Keys to the Castle

by Donna Ball

  She looked up from trying to adjust the temperature on the gas oven. “I guess so. Marie brings it up with her when she comes in the morning. It’s probably just bills.”

  He said, in an odd tone, “I think you’d best look at it.”

  She came over to him. “Is there something from the States?”

  He soberly handed her a peach-colored envelope with her address—Madame Sara Graves Orsay, Château Rondelais, Rondelais, France—beautifully calligraphied on the front, and on the back the return address: Mrs. Katherine A. Lindeman, 12 Surrey Lane, Northampton, England.

  For a moment all she could do was stare at him. “Good God, Ash, how many ex-wives do you have?”

  “It’s not from my wife.” He carefully returned the kitten to the floor, his expression pained. “It’s from my mother.”

  She ripped open the envelope, extracted a single sheet of heavy peach-colored paper, and read the flowing script there with simple incredulity at first, slow, growing horror on the second reading, and finally, abject denial.

  She was shaking her head before she could even find the words. “No,” she said. “Impossible. This says she’s coming to visit . . . no, it says a visit of some duration . . . what does that mean, anyway? And that she’s arriving on the eighteenth of July—that’s two days from now! Are you kidding me? Did you put her up to this?” Sara demanded, her color high and eyes blazing. “Is this your idea of a joke? Because it’s not happening, I’m telling you—”

  He raised both hands in self-defense. “Before God, I had nothing to do with this.” But there was a secret mirth, far in the depths of his blue eyes, that he tried to disguise. “She has become accustomed to visiting the château at her leisure in the past few years. Remember, I have managed it for some time now.”

  And still do, were the unspoken words. Sara found her breathing was escalating, a panic rising in her chest as she imagined one more thing she would have to deal with, and she said, “No. You’re going to have to call her. Tell her not to come.”

  “I could do that,” he agreed, nodding thoughtfully, taking up his wineglass. “Which would only ensure that she would arrive tomorrow, instead of the day after. My mother hates to be told what to do.” And then he smiled. “There, you see? The two of you already have something in common.”

  “But . . .” Sara’s voice, and her eyes, were wild. “Look at this place! Everything is torn apart. I’ve got a five-year-old I can’t even keep up with and all the bedrooms are being painted and mice the size of Labradors are running down the halls and I can’t have company! You can’t do this to me, Ash, you can’t!”

  To her utter humiliation, her eyes began to flood again, and even though she tried to jerk her head away to hide it, Ash gently caught her face between his hands. “Hush,” he said softly, and his breath whispered across her skin. “Hush. The only person my mother is allowed to make cry is me.” His smile was gently coaxing, and his thumbs tenderly traced the corners of her eyes, gathering moisture there. “Stop this. Now.” His hands tightened briefly, bracingly, on her face, and his eyes held hers firmly. “We have a good four hours of daylight. What do you need to be done?”

  Sara wiped a hand across her face, furious with her weakness, and then dropped her gaze to Ash’s perfectly manicured hands. “Can you put together a child’s bed?”

  He met her skepticism boldly. “Does it involve mathematics?”

  “In a way.”

  “Then I can do it,” he assured her briskly. He shrugged out of his blazer and began rolling up his sleeves. “Where are your tools? And don’t forget to heat up the quiche, love. I really am starving.”

  In less than an hour the bed was assembled and Sara’s opinion of Ash had risen considerably. They reconvened at the kitchen table with quiche—slightly overcooked—and fruit, and Sara said, grudgingly, “So you’re one of those men who can do anything. Put a baby to sleep, build a castle from scratch, and negotiate world peace in our time. I’m impressed.”

  He inclined his head graciously. “All you had to do was ask.” And he put down his fork. “Darling, no offense but this is terrible. Is there any bread?”

  She glared at him for a moment, then took a fresh-baked loaf of bread from the bread box, along with a wedge of cheese from the refrigerator, and set them before him. He said, slicing the cheese, “You’re going to like my mother.”

  “I hate you for doing this to me.”

  He smiled, very slightly, with just one corner of his mouth. “Actually,” he said, “I wish I’d thought of it.”

  She tipped more wine into her glass but he held his hand over his. “I have to drive tonight,” he said, and she stared at him.

  “You’re leaving?”

  He glanced at his watch. “I have a one a.m. flight out of de Gaulle.”

  She sank back into her chair, setting the bottle of wine on the table, and thought for a time about the life he led, about one a.m. flights out of Paris to exotic locales, about the contacts that were required to rent a Porsche at the airport, about driving two hours to deliver a kitten to a child that wasn’t even his. She had never felt so homesick in her life.

  And the strangest thing was, she wasn’t homesick for a place, but for a person.

  He said, slicing cheese, “My mother doesn’t require fussing over. She’s accustomed to coming and going as she pleases. You’ll likely never even see each other. I wouldn’t get worked up over it if I were you.”

  “I’m not,” Sara said. “Not anymore. I really don’t have the energy to get worked up.”

  “Then why do you look so sad?”

  She shrugged a little, and managed a smile. “I was just remembering the last time we sat together at this table. I couldn’t have imagined the life I’m living now.”

  He did not reply to that.

  She watched him eat bread and cheese and fruit and she drank one more glass of wine than she probably should have. When he said, “Come, walk me out,” she sank too easily into the curve of his arm.

  They went out onto the terrace, where a warm breeze was scented with lavender and a pale yellow crescent moon was just beginning to appear over the western turret of the castle. The simple, impossible beauty of it made Sara smile, and Ash, echoing her thoughts, murmured, “Now, there’s a postcard.”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, “it still seems like a fantasy to me.” She glanced up at him. “Most of the time it doesn’t.”

  His arm slid from around her shoulders, his fingers lingering to caress her waist, briefly, and then he wasn’t touching her at all. He said, “Sara, I have something to tell you.”

  She could tell by the look on his face, easy to read even in the bluish twilight, that this was why he had really come here. She felt her chest begin to tighten. And even though he still stood close to her, their arms brushing, she felt a little chill of loneliness when the breeze rustled again.

  He spoke without looking at her. “I’ve finally located a judge in North Carolina who’ll grant my request for an exhumation. I need to know . . . whether you’d like to be present for the disinterment.”

  Her throat convulsed involuntarily. It had been so easy, over these past strange and full and exciting and exhausting weeks, to forget what this was really all about, and the horror that lay at the root of it. Disinterment. The beautiful body of the man who once had loved her, the hands that had stroked her, the mouth that had kissed her . . . Disinterment. She felt dizzy for a moment, and she stretched out a hand to steady herself against the stone wall.

  He persisted gently, though with obvious difficulty, “It’s traditional for a family member to be present, in cases like these . . .”

  She shook her head. Her voice was hoarse. “No. I can’t.”

  “It might help you to find closure. And it seems only respectful, that someone should be there.”

  She was still shaking her head, though more adamantly now. The horror of it seemed to sink into her pores.

  “Sara . . . are you having second thoug
hts? Because once the procedure is set in motion, there’ll be no going back. If you want to stop this, this is your last chance.”

  She managed, in a moment, “Isn’t there . . . another way?”

  “For the kind of accuracy required by law, no. And since there is a considerable fortune at stake, the chances are that this will, eventually, be required as evidence in court.”

  Again, she shook her head. “No. No, it doesn’t have to go to court. I own this place now. I signed the settlement papers. If I want to give it to Alyssa, I can do that; it doesn’t matter who she is or who her father is and there doesn’t have to be proof of anything.” She turned on him, fists closed, “And if you try to fight me—”

  “I have no reason to fight you,” he said calmly, “but other people do. I’ve managed to control Michele for the time being, but I know her too well to imagine this is the end of it. In a year, or several—at a time when this entire business might be particularly hurtful to a young girl—she’ll come back to challenge your claim unless the issue of paternity is settled now. Or unless,” he added with barely a pause, “there’s nothing for her to challenge.”

  She stared at him for a moment of outright disbelief.

  Ash gave a slow, heavy shake of his head and drew in his breath through his teeth. “I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I’m prepared to buy the bloody place from you. It will be the most foolhardy financial move I’ve ever made, but I’ll do it. Let Michele come after me if she cares to try. Do what you like with the profits, put them in a trust for Alyssa if that’s what you want, buy her a real house instead of this tumbling-down pile of stones—”

  “No.” Sara was shaking her head adamantly long before he finished speaking. “Forget it. I’m not selling, not to you or anyone else. This is Alyssa’s home, her heritage—”

  “It’s rock and crumbling mortar!”

  “It’s who she is! It’s her chance to one day look back and see where she came from and how she came to be, it’s her connection with her past, her identity . . .”

  “You’re making assumptions that don’t even exist! Her identity is precisely what’s in dispute!” And then in a calmer tone, “Try to be reasonable Sara. This is the only sensible solution.”

  Sara ground her teeth together, her breath coming quick and hard in her chest. “Sell me your shares,” she demanded. “If you want to do the best thing for everyone, if you really want to protect the château and Alyssa’s heritage, sell me your shares on terms I can afford and let me take over the trust.”

  He made a short impatient sound. “I can’t do that.”

  “You mean you won’t.”

  “I mean I can’t and it would be bloody irresponsible of me to even consider it. If the paternity test should prove negative, you would leave yourself vulnerable to having the entire estate stripped from you—including Alyssa’s portion, which is currently safe and untouchable in a trust. Think it through, for the love of God. I know what I’m doing.”

  “And I don’t?”

  He looked at her steadily for a moment. “In this particular situation, no.”

  Sara pushed her hands into her hair and tightened her fingers. The sound that burst softly from her lips was filled with disappointment and contempt. “You are obsessed,” she said. “With Daniel, with this place, with the Orsays and everything that was theirs. I expected better from you. But she was right, wasn’t she? You’re never going to let this place go.”

  He stared at her, frowning. “Who was right?” And then, with astonished recognition flaring in his eyes, he exclaimed, “Good Lord, Michele? Are you serious?”

  He half turned from her, as though to physically distance himself from the absurdity of the accusation. For a moment Sara thought he might literally walk away. And then he turned back sharply. His voice was low and there was a glitter to his eyes in the moonlight. “Let me tell you something, Sara,” he said. “Nothing would please me more than to be quit of this place, of the Orsays and all their bloody baggage. Do you imagine for one moment that there has ever been any advantage to me to continue to look after them all these years, to advise them and counsel them and try to keep them all from driving themselves to ruin any faster than was absolutely necessary? Do you think I didn’t have more interesting, challenging, and profitable matters with which to occupy myself? I did it because it was left to me to do, and because I swear by all that’s holy I sometimes think the only person who gave a bloody damn about what became of any of them was me. And even now that they’re all gone, I’m still left to pick up the pieces of the shambles they made of their lives. Not because I want to, but because I have to.”

  Sara swallowed a sudden lump in her throat, hands closing at her sides. “I’m sorry to be such a burden to you,” she said stiffly. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  He blew out a short breath. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  He lifted a hand as though to reach for her, but she turned away, crossing her arms over her chest. He was silent for a long time.

  Then he spoke, quietly, behind her. “Do you remember that day at the chapel ruins, when we had the picnic? You asked me what I was afraid of. I don’t think I really knew the answer until the morning Mrs. Harrison walked into my office with a note from you, saying that Alyssa had been left behind.” There was a pause, and Sara could feel his tension, the prickle of horror with the memory. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said then, with an effort she could feel. “That someone will be hurt because I made a mistake, that someone will suffer because I failed to do my job. Alyssa is my responsibility. Protecting your inheritance is my responsibility. I can’t do any less than what I know is best.”

  Sara turned to face him, her throat tight and her eyes aching. How she wanted to rest her head on his shoulder, to feel his arms around her, to let herself be taken care of, even if for only a moment. How she wanted to rely on him. To be his responsibility. To just be held by him. To rest.

  She said, holding his gaze, “I want to adopt Alyssa.”

  For a moment he did not react at all. And then she felt the breath of his sigh, and his eyes closed slowly. “Ah, Sara,” he said, in a voice that was filled with weariness and compassion. And that was all.

  She could feel small tremors starting inside her, deep within her muscles, and she clamped her hands down harder on her arms to control them. She tried to keep her voice steady. “Will you help me?”

  He looked at her sadly. “You know there’s only one way I can help you. And in the end, it might wind up only hurting you, and Alyssa.”

  His voice took on a note of gentle exasperation, and he took a step toward her. “Sara, look at yourself. You’re exhausted, you’re grieving, and you’re not thinking clearly. Your life has been turned upside down in a matter of weeks, and now you’re living in a strange country in a four-hundred-year-old building that’s falling in around your ears and you’re thinking of adopting a child of whose existence you weren’t even aware three months ago. Give it some time, love. Think about this.”

  She said tightly, “If there’s one thing Daniel taught me—taught both of us—I’d think it’s that time is the one thing we can’t afford to take for granted.”

  She saw his lips compress, briefly, perhaps against pain, and the corners of his eyes tightened. He said, “This is not China, or the far reaches of the Ukraine. The French do not relinquish their children to foreigners so easily, particularly a child who is already as well situated as Alyssa.”

  She drew a sharp, harsh breath to protest but he spoke over her, calmly. “There’s no point in approaching the authorities at all until we have the results of the DNA test, and I think you knew that all along. You also cannot fail to realize that the matter of a ten-million-dollar estate complicates the situation considerably, which is even more reason for you to take my proposal seriously. The moment the judge signs the order of exhumation, this all becomes a matter of public record, and the evidence—whatever it may turn out to be—can be used agai
nst you as well as for you. But as things stand now, in this very small window of time, you are perfectly within your rights to sell the property, become a very rich American, and then proceed with the rest of your life. If that includes a petition to adopt Alyssa, you will have more than adequate resources to pursue the effort. So I ask you, what good will it do to go through with this paternity test? If you find out Alyssa is Daniel’s child, you’ll spend the rest of your life despising yourself for being married to a man you never knew. If you find out she isn’t, you’ll have nothing left of him at all. Don’t do this to yourself, not when there’s a simpler way—”

  “Stop it!” she cried. “I’m not interested in any more of your schemes or your deals or your assurances! A little girl’s entire future is at stake and that’s the only thing that matters right now!”

  “Which little girl?” Ash said softly. “The one who’s sleeping upstairs right now, or the one who was abandoned forty years ago in a trailer park in North Carolina?”

  The breath that caught in her throat sounded like a sob and for a moment all she could do was stand there, her arms falling limp at her sides, staring at him, while the tears she had been fighting all day finally spilled over into two hot tracks down her cheeks. Ash stepped into her and took her shoulders, and though she tried to pull away at first, he held her, and he bent his face close. His eyes were filled with empathy and tenderness, and something else . . . conviction. Or determination.

  “I know you’ve been hurt,” he said. “I know you’ve been betrayed, and I know how hard it is for you to trust me. But Sara, what if you’re wrong? What if, this time, I’m really the good guy?”

  And that was when she started sobbing, helplessly, brokenly, in a way she hadn’t done since that day Michele had first arrived with Alyssa. He took her in his arms and held her there, stroking her hair, kissing her face, and she turned her mouth to his instinctively, losing herself in him because that was, at that moment, all she wanted in the world. She stretched her arms around his neck, pushed her fingers into his hair, and let his heat consume her, flooding through her skin and into her brain, burning out everything else. “I don’t care,” she whispered brokenly against his face. The texture of his skin, smooth yet coarse, so very male, against hers, the smell of him, the taste of him, the feel of him, strange and strong and dangerous and familiar, all of it enveloped her, and even as she spoke her eyes began to flood again, this time from need; simple, raw, and helpless need. “I just want the pain to stop. I just want it to stop . . .”