Jewels (23 page)

“How sad. Why hasn’t anyone ever tried to fix it up, I wonder.”

“It would take too much money probably. The French have had some hard times. And places like this aren’t easy to run once you restore them.” He knew only too well how much money and attention it took to run Whitfield, and this would be far more costly.

“I think it’s a shame.” She looked sad as she thought of the old house, thinking of what it might have been, or had been once. She would have loved to roll up her sleeves and help William restore it.

They got back in the car and he looked at her curiously. “Are you serious, Sarah? Do you really love this place? Would you really like doing something like this?”

“I’d love it.” Her eyes lit up.

“It’s a hell of a lot of work. And it doesn’t really work unless you do some of it yourself. You have to hammer and bang and work and sweat along with the men who help you do it. You know, I saw Belinda and George restore their place, and you have no idea how much work that was.” But he also knew how much they loved it, and how dear to them it had become in the process.

“Yes, but that place is much more complicated than this, and it’s a lot older,” Sarah explained, wishing she could wave a magic wand and take possession of the Château de le Meuze.

“This wouldn’t be easy either,” William said intelligently. “Absolutely everything needs to be restored, even the caretaker’s cottage and the barns and stables.”

“I don’t care,” she said stubbornly. “I’d love to do something like this”—she looked up at him—“if you’d help me.”

“I thought I was beyond taking on a project like this. It’s taken me fifteen years to get Whitfield running right, but I don’t know, you make it sound very exciting.” He smiled at her, feeling lucky and happy again, as he had since they’d met.

“It could be so wonderful….” Her eyes glowed at him, and he smiled. He was putty in her hands, and he would have done almost anything she wanted.

“But in France? What about England?” She tried to be polite about it, but the truth was that she had fallen in love with the place, but she didn’t want to be pushy with him. Perhaps it was far too expensive, or maybe just too much work.

“I’d love to live here. But maybe we could find something like it in England.” But there didn’t seem to be much point. He already had Whitfield, and thanks to him, it was in excellent repair. But here it was different. It could have been someplace of their own that they could put back together with their own hands, something they could create and rebuild side by side. She had never been as excited about anything in her whole life, and she knew it was really crazy. The last thing they needed was a ramshackle château in France. She tried to forget about it as they drove away, but for the rest of the trip, all she could think of was the lonely château she had come to love. All it needed, she thought, was people to love it. It almost seemed to have a soul of its own, like a lost child, or a very sad old man. But whatever it was, it was not destined to be hers, she knew, and she never mentioned it again once they went back to Paris. She didn’t want him to feel she was pressing him, and she knew how impossible her fascination with it was.

It was Christmas week by then, and Paris looked beautiful. They went to dinner once at the Windsors’, at their house on the Boulevard Suchet, which had been decorated by Boudin. And the rest of the time they spent alone, enjoying their first Christmas. William called his mother several times to make sure that she wasn’t lonely. But she was constantly out at neighboring estates, dining with relatives, and on Christmas Eve she was at Sandringham with the royal family for their traditional Christmas dinner. Bertie had sent a car, two footmen, and a lady-in-waiting especially for her.

Sarah called her parents in New York when she knew Peter and Jane would be there on Christmas Eve, and for a moment, she felt a little homesick. But William was so good to her, and she was so happy with him. On Christmas Day he gave her an extraordinary emerald-cut sapphire ring from Van Cleef, set with diamonds around it, and a beautiful bracelet from Cartier, made of diamonds and cabochon emeralds and sapphires and rubies, all in a flower design. She had seen one like it on the arm of the Duchess of Windsor and admired it. It was a very unusual piece, and when William gave it to her she was stunned.

“Darling, how you spoil me!” She was in awe of everything he’d given her, and there were bags and scarves, and books he knew she’d like, from vendors along the Seine, and little trinkets that made her laugh, like a doll that was just like one she’d told him she’d had as a little girl. He knew her so well, and he was so incredibly generous and thoughtful.

She gave him a brilliant blue enamel and gold cigarette case by Carl Fabergé, with an inscription from the Czarina Alexandra to the Czar in 1916, and some wonderful riding gear from Hermès that he had admired, and a very stylish new watch from Cartier. And on the back of it she had engraved, “First Christmas, First Love, with all my heart, Sarah.” He was so touched when he read it, there were tears in his eyes, and then he took her back to bed, and made love to her again. They spent most of Christmas Day in bed, enchanted that they hadn’t gone back to London for all the pomp and ceremony and endless traditions.

And when they woke up again late that afternoon, he smiled down at her as she slowly opened her eyes. He kissed her neck, and told her again how much he loved her. “I have something else for you,” he confessed. But he wasn’t sure if she would hate it or love it. It was the craziest thing he had ever done, the maddest moment in his life, and yet he had a feeling that she might truly love it. And if she did, it was worth all the trouble it had cost. He took a small box out of a drawer. It was wrapped in gold paper, and tied with a thin gold ribbon.

“What is it?” She looked at him with the curiosity of a child, while he quaked inside.

“Open it.”

She did, slowly, carefully, wondering if it was a piece of jewelry. It was small enough to be. But when she took the paper off, there was another smaller box inside, and in it was a tiny wooden house made of a matchbox. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, and she looked at him with her eyes filled with questions. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“Open it,” he said, sounding choked and terrified.

She opened the matchbox, and inside was a tiny slip of paper, which said only, “Le Château de la Meuze. Merry Christmas 1938. From William with all my love.”

Sarah looked at him in astonishment, as she read the words and suddenly understood what he’d done, and she gave a shout of amazement, unable to believe he’d done anything so wonderfully crazy. She had never, ever wanted anything as much.

“You bought it?” she asked wondrously, as she threw her arms around his neck, and tossed herself naked into his lap with excitement.
“Did
you?”

“It’s yours. I’m not sure if we’re crazy, or brilliant. If you don’t want it, we can just sell the land, and let it rot, or forget it.” It hadn’t cost him very much. It had just been a lot of trouble to put the deal together. But the amount he had paid for it had been pathetically small. It had cost him more to remodel his hunting lodge in England than to buy the Château de la Meuze with all its land and buildings.

She was so excited, she was beside herself, and he was thrilled that she was so pleased with his present. It had been more complicated than he thought. There were four heirs, two of whom were in France, one of whom was in New York, and the other was in the wilds of England. But his solicitors had helped him with all that. And Sarah’s father had contacted the woman in New York through the bank. They were distant cousins of the countess who had died eighty years before, just as the farmer had said. In fact, the people he had bought the château from were several generations removed from her, but no one had ever known what to do with the property or how to divide it, so they had abandoned it to its fate, until Sarah found it and fell in love with it.

And then she looked worriedly at William “Did it cost you a fortune?” She would have felt terribly guilty if it had, even though in her heart of hearts, she thought it was worth it. But the truth was that he had bought it for nothing at all. All four heirs were vastly relieved to be free of it, and none of them had been particularly greedy.

“The fortune will come when we try to restore it.”

“I promise you, I’ll do all the work myself … everything! When can we come back and start?” She was jumping up and down on him like a child as he groaned with mixed delight and anguish.

“We have to go back to England first, and I have to get a few things settled there. I don’t know … February perhaps … March?”

“Can’t we come sooner?” She looked like a happy little girl on Christmas morning as he smiled.

“We’ll try….” He was immensely pleased that she really liked it. He was excited about it now, too, and doing the work with her might actually be fun, if it didn’t kill them both “I’m happy that you like it. I had a bad moment or two, thinking that you had forgotten all about it, and didn’t really want it. And I promise you, your father thinks I’m quite mad. I’ll have to show you some of the cables sometime. He said this sounded almost as bad as that farm you tried to buy on Long Island, and it’s now completely obvious to him that we’re both mad and obviously well suited.” She giggled with glee, as she thought of the house again, and then she looked at William with a mischievous look of her own, which he was quick to notice.

“I have something for you too … I think … I didn’t want to say anything until we got back to England, and I was sure … but I think it’s possible … we might be having a baby …” She looked sheepish and pleased all at the same time, and he looked at her in wonder and amazement.

“So soon? Sarah, are you serious?” He couldn’t believe it.

“I think I am. It must have happened on our wedding night. I’ll be sure in a few more weeks.” But she had already recognized the early signs. This time she had recognized them herself.

“Sarah, my darling, you are truly amazing!” In one night they had acquired a family and a château in France, except the child had barely been conceived, and the château had been falling to rack and ruin for the better part of a century, but nevertheless they were both pleased.

They stayed in Paris, walking the Seine, and making love, and having quiet dinners in little bistros until just after the new year, and then they returned to London to be the Duke and Duchess of Whitfield.

Chapter 11

ILLIAM
insisted that Sarah go to his doctor on Harley Street, the moment they returned to London. And he confirmed what she had guessed weeks before. By then she was five weeks pregnant, and he told her that the child would be born in late August or early September. And he urged her to be cautious for the first few months because of the miscarriage she’d had. But he found her in excellent health, and congratulated William on his heir, when he came to fetch her. William was clearly very pleased with himself, and with her, and they told his mother when they went to Whitfield that weekend.

“My dear children, that is marvelous!” she raved, acting as though they had accomplished something no one else had since Mary with Jesus. “I might remind you that it took you thirty days what it took your father and me thirty years to accomplish. You are to be congratulated on your speed, and your good fortune! What clever children you are!” She toasted them and they laughed. But she was enormously pleased for them, and she told Sarah again that having William had been the happiest moment in her life, and had remained thus in all the years since then. But as the doctor had done, she urged her not to be foolish and overdo, lest it hurt the baby or herself.

“Really, I’m fine.” She felt surprisingly well, and the doctor had said they could make love, “reasonably,” he had suggested they not hang off the chandelier or try to set any Olympic records, which Sarah had passed on to William. But he was desperately afraid that making love at all would hurt her or the baby. “I promise you, it won’t do anything. He said so.”

“How does he know?”

“He’s a doctor,” she reassured him.

“Maybe he’s no good. Maybe we should see someone else.”

“William, he was your mother’s doctor before you were born.”

“Precisely. He’s too old. We’ll see someone younger.”

He actually went so far as to find a specialist for her, and just to humor him, she saw him, and he told her all the same things as kindly old Lord Allthorpe, who Sarah much preferred. And by then she was two months pregnant, and had had no problems.

“What I want to know is when are we going back to France,” she said after they’d been in London for a month. She was dying to get started on their new home.

“Are you serious?” William looked horrified. “You want to go now? Don’t you want to wait until after the baby?”

“Of course not. Why wait all these months when we could be working on it now? I’m not sick, for heaven’s sake, darling, I’m pregnant”

“I know. But what if something happens?” He looked frantic and wished she weren’t so determined. But even old Lord Allthorpe agreed that there was no real reason for her to stay at home, and as long as she didn’t wear herself out completely, or carry anything too heavy, he thought the project in France would be fine.