Keys to the Castle (11 page)

There were seven reception rooms downstairs. Most were empty. One housed a banquet table that could seat thirty-five and, Ash told her, had actually been assembled inside the dining hall because it was too large to be otherwise moved there. There was a library with soaring, arched bookshelves built of cypress from Spain, and, high in the room, a six-foot stained-glass window that depicted a young girl with flowers in her hair feeding a unicorn. The bookshelves were empty except for a few contemporary volumes from the 1970s and 1980s.

“The books were sold long ago,” Ash said apologetically. “So were the paintings. Although they were replaced with some very good copies.”

Sara flipped through a copy of something in French, and replaced it on the shelf. “That's so sad,” she said, and meant it. All of those generations of treasures, guarded so carefully over the years, now simply gone. No wonder Daniel had never talked about his home. For him, there was nothing left.

He took her upstairs, through the vast warren of bedrooms that comprised the second and third floors. To her surprise, a few of them were furnished like midclass hotel rooms, with plain industrial carpet covering the floor, standard-sized beds, and inoffensive decor. Three or four others were slightly more well-appointed, with antique furniture under dust covers, and faded carpets, and dressing rooms attached to each. None of them compared to the room in which she was staying. The bathroom fixtures were dated; the pedestal sinks rusted and chipped in places and the toilets of the pull-chain kind, but Sara was in awe of the intricate tile work, the hand-painted patterns, and gold borders.

“Some of the suites were used by family members,” Ash explained. “The others were made ready for special events with overnight guests. It doesn't happen often, but it's best to be prepared.”

Sara opened another door and was momentarily taken aback to note that it was occupied. The tall four-poster bed was rumpled, the brocade draperies were half-closed, and a suitcase stood open on the valet. A laptop computer glowed on the cherry Queen Anne desk.

“I'm afraid I didn't make my bed,” Ash apologized, but there was a twinkle in his eye when he said it. “The staff, you know.”

Sara smiled and started to close the door, but something on the desk caught her eye. It was Daniel's book. She walked over and picked it up, feeling a familiar tightening in her chest as she did so. She glanced at Ash. “Did you read it?”

He came inside the room. “Yes.”

She opened the book, touching the pages. “What did you think?”

He hesitated for only a moment. “I thought it was utter drivel.”

Sara laughed softly, briefly. “So did he. But I liked it. I just wish . . .” But she stopped before finishing the thought, because now she didn't know what she wished. She replaced the book and looked at Ash. “What's next?”

He took her up a winding stone staircase into the attics, which were layered in dust and cobwebs. The floors were water-stained and the walls were streaked. Except for a few pieces of broken furniture, empty picture frames, and cracked mirrors, they were barren. They descended to the main sleeping floor again and Sara turned toward a set of arched wooden doors adjacent to the stairwell. When she tried to open them they wouldn't budge.

“Where does this go?” she asked. “It's locked.”

Ash came over to her. “That leads to the west wing, and another set of empty rooms. It's been closed off as long as I can remember.”

“Is there a key?”

His brow furrowed. “I really don't know. I could check for you. A complete inventory was done after Daniel's parents died. Come along.” He touched her shoulder lightly. “There's one more thing I want to show you.”

They descended the grand staircase again, through what Ash called “the small reception room,” which had two fireplaces, three chandeliers, and four separate sitting areas under dust covers. Adjacent to it was perhaps one of Sara's favorite rooms, a small morning room with a bank of leaded glass windows that looked out onto a walled garden. It was into this garden, through a heavy glass-paned door, that Ash led her now.

“This is the shortest route,” he explained. “Otherwise, we'd have to go clear around the central tower. The problem with these old places is that no one seems to have had a plan. Careful on the path, now.” He touched her elbow to guide her.

The stone path was so old that the pavers were half-sunk into the ground, almost swallowed in places by the neatly mowed carpet of mixed grasses the garden had become. Though nothing grew there now but a few carefully kept miniature flowering trees, Sara could see the worn stone outlines of former flower beds, and imagined what the garden must have looked like when some woman loved it. Morning glories trailed up the sun-bleached limestone wall, and one whole section was covered with ivy. As she watched, a small blue lizard darted across the top of the wall for the safety of the ivy. She thought what a lovely spot this would be to place a table, chairs, perhaps a wicker settee for reading a book or drowsing in the sun.

Ash opened a wooden gate set into a hedge, and when he did the gate sagged and scraped against the stone. He shrugged and left the gate unlatched. Sara breathed deeply of an aroma so sweet she felt as though she had stepped into a perfume factory, and then looked around and realized that she had, in fact, walked into another enormous walled garden. This one was filled with riotous purple lavender.

“Oh my goodness,” she said softly, turning around. She could see, by the occasional glimpses of bone-white stone on the ground, that there had once been a circular pattern to the plantings, but now it was simply an unfettered festival of color and scent.

Ash responded to her delight with a dismissive, “It certainly has grown wild, hasn't it?” He brushed aside a trailing vine that partially obscured another set of glass-paned doors and pushed them open with a creak. He stood aside, holding back the persistent vine, so that she could precede him.

Sara reluctantly left the fragrant garden and, ducking under the vine, stepped inside. There she could do nothing but stare.

She was standing in an enormous stone room, glass walled on three sides, and paned in glass overhead. The floor was a pale, faded brick; the first brick she had seen in the house. The glass was so thick with grime that it was almost opaque, and missing entirely in a few places, and the room smelled like a cave—old and damp and deserted. There were alcoves carved into the walls that held dark, mossy statues. And in the center of it all was a huge, open concrete pit.

“Unbelievable, isn't it?” Ash said behind her. His voice echoed in the empty space. “It was originally an orangery, when such things were popular. Someone in the 1920s, I believe, got the notion to install the swimming pool. Of course no one ever quite figured out how to heat it properly, and eventually it cracked and developed a leak that flooded this entire section of the house, and took out part of the hill beyond. If you'll look on the other side, there, you'll notice that the floor actually slopes several inches downward where they've tried to repair the brick.”

“It's spooky,” Sara said.

“To say the least. Outrageous and indulgent, to say the most. But that's rather typical of the Orsays . . . all of the old French families, actually. They simply couldn't envision a time when the party would end.”

She glanced at him, but there was nothing on his face but a simple statement of fact. He touched her shoulder, turning her toward the door. “So there you have it, or most of it anyway. The pantries, service areas, and cellars are not particularly interesting, and frankly even spookier than the orangery. There's a kitchen garden out back but no one keeps it up.”

Outside, Sara breathed deeply of the lavender air to clear her head of the smell of mildew. Ash led the way around the clumps of lavender toward the far end of the garden, where the wall had tumbled to create a view of the valley below. Sara noticed that there was rosemary planted around the circumference of the garden, and it stained her hands with its crisp fresh scent when she brushed against it.

Ash stood with his hands clasped beside his back, looking out at the valley below. A breeze lifted his hair away from his forehead and the morning sun narrowed his eyes, painting his face with a faint bronze hue. “This is your inheritance, Sara,” he said when she came up behind him. “Fifteen hectares of the Loire Valley, almost all of it suitable for vines. The smart investor knows that God isn't making any more of that.”

She gazed out over the terraces below. There must have been a hundred different shades of green. “Those look like boxwood,” she said, pointing.

“Hmm. I think there were topiaries there once. Everyone of that era wanted his own Versailles. If they had planted vineyards instead, the château could have been self-supporting and
you
”—he gave her a wry smile—“would now be the proud owner of the Cézanne that used to hang in the front hall, instead of some anonymous Canadian.”

Sara sat on the fallen wall, studying the view, the lavender garden, the grimy, overgrown glass roof of the orangery with its missing panes. She said, “How much would it cost, do you suppose, to plant a vineyard?”

He shook his head. “I haven't the foggiest. It's an extremely long-term investment, and those are not the kind that interest me.”

She looked at him, surprised. “Why not?”

“I haven't the patience for them. Life is short, and I prefer my gratification a bit on the more immediate side.”

“It sounds to me as though you have more in common with the Orsays than you might like to admit,” Sara observed, and he looked startled.

Then he laughed, although it sounded a little less than genuine. “I suppose you're right. I'll be certain to be more careful where I cast aspersions from now on out.”

A small butterfly sailed up from the grass and Sara held out her hand. It skittered across her fingers, then fluttered on, bobbing on the breeze. She said, “It would be completely ridiculous to consider living here.”

“Full time? I can't imagine why anyone would want to.” And then he suddenly seemed to realize what she was really saying, and he struggled to hide the alarm in his eyes. “Sara, you can't be serious. Most of the rooms aren't even heated, and the electrical wiring is so old it's a miracle the place hasn't gone up in blazes before now. There are only two functional WCs in the entire building and they don't work at the same time. The reason the west wing is closed off is because the roof began to collapse on that side years ago and it simply isn't safe. So to answer your question, it would be beyond ridiculous to consider living here. It would be an act of virtual madness.”

“But,” she continued reasonably, “last night you said one of my options was to stay here, and start a restoration, and gradually buy out your shares. So let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I wanted to do that. What would be the procedure?”

As he looked at her, she could see his brilliant, agile mind analyzing, projecting, rearranging, and drawing conclusions from an entirely new set of possibilities. “I did say that,” he admitted. “I did not recommend it. And before I can do so I need to ask you a rather delicate question, one that I would never broach in any capacity other than as your advisor. So forgive me in advance, but . . . what sort of access do you have to your resources?”

At first she didn't understand. “What do you mean?”

Whatever discomfort he may have initially shown was now lost in his brisk lawyerly demeanor. “Of course, I realize you must have significant personal wealth, but if your means are currently tied up in other sound investments, I really can't suggest . . .”

Sara had to laugh. “What makes you think I have any kind of wealth at all?”

He gave a dismissive turn of his wrist, his thoughts clearly occupied with rapid calculations. “Well, for one thing, Daniel never would have—”

The words hit her like a cold fist in her solar plexus. Ash seemed to realize what he had said only an instant after the words were spoken, and the shock of regret flashed in his eyes. But it was covered smoothly with, “What I mean to say of course is that I know the reputation of Martin and Indlebright, and their relationship with their executives has always been quite generous . . .”

She said, “You think Daniel married me for my money.” She was surprised she could speak at all, because her entire core ached as though the breath had been knocked out of her. She stood slowly, and felt a fine tremor run down her legs. “My God.”

She had to close her eyes for a minute to orient herself, and when she opened them again, the morning seemed less bright, the garden less fragrant. She felt cold. Ash simply stood there, his lips compressed, his eyes dark.

The sound that came from her throat was strange and high and bordered on something like a laugh. “Of course you think that! Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't
he
? I bought him a sports car for a wedding gift! I live in a resort town with an ocean view. He met me at a party with
Sting
, for the love of God!”

Her mind was suddenly churning with truths she had never before considered, the obvious and the not so obvious . . . Daniel, the impoverished poet, so enchanted with all things American, the diamond necklace she used to wear, the Vera Wang gown, the credit cards she always had at the ready whenever they went out to dinner, or on a weekend trip. She felt sick. She actually thought she might throw up, and she pressed her fingers against her lips, hard.

Ash took a step toward her, his face wretched with apology. “I'm so sorry. That was a beastly thing to say. I don't know what came over me. It's simply that Daniel was known to associate with a certain crowd . . .”