“What was what?”

“Something moved.”

“I did.”

And then he turned over and smiled at her. “What are you so nervous about tonight? I thought we took care of that this morning.” At least that hadn’t changed, even though she had. She was feeling better about things now. Thanks to William, the time in Italy had been incredibly romantic.

She didn’t say anything more to him, but she went to see the doctor in La Marolle immediately the next morning. She described her symptoms to him, all of them, and the fact that she had been certain she’d gone through the change of life four months before, and then she described the sensation she’d had the night before as she lay beside William.

“I know this sounds crazy,” she explained, “but it felt… it felt like a baby…” She felt like one of those old men with amputated legs who think they feel their knee itch.

“It’s not impossible. I delivered a baby last week to a woman fifty-six years old. Her eighteenth child,” he said encouragingly and Sarah groaned at the prospect. She loved the children that she had, handful that they were, and there was a time when she would have wanted more, but that time was no longer. She was about to be forty-eight years old, and William needed her, she was just too old to have another baby. Isabelle was turning eight that summer, and she was her baby.

“Madame la Duchesse,” the doctor said formally as he stood up to look at her after his examination, “I have the pleasure of informing you that you are indeed having a baby.” For a moment, he had even thought it might be twins, but now he was sure it wasn’t. It was only one, but a good-sized one. “I think perhaps at Christmas.”

“You’re not serious.” She looked shocked and for a moment she went pale and felt dizzy.

“I am very serious, and very sure.” He smiled at her. “Monsieur le Duc will be very pleased, I’m sure.” But she wasn’t even sure of that this time. Maybe after his heart attack he would feel differently. She couldn’t even imagine it now. She would be forty-eight years old when this child was born, and he would be sixty-one. How ridiculous. And suddenly, she knew with absolute certainty, that she couldn’t have this baby.

She thanked the doctor and drove back to the château, thinking of what she was going to do about it, and what she was going to tell William. The whole thing depressed her profoundly, even more than thinking she was going through the change of life had done. This was ridiculous. It was wrong at their age. She couldn’t do this again. And she suspected that he’d probably feel the same way. It might not even be normal, she was so old, she told herself. For the first time in her entire life, she considered an abortion.

She told William after dinner that night, and he listened quietly to all her objections. He reminded her that his parents had been exactly the same age when he was born and it hadn’t done him or them any harm, but he also understood how upset Sarah was. More than anything she was startled. She had had four children in her life, one had died, one had come as a late surprise … and now this, so unexpected, so late, and yet in his eyes so great a gift, at any time, he didn’t see how they could refuse it. But he heard her out, and he lay next to her that night and held her. He was a little shocked by how she felt, but he wondered, too, if she was just frightened. She had been through a lot before, and perhaps now it would be even harder.

“Do you really not want this child?” he asked sadly, as he lay next to her that night, holding her in his arms as he always did when they went to sleep. He was sad that she didn’t seem to want it, but he didn’t want to press her.

“Do you?” She answered his question with one of her own, because there was a part of her that wasn’t sure either.

“I want whatever is right for you, my love. I’ll stand by whatever you decide.”

Hearing him say that brought tears to her eyes, he was always so good to her, so there for her, it made him even more precious. “I don’t know what to do … what’s right … part of me wants it … and part of me doesn’t …”

“You felt that way the last time too,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but I was forty then … now I’m two hundred.”

He laughed gently at her, and she smiled through her tears. “It’s all your fault. You’re really a menace to the neighborhood,” she said, and he laughed. “It’s a wonder they even let you walk the streets.” But he loved hearing it, and she knew it. The next day they took a long walk around the grounds, and inadvertently they reached Lizzie’s grave, and they stopped, and she swept some of the leaves away. She knelt for a moment, tidying things, and then suddenly she felt him very near her. She looked up and William was looking down at her sadly.

“After that … can we really take a life, Sarah? … Do we have a right to?” Suddenly she remembered the feel of Lizzie in her arms again, twenty years later … the child that God had taken away from them and now He was giving her another. Did she have a right to question the gift? And after almost losing William, who was she to decide who lived or died? Suddenly, with a wave of feeling, she knew what she wanted, and she melted into his arms and began to cry, for Lizzie, for him, for herself, for the baby she might have killed … except deep down, she knew she couldn’t. “I’m so sorry … I’m so sorry, darling….”

“Shhh … it’s all right … everything is all right now.” They sat together for a long time, talking about Lizzie, and how sweet she had been, this new child, and the children they had, and how blessed they were. And then they went slowly back to the château, she beside him, and he in his wheelchair. They felt strangely at peace, and filled with hope for the future.

“When did you say it was again?” he asked, feeling very proud suddenly, and very pleased, as he smiled at Sarah.

“The doctor said Christmas.”

“Good,” he said happily. And then he chuckled. “I can hardly wait to tell Phillip.” They both laughed and they went back to the château, laughing and talking and teasing, just as they had for twenty-five years now.






Chapter 22





HIS time Sarah stayed close to the château for most of her pregnancy, she could do her business from where she was, and she didn’t want to make a spectacle of herself in London or Paris. No matter what William said about how old his parents were, she still felt self-conscious about being pregnant at her age, although she had to admit, she enjoyed it.