Keys to the Castle (28 page)

“Precisely.” Katherine removed her jacket, shook out the folds with one crisp snap, and hung it inside the tall, intricately carved wardrobe. “I raised four children with the assistance of a nanny, and they all turned out rather well, if I do say so. One of them I believe you know.” She gave Sara a glance that was too subtle to read, and continued, “Another is a professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, with three little ones of her own and another on the way. A third manages a hugely successful business in Sydney, and my youngest is presently serving with Doctors without Borders in Africa.” She walked over to the suitcase and unsnapped the locks. “I think mothers serve best by building character and imparting values, not by wiping noses and bottoms. Further, I can assure you that my husband would never have achieved the measure of success he enjoyed had I not been there to support him every step of the way, which I surely could not have done had I been exhausted from chasing about after four children all day.” She held up a small pink dress with an elaborately ruffled chiffon petticoat for Sara's examination. “What do you think of this, my dear? I'm sure it's quite impractical, but I was simply taken by it.”

Sara couldn't help smiling. “It's incredibly impractical. Alyssa will love it.”

Katherine regarded her kindly. “You are doing a noble thing,” she said. “But there's no reason in this world why you have to do it by yourself.”

Sara hesitated. “She is a handful,” she admitted reluctantly. “Especially in a place as big as this. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to have someone for part of the day.”

She gave a satisfied nod. “My thoughts precisely. Now, give me a moment to change, won't you, and let's have a look at what can be done with those rooms.”

Katherine emerged from her room ten minutes later wearing jeans, a work shirt, sturdy gardening gloves, and a paisley silk turban over her beautiful platinum hair. She waded into the Orsay apartment without hesitance or trepidation and began flinging off dust covers, ripping down draperies, shaking out carpets, and giving orders to the day laborers like a general organizing a battle. Somehow she even managed to get Alyssa interested in the project, and had her self-importantly collecting all the knickknacks and placing them in a box to be hand-washed later. By five o'clock, a sitting room and a bedroom had been cleared out, windows had been washed, floors and walls had been scrubbed, carpets had been vacuumed, furniture had been brushed and polished and fireplaces cleaned.

“All in all,” Katherine declared with her hands on her hips as she dismissed the workers, “not a bad day's work. But now it is time for little girls to retire to their suppers, and for big girls to find a good stiff drink. Upon such was the greatness of the British empire built.” She caught Alyssa's willing hand and swung it lightly to her own easy gait as she led the way out of the rooms. “Sara, will you join us?”

Sara returned a grin as she stripped off her work gloves and hat. “I'm right behind you.” And that was when she knew for certain that Ash was right.

She really liked his mother.

In three weeks, Sara's life had been transformed, as had the five-bedroom Orsay apartment in the center of the castle, as had Alyssa's and, she supposed in a way, Katherine's. A beautiful home had been carved out of the cold stone of the castle that included a warm and modern family room/sitting room hung with bright gold and black drapes and rich moss green carpets on the floor and cushiony, comfortable, child-and-kitten-friendly sofas and chairs. Pietro's cousin Marco had come to paint Alyssa's new nursery/playroom with an amazing fairy wonderland mural. Her bed was draped with a princess canopy and her cupboards were filled with treasured toys. She adored her new nanny, Martine, who came at noon and stayed to put Alyssa to bed three or sometimes four times a week, and who took her on outings with other children in the village.

Katherine took Sara on a shopping spree to Lyon, where they purchased comfortable modern pieces to intermix with the antiques the Orsays had collected, and chose fabrics to be made into bed coverings and curtains and upholstered pieces that turned the cold, echoing castle into a home. The bizarre red kitchen actually became pretty when outfitted with a bright yellow country table and chairs, and Marie seemed much more comfortable preparing their easy, casual meals there.

Katherine and Sara began restoring the gardens, hiring workers from the village to rebuild the walls and cut back the undergrowth, and in the evenings they often enjoyed cocktails on the terrace. When they went to the village, the two women and the bouncy-haired, rouge-cheeked child, the merchants knew them by name and smiled to see them coming. The baker saved treats for Alyssa and the fishmonger sent home delicacies for the kitten, who was now known, for rather obvious reasons, as Monsieur Le Chat.

Sara's boxes arrived from America: the contents of her dresser drawers, her shoes, her summer clothes—long after she had already bought replacements. Seeing her familiar belongings in these unfamiliar surroundings was strange at first, and then she decided she liked it. The place was slowly becoming her own.

And then, at the bottom of a box, she found the book of Daniel's poetry that she had always kept on her bedside table. It was the volume he had inscribed to her in French on the night of his book signing at Books and Nooks, and he had always teased her that one day, when he knew her better, he would translate it for her. Then, of course, they had gotten to know each other very well, and translation no longer seemed necessary. Now, for the first time, she knew enough French to read it for herself.

Sara
, he had scrawled in his big, elegant handwriting across the page,
tu fais chanter mon coeur—Daniel
.

She touched the page, smiling softly, waiting for the essence of him to spring from the ink into her fingers, as it had done so many times before. Waiting for the memories, the pain, the tears, the longing. But the picture that came to her mind was not of Daniel, but of Ash on that day they had picnicked in the chapel ruins, holding up his mobile phone for her to read the e-mail he had saved.
She makes my heart sing.

It was true, she had never had a chance to really know Daniel, and even now she wasn't sure who he had been, or who he might yet be proven to be. But for a brief shining moment in time, he had loved her. He had made her heart sing, too. And whatever had happened since, or might happen in the future, that was worth treasuring. Ash had understood that.

And for a single, fleeting moment she understood something, else, too: what it was like to love two men, separately and equally at the same time. One for who he had been, and another for who he was.

She did not put the book on her bedside table. Instead she took it downstairs to the vast, empty library that once had stored the great collection of Orsay treasures. She positioned it on a shelf in a place of honor, where it belonged. Where, perhaps, it would begin a new collection of treasures.

The weather in North Carolina was foul, which seemed somehow appropriate. There was some kind of tropical storm moving up the coast, which had grounded every flight after the one Ash had taken. Now the sky was blue black and rain came in alternate slashing spurts and steady downpours, bending trees to the ground one moment and deadly still the next.
Goddamn it
,
Daniel
, Ash had thought wearily as the car made its way to the cemetery,
it's still all about drama with you
.

A plastic canopy had been set up over the site, but rain still dripped down his collar and chilled his spine. The sound of it was like a soft, steady drumbeat on the plastic, but the counterpoint was the thrum of the diesel engine and the ghastly creak of the chain as the coffin, spilling black loam into the pit below, was raised out of the earth.

A representative from the coroner's office was there, as well as a technician from the lab he had hired. A priest stood by because he had insisted on it. Because Daniel might not care, but Ash did. And there was another man he did not know, a burly fellow with sandy hair who kept his hands thrust into the pockets of his Windbreaker, and who regarded Ash with a steady, unwavering gaze.

The coroner's assistant came over to him. “We can do the procedure here,” she said. “It would save the time and expense of transporting the remains to the lab.”

Ash nodded tersely and signed the papers she presented to him. He looked straight ahead when they opened the coffin, and he didn't blink until they had closed it again.
Dear God, Sara
, he thought,
I'm glad you're not here. I'm glad.

The entire business took less time than he had imagined. It was all very matter-of-fact and efficient, which was the way he liked things done. But in this case it seemed grotesque. The coffin was closed. The officials went away into the rain with their samples. The priest came forward and made the sign of the cross, began to murmur the words. And when he was finished, the gravediggers returned to hook up the chains.

Ash forestalled them by stepping forward. He placed one hand on the coffin. It was cold and slick with dampness, and there was an odor—of dark, dank earth and formaldehyde and things left best undisturbed—that he would never forget. Not as long as he lived.

“Good-bye, Daniel,” he said softly. And then, more heavily, “I'm sorry.”

He let his hand fall away from the metal casket, and he nodded abruptly to the gravediggers, who were waiting impatiently in the rain. And when he turned the burly sandy-haired man was standing beside him.

“Are you that lawyer?” he inquired, frowning at him. “The English one?”

Ash said, “I'm Ash Lindeman.”

The other man extended his hand. “I'm Jeff Delaney. Sara's—Daniel's, I guess—brother-in-law. It was good of you to call, and let us know . . .” He nodded uncomfortably toward the proceedings. “About all this.”

Ash shook his hand, feeling tired. “There was no one else to call,” he said simply. “Daniel had no other family.”

Jeff said, “My wife, Dixie, thought somebody should be here. But we've got kids and—well, the fact is, I didn't want her to come.”

“I understand.”

“We didn't expect you to fly all the way over here.”

Ash said, “He was my friend.”

A respectful silence, Then Jeff said, “Is Sara okay?”

It was a moment before Ash answered. Then all he could offer was, “I think so. I hope so. I think she will be.”

Jeff looked at him steadily for a time. Rain plopped on the plastic canopy. The diesel engines started to putter.

Jeff said, “You hungry? Dixie would never let me forget it if I didn't bring you home for a meal.”

“Thank you.” It required an effort, but Ash managed a smile. “I think I'd like that.”

The chains began to creak, and the two men walked out into the rain and up the hill to the parking lot.