Thurston House

by Danielle Steel

  “Now I know you’re crazy, André.”

  “I’m not!” The woman he had been involved with in France had been older than she, and not nearly as beautiful. Sabrina would have been a rare gift for any man. She was a very special woman, as André was aware. And he wouldn’t have dared approach her just for fun. She meant too much to him for that. They parted company at two o’clock in the morning, and met again at breakfast the next day, fully dressed and businesslike, but they were closer after their late-night talk. She was freer about mentioning John to him suddenly, and he talked about some of his women friends to her, almost as though they were sounding each other out, without realizing it, and he startled her when he decided not to return to Napa on Friday night as planned, and invited her out to dinner instead.

  “Is there something to celebrate?” She looked surprised, and she was tired. It had been a long week, and she was still tired from her legal ordeal with Camille the month before. The relief from that had left her almost weak at the knees, and she hadn’t gotten out much since then. He thought it might do her good.

  “Why not just go out for the hell of it?”

  “How decadent.” But the idea appealed to her, and she retired to her rooms to dress for him, and when they met downstairs beneath the dome, she was wearing a black dress he had never seen before.

  “You look very elegant, madame.” He smiled at her playfully and she noticed again how handsome he was. She didn’t notice it very often now, they were so used to each other and they were just friends, but tonight she felt womanly and seductive beneath his gaze.

  He drove her to the restaurant and they had a drink at the bar, and then took their table after eight o’clock, and they had a lovely time, he telling her about things he had done in France, she telling more stories of the mine and about herself, and as usual, they wound up back at Thurston House. But tonight, she invited him into her private sitting room. Usually, they sat in the library, but this was smaller and cozier and more intimate, and she built a fire and lit it when he went downstairs to get drinks for them. He poured two small brandies for them, and they sipped them by the fire, looking into the glow as the embers rolled and the kindling caught. She looked at him then. “Thank you for tonight, André … thank you for everything. You’ve been good for me. And very good to me, as well.” He was touched by what she said and he reached out and touched her hand.

  “I would do anything for you, Sabrina. I hope you know that.”

  “You already have.” And then, as though they had both expected it, he leaned over and kissed her lips, and neither of them looked shocked, it just seemed so natural, and they sat side by side, holding hands and kissing by the fire. And then after a while she laughed gently at him. “It’s like being kids again, isn’t it?”

  “Aren’t we?” He smiled.

  “I don’t know …” He muffled her words with his lips and she felt a hunger for him rise up in her that she had never realized was there, and he took her in his arms, and as they lay by the fire, he felt his body warm beside hers, and his hands began to move on her flesh, and she was surprised at herself but she didn’t object to it. It was as though they were both ready for what was happening, and he looked gently down at her.

  He whispered gently to her, he didn’t want to do anything they’d both regret, or that, more importantly, she would. She was too important to him, as a human being, as well as a friend. “Should I go away, Sabrina?”

  “I don’t know.” She smiled at him. “What are we doing here?”

  “I think I’m in love with you,” he whispered back. And remarkably it didn’t surprise her at all, and she realized that she had been in love with him for a long, long time, maybe even from the first time they had met. They had built something beautiful together, with their hearts and their hands, courageously, energetically, he had brought her alive again, and now this was only an extension of that, and she reached out to him, and he carried her to her bed, and they made love there as though they had always done so, and at last they lay in each others’ arms sleepily as he smoothed the silk of her hair beneath his fingertips and fell asleep with his lips on hers.

  And when they awoke the next day, he was relieved to see that there was no regret in her eyes. And he kissed her on the eyes, the lips … the tip of her nose, and she giggled at him and they made love again. It was almost like a honeymoon, and everything about it was comfortable. She couldn’t imagine how it could all happen that easily. It had been almost twenty years since she had made love to a man, and yet here she was, as happy as could be with him, and he was obviously crazy about her. A floodgate had suddenly opened in him, and he seemed to open up and engulf her with his love.

  “What happened to us?” She looked at him sleepily after they made love again. It was Saturday, and they didn’t have to go anywhere. They were alone and happy and in love.

  “It must have been something we ate last night.…”

  “Maybe the champagne … we’ll have to remember to grow ours like that.” And then with a smile, she drifted off to sleep again, and awoke at noon, as he arrived in the bedroom with a tray of things to eat.

  “To keep up your strength, my love.” And she needed it, when he attacked her again the moment after they ate.

  “Good heavens, André!” She was laughing, and happy and enjoying herself. “Are you always like this?”

  “No.” He answered honestly and snuggled closer to her. He couldn’t get enough of her. It was as though he had waited a year and now had to press it all into one day. “You do something wonderful to me.”

  “May I return the compliment?” They slept and made love all afternoon, and at six o’clock they finally got up and bathed and dressed and went out again. This time to the Bal Tabaria on Columbus Avenue, and it really was like a honeymoon.

  “How did this happen to us?” She smiled at him over a fresh bottle of champagne with dessert.

  “I don’t know.” He looked serious as he looked at her. “I think maybe we’ve earned it, my love. We’ve worked awfully hard this year.”

  “What a nice reward.” And he thought so too as they went back to her bed that night, and made love again, this time with a fire in the hearth of her room. It was the room where Jonathan had been born almost twenty-two years before, but she wasn’t thinking of that now. She was thinking of André, and they slept soundly in each other’s arms and awoke just after dawn. They looked at each other, kissed and went back to sleep, and made love when they woke up again the next time, and the time afterward. And it was then that André looked at her thoughtfully. He had thought of it the day before as well and then forgot.

  “Would it be rude to ask you if you’re worried about birth control, my love?” He realized he had done nothing about it for two days, but she was unconcerned.

  “By the time I might get pregnant, André, I’ll be eighty years old. I don’t get pregnant easily to say the least. It took me two years each time I got pregnant before. I am the least dangerous woman you know. And probably even more so at my age.”

  “That’s convenient at least. But you’re sure that’s all right?”

  “I’m positive. I probably can’t even get pregnant by now.” She had not yet gone through change of life, but in the last year, she had recognized signs that it was coming.

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “I’ll do something about it next week. And in the meantime …” He was already not worrying about it again, and by Sunday night they were so content that they decided to spend another night at Thurston House before going back to Napa again. Neither of them was anxious to end the impromptu honeymoon. Their whole lives had changed in two days and neither of them regretted it. It added a new dimension to all they’d had before, and when they drove to Napa the next day, Sabrina began to laugh, her long hair falling down her back, her blue eyes as bright as a young girl’s, and she was wearing the red cashmere sweater he’d given her, with a pair of gray flannel slacks. “What’ll we do in Napa now? T
he men will be shocked.” It was none of their business anyway, and she didn’t think Antoine should know, at least not yet.

  “It looks like I’ll have to build my house a little more rapidly. Tomorrow I call the architect!” They both laughed and that night he tiptoed from his room to hers and then tiptoed back again at dawn, with a happy smile on his face. He was fifty-five years old, and he had never been as happy in his life as he was now.

  32

  They tiptoed back and forth between each other’s rooms for the next few weeks, going to the city at least once a week, but she was in Napa most of the time with André and Antoine. And a different look passed between Sabrina and André now, a secret message understood only by them, although once she thought she saw Antoine watching them, and then he quickly turned away, as though afraid to intercept what was not meant for him, and later she thought she saw him smiling at them.

  “Do you think he knows?” She asked André late one night, as they lay whispering in her bed in the Napa farmhouse. He had indeed gone to the architect that week, and his new house would be started that spring. But they would still have to tiptoe back and forth between their rooms for a long time before the house was completed.

  “I don’t know.” André smiled at her in the moonlight as he touched her face. He had never loved a woman as he loved her, and she felt something for him she had never felt before, not even for John. She had been so much younger then, and there was more depth to what she felt for André now. “I think he would be happy for us, if he knew. I almost told him yesterday.”

  She nodded. She could not imagine telling Jon. He had already accused her of having an affair with André long since, and she didn’t want to prove him right now, even though there had been no other man in her life for years, not since his father died. But she knew he wouldn’t understand. And there had been no news of him in almost a month, nor of Camille, who had retreated to Atlanta again, but Sabrina certainly didn’t want to hear from her anyway, and now she forced her thoughts back to Antoine. “You don’t think he’d be upset?” He was so different from Jon, and she was already so fond of him.

  André smiled at her in the moonlight again. “What would he be upset about? He’d be pleased for us.” And Sabrina suspected that too. He was unusually kind to her these days, helping her in the fields when they all worked side by side, which she liked best. And it was Antoine who was with her a few weeks after that, when she stood up in the bright sun for most of the day, and then suddenly reeled toward him late in the afternoon and almost fainted in his arms. She was mortified, as they sat side by side in the dirt, and he made a cool compress from a handkerchief and the water from a canteen he had with him. “You should have worn a hat.” He scolded her as though she were a child, and she looked up at him, feeling very ill. Everything seemed to be reeling, and her stomach heaved, but she managed to control herself and walk slowly back to the house with him a little while later.

  “Antoine … don’t say anything to your father … please.” She looked imploringly at him, but he frowned at her.

  “Why not? I think he should know, don’t you?” And then suddenly he was frightened for her. His mother had died of cancer when he was five, and he still remembered her, and how sad his father had been. He looked at Sabrina with worried eyes. “I will not tell him, if you promise to go to a doctor right away.” She seemed to hesitate and he grabbed her arm, propelled by the distant memories he had, and he looked fiercely at her. “I mean that, Sabrina, or I’ll tell him right now.”

  “All right, all right. It was just the sun.” But he didn’t think she looked well now, and he noticed in the next few days that she wasn’t eating very much. He questioned her about the doctor again, and she was going to fob him off, but he wouldn’t let her do that. “Antoine, I’m fine.”

  “You are not.” He had actually shouted at her, but it was different than the fights with Jon. It was so obvious that he was worried about her, and she was touched, so that when it almost happened again, he almost dragged her back to the house at noon, and fortunately André was at the architect’s again. “Now, do you call your doctor, Sabrina, or do I?”

  “For heaven’s sake …” She was embarrassed, but he wouldn’t let her off the hook. He stood by the phone, looking at her menacingly, and finally she laughed. “It’s a good thing you’re not my son, Antoine, I wouldn’t have a chance against you.” But she was teasing him and she looked at him gratefully as she went to the phone to call. It was nice knowing that he cared that much, and now two people did. André and his son. She called the doctor and made an appointment for the following afternoon. “And do you know what he’s going to say?”

  “Yes.” Antoine looked intransigent. “That you work too hard. Look at Papa, he works hard too, but he takes a nap each day.” It was a habit he had brought from France. La sieste, but because of it he looked young and healthy.

  “I don’t have the patience for that.”

  “Well, you should.” But he was pleased that she was going to see her doctor. At least he had accomplished that much. “Do you want me to drive you into town tomorrow?”

  “No. That’s fine. I have some other things to do anyway.” And she didn’t want to make a fuss of it, or André would wonder what was going on.

  “You’ll tell me what they say?” She saw the fear rampant in his eyes, and it was almost as though he were a little boy again. She went to him and looked up into his eyes. He was a great deal taller than she, but she felt protective toward him now.

  “It won’t be anything terrible, Antoine. I’m in perfect health, and I promise you, I feel fine. I think probably all that strain with my mother turning up, and going to court, and …” They both knew she had almost added Jonathan to the list. “I think it all wore me out, and I’m paying for it now.”

  “I was so sad they did that to you.” He looked down at her almost as though she were his mother now.

  “So was I. But maybe it was just as well to clear it all up.” And yet through it she still felt that she had lost her son. She had seen a side of him she could not forget. Even now. “And now, I want you to stop worrying about me. And I promise you, I’ll tell you everything the doctor says.” But when she sat in his office the next day, she knew she couldn’t keep her promise to Antoine. She sat staring at the doctor she had known for years, shock and disbelief stamped on her face. “But that couldn’t be … it’s not possible … the last time it took … and I thought that by now …” She stared at him. It was impossible to believe. But the doctor was smiling gently at her.

  “It’s true, Sabrina. That test doesn’t lie. At least not when it’s positive. And it was. You’re pregnant, my dear.”

  “But I can’t be. In fact, last year I know I started the change of life. I haven’t even had my period since …” She counted back and then stared at him. “Oh no …” It had been two months. He was right. She hadn’t associated it with André. She was just happy not to be bothered with it. “I never thought … My God, if I hadn’t almost fainted in the fields the other day …” It would have been months before she’d known. And she still couldn’t believe it was true. “But both other times it took me years to get pregnant, and …”

  The doctor reached across his desk and patted her hand. “It isn’t always like that, my dear. And for all you know the problem then was John.”

  “Oh my God.”

  She was so distressed then, that a terrible thought occurred to him. “You do know who the father is, don’t you?”

  “Of course!” She looked even more shocked than she had before. “But I have no idea what he’ll think of this … we’re business associates and friends, but … at our age … we had no plans … we …” Tears suddenly filled her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. How cruel fate was. Why couldn’t she have met him fifteen years before and then perhaps … “What am I going to do?” She cried openly into the handkerchief he handed her, and then blew her nose and looked at him. “Will you take care of it?” It was a shocking
thing to ask, and they both knew it was against the law, but she didn’t know where else to turn. He was the only doctor that she knew, except an old man in St. Helena she’d gone to years before, but he looked sadly at her now.

  “I can’t do that, Sabrina. You know that.”

  “I’m forty-eight years old. You can’t expect me to have this child? I’m not even married to the man.”

  “Do you love him?” She nodded her head and blew her nose again. “Then why not marry him and have the child?”

  “I can’t do that. We both have grown sons. We’ll be a laughingstock. He’s fifty-five, I’m forty-eight. And at his age, he could still get away with it. He looks like a young man. But I could be a grandmother by now for heaven’s sake.”

  “So what? Other women have done it before. I had a patient two years ago who was fifty-two years old. The same thing happened to her, except that she was married of course. And she and her daughter wound up in the hospital having a baby at the same time. You won’t be the first one, Sabrina.”

  “But I’d feel like a fool. And I refuse to force him to marry me.…” She smiled through her tears and laughed and cried at the same time. “It’s so ridiculous, at my age, to be forced into marrying a man because of a pregnancy.” She looked at the old doctor and started to cry again, and then looked at him pathetically. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

  “It’s understandable. It’s quite a shock for anyone. And I have to admit, in your circumstances, Sabrina, it’s not an easy situation. Is he a nice man, at least? Could you be happy with him?”

  “Yes, I could.” But they had never discussed marriage and there was no reason for him to marry her. They were reasonably comfortable as things were. “But still … a baby at our age …” She thought of Jon, and the baby she had lost before him, that one had been a girl they said, and she hadn’t even been considered terribly young then, but at forty-eight … it was inconceivable, and yet she had. She looked at the doctor again then. She knew what she had to do. She just didn’t know where to go for it. “Can’t you help me find an abortionist? I just can’t go through with this. It’s not right.”