Keys to the Castle by Donna Ball

Author:Donna Ball
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-10-19T22:00:00+00:00

Fairy-Tale Endings

ELEVEN

The flight from London to Paris was just over an hour long, even when one had access to a chartered jet and a private helicopter to Heathrow. The drive from Paris to Rondelais, at top speed, was an hour and a half. There was a one-hour time difference between Paris and London. At 9:07, London time, Mrs. Harrison interrupted Ash’s meeting with a rather grim look on her face and handed him a folded note. At 12:52, Paris time, Ash pulled his rented Peugot into the circular drive in front of the château and got out. Approximately thirty seconds later, when he heard the sound of childish laughter, his heart, which had been frozen in his chest since he had read the note, started beating again.

He followed the sound around the perimeter of the castle to the long walled garden that overlooked the moat. Daniel’s grandparents had put a croquet court in the center of it, and Ash and Daniel had practiced soccer there on the weekends they came down. Around the perimeter there once had been flower beds and fountains and pergolas where elegantly clad guests would sip drinks and watch the croquet players and chat about nothing at all.

Little remained now but a few rusty benches and stone tables, empty fountain basins and cracked statues. But the grass had been recently mown, and the maze of boxwood shrubs that hid statues of frogs and pelicans and cherubs, the flat stone steps that led from one level to another, the stepping-stones and gazing balls, all made for an imaginative child’s playground paradise. Alyssa, in her plaid school skirt and white blouse from yesterday, was holding Sara’s hands as she jumped from one of the stepping-stones to another, both of them laughing when she teetered on the edge and clapping when she landed center. Sara’s hair was pulled up high on her head in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup. In baggy shorts that reached to her knees and a mismatched T-shirt that barely skimmed the top of her shorts, she looked about twelve years old. Every time she lifted Alyssa high over the grass between the stepping-stones the T-shirt would ride up to expose several inches of her slender waist, and watching them, in those first few moments before they knew he was there, Ash felt something odd and sweet catch in his chest. He actually hesitated before opening the gate, just for a second, because he knew that once he stepped inside their world the laughter would stop.

Alyssa shrieked with delight when she saw him, and he scooped her up, hugging her hard, kissing her hair and her cheek. “Chérie, chérie!” he exclaimed, and made himself loosen his grip because he didn’t want to alarm her. He spoke to her in French. “How pretty you look today! Have you had a lovely visit with Auntie Sara? Were you a very good girl? Of course you were!”

She settled herself in the crook of his arm and filled

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.