Keys to the Castle

by Donna Ball

  “Damn it,” he said softly. His fingers tightened on the paper in his hand, wrinkling it. He looked at the clock on the opposite wall. “Damn it,” he repeated, with more ferocity. He snapped his briefcase closed, stuffed the letter inside his coat, and left the airport.

  In the taxi, he tried to reach Sara on her mobile but, to his frustration, got an out-of-service message. She was always forgetting to charge the battery, despite his admonitions and reminders. But then he glanced at his watch and realized she would be on the train by now, perhaps even in the Chunnel and out of range. He tried her again when he got out of the taxi, but got the same message.

  There seemed to be slightly more activity than usual in his building when he arrived. Televisions were playing on every floor, with groups of people clustered around them here and there, which usually signaled some kind of bloody financial crisis or another somewhere around the world in which he was not remotely interested at the moment. He strode into his suite without looking left or right and said, “Mrs. Harrison, see you if can arrange a video conference with the Dejonges tomorrow morning instead. Meanwhile, get my team into the conference room for a briefing. And make it within the next fifteen minutes.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to catch the next train to France.”

  She was already dialing the telephone. “Very good, sir, but you’ll have to make it a plane instead.”

  He scowled at her. “What?”

  She nodded meaningfully at the flat-screen that was muted on the opposite wall. It showed a reporter interviewing a firefighter against a background of chaos, but he did not give it more than a glance. “There’s been a dreadful accident in the Chunnel,” she said. “I’m sure no more trains are running today. They’ve been trying to reach the victims for over an hour but there seems to be . . .”

  He did not hear anything else she said. He stared fixedly at the images on the television screen. The high glass arches of St. Pancras Station, the chaos inside, a reporter pushing a microphone into some woman’s face. She was weeping hysterically.

  He felt the blood leave his face. His fingertips went cold. He said hoarsely, “Which train?” And when she did not answer immediately he shouted, “Which train, goddamn it!”

  She hung up the phone. She lifted the remote control and pushed the Mute button. In a moment a grave voice intoned, “Again, if you’re just joining us, Eurostar 1902, the 11:32 nonstop from London to Paris, has met with disaster in the Channel Tunnel . . .”

  He stared at the screen. The images, the words, buzzed by him. From very far away he heard Mrs. Harrison say, “Sir?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her rise.

  He turned to look at her. He said woodenly, “Sara and Alyssa were on that train.”

  He remembered pushing his way out of the office and someone grabbing his arm and Mrs. Harrison saying something to him about a crisis center hotline and trying to push a piece of paper into his hand with a telephone number on it but he shook her off and he knew what it was to be blind with terror because he didn’t see anything, not the people he shoved out of his way, not the button on the elevator, not the stairwell he plunged down, until he was in the street and traffic was screeching around him and horns were blaring and he grabbed the door handle of a taxicab before it even stopped. And he was saying, fiercely, under his breath as he flung himself inside, “No. You can’t have them.”

  “Beg pardon, guv?”

  “St. Pancras. Now.”

  He punched the number again for her mobile, and this time he got nothing, not even the out-of-service message, just a high-pitched warbling that sounded like sirens rushing to a disaster, that sounded like the end of the world.

  He threw a handful of bills at the driver, he did not know how much. He was running now, running through the big doors, down the vast concourse with its throngs of people, pushing his way to the front of a ticket window, blurting something, demanding something, and before he could hear the answer he saw a man in uniform and he grabbed his arm and he started running again and at some point a woman with a Red Cross emblem on her shirt took his hand gently and said, “Did you have family on board, sir?”

  And he answered hoarsely, “Yes.”

  She took him to a room packed with folding chairs and people who were eerily quiet, except for the occasional broken sob, the sounds of shock, the sounds of horror. Someone led him to a chair and gave him a clipboard with a form to fill out but he couldn’t make his hand work. He heard whispers: Two hundred forty-six dead. No survivors. No, two hundred forty-six on board. Twelve survivors. No, twelve dead. So far. No, the first car had been untouched. No, the first car had exploded on impact. There was a board at the front of the room with papers pinned to it. People kept gathering around it, stiff-muscled, holding one another. He said to the man next to him, “What’s that?” And he said, “The passenger list. The names with the check marks next to them are the bodies they’ve recovered.”

  Ash stood up and he walked to the front and stood there, unable to make himself approach the board. He saw pain and terror and sympathy on the faces of the others, strangers to him, but just like him. They stepped back to let him near the board but he stood still, staring at those small typed lines from a distance, some with check marks, some without. How life could change in an instant. How only a breath ago he was worried about diamonds in South Africa and calling for his team. How only a heartbeat ago he stood in the dark and watched Sara and Alyssa sleep and ached with loving them. How he hadn’t even told Sara good-bye. Someone touched his arm. He stepped forward.

  Gabon, Gentry, Giddons . . .

  And he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t read further. He couldn’t stand here in this sea of pain reading a list of names and waiting to see the one with the check mark beside it, this was not what was supposed to happen, this was not what he had planned, and there was nothing he could do about it, not this time.

  He remembered a spring day, the chapel ruins, a picnic spread on the stones. Sara’s eyes. Always, Sara’s eyes. What are you afraid of, Ash?

  This. This moment. This future that even then had been rushing toward him, that he could have avoided had he only taken more care, had he been more vigilant. This moment. This was what he had been running from all his life.

  He turned and fled the room, suddenly drenched in sweat, suddenly desperate for air, and he felt other pained, sympathetic eyes following him, but not for too long, because they were all the same, they and him, his agony was theirs and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it. On the concourse again he grasped a pillar simply to stop his forward motion and he turned, leaning his head back against it, and closed his eyes, shaking inside, breathing into his cupped hand because he was afraid if he didn’t, he would shout out loud, he would scream like a madman, You can’t have them.

  Yet he was the one who had failed to keep them. He was the one who had let them go.

  Almost as if an answer to prayer, his mobile rang. He fumbled it out of his pocket, breath stopping, trying to focus, thinking for a moment the letters on the screen spelled Sara, thinking they did but they didn’t; they spelled I’tnl Caller and how absurd it was that life should go on, that somewhere in the world someone in an office was picking up a telephone and dialing his number, not just absurd but fantastic, really, completely obscene. He took the phone and he threw it as hard as he could across the floor where it collided with a kiosk and broke into several dozen pieces. That was when he heard a voice.

  “Ash?”

  He stood very still, not daring to turn.

  “Petit-papa! There you are!”

  They were there, just across the way, surrounded by a moving throng of people. Alyssa with her ribboned ponytails and her little backpack in the shape of a floppy rabbit, clutching Sara’s hand and bouncing up and down, waving to him, and Sara, in the yellow dress she had worn that morning, looking frail and worried. He moved toward them, not taking his eyes off them, terrified that if he did, they would disappear, knowing that if he reached for them, he
might grasp only air, bumping shoulders with strangers, trodding on toes, and then he stood before her, with her big gray eyes looking so strained and anxious, and she said, “We missed our train. I tried to get another, but there was an accident in the Chunnel and—”

  A sound exploded from his throat, one he didn’t recognize, and he caught her to him and she didn’t melt away at all. She held him back, hard, as hard as he was holding her, and when his knees started to give way she sank to the floor with him and he blindly reached out an arm to gather Alyssa into his embrace. Sara said breathlessly against his ear, “I was so mad at you for sending us away, for thinking I wouldn’t forgive you, for not giving me a chance . . . And then I was mad at myself, for letting you send us away, for not fighting for you. I tried to call you, I wanted to tell you I’d stay here if you wanted, and Alyssa could go to school in London, and we’d work it out together what to do with the château, God it’s so simple, Ash, if we could just work it out together . . . but I couldn’t get a signal on my phone so I left the gate and then I realized the battery was dead, but they wouldn’t let me back through security, and by the time I made it back the train was already gone . . .”

  He said hoarsely, “It was your train. I thought you were on that train.”

  It took her a moment to comprehend, and then the color drained from her face. “Oh, Ash.” Her arms came around his neck, she buried her face in his shoulder, and he held her, held them both, until his arms began to tremble from holding them. Alyssa wriggled away, took his face in both of her small, plump ones, and demanded with a scowl, “Why do you cry, petit-papa?”

  He laughed and wiped his hand across his eyes, and his wet face, not because he was embarrassed, but so that he could see. “Because I’m happy to see you,” he told her. He scooped her up and stood, his other arm around Sara’s waist. “That’s all. Just happy. Let’s go home.”

  That night he stood beside Alyssa’s bed while Sara cuddled her to sleep, thinking how life could change in an instant, thinking about second chances, and no power on earth could have moved him from their sides. He lay down beside them, careful not to wake Alyssa, and put his arm over them both. Sara twined her fingers with his.

  Fifteen were confirmed dead; forty-two injured. Life could change in an instant.

  “Sara,” he said softly, “when I was in that room, looking at those people’s faces . . . knowing what they felt, seeing myself in their eyes . . . I’ll never forget it. I don’t think I can ever be the same person again.”

  She turned gently to face him, forming herself to the curve of his body. She said, “I know.” And he knew that she did.

  She whispered, “I don’t want you to hate Daniel anymore. I don’t want you to hate yourself.”

  He shook his head, kissing her hair. “How can I hate Daniel?” His voice was low and rich with emotion. “He brought me this. This moment. This incredible treasure. And this time I’ll protect what is mine with all my heart. As for the man I once was . . .” He stretched out his arm, across Sara, and gently tucked away a curl that was caught in the moisture near Alyssa’s parted lips. “I think I can forgive him as well.” He looked at Sara. “If you can.”

  “There was never anything to forgive.” Very softly, very sweetly, she kissed his lips. She said, “Remember the man I fell in love with. Please don’t take him from me. Not entirely.”

  He was silent for a long time, holding them. Just holding them. “I don’t think I can go back to my old life.” And when her eyes lifted, questioningly, to his in the dark, he smiled. “For one thing, I seem to have lost my mobile. For another . . .” He released a long soft breath, lightly tangling his fingers in her hair. “It simply doesn’t seem important anymore. I’m not sure how I ever thought it was.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’m not entirely ready to become a missionary to the Sudan,” he admitted, “and I won’t abandon the company, or my employees. But I’ve always known I was a good deal more involved there than I needed to be. And lately I’ve been thinking about a midlife change of career. Perhaps I’ll try my hand at wine making. Or the hospitality industry.”

  Sara tucked her head beneath his chin, smiling. “You seem very employable to me,” she said. “I’m sure you won’t have any trouble at all finding a job.”

  And then he said softly, because it had seemed so unimportant before, because it hadn’t even mattered until now, “The results of the paternity test came in today. That’s why I canceled the trip to Johannesburg. I knew there would be a copy waiting for you at Rondelais, and I didn’t want you to be alone when you opened it. I was on my way to tell you when I . . . when I heard.”

  She looked up at him. Her eyes were as soft and as luminous as moonlight in the dark. She whispered, “Do I need to know? Does it matter?”

  “No,” he returned, kissing her cheek. And he added simply, “She’s ours, isn’t she?”

  Sara smiled, and closed her eyes again, and said, “Yes.”

  Sara relaxed, content in the circle of his embrace, and he reached across her again, and found Alyssa’s hand, and felt her fingers close around his in her sleep. He smiled, and watched over them until his eyes grew heavy, and he fell asleep.

  The dream came, and he awoke with a start, as he always did, as he leapt to catch the white hat. And then he started laughing, silently to himself in the dark, turning over carefully so as not to disturb his girls. But Sara was already awake, and she eased herself up onto one elbow, looking at him. “What?” she whispered. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing.” He stroked her hair, but he couldn’t stop smiling. “I just suddenly realized where I’ve seen you before.”

  She waited for him to say more, but when he did not, she merely kissed his cheek softly and said, “Did I tell you I’ve figured out how we can solve all of our differences?”

  “No,” he answered, twining his fingers through hers, still smiling, “but it doesn’t matter. Because so have I.”

  Happily Ever After

  EPILOGUE

  The ceremony was private, with only family and, of course, Mrs. Harrison in attendance. They gathered on the knoll amidst the ruins of the old chapel: Dixie and Jeff, who had flown in from the States the day before, and Ash’s sister Margaret from Scotland with her husband, and his mother in cascades of lavender ruffles. Alyssa wore her pink dress with its ruffled petticoat and solemnly held a bouquet of wilting daisies that she and her soon-to-be grandmère had picked that morning. Mrs. Harrison wore a pale blue suit, which for Ash was cause enough for celebration. A holy man said words, and gold rings were exchanged, and a single, gentle kiss. It was a simple ceremony that in and of itself changed nothing. But with it, a family was formed where none had been before. And afterward, nothing would ever be the same.

  Five hundred guests were expected at Rondelais for the reception, and most of them had already begun to arrive. A dozen white tents were set up across the emerald lawn and throughout the gardens, sheltering food, musicians, a champagne fountain with thousands of sparkling glasses, and a wedding cake that was decorated like Cinderella’s castle. The place looked liked a feast day gathering from medieval times, with bowers of flowers everywhere and a Maypole, even though it was September. A steady breeze cooled the bright blue day, and the flapping of the tent canvases sounded like wings.

  “And you said I couldn’t give a party.” Katherine stood beside Ash with champagne in hand, surveying the whole with enormous satisfaction. “And on such short notice, too.”

  “You have outdone yourself,” he assured her, and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I only regret that we didn’t alert the tabloids. Your fame would have spread far and near.”

  She gave him an annoyed look. “I had hoped marriage to Sara would improve you. But I can see now you’ll never change.”

  That made him laugh, and he replied, gazing into his champagne, “No, I suppose not.”

  There had been one near-disastrous moment, when Conde de Castrilli of Spain arri
ved with his new paramour—the former Mrs. Lindeman. Katherine’s eyes had gone wide with disbelief and Ash’s jaw had tightened, but Michele had merely kissed them both, politely, on the cheek, without ever unwinding her arm from that of the count. She introduced him as her “fiancé, the fourteenth count of Castrilli” and murmured graciously, “What a lovely party. I do hope you’ll do us the honor of joining us in the spring for our wedding celebration. Castillo Castrilli is quite a bit larger than this,” she assured them, “so of course we’ll expect you to stay the week. And bring the lovely American, won’t you?”

  They watched her stroll away on the arm of her adoring—and much older—fiancé, and that was when Katherine and Ash had each snatched a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and consumed half without comment.

  “Where is your lovely bride, anyway?” Katherine said now. “The guests are starting to grow curious.”

  “I think she took Jeff inside to meet the Contandinos. He said something about wanting to look at the west wing.”

  “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have a genuine builder give an opinion. And the Contandinos should be the guests of honor for this entire affair, if you ask me. Imagine, the key to preserving this entire estate was hidden away in the west wing all this time, and the Orsays never even knew it.”

  “Our request to be listed hasn’t been granted yet,” he reminded her.

  “But the letter was authenticated.”

  “For which,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist and kissing her again, soundly, “we have you to thank.”

  Katherine replied, “Really, my dear, these public displays of affection are growing quite tiresome.” And he laughed again.

  The letter to which she referred was, of course, the original written to Louis XIV from his mistress Adelaide Duvant, detailing the joys they had shared during his latest visit and thanking him for the lovely style in which he kept her at Château Rondelais. It had been found behind a 1920s wedding photo of an Orsay couple and several layers of newsprint when Sara, unpacking the photographs to rehang them in the library downstairs, had accidentally broken the frame.