Danielle Steel: Jewels

“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.

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Copyright © 1992 by Danielle Steel

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eISBN: 978-0-307-56654-6

June 1993

v3.0

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32