He had been our family’s lawyer for over forty years. In fact, my grandfather had hired him to handle some paperwork back when he was still a law school student. Even after establishing his own firm, Goldberg and Associates—a respected name in the City—he continued to personally handle our affairs.

I asked him to join me for the meeting with Jared’s team. Having him by my side to catch any slips of the tongue gave me peace of mind.

“Let’s do everything right this time,” Mr. Goldberg said, reminding me of some of my decisions in the past that had been made in a hurry.

I had to let my parents know. They had never been too worried about money for the greater part of their lives. My father didn’t show much concern for it outwardly because, as he explained once, he was “an old-fashioned gentleman and it was vulgar to talk about it.” That, however, didn’t mean that he was a reckless spender. On the contrary, he was trying his best to preserve what had been left to him. He also had other investments in different parts of the country and often travelled to meet with his business partners when I was young. His business activities and the financial returns on his investments had significantly subsided over the years after Charlie’s disappearance because he had been neglecting the business side and focusing more on supporting my mother and, probably, inwardly, dealing with it himself.

Recently, despite the lack of a proven track of success on my side, he started to give me more opportunities, within certain financial limits, to help him with improving our financial situation and to teach me to “be accountable for my own actions and for the future of the family.” My mother had always trusted my father with all the financial decisions and didn’t want to spend her time “counting coins.”

I called them the next day. My father didn’t feel well, and I spoke to my mother. She tried to sound happy, but I could sense a bit of acting in her voice. She didn’t want to do anything with the house after Charlie had vanished. As far as she was concerned, I could sell the lot. I felt a bit disappointed that my idea hadn’t impressed her much, but I didn’t dwell on that too long because some good money was to be made, which was the most important thing, and my mother had never been interested in finances anyway. I was sure it would work this time.

Later that day, I had plans to spend time with Natasha and Christopher. Back in university, the ever-reliable Christopher had proven himself to be an excellent drinking companion and an expert in dealing with hangovers—two qualities I still greatly valued. Unlike James Harding, Christopher was a neat gentleman—trustworthy and a real pleasure to get drunk with. I hadn’t mentioned the deal to either of them. These were people who didn’t wear their hearts on their sleeves, and I had always been one of them.

Natasha had arranged for us to attend a charity event, announcing it during dinner at a French bistro.

“There’ll be plenty of people looking for opportunities to invest their money,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll meet someone useful.”

“And whom will we be giving our money to this time, darling?” Christopher asked, sipping his Old Fashioned. He enjoyed charity events, not only as a way to “give back,” but also because they were “great places to meet smart and educated people.” Unlike me, he loved engaging in meaningful conversations and learning new things.

“I’ll need to check my schedule,” I said, raising my index finger to preempt any sarcastic comments. “I mean it this time.” I turned to Natasha. “When is this wonderful event of yours happening?”

She finished her Champagne cocktail before answering. “Tomorrow.” This time, it was her turn to raise a finger. “I know it’s short notice but do try to make it. I promise you won’t regret it.” She raised her eyebrows with a smile. “There’ll be an open bar.”

***

The next day, Christopher and I presented ourselves at the venue, properly dressed and groomed. Since it was a black-tie event, I chose my deep double-breasted Tom Ford tuxedo with wide lapels and a custom-made white dress shirt from Charvet—a luxury investment in a masterpiece of shirt-making, appreciated by the likes of Sir Winston Churchill and Napoleon Bonaparte long before me. I was pleased to see that Christopher looked dashing, like a movie star, in his tux from Henry Poole & Co., which slimmed his torso and broadened his shoulders.

Just as we were about to compliment each other on our sartorial choices, Natasha appeared in a spectacular black maxi dress with an open-back detail and an asymmetric neckline. I couldn’t identify the brand of the dress, but it didn’t matter—she was stunning. Her diamond chandelier earrings added a sparkling touch to her striking look.

“Glad you both could make it,” she said after completing her obligatory red-carpet photo session. She pecked us on the cheeks. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

“May we just take a moment to compliment you before we start networking?” I said, kissing her hand. “You look amazing.” I turned to Christopher. “Doesn’t she?”

“Absolutely,” he agreed, taking his turn to kiss Natasha’s hand.

“Thank you,” she replied, glancing at someone behind us. “Oh, that’s the gentleman I’d like you to meet.”

We turned.

“He’s a billionaire from the States who moved to the City a few months ago,” Natasha explained. “His name is—”

“Jared Shannon,” I finished.

“You know him then?” Natasha’s disappointment at my ruining her surprise was evident as she pursed her lips.

“How do you know him?” I asked, watching Jared wave to Natasha and make a beeline toward us.

“Oh, we met at an event a few weeks ago. You know, I meet this kind of people to—oh, hello, Jared.” She opened her arms for a hug and greeted the man in a fine tuxedo—the man I hoped would be my way out of impending financial disaster. The fact that they were already on a first-name basis felt a tad unsettling.

“May I introduce my friends to you?” Natasha said after finally releasing Jared from her hospitable, if slightly clingy, embrace.

“I think I know at least one of them,” Jared said, extending his hand for a handshake. “How are you, Alex?”

I shook his hand. “Fine, thank you.” I gestured toward Christopher. “This is my friend, Christopher Deven.”

“It’s Baron Christopher Deven,” Natasha corrected me with a friendly but slightly judgmental shake of her head.

“Christopher’s fine,” Christopher said, saving me from the faux pas. He shook Jared’s hand with a smile.

“How are you doing, Christopher?” Jared asked before turning to Natasha. “I didn’t know you’d be bringing guests tonight.”

“These two needed a bit of fresh air,” Natasha said.

We all laughed politely—the kind of laugh people give when they have nothing meaningful to say.

“I’ll just escort my friends to the table,” Natasha said, taking Christopher and me by the hands. “We’ll see you later at the after-party, won’t we?”

“There’s an after-party after this?” Jared asked, laughing.

“There always is,” Natasha replied with a smile.

“Enjoy the event,” Jared said. “I don’t think I’ll be joining the party.”

He nodded at us with a smile before walking toward a group of young people who greeted him excitedly. I was relieved he hadn’t mentioned our little deal; I wasn’t ready to make it public just yet.

“You seem to know him quite well,” I said as we reached our table. I pulled out Natasha’s chair for her.

“It pays well to know people like Jared Shannon,” she said, opening the menu. “Let’s see what we’ll be paying for tonight.”

“Speaking of which, what is this charity for anyway?” Christopher asked as he took his seat.

“And where’s that open bar?” I added, looking around for the more pressing matter.

The event went well. We left a couple of hours later, having taken full advantage of the open bar while donating some money to…well, I couldn’t even remember what the charity was for by the time we got to the after-party. One thing, however, stuck in my mind: I didn’t particularly like the way Jared looked at Natasha. But I couldn’t blame him for being smitten by her beauty either.

***

A week later, Mr. Goldberg and I were in a big meeting room with Jared’s team in charge, getting ready to iron out any wrinkles in the deal if necessary. This was when a young lady walked in and announced the new offer their boss was ready to put on the table. She put it quite succinctly and yet extremely comprehensively: Jared would double his investment in the project, giving me more funds to make my small cottage community even better and thus attract more clients down the line, if we made one more deal—sell the house. He wanted Maple Grove House. His team had done the necessary assessment of the house’s condition when they were on the property checking the future construction site last week. The sum he was offering was very generous, and he was eager to close the deal as soon as possible.

“What does he want the house for?” Mr. Goldberg asked me when we were out on the street.

“You heard her: ‘Mr. Shannon would like to give back to the community he was once a part of by restoring the house to its former glory and converting it into a cultural space for educational purposes.’”

“What on earth does that mean?”

“Beats me. Whatever it is, he’s willing to pay top dollar for it.”

“You still need to start the project with your money, though.”

“Yes, but there’ll be much more later. We just need to get a few offers, and we’re golden.”

“If you get those offers.”

I smiled. Mr. Goldberg was a very cautious man. I tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

We walked to the parking lot and stopped by Mr. Goldberg’s Range Rover.

“I didn’t know the house was for sale in the first place. Your parents had been keeping it and hoping that one day you’d have a family, and you know…”

Charlie would be found alive, and we would all go back to being a happy family in a big house.

“…you know what I mean,” Mr. Goldberg said, getting his keys. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it wasn’t for sale. Until now, I suppose. I mean, it’s been empty for more than a quarter of a century.”

He unlocked the car, and we both got in.

“You aren’t seriously thinking about that preposterous offer, are you?”

“Well, it will be nice to have more cash for the project, but I need to speak to my father about this.”

“You bet you do,” Mr. Goldberg said, starting the engine. “Say hello to him from me and be sure to let me know the outcome of that conversation.”

Chapter 10

I couldn’t have that conversation with my dad because he passed away from some cold virus complications three days later. I had been going through the details of the proposal and postponing the talk to make sure I could present it correctly to him. I had missed a few calls from my mother and not bothered calling her back. I didn’t want to make any mistakes and miss any details, which was something I had been known for.

When I thought I was ready, I had called my mother the day before and told her about my plans to visit them. My dad had been unwell for some time and couldn’t join the conversation, but my mother sounded happy and excited about seeing me. When she called me the next day to break the news, I’d thought she was merely wanting me to bring her the Turkish treats she liked and so didn’t bother to answer my phone. She always asked me to do that. When I saw that she’d tried to call me three times in a row, I picked up my phone.

No treats this time. Just a black suit.

“It happened so fast, Alex. He was doing better. He was excited about your visit and then he just stopped breathing while he was asleep last night. The doctor said it was some sort of a respiratory syndrome, a lung failure.”

She started to sob quietly. I was considering ways to console my mother, but all I could think about was the fact that my dad’s ancestors had all been buried in the family cemetery situated in one of the park’s corners, and he was probably going to be buried there as well. The corner wasn’t in the deal I was working on, but the idea of my dad’s headstone overlooking the house that wasn’t going to be ours anymore made me feel even sadder.

My father, Alexander Montague I, was the only child of Theodore and Adelaide Montague. He received a good education at the places where children from the upper class usually went, worked with the tenants on the estate to ensure everyone was happy, kept the income coming, and began developing some investment projects. He wasn’t susceptible to the charms of the local female candidates among the “equals” but was known as a desirable match for many.

Before he was given the reins to Maple Grove House, he was sent to Europe to learn about art—something he hadn’t shown much interest in but was expected to understand in order to help enhance the family’s art collection. My grandfather wanted him to distinguish between Manet and Monet and be able to hang the right paintings in the right places to impress guests. Not that the family had acquired a large art collection, but it was “an essential element of a good house,” and Theodore had believed it important.

It was on this trip that my father met a young and beautiful French woman, Elizabeth Baudelaire-Nazarova, who spoke fluent English and would, a year later, become his wife—and a year after that, my mother. He met her at a Roerich exhibition in Paris, where they were both admiring the Himalayas landscapes and the artist’s unusual choices of colors. He asked her if she liked the paintings, which he hadn’t fully understood, but kept that fact to himself. She did, and their conversation went on for thirty indecent minutes, neither of them willing nor able to stop. My father was smitten and completely disregarded social proprieties when he invited young Elizabeth, who was ten years his junior, to have a cup of hot chocolate at a café on Rue de Rivoli. There, they discovered they both shared a love for Jules Verne. The place was called Angelina, and my father, enchanted by this young woman, referred to her as “an angel.” He had been calling her Lizzy, my Angel ever since.

My mother was an independent spirit who wanted to see the world, but she willingly adjusted most of her dreams when she married my father. “Love makes you do things,” I often heard her saying. They had travelled a bit before my father became the head of Maple Grove House, they had children and slowly became “merry country folk,” as my mother liked to call themselves.

“Mother, I’ll be there later today, and I’ll take care of everything,” I said, feeling that I wasn’t doing well at consoling her.

“Thank you, Alex. I want you to know that I want him to be here with me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want him to be buried here in France because I want to be buried here,” she said softly but resolutely.

“But Mother—”

“We made that decision together and you’ll find it in his last will. The reading will take place tomorrow morning. I trust you’ll be here to hear it.”

I didn’t have to literally bury my father amongst my entrepreneurial projects. Fewer complications, but it didn’t make me any happier. I tried to remember my time with him as a kid, which wasn’t that much. I was used to seeing him entertaining his guests more than his own children and going away on his business trips way more frequently than travelling with us. Nevertheless, there were a few rare moments – a couple fishing of trips and assembling a boat model together–which could’ve almost overshadowed the loneliness of a boy who spent more time with his nanny than with his parents. Almost, but not quite.

I had never compared my parents to anyone. When it came to my parents, I dealt with what I had been given without even thinking that it could be any other way. Despite the status and social calendars, living in a big house could be quite solitary for a boy. It was before Charlie was born. When he came along, he instantly became the center of attention, and I realized that solitude had various levels. That initiated quite a lengthy period during which my tiny and fragile connection with my parents became stretched to its limit. I was lucky, though, that Charlie had adored his elder brother despite all my flaws, and I cherished that in my own way.

It was time to say goodbye to my father. I had done that many times when he was alive. This time was supposed to be different, and I was trying to feel the loss in my callused heart. I loved my father, and I was sure he loved me too. Unfortunately, we hadn’t had a strong enough connection to convey that feeling to each other.

“I’ll be there, Mother,” I said and rang off.

I suspected that I would be away for a considerable amount of time and decided to make one more phone call before I started packing. I felt that I needed to let Natasha know about what had happened. It was a curious feeling because I had never needed to report my movements to anyone. Was I developing feelings for her, serious enough to make a phone call like that? Or was I simply trying to ensure that she wouldn’t gallivant with other men while I was gone?

“I’m so sorry, Sasha,” she sounded genuine on the phone. “Would you like me to go with you?”

“Thank you, Natasha. I think I just need to spend some time with my mother, you know?” I didn’t feel that it was the real reason why I wanted to go alone, but it was all I could think of at that moment. “Why don’t I call you from France and let you know how it goes? Will that be all right?”

“Sure. Whatever you need, Sasha,” she said and sighed. “I wish I could’ve met him.”

“He would’ve liked you, Natasha,” I said, suddenly realizing that it could have been a real possibility, even though Natasha was not of noble rank. My father would have recognized the hardworking essence of her personality if he’d had a chance to meet her.

“I’ll let you go. Sorry. You’ll probably be insanely busy with all the funeral stuff and the inheritance.”

Oh, there it was. Natasha was sorry, but never missed an opportunity to gather useful information.

“Yes, I suppose I will.”

***

My parents lived in a château in the picturesque eastern part of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes with my mother’s sister Lucy. The place was called Chateau de Rossignol. It was purchased by their father, Etienne Baudelaire, a successful French entrepreneur, for their mother, Anna Baudelaire-Nazarova, a daughter of Russian immigrants who had been quite wealthy before the Russian revolution but had lost everything during it. It was said that the place had reminded my grandmother of the estate her family had owned back in Russia, which she couldn’t really remember because she was too little when they left but saw it in the family photos. She did remember, or thought she did, nightingales singing beautifully in the morning outside her nursery. Her maiden name was, Nazarova, originated from the old Hebrew Nazar which meant “devoted to God.” Anna became quite religious and superstitious over the years, but she could never refuse her daughters anything. She loved them dearly and saw “a piece of the Motherland” in their eyes. Etienne was a serious businessman, but he loved his women more than anything.

My mother and Lucy had been inseparable when they were young until Lucy got swept off her feet by a young dashing motorist, George, who happened to stop by the chateau one summer day for a cold drink. Apparently, the feeling was mutual because only a few weeks later they announced their engagement to everyone’s surprise. What was supposed to be a magnificent love story ended up abruptly with George’s sudden death in an unfortunate car accident just before they were going to get married. He loved speed and fast cars. Lucy never found another man who could win her heart and had been keeping his photo in a silver locket on her person ever since.

We used to go to Chateau de Rossignol often when we were kids. Even though, it was much smaller than our house, I quite liked the ambience and my French-Russian grandparents when I was a kid. When I became a teenager, however, the place didn’t seem cool enough for me to spend my “precious” time away from my friends. It was a decision I regretted later when my grandparents passed away and I didn’t have a chance to see them anymore.

After what happened to Charlie, my mother insisted on moving to the chateau and my father reluctantly agreed. He didn’t want to leave his ancestral home, but he loved my mother more. At the time, Lucy was taking care of the place. My parents took the valet and the housekeeper with them. The rest of the employees were given generous severance payments and had been let go, except Harry and Benny. I hardly visited them there, being more occupied with whatever I thought was important at the time.

This time around I tried to spend as much time with my mother as I could, but the preparations for the funeral, the burial itself, a few meetings with our lawyers and the subsequent paperwork took up pretty much all my time over the next a few weeks. I was glad that she had her elder sister Lucy around. I liked Lucy. She was a nice lady who didn’t mind us kids singing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” every time we saw her. She would laugh and sing along. She couldn’t care less what other people thought about her being a spinster. She had been with my grandparents until they died and then took care of the estate.

The clock on Jared’s offer was ticking and I–as the new owner–had to make the decision. When my father was finally resting under the black marble tomb my mother had ordered at the back of our French estate and the endless stream of visitors finally seemed to dry up, I decided to have a chat with her.

Lucy was out and my mother and I were sitting in the library, with some of the books from our house, and having a drink. After being married to my father for forty years, my mother never took up having scotch as her nightcap, but that evening she asked me to pour her some. She was holding the glass, smelling the aroma from time to time but never touching the drink itself.

“Now that you’re the owner, what are you going to do with the house?” my mother asked as if she had read my mind.

“That’s what I was going to talk with father and you about when I told you I was coming.”

“Out with it then,” she said and smelled the scotch in her hand.

“Well, I think I’m going to sell it. Do you remember the construction project I mentioned to you some time ago? Cottages for some well-off folks in the eastern part of the estate.”

“Your grandfather’s pig farm?”

“Yes. I want to build a small community there.”

I did not feel like sharing all the details of the deal with my mother; she wouldn’t have been interested anyway.

“As much I want to get rid of it, I still don’t understand why you’re selling the house. It’s at least a mile from there, isn’t it?”

“You see, Mother, I got a good offer for it. I’ll have some disposable cash for the project, and I have a few other things I’d like to invest in, like bitcoin and property. Besides, with your share, you won’t need to think about money for…” I stopped, not knowing how to end the sentence.

She smiled. “For the rest of my life?” She looked at me and put her hand on mine. “Mon chéri, I don’t want you to worry about me. Besides, I don’t think I have too many years left in me, and I will be following your father soon,” she said.

“Don’t say that.”

“Sell it!” she said and finally took a sip from her glass.

I looked at her reaction and admired the determination with which she swallowed the drink she hated. She wrinkled her face at the strength of the drink.

“Who’s buying it?” she said when she regained her composure.

“Jared Shannon,” I said, and I was about to tell her the whole story when she suddenly put her glass down.

“Susan’s son?”

“Do you remember him?”

She looked away for a minute, without saying anything, and then she gave a chuckle.

“Might as well. We reap what we sow, don’t we?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” she said and stood up. “I’m rather tired and I think I’ll go to bed now.”

She was on the way out of the library when she stopped and looked at me.

“You know, he sent a card with condolences and a big bouquet of flowers.”

“Who did? Jared?”

“Yes,” she said and left the library.