“I want you to be a good boy tonight,” Julian warned Xavier as he went to join his friends. “No wild tricks, no getting hurt. I want to have fun at my party. Why don’t you go watch TV?”

“I can’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t have one.”

“You can watch the one in my room.” Julian smiled at him, impossible as he was, he really loved him. Julian had been like a father to him, and he really enjoyed being with him. “I think there’s a soccer game on.”

“Great!” He shouted as he headed back to his brother’s room, humming Davy Crockett.

Julian was still smiling to himself when he ran into Isabelle on the stairs. She was wearing a white, almost see-through dress that barely reached her crotch and covered her stomach with chain mail.

“Cardin?” he asked, trying to sound cool.

“Courrèges,” she corrected, looking arch and far more dangerous than she knew. She was walking trouble.

“I’m learning.”

But so was Sarah. When she saw her, she sent her back upstairs to put something else on. And Isabelle slammed every door in the house on the way, as Emanuelle watched her, and Sarah sighed and helped herself to a glass of champagne.

“That child is going to kill me. And if she doesn’t, Xavier will.”

“You said that about the others too,” Emanuelle reminded her.

“I did not,” Sarah corrected. “Phillip disappointed me because he was so distant and so cool, and Julian worried me because he slept with the mothers of all his friends and thought I didn’t know. But Isabelle is an entirely different creature. She refuses to be controlled, or to behave herself or listen to reason.” Emanuelle couldn’t disagree with her. She would have hated to be the girl’s mother. Seeing Isabelle always made her grateful she had never had children. Xavier was another story though, he was impossible but so warm and cuddly that you couldn’t resist him. He was like Julian, but freer and more adventuresome. They were an interesting bunch, the Whitfield crew. And none of them saw Isabelle emerge again in a zebra-striped leotard and a white leather skirt that was even worse than what she’d worn the first time. But fortunately for her, this time Sarah didn’t see her.

“Having fun?” Sarah asked Julian hours later when she saw him. He looked a little drunk, but she knew no harm would come to him. No one was driving anywhere, and he had worked so hard to graduate from the Sorbonne. He deserved it.

“Maman, you’re terrific! This is the best party I’ve ever been to.” He looked happy and dishevelled and hot. He’d been dancing for hours with two girls who were causing him to make an impossible decision. It was an evening filled with blissful dilemmas.

And for Isabelle too. She was stretched full-length in the bushes near the stables with a boy she had met that night. She knew he was a friend of Julian’s and she couldn’t remember his name. But he was the best kisser she had ever met, and he had just told her he loved her.

Eventually, one of the servants saw her there, and whispered something discreetly to the duchess, who suddenly appeared miraculously on the path to the stables, with Emanuelle, pretending to stroll along and enjoy a casual conversation. And when Isabelle heard her, she scurried away and the two women looked at each other and laughed, feeling both old and young at the same time. In August, Sarah was going to be fifty-six, although she didn’t look it.

“Did you ever do things like that?” Emanuelle asked. “I did.”

“You only did them with Germans during the war,” Sarah teased her and Emanuelle corrected her firmly.

“That was to get information from them,” she said proudly.

“It’s a wonder you didn’t get us all killed,” Sarah scolded her thirty years later.

“I would have liked to kill all of them,” she said with feeling.

Sarah told her then about Joachim turning up just after Phillip’s wedding. She had never told her that before, and Emanuelle was annoyed.

“I’m surprised he’s still alive. A lot of them were killed when they went back to Berlin. He was pretty decent, as Nazis went, but a Nazi is a Nazi is a Nazi.…”

“He looked so sad, and so old… and I guess I disappointed him bitterly. I think he thought he’d come back, with William gone, and everything would be different. But it could never have been.” Emanuelle nodded. She knew how much Sarah had loved William. She had never looked at another man since he died, and she didn’t think she would again. She had tried discreetly to introduce her to a few friends after a few years had gone by, but it was obvious that she had no interest. She was only interested now in her business and her children.

The party ended at four A.M. with the last of the young people falling into the swimming pool as the bands left, and finally winding up in the château kitchen at dawn while Sarah cooked them scrambled eggs and served them coffee. It was fun having them there, she liked having them around, and lately she was glad that she had had some of her children so late in life. So many of her friends were lonely and alone, instead she would have them around her forever. They would drive her crazy probably, but those who knew her well, knew that she enjoyed it.

She went to her own room at eight o’clock, and smiled when she saw Xavier sleeping soundly on Julian’s bed. The television was still on and there was nothing on the screen but snow, and a continuing recording of the “Marseillaise.” She went in and turned it off, took off the Davy Crockett hat and smoothed his hair, and then she went to her own room and slept till noon.

Sarah and Emanuelle had lunch before she went back to Paris. They had a lot to talk about. They were expanding the Paris store again, and lately Nigel had been saying they should think of doing that in London. They still had their royal warrant, and were officially Jewelers to the Crown. In fact, in recent years, they had sold to many heads of state, several kings and queens, and scores of Arabs. Business was excellent, in both stores, and Sarah was excited about Julian coming into the business.

He started, as promised, the following week, and everything went smoothly until they closed in August. He went to Greece then with a bunch of friends, and she took Xavier and Isabelle to Capri. They loved it there. They loved the Marina Grande and the Marina Piccola, and the square, and going to the beach clubs like Canzone del Mare, or some of the more public ones. Isabelle had been studying Italian in school, and with a smattering of Spanish under her belt, too, she considered herself a great linguist

They all had a good time, staying at the Quisisana, and eating ice cream in the square, and Sarah couldn’t restrain herself from checking out the jewelry shops. She found the prices high, but some of their pieces very pretty. There wasn’t much for her to do there, except eat and read and relax, and spend time with the children. And she felt there was no harm in letting Isabelle go down to the beach club by herself in one of the beach taxis everyone took. She met her there later in the morning with Xavier, who always wanted to visit the little donkeys.

And one morning, when Isabelle went on ahead, Sarah and Xavier stopped a little longer on their way to the square, to do some shopping. They reached the Canzone del Mare just in time for lunch, and Sarah looked everywhere for her daughter, but she couldn’t find her. She was beginning to panic until Xavier found her sandals under a chair, and followed her trail into a little cabana. They found her there, with the top of her swimsuit off, with a man twice her age holding her breast, moaning, as she held the ominous bulge in his bikini

For an instant, Sarah only stared, and then without thinking she grabbed Isabelle by the arm and dragged her out of the cabana.

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing in there?” She raged at her and Isabelle burst into tears, as the man emerged trying to regain his composure as he wrapped himself rather unsuccessfully in a towel. “Do you realize my daughter is sixteen years old?” she said to him in a venomous voice, trying to keep control of herself with difficulty. “I could call the police.” But she knew that the one she should give them was her daughter. She was only trying to frighten him so he didn’t do it again, and she saw that she had hit her mark from his expression. He was a very attractive man, from Rome, and he looked like something of a playboy.

“Signora, mi dispiace … she said she was twenty-one. I am so sorry,” he apologized profusely and looked regretfully at Isabelle, sobbing hysterically as she stood next to her mother. They went back to the hotel, and Sarah suggested in icy tones that she spend the rest of the afternoon in her room, and then they would talk about it again. But as she went back to the beach with Xavier she knew she had to do more than talk now. Phillip and Julian were right. Isabelle needed to go away to school. But where? That was the question.

“What were they doing in there?” Xavier asked with curiosity as they passed the same cabana again, and Sarah shuddered at what she’d seen.

“Nothing, darling, they were playing silly games.”

She kept a short rein on Isabelle after that, and the rest of the holiday wasn’t quite as much fun. But by the next day, Sarah had made several phone calls. She had found a wonderful school for her, near the Austrian border, close to Cortina. She could ski all winter there, speak both Italian and French, and learn to control herself a little better. It was an all-girl school, and there was no brother school nearby. Sarah had asked very clearly.

She told Isabelle about it on the last day of the vacation, and she went through the roof predictably, but Sarah stood her ground, even when Isabelle cried. It was for her own good. If she didn’t do it, she knew that Isabelle was going to do something very stupid before too long, and maybe even get pregnant.

“I won’t go!” she raged. She even called Julian at the shop in Paris. But he stood behind his mother this time. And after Capri, they went to Rome to buy her what she needed. The school term was starting in a few days, and there was no point taking her back to France to get into more trouble. Sarah and Xavier delivered her there, and she looked mournful as she saw the place. It was very pretty, and she had a big, sunny room of her own. The other girls looked very nice. They were French and English and German and Italian, two Brazilians, an Argentine girl, and one from Tehran. It was an interesting group, and there were only fifty girls in the school. Isabelle’s school in La Marolle had given it the highest recommendation, and the headmaster had congratulated Sarah for her good judgment.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me here,” she wailed, but Sarah couldn’t be moved. They left her there, and Sarah herself cried all the way to the airport. And then she and Xavier flew to London to visit Phillip. After leaving her son with his nephew and niece for lunch, she went directly to the London store. Everything seemed fine. She had lunch with Phillip, and she was startled to hear him make several nasty remarks about his brother.

“What’s that all about?” Sarah asked candidly. “What’s he done to get you so annoyed?”

“He and his damn stupid ideas about design. I don’t understand why he has to meddle in that sort of thing,” he ranted on at her, and she answered quietly.

“Because I asked him to. He’s very talented with design. Far more than you and I, and he understands important stones and what you can and can’t do with them.” He had recently set a maharaja’s emerald that had been over a hundred carats, and anyone else would have cracked it. But Julian understood exactly what to do with it, and had overseen every single moment it spent in the workroom.

“There’s no harm in his doing that. You’re good at other things.” Sarah reminded him. He was wonderful at dealing with the royals, and keeping them foremost in that market. Stuffy as he was, they loved him.

“I don’t know why you defend him all the time,” Phillip said irritably.

“If it’s any consolation, Phillip,” she said, refusing to rise to the bait, but disappointed at how jealous he still was. He was worse than ever. “I always defend you too. I happen to love both of you.” He didn’t answer her, but he looked slightly mollified as he asked about Isabelle, and told her he’d heard very good things about the school.

“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.