"Lately, yes. Ever since you sent me down here as a punishment for a sin I didn't commit. You've treated me like a criminal all summer."

"Perhaps it's your own guilt that makes you feel that way, my dear."

"Not at all. And I refuse to feel guilty about a trip with my mother, or to bow and sc.r.a.pe and beg, I don't need to do that. I'm a grown woman, and I can certainly do something like that, if I choose to."

"Ah, the young baroness spreads her wings. Are you telling me that you don't need my support because of the size of your own income?"

"I would never say such a thing, Henri." She was shocked at how bitter he seemed to be. But he was furious that she wouldn't bend to his wishes.

"You don't need to, my dear. In any case, I've decided. You're not going."

She looked at him and shook her head in despair. He didn't understand that he was choosing the wrong issue on which to take his stand. Nothing could have kept her from going. Not even her husband.

Chapter 26.

When John Chapman arrived in Kentucky, it was like landing on another planet. He had to change planes twice, and a jeep met him and took him over three hours of b.u.mpy roads into the mountains, until he was deposited at a "motel" with a single room and an outdoor toilet. He sat huddled in his room that night, listening to the owls outside and sounds he had never heard before, and he wondered what Megan would be like when he met her the next morning.

He slept fitfully, and woke early. He walked to the town's only restaurant and ate fried eggs and grits, and a cup of truly awful coffee. And the jeep came for him again after lunchtime, with a toothless driver, who was only sixteen years old, and drove him to the hospital, high up in the mountains, under tall pine trees and surrounded by shacks where a.s.sorted families lived, most of them with a dozen children running around barefoot in what could only be called rags, followed by packs of mangy dogs hoping to find some crumbs, or leftover food the children might have forgotten. It seemed difficult to believe that this G.o.dforsaken outpost could be huddled in such beautiful country, and only hours away from places like New York, or Washington or Atlanta. The poverty John saw was staggering. Young boys who looked like bent-over old men from poor working conditions, bad health, and acute malnutrition, young women with no teeth and thin hair. Children with swollen bellies from lack of food. John wondered how she could stand working there, and walked into the hospital, not sure of what he'd find there.

He was directed to a clinic around the back, and he went there, only to find twenty or thirty women, sitting patiently on benches, surrounded by screaming kids, and obviously pregnant again with what in some cases was their eighth or ninth child even though they were only twenty. It was an amazing sight, and when he looked toward the desk, he saw a head of bright red hair, braided and in pigtails, worn by a pretty girl in jeans and hiking boots, and as she walked toward him, he knew without a doubt, it was Megan. She looked incredibly like Alexandra.

"h.e.l.lo, Doctor." She smiled at the greeting and led him to a small room nearby, where they could talk privately. He showed her the file he had shown Alexandra, and told her about Alexandra as well, and explained that the meeting was set for September first, as she had suggested. "Can you still make it?" He looked worried and she rea.s.sured him with a warm smile. She had some of the mannerisms of Rebecca, but actually she looked a great deal like Alexandra.

"I can. If I can get away from them." She waved toward the army of women waiting on the benches.

"It's an awesome sight."

"I know." She nodded seriously. "That's why I came here. They need help desperately. Medical care, and food, and education. It's incredible to think that this exists right in our own country." He nodded, unable to disagree with her, and impressed that she was doing something about it.

She looked over the file again, thoughtfully, and then asked him some questions about her parents. She wanted to know the same thing Alexandra had asked him. Why had Sam killed Solange? And then, what had happened to the others? She was saddened by what she read of Hilary, and smiled after he finished talking about Alexandra.

"Her life sounds a far cry from mine, doesn't it? A French baroness. That's a long way from Kentucky, Mr. Chapman." She said it with a drawl and he laughed with her, but she still wanted to meet both her sisters. No matter how different they were. "You know, my mother is very frightened about the meeting."

"I sensed that when we met. Your father was trying to rea.s.sure her."

"I think it's very threatening to any adoptive parent to have their adopted child seek out their birth family. I saw that during my residency, before I came here. But she has nothing to worry about." She smiled up at him with ease. She knew exactly who she was, where she was going, and why she wanted to go there, not unlike the people who had formed her. David and Rebecca had lived by their beliefs too, and they were exactly the kind of parents she needed. Decent, intelligent, filled with integrity and love for the people and causes they believed in. And Megan knew it too. She had told her mother that before coming back here. "She'll be all right. I promised to call her after it was all over. I think they'll probably visit me after that, if I know my parents." They both laughed, and John watched her eyes. They were filled with light and life and excitement. She was a girl who loved what she was doing and felt fulfilled, and it was exciting just being near her. She was so different from girls like Sasha, who were so totally wrapped up in themselves. This girl thought of no one but the needy people around her. And halfway through the afternoon, she had to leave him to do an emergency cesarean section. She was back in two hours and apologized for the delay.

"This is supposed to be my free afternoon. But it's always like this, that's why I don't get too far." And then she invited him to dinner at her place. She lived in a simple shack, with simple furniture and beautiful quilts she had bought from some of her patients. She cooked up a plain pot of stew and they relaxed and talked about her youth and her parents and the people she had met. She seemed to love her parents deeply and she was grateful for all they had done for her, yet at the same time it seemed to intrigue her to think that she had once belonged to entirely different people.

She smiled once over her gla.s.s of wine, and looked very young and girlish. "In a funny way, it's kind of exciting." He laughed and patted her hand. In a way she seemed the least distressed, the most secure, the happiest of the three women. She was doing exactly what she wanted.

And afterward she drove him back to where he was staying in the jeep her father had given her when she'd moved to the mountains. John wanted to sit in the moonlight and talk to her for hours, but she had to get back. She went back on duty at four-thirty the next morning.

"Will I see you in Connecticut on the first?" she asked him cautiously, as he looked down at her in the moonlight.

"I'll be there." He smiled. "For a while anyway. I promised Mr. Patterson I'd be there to greet all of you and help get things started."

"See you then." She waved as she drove off and John stood looking after her for a long time, as he heard the owls hooting in the tree, and felt the mountain air soft on his cheeks, and for a moment he wished he could stay there with her forever.

PART FIVE.

Reunion

Chapter 27.

Alexandra had already done all her packing, and all she had left to do was organize the girls when Henri confronted her in the hallway, and grabbed her by the arm.

"I thought you understood me. I told you, you are not going to New York."

"Henri, I have to." She didn't want to fight with him about it. It was something she had to do, and it wasn't fair to try to stop her now. He followed her back into their bedroom where he stood glaring at her in silent fury as her suitcases lay open on the bed.

"Why are you being so obstinate about this?" He knew instinctively it had to be a man. There was no other conceivable reason.

"Because it's very important to me."

"You've told me nothing that explains that. Why does a trip to New York with your mother mean so much to you now? Would you care to explain that?"

Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him across the bed. He had been so unkind to her all summer, and it was so unfair of him to be difficult now. "I really can't explain it. It has to do with something that happened a long time ago."

"Something that involved a man?" He looked at her accusingly, and as she watched him in the harsh sunlight of the Riviera, he suddenly looked very old, and she wondered if perhaps he was frightened ... frightened that she was involved with a younger man. It made her feel sorry for him and for a moment she let her guard down, as she shook her head.

"No, it has nothing whatsoever to do with a man. It has to do with my parents." That was true, but she did not mean the Comte and Comtesse de Borne.

"What about them? Alexandra, I expect you to tell me what's going on." And then suddenly, as though she could fight him no longer, she sat down in a chair, and began to cry. But he did not approach her. He offered her no comfort. From all that he knew, she still owed him an explanation, and perhaps much more.

"I didn't want to explain this to you ... it ... it's difficult to explain. I've only known it myself since June." She looked up at him with deeply troubled eyes, and he suddenly realized that something was very wrong, that the transgressions he had punished her for for two months were perhaps not what he had thought them. A shiver of guilt sliced through him, but only briefly, as he waited, standing near the window, as she went on. "My mother ... my parents ... there was something they should have told you ... I should have told you, except that I had almost forgotten, and I told myself it wasn't important. But I suppose now that it was...." There was an inner shudder of horror as he waited and she caught her breath and continued, "Henri, I was adopted." He stared at her in utter amazement.

"You were? Why didn't someone tell me? Your father never said anything." He looked horrified, but she bravely went on. She was going to tell him all of it, no matter what it cost her.

"I was also adopted before that. By Margaret and her previous husband as well." She waited for the full impact to hit him, and as it did, he sat down slowly on the bed and went pale as he stared at Alexandra.

"Are you serious? You were not the biological child of Margaret and Pierre de Borne?." It was as though someone had just told him the Renoir for which he had paid five million dollars was a fraud. His lovely wife with the impeccable breeding was not a countess by birth, but an unknown. She nodded. She knew how deeply it had shocked her when Margaret told her, and she knew how much more Henri would be stunned. "And before that? Margaret is not even your mother?" His voice was a whisper and Alexandra nodded, ready to tell him all.

"No, she's not."

He gave a bitter crack of laughter. "And to think how often I've worried that you or the children were too much like her. Then who are your parents? Do you even know?" She could be anyone ... a girl from the streets ... from the gutter ... of unknown parents and breeding. The thought of it almost made him ill. For ten centuries his family had married and bred with the utmost caution, and he had married a complete stranger of unknown background.

"I have known for two months. And I've wanted to spare you. That has been the secret I've been keeping from you. Nothing else." But he was not appeased, he looked at her angrily, and strode across the room with fury, as he glanced at her over his shoulder.

"I'd have much preferred if it was a man."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you." She spoke with great sadness. He was letting her down. She had inwardly prayed that he would accept her ... that it wouldn't matter to him. But she had known better than that. These things meant too much to her husband for him to be magnanimous about a surprise of this kind. And she had known it. She had only wished it might be different, but it wasn't.

"And your parents? Who are they? The real ones ..."

She took a deep, brave breath and told him. "My mother was a Frenchwoman, I know only that her name was Solange Bertrand, a 'commoner' as you would put it. My father met her when he liberated Paris with the Allied forces. I know nothing more. My father was an actor, a well-known one, much respected, named Sam Walker. They were said to be very much in love, and they had three daughters, of which I am the second one. And then ..." She almost choked on her words as she told him, but in an odd way it was a relief to say the words, "... as a result of some madness, he killed her. And when he was convicted of the crime, he committed suicide in his cell, leaving me and my sisters penniless and orphaned. We were left with an aunt for a few months, and then a friend of the family, an attorney, found homes for us, and got us adopted, two of us anyway. I was very fortunate in that I was given to Margaret and her first husband, a lawyer named George Gorham. I was five years old at the time. I was apparently four when my father killed my mother, which is why I don't recall it. And I don't remember anything about the man named George Gorham. Apparently, six months later, he died, and my mother ... Margaret, that is ... came to France to recover, and she met my father ... Pierre ... and you know most of the rest. He adopted me as soon as he married my mother, which you did not know, and I suppose I had forgotten, and we lived happily ever after, and then you came along, Henri." She tried to smile, but her face froze as she watched him.

"What a tidy little story." Henri looked at her with unleashed fury. "How dare you perpetrate that hoax on me for all these years? And even if you had forgotten, as you say, your mother certainly hadn't. And your 'father' as you call him ... bande de salopards! bande de salopards! ... I could sue you for divorce on the basis of fraud ... and damages in the bargain!" ... I could sue you for divorce on the basis of fraud ... and damages in the bargain!"

"Do you call your daughters 'damages' Henri? I had no idea ... truly...." The tears coursed slowly down her cheeks and onto her yellow silk blouse as she watched him, but she saw no mercy there.

"I call the entire charade disgraceful! And this trip to New York? What is that all about? To put flowers on your parents' graves?"

"The lawyer who placed us for adoption was my parents' closest friend, and he is dying. He has spent months trying to locate my sisters, and he wishes to bring us together. He feels he owes it to us for whatever pain he caused us in taking us away from each other. I was very fortunate, but at least one of us was not."

"And what is she? A prost.i.tute in the streets of New York? My G.o.d, it's unbelievable! In one hour I have inherited a war bride, a murderer, a suicide, and G.o.d knows what else in the bargain, and you expect me to wave my handkerchief and shed tears of joy that you are being reunited with your sisters, whom even you cannot care about after all this time. And your mother? What part has she played in this? Is she responsible for getting you back in touch with the attorney? Did she think you needed a little excitement in your life? I know how dull she thinks me, but I a.s.sure you this is not my idea of excitement."

"Nor is it hers." Alexandra looked at him proudly. She had told him who she was, and if he chose to reject her, it was his loss, his sin, his lack of compa.s.sion. She had done everything possible to protect him and he had demanded an answer to his questions. Now he had it. And it remained to be seen what he would do about it. "My mother was heartbroken to have to tell me. She never wanted any of this to come out. But I I want to see my sisters. want to see my sisters. I I want to see who they are. And no, my sister is not a prost.i.tute. She runs a major television network, and she has had a tragic life. My younger sister is a doctor, working in Appalachia. And I don't even know if I'll like them, or if they'll like me. But I want to see them, Henri. I want to know who they are, and who I am, other than just your wife." want to see who they are. And no, my sister is not a prost.i.tute. She runs a major television network, and she has had a tragic life. My younger sister is a doctor, working in Appalachia. And I don't even know if I'll like them, or if they'll like me. But I want to see them, Henri. I want to know who they are, and who I am, other than just your wife."

"That's no longer enough for you, is it? You had to bring this on our heads. Can you begin to imagine what this would do to my career if it got out? What would happen to my bank? To my political connections? My relatives? Can you imagine what your own children would think if they knew their grandfather murdered their grandmother. My G.o.d ..." He sat down again, boggled, at the thought. "I can't even begin to imagine it."

"Neither can I," Alexandra said in a small voice. "But I don't see why it should get out. No one is going to publicize this meeting. The children don't even know why I'm going. They just think that Grandma invited us, and we're going to New York. I'm going to spend one weekend in Connecticut, 'with friends,' while the girls and my mother stay in New York."

"I don't understand why you want them with you. It makes no sense." But-it did to her ... and to Margaret.

"Maybe I need them for emotional support." And then she took a big step, one she hadn't imagined a moment earlier. "You're welcome to come along. It's a little frightening going back thirty years to see people you don't know, but must have once loved."

"I can't even begin to imagine. And no, I will not join you. In fact, Alexandra ..." He stood up and looked at her sadly. As far as he could see, their lives had been shattered, in his eyes, beyond repair. "I implore you not to go. I don't have any idea what, if anything, can be salvaged from our marriage, but it serves no purpose to go and see these people. They're beneath you. You must not go back there...." And then, in a whisper, "Please don't."

But this time, she could not oblige him. After fourteen years of devoted obedience to Henri de Morigny, she could not do more. She had to go to New York, for her own sake, and maybe even for that of her children. But she had to go, and face these women, reach out and touch them, maybe even love them, or not, and put to bed some old ghosts she hadn't even known existed. "I'm sorry, Henri ... I have to ... I hope you can understand that. It's terribly important to me. And none of this has to hurt our marriage. I'm doing something I need to do ... for me ... not to hurt you." She went to him then and gently tried to put her arms around him, but he wouldn't let her. He treated her like a stranger, which in his mind, she was now.

"I don't even know who you are anymore."

"Does my family tree make so much difference?" But she knew the answer to that, before she asked the question, and he shook his head sadly, and walked out of the room, as she blew her nose resolutely, and walked down the hall to pack for her daughters. No matter what happened to her marriage, there was no question in her mind. She had to go to New York. She had had to. She was going. to. She was going.

Chapter 28.

It was only three days before the scheduled meeting, when John Chapman went back to the network, flashed all his pa.s.ses, and went upstairs to her office. He smiled at her secretary, and looked as though he belonged there, as he asked if Hilary was in her office.

"She's leaving in a few minutes ..." She was about to ask him who he was, but he slipped past her and she shrugged. She couldn't keep track of everyone who went in to see Miss Walker. They were legion, and he looked all right. In fact, he looked a lot better than that. She smiled to herself, wondering if this was someone Hilary was involved with. No one ever knew anything about Hilary's private life. And as the door closed silently behind him, he stood in Hilary's office, and she looked up, startled.

"Yes?" She thought it was a delivery of some kind, a script, or urgent instructions. She was used to new faces popping in and out of her office, but not this one. And he stood staring at her quietly, as though he knew her well. It was an odd feeling as he approached her, and she was suddenly frightened as she reached for the phone to call for help. But as he smiled at her, she felt foolish. He looked intelligent and coherent and handsome, but she still couldn't figure out who in h.e.l.l he was or what he was doing there as he spoke to her in a deep, gentle voice.

"Miss Walker?" But he didn't need to ask the question. He knew exactly who she was, possibly even better than she herself did. "I'm sorry to barge in on you like this. I have to speak to you for a moment." She stood up behind her desk, as though to take control of the situation as he approached her. The green eyes were as cold as ice, and her voice was curt.

"I'm on my way out. You'll have to see me tomorrow. What department are you from?"

It was a tough question and he wasn't sure what to answer. He didn't want her to call security and have him thrown out. Instead, he said something totally outrageous. "I'm here because of Megan and Alexandra ..." He waited to see the effect, and like a deep knife wound, or a gunshot, at first there was no bleeding. Her eyes were still steady green ice. "... They want to see you."

"Who are you?" This time her hand was shaking as she reached for the phone, and he beat her to it, and held it in its cradle.

"Please ... just give me five minutes. I won't hurt you. It's a long story, but I'll make it as quick as I can." And suddenly she knew that he was the man who had called her, and he knew that she remembered.

"I don't want to see them."

"They want to see you. Both of them. Alexandra is coming all the way from France ... Megan from Kentucky...." He was stalling and she was showing signs of pain in her eyes ... incredible sorrow ...

"That old son of a b.i.t.c.h sent you, didn't he? Why now?" She stood to her full height and watched him, abandoning her grip on the phone.

"He's dying."

"Good."

"Maybe he wants to repent for his sins. He wants to bring the three of you together, this weekend, at his house in Connecticut. He has spent months finding you ..."

"Bulls.h.i.t." She cut him off. "I know better. I went to him over twenty years ago, and he had no idea and no interest where anyone was. Who found us? You did?" He nodded, not sure if she would hate him or not. He was just stirring up more pain for her. And she had long since put the past to rest. She had given up on finding her sisters after the last time she saw Arthur. After ten years, the dream had died. And now after more than twenty, she didn't want to revive it. She didn't need them anymore. She had cut everything out of her life that might remind her of them. There were no men, no children, no love life of any kind. There was work, soothing work, and lots of it, and the people she trampled on the way up. She didn't have to feel guilty or sorry. She was headed in one direction. And she was all by herself. "It's too late, whoever you are."

"Chapman. John Chapman."

"Well, tell him I'm not interested. He's twenty years too late ... make that thirty." She looked unspeakably bitter as she sat down. In some ways, he noticed, she looked younger than she was, and in others she looked older. She had eyes that were older and sadder than time.

"And what do I tell your sisters?"

"Tell them ... Tell them ..." Her voice faltered and she looked up at him sadly. "Tell them I loved them then but ... it's too late for me now." He shook his head and sat down across the desk from her, praying that he could touch something still living in her heart, if anything had survived the endless pain she'd endured in her childhood.

"It's not too late, Hilary ... it can't be ... you were everything to them then...." Arthur had said so. He had once described to John how she cared for the other two girls, and just talking about it had made him cry. "You can't turn your back on them now."

She looked into his eyes, wondering who this man was, how he had found her, and how he knew so much. "They don't need me anymore, Chapman. They're grown up now. What are they? Secretaries? Housewives?" It was the best fate she could hope for them, as John Chapman smiled.

"One's a baroness in France, with two children, and the other's a doctor in Kentucky. They're both interesting women. I think you'd like them." But that was beside the point, even though she was curious about them.

"Who's the doctor?" It was difficult to imagine either of those little girls as a doctor.

"Megan. She's terrific. And so is Alexandra. She's warm and compa.s.sionate and kind."

"She was, even as a baby." Her voice was a whisper, and then dropping her face into her hands, she shook her head. "The thought of finding them kept me alive through ten years of h.e.l.l. I stole ten thousand dollars from my aunt, and I was going to come to New York to find them." She laughed into her hands, and Chapman could see that there were tears on her desk. "And then he told me he hadn't kept track of them ... he had no idea where they were. ... I couldn't find them either." She looked up at John with empty, broken eyes. "What's the point now, except to cause each other pain with the memories of what happened?"