“In this heat? You’re brave.” The young people got out of his new car then, and he noticed how hot and miserable his brother looked and he almost laughed at him, but he didn’t.

“Poor baby, did he bore you to death?” he asked, after Phillip left. “It’s just like him to drag you around the property to look at gardens on the hottest day of the year”.

“He meant well,” she whispered, and they went upstairs to make love before dinner.

Dinner that night was a jolly affair. Everyone had had a good day and was in high spirits. Cecily had managed to find some old German military saddles in the barn which fascinated her, and she even asked Sarah if she could take one back to England, and Sarah said she was welcome to anything she liked. Xavier had gotten to drive Julian’s new car, the younger children had had a good time, too, and in spite of Lorenzo being there, Isabelle looked relaxed and happy. The newlyweds seemed in fine spirits too. Phillip was a little quiet, which wasn’t unusual for him. And even the birthday girl seemed to have made her peace with what she referred to as “those appalling numbers.” But she was so happy to see them all, that suddenly the birthday seemed less important And she was sorry they would all be leaving again the following afternoon. Their visits were always so short, but at least nowadays, with Isabelle having returned to the fold, they were fairly pleasant.

They sat in the drawing room for a long time that night, Julian asking her questions about the Occupation during the war, and he was fascinated with some of her stories. Cecily wanted to know how many horses they’d had quartered there and what kind, and Yvonne kept standing behind Julian and rubbing his shoulders. Enzo was dozing in a comfortable chair, and Isabelle played cards with her youngest brother, as Phillip drank brandy and smoked cigars and stared out the window at the stables.

And then, eventually, Julian understood what Yvonne had in mind, and they disappeared upstairs quietly, with a last kiss to his mother. Cecily was the next to leave. She said she was still exhausted after her recent trip to Scotland. And eventually Phillip disappeared too Enzo dozed on, and Isabelle and Sarah chatted for a long time, after Xavier went to bed. The house was quiet, and there was a full moon. It was a beautiful night for her birthday. They had eaten cake and drunk champagne, and she loved being surrounded by her children.

And all the while, upstairs, Yvonne was using all her most exotic tricks to torture her husband. There were things she had learned in Germany that she loved to do to him that absolutely drove him crazy. And half an hour later, he was so exhausted and so sated that he was sound asleep, and she slipped quietly out of the room with a smile. She was wearing jeans, and a very skimpy T-shirt, as she ran to the stables.

Cecily was also asleep by then. She had taken sleeping pills, which she liked to do, to ensure that she slept well. She thought it was worth the occasional hangover in the morning. And she was already snoring by the time Phillip left the room, still wearing the same clothes he had worn at dinner. He knew the back paths well, and only a few twigs crunched beneath his feet, but there was no one to hear him, and he entered the stables through the back door, pausing for a moment to adjust his eyes to the darkness. And then he saw her, only a few feet away from him, beautiful and shimmering pale in the moonlight, like a ghost, totally naked, as she sat astride one of the German saddles. He got up behind her then, and pulled her close to him, and he ground against her that way, for a short time, feeling the satin of her flesh, as his desire mounted, and then he pulled her off her seat and carried her to one of the mattresses in the stalls. It was where the German soldiers had lived, and where he made love to her now, pounding into her, and begging her never to leave him. They lay together for hours, and as he held her he knew his life would never be the same. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t let her go … she was too extraordinary and too rare …too powerful … like a drug he needed to survive now.

Isabelle went up to bed after one o’clock, after finally waking Lorenzo. He apologized, and walked sleepily up the stairs, as Sarah sat alone in her living room, wondering what would happen.

They couldn’t go on forever like that. Sooner or later, he would have to let her leave him. He was holding her hostage, and Sarah didn’t intend to let him do that forever. Just thinking of it made her angry. Isabelle was such a beautiful girl, and she had a right to more of a life than he was willing to give her He had been every bit as bad as they feared, and worse. And as Sarah thought of it, she let herself out onto the patio in the moonlight. It reminded her of some of the summer nights during the war, when Joachim was still there, and they had talked late into the night about Rilke and Schiller and Thomas Mann… trying not to think of the war, or the wounded, or whether or not William was still alive. As she thought of it, she began to walk instinctively toward the cottage. No one lived there anymore. It had been unused for a long time. The new caretaker’s cottage was closer to the gate, and a good deal more modern. But she let the old one stand, out of sentiment. She and William had lived there first, while they worked on the château, and Lizzie had been born and died there.

She was still thinking of that time, as she took a little stroll before going to bed, when she heard a noise as she passed the stables. It was a low moan, and she wondered if an animal was injured. They kept half a dozen horses there, in case anyone wanted to ride, but most of them were old and not very exciting. She quietly opened the door, and there didn’t seem to be anything there, the animals were all quiet again, but then she heard noises again, coming from the old barracks. They sounded like weird unearthly sounds, and she couldn’t fathom what they were, as she made her way slowly toward them. It didn’t even occur to her to be afraid, or to pick up a pitchfork or something to protect herself with if it was an intruder or a rabid animal. She just walked into the stall it came from and snapped on the light, and found herself staring at the entwined bodies of Phillip and Yvonne, both of them entirely naked, and there was no question in anyone’s mind what they were doing. She stared at them in amazement for an instant, and saw the look of horror on Phillip’s face, before she turned away to let them dress, but then she turned back to them in total fury.

She addressed herself to Yvonne first, and without an instant’s hesitation. “How dare you do this to Julian? How dare you, you tramp, with his own brother, in his own home under my roof! How dare you!” But Yvonne only tossed her long, blond hair over one shoulder and stood there. She hadn’t even bothered to get dressed, and she stood there without shame in all her naked beauty.

“And you!” She turned to Phillip then. “Always sneaking around … always cheating on your wife, and consumed with jealousy for your brother. You make me sick. I am filled with shame for you, Phillip.” And then she looked at both of them as she stood there shaking, for Julian, for herself, for what they were doing to each other’s lives and their complete lack of respect for everyone around them. “If I discover that you are continuing this, that this happens again, anywhere, I will tell Cecily and Julian immediately. And I will have you both followed in the meantime.” She had no intention of doing it, but nor did she intend sanctioning their infidelities, particularly not in her own home, and at the expense of Julian, who didn’t deserve it.

“Mother, I … I’m terribly sorry.” Phillip had managed to cover himself with a horse blanket by then, and he was mortified at having been discovered. “It was one of those unusual things … I don’t know what happened …” he blustered, on the verge of tears.

“She does,” Sarah said brutally, looking straight at her. “Don’t ever let it happen again,” she said, looking deep into her eyes. “I warn you.” And then she turned on her heel and left. And once she had left them, and was outside again, she leaned against a tree and cried, out of grief and shame and embarrassment for them, and herself. But as she walked slowly back to the château, all she could think of was Julian and the pain he had coming to him. How foolish her children were. And why was she never able to help them?






Chapter 29





VONNE was unusually quiet with Julian on the ride home from the château. She didn’t seem upset, but she just didn’t talk much. There had been an odd atmosphere in the air the day they left, almost like a storm, Xavier had said innocently to his mother after they were gone. But the weather was hot and relentlessly sunny. Sarah had said nothing to anyone about what she’d seen, but Phillip and Yvonne knew. That was enough. And the others just moved along, oblivious to what had happened the night before in the stables, which was just as well. Everyone would have been stunned, except maybe Lorenzo, who would have been amused, and Julian who would have been devastated.