Leap of Faith by Danielle Steel

children. When did you come back?” he asked her with a look of wonder.
    “Just now … today …” She looked apologetically at the new owner of the château. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see it.”
    “Did you live here?” the count asked, puzzled by this brief exchange.
    “Yes. As a child. My parents … I … they died a long time ago, and I went to America to live with my great-aunt. I just drove down from Paris today.”
    “So did I,” he smiled benignly at her, looking polite and well bred and pleasant as Alain waved at her and slipped away. The count was wearing a blue blazer and gray flannels, and his clothes looked impeccably cut and expensive. “Would you like to come inside and look around?” She hesitated for a long moment, not wanting to intrude further on him, but the offer was irresistible. And he could see in her eyes that she would love to. “I insist that you come inside. It’s getting cold out here. I’ll make a pot of tea, and you can wander.” Without a word, she followed him gratefully into the familiar kitchen. And as she did, she felt her lost world envelop her, and tears stung her eyes as she looked around her. “Has it changed much?” he asked her gently, unaware of the circumstances of her parents’ accident, but it was easy to see that this was an emotional moment for her. “Why don’t you walk around for a while, and when you come back, I’ll have your tea ready.” It was embarrassing to have barged in on him in this way, but he was so nice about it.
    “It has hardly changed at all,” she said, with a look of tender amazement. In fact, the same table and chairs were there, where she had had breakfast and lunch every day with her parents and Robert. It was the same table Robert had passed the sugary canards under as they dripped coffee on the carpet. “Did you buy the château from my father’s estate?” she asked, as he took out the teapot and an antique silver strainer.
    “No. I bought it from a man who had owned it for several years but never lived here. I think his wife was ill, or she didn’t like it. He sold it to me, and I have been planning to spend some time here and restore it. I haven’t owned it for long, and I’ve been too busy to pay much attention to it. But I’m hoping to get to work on it this winter, or at least next spring. It deserves to be as beautiful as it once was.” It looked undeniably tired and un tended.
    “It doesn’t look as though it would take much work to do it,” Marie-Ange said to her host as he poured the tea through the strainer. The walls needed some paint, and the floors needed wax, but to her, it still looked wonderful and so precisely as she remembered. But he smiled at her assessment.
    “I’m afraid the plumbing is in sad shape, and the electrical wires have all gone wrong. It needs a great deal of work you can’t even see. Believe me, it’s a big undertaking. And both the vineyards and the orchards need to be replanted … it needs a new roof. I’m afraid, Mademoiselle, that I have let your family home fall into sad disrepair,” he said apologetically with a smile that was filled with charm and wit and spirit. “By the way, I’m Bernard de Beauchamp.” He extended a hand to her, and they shook hands politely.
    “Marie-Ange Hawkins.” As she said it, something clicked in his memory, and he remembered a story about a terrible accident that had claimed three lives and left a little girl an orphan. The man he’d bought it from had bought the château from her father’s estate, and told Bernard the story.
    He shooed her off to the living room then, and heard her go upstairs to visit her old bedroom. And when she came back downstairs, he could see that she’d been crying and felt sorry for her.
    “It must be hard for you to come back here,” he said, handing her the cup of tea he’d made for her. It was strong and dark and pungent and helped to restore her, as he invited her to sit at the familiar kitchen