all came to congratulate Sarah for her major coup, and she in turn thanked and congratulated all the people who helped her to put on the party.
“Has anyone seen Isabelle?” Sarah asked, already late into the night. She hadn’t been able to pick her up at the airport herself, but she had sent someone to pick her up and bring her to the party. She had seen her and kissed her when she arrived, before she was dressed, but she hadn’t seen her since then. The crowd was simply too large and she had too much to do to go and look for her. She had barely been able to find Phillip and Julian for most of the evening. Phillip had deserted his wife as the evening began, and seemed to spend a lot of time with a model who had done several ads for them, and he had been telling her how much he liked them, while dancing with her, and Julian had been very busy chasing some of his latest conquests, one of them married, and two of them slightly overaged, and all the others dazzling girls that every man in the place envied him, especially his brother.
They had sent Xavier to stay with friends for the night, so he wouldn’t get into too much mischief, although at nine and a half he was behaving better. Davy Crockett was no longer the thing. But James Bond was what really made him happy. Julian bought him every gimmick he could find, and had already snuck him into two of the movies.
Sarah had left a dress out for Isabelle. She had bought her a diaphanous pink organdy gown from the Emanuels in London, and she was sure that Isabelle would look like a fairy princess in it. She hoped that she wasn’t lying under a bush somewhere in that dress. She laughed to herself at the thought. But when she finally found her, there was no bush in sight, and she was dancing very sedately with an older man, and deep in conversation. Sarah glanced at her approvingly, and then waved to her and moved on. Her entire family looked wonderful that night, even her daughter-in-law, wearing a dress by Hardy Amies, and a hairdo by Alexandre. The Château de la Meuze looked like a fairyland. More than ever, she wished that William could see it. He would have been so proud of them, and maybe even of her … they had worked so hard on the château for so long. It was impossible to believe that it had ever been less than perfect, let alone ramshackle and rundown, as it had been when they found it. But that was all so long ago. Twenty-five years since Whitfield’s had begun … thirty-five since they had found the château on their honeymoon. Where did the time go?