Jewels (60 page)

Chapter 31

AVIER
graduated from Yale three years later with honors, and his family was there to see him do it, or most of them anyway. Sarah and Emanuelle had arrived together. Julian had come to Yale, of course, and he’d brought Max, who was four, and busily embarking on destroying his surroundings wherever he went, and Isabelle had come, but she hadn’t brought the children. She was pregnant again, and they were used to seeing her that way by then. This was her third child in four years. And Adrianna and Kristian were in Munich with Lukas. He still hadn’t divorced his wife, but Isabelle seemed at peace with the situation. And predictably, Phillip and Yvonne hadn’t bothered to come. She was at a spa in Switzerland, and he said. He was too busy, but he sent Xavier a watch from their new line at Whitfield’s. Julian had designed it.

It was a lovely ceremony at Yale, and afterwards they all went to New York and stayed at the Carlyle. Julian kept teasing Xavier that it was time for him to open a shop in New York, and his brother diplomatically said maybe he would one day, but they all knew that he wanted to roam the world first. He was going back to Botswana the minute he left New York. He was flying to London and then straight down to Cape Town. And all he wanted for the next few years was to find rare stones for Whitfield’s. After that, maybe he’d settle down, but he made no promises to anyone that he ever would. He was far too happy in a jungle with a pick and a gun and a backpack to ever want the responsibility of a store like the ones in Paris and London and Rome. He much preferred being their man on the prowl, out in the wilderness somewhere. It suited him far better, and they respected him for that, although he was certainly different.

“I think it was that Davy Crockett hat you had when you were a kid,” Julian teased him. “I think it went to your brain or something.”

“It must have.” Xavier smiled, always unruffled by them. He was a handsome boy, and of all of them he looked the most like William, yet in all other ways he was the least like him. He had had a very interesting girlfriend at Yale. She was going to Harvard Medical School in the fall, but in the meantime, she had agreed to join him in Cape Town. But nothing was serious with him for the moment, except his travels, and his passion for stones. Sarah had worn the two enormous emerald rings that he’d found for her, to his graduation. She wore them almost every day, and she loved them.

Isabelle and Julian got a sitter for Max, and managed to have a drink in the Bemelmans Bar that night, as Bobby Short played in the next room, where Sarah and Emanuelle were. Xavier had gone to Greenwich Village with his girlfriend to have dinner.

“Do you think he’ll ever marry you?” Julian asked her honestly, looking at her big belly, but she only smiled and shrugged.

“Who knows? I’m not sure I care anymore. We’re as good as married. He’s there whenever I need him and the children are used to his coming and going.” She spent a lot of time in Munich with him now, whenever she could. It was a totally comfortable arrangement, and even Sarah had adjusted to it. Lukas’s wife had known about Isabelle for the past two years, but she still refused to divorce him. They had some very complicated family business dealings together, and some land holdings in the north they’d invested in, and she was doing everything she could to tie up his money and stop him from divorcing her. “Maybe one day. In the meantime, we’re happy.”

“You look it,” he had to admit. “I envy you all these kids.”

“What about you? I’ve been hearing little rumors in Rome,” she teased him.

“Don’t believe everything you read.” But he blushed as he said it. At nearly thirty-six, he had never remarried, but there was a woman he was very much in love with.

“Okay, then tell me the truth. Who is she?”

“Consuelo de la Varga Quesada. Mean anything to you?”

“Vaguely. Wasn’t her father the ambassador to London a few years ago?”

“Right. Her mother’s American, and I think she might be a vague cousin of Mother’s. Consuelo’s wonderful, I met her last winter when I went to Spain. She’s an artist. But she’s also Catholic, and I’m a divorced man. I don’t think her parents were too thrilled when she told them.”

“But you were never married in the Catholic Church, so in their eyes you were never married.” She was an expert on all that, after divorcing Lorenzo. At least that part of her life was over.

“That’s true. But I think they’re being cautious. She’s only twenty-five years old, and oh, Isabelle, she’s such a sweet girl, you’d love her. She adores Max, and she says she wants dozens of children.” She looked like a little girl herself, when Julian showed his sister a picture of her. She had huge brown eyes and long brown hair, and a smooth olive complexion that made her look faintly exotic.

“Is this serious?” If it was, it was the first really serious affair he’d had since Yvonne. For a long time, he had gone back to just playing.

“I’d like it to be. But I really don’t know how her parents are going to feel about me. Or how she will.”

“They should feel very lucky. You’re the nicest man I know, Julian,” she said, and kissed him gently. She had always loved him dearly.

“Thank you.”

The next morning they all flew away again, like birds to their own destinations. Julian to Paris, and then to Spain, Isabelle to Munich to be with Lukas and her children, Sarah and Emanuelle back to Paris too. And Xavier to Cape Town with his girlfriend.

“What a migratory bunch we are, spread all over the world, like nomads,” Sarah said as they took off on the Concorde.

“I wouldn’t call it that.” Emanuelle smiled at her. She and the Minister of Finance were about to go on a long vacation. His wife had finally died that year, and he had just asked her if she would marry him. It had actually come as a shock to her after all these years. But she was sorely tempted. They had been together for so long and she really loved him.

“You should marry him,” Sarah urged her as they drank champagne and ate caviar.

“After all these years, the aura of respectability might be too great a shock to my system.”

Sarah patted her hand and grinned. “Try it.”

When they landed, Sarah went back to the château, thinking about all her children. She only hoped that Isabelle didn’t wait as long to get married as Emanuelle had. It amused her to think of Emanuelle married now … how long they had been friends … how far they had come … how much they had learned together.

Chapter 32

ARAH
moved slowly back toward the window again, to watch them. How funny they were … how different … how beloved. It made her smile to watch them as they emerged from their cars. Phillip and Yvonne from the Rolls, she looked beautiful and overdressed and overjewelled, as usual. At thirty-five, she was aging well, she still looked like a girl of twenty, but she worked hard at it, as she did everything she did. She thought of herself, and no one else, and what she wanted. Phillip had learned that lesson a long time since. He was still enthralled with her after nine years, but his duchess was most emphatically a mixed blessing. There were times when he wondered if Julian had actually been glad to be rid of her. It disappointed him to think so.

Isabelle arrived just after them, in an absurd van they had rented at the airport. She and Lukas unloaded prams and bicycles and baby things. There were their three children, and two by his former marriage. She looked up at the upstairs window then, as though sensing that Sarah was there, but she didn’t see her. Isabelle smiled at Lukas briefly as he handed her the baby and took their bags into the château. Their children were chattering loudly as they ran upstairs, wondering where their grandmother was, and then growing distracted before they found her. Isabelle stood for a moment and smiled at Lukas, as the noise echoed in the halls around them. Her marriage to him finally had been fruitful.

Julian arrived in the Mercedes 600 his father-in-law had insisted on giving him. It was an impossible car, in need of constant repair, but beautiful, and it held all his children. Consuelo held the two little girls’ hands as Julian helped her out, and they followed her, giggling, and looking just like their father. He was teasing Max, who was nine and very handsome. And as Consuelo turned you could see the full belly she carried well on her small frame. The new baby was due in the fall. Their third in four years. Julian and Consuelo had been busy.

And then at last, Xavier, his backpack over his arm, in an old jeep he had borrowed somewhere. He had a deep tan, and he had grown to be a strong, powerful man. She looked at him, overwhelmed with memories as she saw him. If she closed her eyes just a tiny bit, it was William coming toward her.

As she looked at them, she thought of him, the life they had shared, the world they had built, the children they had loved, who had stepped out into the world on their own, stumbled, and then righted themselves again. They were all strong, good, loving people. Some more than others, some were easier to understand, or easier to love. But she loved all of them. And as she again passed the table where the photographs were, she stopped to look at all of them … William … Joachim and Lizzie … they were still there in her heart too. They always would be. And then there was one of her, in her mother’s arms … brand-new … newborn … seventy-five years ago tomorrow.

Remarkable. It was amazing how fast it all went, how the moments flew … the good with the bad, the weak, the strong, the tragedies, the victories, the wins and the losses.

She heard a soft knock on the door of her room then. It was Max with his two little sisters.

“We were looking for you,” he said excitedly.

“I’m so glad you’ve come.” Sarah smiled at him, as she walked toward him, looking proud and tall and strong. She pulled him quickly into her arms and gave him a big hug, and then kissed both of his sisters.

“Happy Birthday!” they said, and as she looked up, she saw Julian in the doorway, and Consuelo … and Lukas and Isabelle, Phillip and Yvonne, and Xavier … and if she closed her eyes, she could still see William. She could feel him there with her as he had always been, at her side, in her heart, every moment.

“Happy Birthday!” they all shouted in unison, and she smiled at them, unable to believe that seventy-five precious years had passed so quickly.

a cognizant original v5 release october 06 2010

Introducing an exciting way to
learn more about Danielle Steel
Visit the Danielle Steel Web Site at:
www.daniellesteel.com

www.daniellesteel.com