It was a bitter night for her, and for Julian. But Isabelle left the room, and went to stay at Lorenzo’s hotel with him. There was no stopping her now. She was hellbent on her own destruction.

The wedding was small, but tastefully done, at the Château de la Meuze, with only their close friends in attendance. And Isabelle looked lovely in a short white dress by Marc Bohan at Dior, and a big picture hat to go with it. And Sarah was deeply grateful for the fact that she wasn’t pregnant.

Phillip and Cecily came from England for the wedding, Julian gave her away, and Xavier carried the ring, while Sarah wished he would lose it.

“You look thrilled,” Emanuelle said in an undertone, as they sipped champagne in the garden.

“I may throw up before lunch,” Sarah said mournfully. She had watched them be married in her own garden, by a Catholic priest and an Episcopal bishop. It was doubly official then, and doubly disastrous for Isabelle. And throughout the day, Lorenzo gushed, and grinned, and charmed everyone, and made toasts, and talked about how he wished he could have met the great Duke, Isabelle’s father.

“He’s a bit much, isn’t he?” Phillip said, for once making his mother laugh with his understatements. “Pathetic.”

“And then some.” In comparison to him, Cecily was Greta Garbo. That was two now she didn’t like. But Cecily only bored her. Lorenzo she hated, which broke her heart as well, because it meant that she would never be close to Isabelle while she was married to Lorenzo. It was no secret how they felt about her husband.

“How can she even think she loves him?” Emanuelle asked in despair. “He’s so obvious … so greasy …”

“She’s young. She doesn’t know about men like that yet,” Sarah said with infinite wisdom. “Unfortunately, she’s going to learn a great deal in a very short time now.” It reminded her again of her experience with Freddie Van Deering. She would have liked to spare Isabelle that, and she had tried, but it was no use. Isabelle had made her choice, and everyone in the world but Isabelle knew it was a poor one.

The wedding party stayed till the end of the afternoon, and then Isabelle and Lorenzo left. They were going to Sardinia for their honeymoon, to a new resort there, to see his friend the Aga Khan, or so he said. But Sarah imagined there were a lot of people whom he said he knew who were going to disappear into thin air over the next few years, if he lasted that long. And she hoped he wouldn’t.

After they left for the airport, in a hired Rolls-Royce with a driver, the family sat gloomily in the garden, thinking of what she’d done, and feeling that they’d lost her forever. Only Phillip seemed not to care too much, as usual. He was chatting quietly with a woman who was a friend of Emanuelle and Sarah. But for the rest of them, it was more like a funeral than a wedding. Sarah felt somehow as though she had failed not only her daughter, but her husband. He would have been devastated if he could have seen Lorenzo.

Sarah heard from her very briefly when they reached Rome, and then not a sound from her until Christmas. Sarah called once or twice and sent several letters, and Isabelle never answered. She was clearly angry at all of them. But Julian spoke to her once or twice, so at least Sarah knew she was all right, but none of them had any idea if she was happy. She didn’t come home at all the following year, and she didn’t want Sarah to go there, so she didn’t. Julian flew to Rome to see her once. He said she looked very serious and very beautiful, and very Italian, and according to their mutual bank, she was spending an absolute fortune. She had bought a small palazzo in Rome, and a villa in Umbria. Lorenzo had bought a yacht, a new Rolls and a Ferrari. And as far as Julian could see, there was no baby on the horizon.

They came back to the château for Christmas after the first year, but grudgingly, and Isabelle said nothing to any of them, but she gave her mother a very pretty Buccellati pearl-and-gold bracelet. She and Lorenzo left on Boxing Day to go skiing in Cortina. It was difficult to fathom what was happening with them, and she didn’t even open up with Julian. But it was Emanuelle who finally ferreted out the truth. She flew to Rome, after a business trip to London to see Nigel and Phillip, and afterwards she told Sarah that she thought Isabelle looked dreadful. She had circles under her eyes, she was rail thin, and she never laughed anymore. And each time she saw her, Lorenzo wasn’t with her.

“I think there’s trouble there, but I’m not sure she’s ready to admit it to you. Just be sure to leave the door open, and eventually she’ll come home. I promise.”

“I hope you’re right,” Sarah said sadly. The loss had weighed on her terribly. For all intents and purposes, in the past two years she had lost her last surviving daughter.






Chapter 27





T was an agonizing three years later, before Isabelle came back to Paris again. They came when Sarah invited them to Whitfield’s thirtieth-anniversary party at the Louvre. They had taken over part of it for a party. It had never been done before, and Emanuelle had had to use her government connections to get permission. The entire area around it was going to be closed, and it was going to take hundreds of museum guards and gendarmes to make it work. But Sarah knew it would. And Lorenzo knew it was an event not to miss. Sarah was stunned when they accepted. Isabelle and Lorenzo had been married for five years by then, and Sarah had almost resigned herself to the distance between them. She concentrated her energies and her affection on Xavier and Julian, and Phillip to some extent, as little as she saw him. He’d been married to Cecily for thirteen years by then, and his affairs were hinted at in the press, but never confirmed, usually, Sarah suspected, out of respect for his position. The Duke of Whitfield, according to some, was allegedly pretty dicey.