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He’s too old for her. He’s also too wealthy, too highly placed in society, and too used to getting his own way. But what bothers him most isn’t any of those things. Rather, he thinks he’s done nothing to deserve her, and that one day, she’ll have the good sense to find someone better.
~*~*~
She was four years old the first time Linus saw her. She was hiding behind her mother’s skirt as Fairchild, flustered at meeting the elder son of the family without the comfort of a formal introduction, stammered out a greeting. Linus, thirty and filled with just a touch too much self-importance, nodded with a thoughtful frown and hoped no one would notice he was almost as taken aback as Fairchild.
The awkward tension might have continued indefinitely had Sabrina not said, “You’re not as pretty as David.”
Fairchild turned the bright red of pure mortification while his wife smiled an apology and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Larrabee. Sabrina is still learning her place and isn’t quite ready to be in public.”
As gentle as the rebuke was, Sabrina was clearly upset by it. Linus gave up a lifetime habit of maintaining his distance with staff and knelt down in front of Sabrina to say, “You’re absolutely right — I’m not as pretty as David is. In fact, there aren’t too many people who are.”
~*~*~
They decide to get married on the ship. Linus asks if she wouldn’t rather wait until they get to Paris, but she says no. Marriage is as much a journey as traveling across an ocean, so it’s only right and proper for the Captain of the Liberté to do the honors.
He’s glad of her decision, glad to be married well away from the spotlight David inhabits so easily. He worries, though, that she made her decision because of Mrs. Chandler, who has no sense of tact or kindness, instead of making it for herself.
“It’s not that you aren’t charming, my dear,” Mrs. Chandler had said at the bridge table on their second night at sea. “You have a positively elfin grace and beauty that manages to make you rise quite high above your station. But that’s the problem, you see — your station. I can’t imagine that anyone in Paris would be willing to attend the wedding. It’s not like America. I certainly can’t picture the French being as sanguine about your marriage as we were about Harrington’s youngest son marrying that girl, oh what was her name? She was the chauffeur’s daughter, too. Sabrina, dear, you must remember her name. What was it again?”
They haven’t spoken to Mrs. Chandler since that night, because her words are so much rotting fruit, and Linus can’t quite shake the stench of them. Sabrina touches him more frequently after that night, tells him that their wedding on the prow will be far more beautiful than any that happen in a chapel.
As it turns out, she’s absolutely correct on that score. She wears one of the dresses she bought in Paris, and with the help of her cabin attendant, she adds white silk roses and a bit of beadwork to the left shoulder. When she walks toward Linus and the Captain, she looks more beautiful than any bride he’s ever seen before.
~*~*~
Sabrina was ten years old when her mother died.
On any other estate, she and her father might have been left to deal with their grief on their own, but Maude Larrabee had grown quite fond of Katherine Fairchild. After the funeral, she told Fairchild that he was to take Sabrina to the family’s hunting lodge in the Adirondacks for the next month.
Linus was there when his mother made her pronouncement, and when Fairchild attempted to demur, he said, “You need the time with Sabrina. We’ll take care of Katherine’s things for you.”
In the end, Fairchild agreed, and while they were gone, his mother oversaw the clearing of Katherine’s clothing, jewelry and other small possessions from their quarters and had everything put into storage. She also said she would set up a fund for Sabrina to attend Le Cordon Bleu, should she find herself interested in becoming a cook, just like her mother. She told Linus that Sabrina would be the daughter she never had.
Linus, who knew his mother far better than she could have imagined, also knew it wouldn’t be long before Sabrina slipped from the front of his mother’s mind. Because of this, he took the steps necessary to make her proclamation a reality. Almost. Rather than making the scholarship specific to Le Cordon Bleu, he set it up so that Sabrina could attend whatever college she wished — within reason, of course. He sent a memo to Miss Danders at the office to remind him to speak to Fairchild about it in six months’ time. By then, the sharp edges of grief would have worn off, and he might be happy to hear that Sabrina’s future was more certain than it had been.
Two weeks later, Fairchild and Sabrina returned to Long Island. They were quiet, but the month at the lodge had clearly done both of them good, something Linus had been about to say when David strolled through and said, “My goodness! Who could this ravishing young lady possibly be? Is it truly our Sabrina?”
After that, Sabrina haunted David’s footsteps whenever he was at the estate.
~*~*~
When they arrive in Paris, it’s to headlines about the end of the Indo-China War. Their wedding is noted in various society pages, but the announcements are brief and without fanfare. Viet Minh and Ho Chi Minh are of much greater concern to French society, and Linus is grateful for that. Two days later, as they head out to view apartments, he also feels guilty — up until he ran away from home, he’d been following the peace talks with an eye to capitalizing on whatever treaty was signed.
“Linus, look! You can see Basilique du Sacré-Cœur!" Linus still thinks they aren’t looking for a home in the right arrondissement, but then he decides that if Sabrina is to have every happiness he can provide, it may well be that their path should lie far away from those who would judge her for having had the bad taste to be born to a chauffeur and a cook.
“Do you like this location?” He already knows the answer, but Sabrina has taken to deferring to him since they arrived, and he doesn’t like it. He wants her to state her opinions and thoughts the way she did back in the States, the way she did before she got a taste of the snobbery that she would face for the rest of her life.
“I —” She hesitates, biting her lip as she looks around, and Linus is about to remind her that they are looking for their home, that she has a right to say yes, when she frowns and switches to a rapid-fire French. Sabrina is glaring at the ceiling as she speaks, and the estate agent turns red as she continues. He tries to speak a few times, but Sabrina talks right over him.
It’s a side of her he hasn’t seen before, and he wishes they were back in their suite at the Ritz. Alone. Where he could teach her a few more things about her body that she might not yet know. And where she could teach him a few things as well. It takes thoughts of his mother in her bathing suit to deal with his arousal, and he’s grateful that his wife (his wife — a reality that continues to astonish him) and the estate agent are still arguing over the slight stain on the ceiling.
Eventually, the estate agent bows, and Sabrina turns back to Linus. “It’s a lovely view, darling, but I’m concerned about the plumbing. I would very much hate to spend all that time and money decorating, only to have it disappear because of an old pipe bursting.”
He smiles at her. “I think we can afford to fix the plumbing.”
“I know,” she says, though he’s certain that she’s once again forgotten just how very wealthy she is now. “But Monsieur Arsenault believes the plumbing is bad in the apartment above and the one below. I hardly think you want to buy the entire building to ensure that our home doesn’t flood.”
“We,” he says, “And you’re right. I don’t think we want to buy the entire building simply to ensure the pipes are fixed.”
~*~*~
Linus was walking to the garage one morning when he paused. He’d been reading a contract and had to stop for a moment to confirm that he’d actually read a clause that only an insane man would add. He’d barely read through the second sentence again when he heard Fairchild say, “This is the best I can do for you, and it will have to be enough, I'm afraid.”
“But it’s the Spring Fling, Father, the last dance I’ll ever go to, and Jeremy has promised to borrow his brother’s car to take me.”
“I’m sorry,” Fairchild said, and he did sound sorry. “But you know I’m still saving up for your time in Paris. It’s all very fine and well that your education is paid for and that you’ll have a small stipend for an apartment, but you’ll need food and clothing, and that’s on top of the airline ticket. If it were only in a few more months, I could —”
“Never mind, Father,” she said, her voice sweet and loving. “I do understand, and I apologize for being such a ninny. Anyway, it’s not as if Jeremy will care all that much about how I’m dressed or what I look like.”
“Of course he will!” Fairchild said with all the indignation a father could muster.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m to be his last date, and then he’s going to the seminary to become a priest.”
“That’s just gossip.”
“It isn’t when it comes from Jeremy himself,” she said. “He wants a college education, and this is the only way he’ll be able to get one.”
Linus might have listened longer, but he really did need to get to the office, so he made a bit of noise and called out, “Fairchild? Are you ready? I think we’ll need to take the quick way in to the city.”
Fairchild came out of the garage, Sabrina trailing behind, and said, “Of course, Mr. Larrabee.”
Once at the office, he called in Miss McCardle, who’d replaced Miss Danders six months earlier, and said, “I need you to track down the wife of James Harrington. I believe they live in Connecticut these days — contact Miss Danders if you have trouble finding Mrs. Harrington — and then get her on the phone. I need to speak to her.”
“Yes, Mr. Larrabee,” she said before scuttling away. She was still a bit timid around him, but she ruled the rest of his secretaries with an iron will, and that, more than anything, made him glad of his decision to promote her.
Two hours and one phone call later, he’d arranged for Michelle Harrington to “run into” Sabrina in a few days and treat her to a proper dress and a day at the beauty salon for the Spring Fling. He knew Sabrina would prefer that David take her, but at least if she had to go with a second-best choice, she would do so in a dress that would make her the envy of her classmates.
The next week, Michelle Harrington called him back to say, “Linus Larrabee, I think you are one of the kindest men I know.” He attempted to tell her she was insane, but she didn’t stop speaking long enough. “I can’t think of anyone else who would have thought to give a chauffeur’s daughter a night of beauty and glamour, and I can only wish I’d known someone like you when I was Sabrina’s age.”
“Didn’t you know James?” he asked dryly.
“Yes, well. James at twenty-three is a bit different than James at twenty-eight,” she said, her voice far more sober than he expected.
Linus had no idea what to say to that, so instead, he thanked her again and reminded her to send him the bills for the day.
~*~*~
“Oh, Linus, isn’t it absolutely beautiful?”
Sabrina is twirling around their new living room, ecstatic that they finally have a home to call their own. They’re near enough to the Bois du Boulogne that she has plenty of outdoor space in which to roam, but unfortunately, they’re also near the same society crowd that accepts Sabrina only because a word from Linus Larrabee still has significant power. Linus notes every slight, every condescending sneer, but Sabrina seems to be immune to it all. He wants to ask her how she ignores it all so easily, but he’s afraid that she ignores it because she truly doesn’t notice it. If that’s the case, he doesn’t want to bring it to her attention.
“Linus!”
He shakes off his thoughts and apologizes. “What did you say again?”
“Our home — isn’t absolutely beautiful? The last of the furniture arrived this morning, and I’ve been waiting all day to show you!”
The furniture is much, much different than what his family would have chosen. Its clean, modern lines are familiar from his office in New York, but here, the colors and fabrics Sabrina chose convey a sense of warm welcome, a refuge from the frustrations of daily life. He can’t imagine his parents being comfortable here — the battle he’d had with his mother over his office décor is still spoken of in hushed voices by those who had the misfortune to be witnesses. However, his parents won’t live here and will only rarely visit, so he doesn’t give them more than a moment’s thought.
“Well?”
Linus, still taken aback by how she has managed to give him the perfect home, has forgotten something. “Well what?”
She deflates slightly. “Our home — what do you think of it?”
He hates it when he does that to her, but for once, he doesn’t feel guilty. He feels perfectly justified in his inability to say the right thing at that moment, because there are far too many words to choose from. Instead, he moves toward her, catches her around the waist and kisses her. And he keeps kissing her every time she tries to speak again. Eventually, she gives up in laughter, finally hearing what he’s unable to say and leading him to their bedroom.
Later, when he’s pliant in her arms, his head resting on a belly that’s thickening with their first child, he finally says, “You should know by now that you’re my home Sabrina, not some collection of rooms.”
“Linus —”
“You’ll always be my home, and you’ll always be beautiful.”
~*~*~
It’s wasn’t until they were in the skiff, listening to that ridiculous album Sheila Richardson had given to him as a joke for his sixteenth birthday that his reason for spending time with Sabrina started to change. Instead of being a way to keep the merger on track, it started to be a way to keep Linus himself on track. Oblivious as ever to the workings of his own heart, he didn’t even recognize the transition until years later, when Sabrina had to point it out to him.
All he knew that day was that he was content in a way that he rarely felt outside his own boardroom, so perhaps it was understandable that he misattributed that sense of comfort and well-being to his success at keeping David and Sabrina separated.
~*~*~
David and Elizabeth make the trip for the christening; Maude and Oliver do not, though they have a good reason — Maude is still recovering from a minor stroke, and Oliver won’t leave her side, not even to meet his first grandson.
Linus isn’t happy about David and Elizabeth’s attendance, and he believes Elizabeth isn’t either. Sabrina shares every letter David writes to her, and mostly, they’re filled with news Linus never would have expected David to care about, let alone to know — he writes of Jenny, who has finally learned enough to become a lady’s maid for another family, and of Margaret, the cook, who fell recently and hasn’t decided yet if she wishes to keep working or to finally retire and keep house with her sister, who lives in Florida and would love to have Margaret’s company.
David, who barely noticed when Sabrina lost her mother, is now Sabrina’s secondary lifeline to the family she left behind at the estate. He’s also her primary source of information about the society in which Sabrina will one day have to take her place. Linus can and does read between the lines of those particular paragraphs, and he knows Elizabeth still holds a grudge against Sabrina for nearly running off with her fiancé. He’s worried that Elizabeth will say or do something to upset Sabrina, and as much as he loves David for making him get on the Liberté that day, he won’t hesitate to banish his wife should she treat Sabrina as anything other than her sister-in-law.
As it turns out, his anxiety is all for naught. Linus isn’t sure what changed or how it happened, but three minutes after David and Elizabeth arrive at their home, she and Sabrina are fast friends and making arrangements to go shopping the next day.
Linus stares as Sabrina leads Elizabeth on a tour of their apartment, and he nearly drops his drink when David claps his shoulder hard.
“I have to say, Brother, we make excellent matchmakers for each other.”
It’s a truth so profound that Linus has to look to make sure that David, the same David who once sat on a pair of champagne glasses without thinking, is actually the one who spoke it. He thinks Elizabeth has been better for David than anyone, himself included, could ever have imagined, because he sees hints of wisdom in his younger brother. And then Linus realizes that Sabrina has had a similar effect on him, but instead of wisdom, he’s gained whimsy.
Linus tilts his glass to David and says, “I’ll drink to that.”