Jewels

They were terrified of her remaining in France for the war, but she knew how absurd that was. Life around the Château de la Meuze was quieter than it had ever been before, and the region was completely peaceful.

By November, she felt like her old self again. She went for long walks, and often carried Phillip with her. She worked in the garden, and on her beloved boiseries, and she even did some heavier work down at the stables whenever Henri had time to help her. His parents had lost all their male employees at the hotel and he helped out there as well He was a nice little boy, very engaging, and very willing to help her. And he loved living at the château, as did Emanuelle. Sarah no longer needed Emanuelle’s help at night, but she moved into the cottage and came up to the château to work in the morning.

It was late November, one afternoon, as she walked home from the woods, singing to Phillip as she carried him in a sling Emanuelle had made her. He was almost asleep as she reached the front door of the château with a sigh, and stepped inside, and then she screamed as she saw him. It was William, standing there in his uniform, looking more handsome than ever. She rushed into his arms, and he held her, trying not to squash the baby. She quickly took off the sling and set him down gently. He had been startled by her scream and he was beginning to cry, but all she could think of now was William as he held her.

“I’ve missed you so…” Her words were muffled by his chest, and he held her so tightly, he almost hurt her.

“God, I’ve missed you too.” He pulled away from her then to see her. “You look wonderful again.” Thinner, but strong and well, and very healthy. “How beautiful you are,” he said, looking as though he wanted to devour her, and she laughed as she kissed him.

Emanuelle had heard them talking. She’d seen the duke when he arrived, and now she came to take the baby. He would want feeding soon, but at least she could free them from him for a little while, so Sarah could spend some time with her husband. They went upstairs hand in hand, talking and laughing, as she asked him a thousand questions about where he was going, where he had been, and where they would send him after advanced training. He had flown in the RAF before and had only needed an update on the new equipment. He was careful not to tell her what he knew. That they were sending him to Bomber Command, to fly Blenheim bombers. He didn’t want to worry her, and he made light of all of it. But he did tell her how seriously people were taking the war in England.

“They’re taking it seriously here too,” she explained. “There’s no one left except Henri and his friends and a bunch of old men, who are too weak to work. I’ve been doing everything myself, with Emanuelle and Henri. But I’ve almost finished the stables. Wait till you see them!” He had wanted half of them set up for the horses they would buy, and a few he wanted to bring over from England, and the rest of it was set up in small rooms for their staff, and bunks for some of the hands they might hire on a temporary basis. It was an excellent system, and the way they’d done it there was room for about forty or fifty men, and at least as many horses.

“It sounds like you don’t need me here at all.” He pretended to sound miffed. “Perhaps I should stay in England.”

“Don’t you dare!” She reached up and kissed him again, and as they entered their bedroom, he spun her around and kissed her so hard that she knew exactly how much he’d missed her.

He locked the door behind them and looked at her adoringly, as she began unbuttoning the jacket of his uniform, and he pulled off her heavy sweater. It was one of his own, and he tossed it halfway across the room as he looked at the full breasts and the waist that was so small again. It was difficult to believe she had ever had a baby.

“Sarah… you’re so beautiful…” He was almost speechless, and almost out of control. He had never wanted her as much, even on their first night together. They almost didn’t make it to the bed, but as they lay together there, they found each other quickly and well, and their longings exploded almost instantly as they gave in to their hunger.

“I’ve missed you so much …” she confessed. It had been so lonely without him.

“Not half as much as I’ve missed you,” he confided.

“How long can you stay?”

He hesitated, it seemed so little to him now, and at first it had seemed such a gift. “Three days. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do. I’m hoping to get back again around Christmas.” That was only a month away, and at least it would give her something to look forward to when he left. But right now, she couldn’t bear to think of him leaving.

They lay together on the bed for a long time, and then they heard Emanuelle with the baby outside their room, and Sarah put on a dressing gown and went to get him.

She brought Phillip back into the room, loudly demanding his dinner. And William smiled at him as he watched him eat hungrily, choking on the milk he was so anxious for, and making all kinds of funny little noises.

“His table manners are appalling, aren’t they?” William grinned.

“We’ll have to work on that,” Sarah said, switching him to the other breast. “He’s a terrible little pig. He wants to eat all the time.”

“It looks to me like he does. He’s three times the size he was when he was born, and I thought he was enormous then.”

“So did I,” Sarah said ruefully, and then William thought of something he had never thought of before, and he looked at her gently.

“Do you want me to be careful?” She shook her head as she smiled at him. She wanted to have lots more of his babies.

“Of course not, but I don’t think we need to worry about that yet anyway. I don’t think I can get pregnant while I’m nursing.”

“Then all the more fun,” he teased. They spent the next three days as they had their honeymoon, in bed most of the time. And in between times, she took him around the property to show him what she’d done in his absence. She had worked on a number of things, and he was very impressed when he saw the stables.

“You really are quite remarkable!” he praised. “I couldn’t have done this myself, certainly not without help from anyone. I don’t know how you did it!” She had spent many, many nights, hammering and sawing and pounding nails well after midnight, with little Phillip in a cradle next to her, bundled up in his blankets.

“I had nothing else to do.” She smiled. “With you gone, there isn’t much to do here.”

William glanced at his son with a rueful smile. “Wait till he starts getting into things. I have a feeling you’ll be kept extremely busy.”

“And what about you?” she asked sadly, as they walked back toward the château. Their three days had already passed, and he was leaving her in the morning. “When will you be home again? How does it look out in the big, bad world?”

“Pretty ugly.” He told her what they knew, or some of it, of what had happened in Warsaw. The ghetto, the pogroms, the mountains of bodies, even those of children who had fought and lost. It made her cry when he told her. There were tales from Germany that were pretty ugly too. There were fears that Hitler might make a move on the Low Countries, top, but he hadn’t so far, and they were keeping him at bay as best they could, but it wasn’t easy. “I’d like to think it’ll be over soon, but I just don’t know. Perhaps if we scare the little bastard enough, he’ll back off. But he seems pretty gutsy.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said, looking anguished.

“Darling, nothing will, it would be such a dreadful embarrassment to them if anything happened to me. Believe me, the War Office will keep me wrapped up in cotton wool. It just gives the men a bit of heart to see someone like me dressed up in a uniform and playing the same games they are.” He was thirty-seven years old, and they were hardly going to use him in the front lines at this point.

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am. And I’ll be back over to see you before Christmas.” He was beginning to like the idea of her staying in France. Things seemed so frenzied and so frightening in England. And here, everything seemed so peaceful by comparison. It almost looked as though nothing had happened at all, except that there were no men visible anywhere, or at least no young ones, only children.

They spent their last night together in bed, and eventually Sarah slept in his arms. And William had to wake her when the baby cried for her. She had been in a deep, happy sleep. And after she fed the baby, they made love again. And William had to drag himself out of bed in the morning.

“I’ll be back soon, my love,” he promised as he left, and this time his leaving didn’t seem quite so desperate. He was well and safe, and he didn’t seem to be in any real danger.

And true to his word, he came back to see her a month later, two days before Christmas. He spent Christmas Day quietly with her, and he noticed something he’d seen before, but couldn’t quite fathom this time.

“You’ve gained weight,” he commented. She wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a complaint. She had gained it around her waist, and her hips, and her breasts seemed fuller. It was only a month since he’d been gone, but her body had changed, and it made him wonder. “Could you be pregnant again?”

“I don’t know.” She looked a little vague, she had wondered the same thing once or twice. She was feeling vaguely nauseated from time to time, and all she wanted to do was sleep. “I didn’t think so.”

“I think you are.” He smiled, and then suddenly he began to worry. He didn’t like leaving her alone here again, particularly if she was pregnant. He said something about it that night, and asked if she would be willing to go to Whitfield.

’“That’s silly, William. We don’t even know if I am.” She didn’t want to leave France, pregnant or not. She wanted to be here, at their château, hammering and banging away until it was fully restored, and taking care of her child.

“You think you are, too, don’t you?”

“I think I might be.”

“Oh, you wicked girl!” But all it did was excite him again, and after they made love, he gave her the only Christmas present he’d been able to bring, a beautiful emerald bracelet of his mother’s. It was made of large cabochon stones surrounded by very old diamonds, and had been commissioned years before at Garrard’s by a maharaja. It was hardly something she could wear every day, but when he came home, and they went out again, it would be splendid. “You’re not disappointed I don’t have more for you?” He felt guilty not to have brought her anything else, but he really couldn’t. He had grabbed that out of the safe at Whitfield, with his mother’s blessing, the last time he’d seen her.

“This is awful,” she teased. “What I really wanted was a set of plumber’s tools. I’ve been trying to fix some of these damn toilets they started to install last summer.”

“I love you.” He laughed. She gave him a beautiful painting they had found hidden in the barn, and an old, well-worn watch that she loved, that had been her father’s. She had brought it to Europe with her, as a souvenir of him, and now she gave it to William to carry with him. And he genuinely seemed to love it.

The Duke and the Duchess of Windsor spent their Christmas in Paris, busy with social events, while the Whitfields worked side by side, reinforcing beams in their barn, and cleaning out the stables.

“Hell of a way to spend Boxing Day, my dear,” William said as they stood side by side, covered in dirt and dried manure, holding their hammers and shovels.

“I know,” she said, grinning, “but think how great this place will look when we’re finished.” He had given up trying to talk her into going to Whitfield. She loved this place too much, and she was at home here.

He left her again on New Year’s Eve, and Sarah saw the New Year in alone, in their bed at the château, as she held their baby. She hoped that it would be a better year, and the men would all soon be home again. And she crooned “Auld Lang Syne” to Phillip as she held him.

By January, she was certain that she was pregnant again. And she managed to find an ancient doctor in Chambord, who confirmed it. He told her that the old wives’ tale that you couldn’t get pregnant while you were nursing was sometimes true, but not always. But she was very happy about it. Phillip’s baby brother or sister was due to arrive in August. Emanuelle was still helping her, and she was excited about the baby too. She promised to do everything she could to help the duchess with the new baby. But Sarah also hoped that William would be home again by then. She wasn’t afraid. She was pleased. She wrote William and told him the news, and he wrote back and urged her to take care of herself, and said he’d try to come over as soon as he could, but instead they sent him to Watton in Norfolk with the 82 Squadron Bomber Command, and he wrote her again that there would be no hope of his coming to France for several months now. He did mention that he wanted her in Paris by July, and she could stay with the Windsors if she had to. But he didn’t want her having the baby at the château again, particularly if he wasn’t there, which he hoped he would be.

In March, she received another letter from Jane, who had another little baby girl, and they named this one Helen. But Sarah felt strangely distant from her family now, as though they were no longer intimately a part of her life, as they once had been. She tried to stay abreast of their news, but letters came so late, and so many of the names they referred to were unfamiliar. For the past year and a half, her life had been totally removed from them. They all seemed so far away now. She was totally involved in her own life with her son, restoring the château and listening to the news in Europe.

She listened to every broadcast she could hear, read every newspaper, listened to every bit of gossip. But the news was never very good, or very hopeful. Only in his letters, William kept promising that he would be home soon. Hitler seemed to be stalling for time in the spring of 1940, and William and some of his friends began to wonder if he wasn’t going to back off. In the States, they were calling it the Phony War, but to the people in the countries Hitler had occupied, it was very real and far from phony.

The Windsors invited her to a dinner party in Paris at the end of April, but she didn’t go. She didn’t want to leave Phillip at the château, even though she trusted Emanuelle. Also she was five months pregnant, and she didn’t think it proper to go out without William. She sent them a polite note instead, and in early May she caught a terrible cold, and she was in bed on the fifteenth, when the Germans invaded the Low Countries. Emanuelle came rushing upstairs to tell her. Hitler was on the move again, and Sarah came downstairs to the kitchen to listen to their radio, and see if she could pick up a broadcast.

She listened to what news she could find all afternoon, and the next day she tried to call Wallis and David, but she was told by the servants there that they had left for Biarritz the previous morning. The duke had taken the duchess to the South for her safety.

Sarah went back to bed, and a week later she had a raging case of bronchitis. And then the baby caught it from her, and she was so busy taking care of him that she scarcely understood what it meant when she heard the broadcast about the evacuation of Dunkirk. What had happened to them? How had they been driven back?

When Italy entered the war against France and England, Sarah began to panic. The news was terrible, and the Germans were attacking France, and everyone in the country was terrified, but no one knew where to go or what to do. Sarah knew they would never give in to the Germans, but what if they bombed France? She knew William and her parents must be frantic about her, and there was no way for her to reach them. They had been cut off from the world. She hadn’t been able to call England or the States. It had been absolutely impossible to get a connection. And on the fourteenth of June, she and everyone else sat in stunned silence as they heard the news. The French government had declared Paris an open city. They had literally handed it to the Germans, and they had marched in, in waves, by nightfall. France had fallen to the Germans. And as she listened, Sarah couldn’t believe it. She sat staring at Emanuelle, as they listened to the news, and the younger girl started to cry when she heard it.

“Ils vont nous tuer …” she wailed. “They will kill us. We will all be dead.”

“Don’t be silly,” Sarah said, trying to sound stern, and hoping the girl wouldn’t see how badly her own hands were shaking. “They’re not going to do anything to us. We’re women. And they probably won’t come here. Emanuelle, be sensible … calm down….” But she didn’t believe her own words as she said them. William had been right. She should have left France, but now it was too late. She had been so busy taking care of Phillip that she hadn’t seen the warning signs, and she could hardly make a dash for the South now, as the Windsors clearly had. She wouldn’t have gotten far with her baby in her arms, and she was seven months pregnant.

“Madame, what will we do?” Emanuelle asked, still feeling that she owed it to her to protect her. She had promised William.

“Absolutely nothing,” Sarah said quietly. “If they come here, we have nothing to hide, nothing to give them. All we have is what we’ve grown in the garden. We have no silver, no jewels.” She suddenly remembered the emerald bracelet William had given her for Christmas, and the few things she’d brought with her, like her engagement ring and the first Christmas gifts William had bought her in Paris. But she could hide those things, there weren’t many, and if she had to, she would give them up to save their lives. “We have nothing they want, Emanuelle. We are two women alone here, with a baby.” But nonetheless, she took one of William’s guns to bed with her that night, and slept with the baby in the bed next to her, and the gun under her pillow. She hid the jewelry under the floorboards in the baby’s room, and then nailed them down again expertly, and spread the Aubusson rug on top carefully.

Nothing happened for the next four days. She had just decided that they were as safe as they had been before, when a convoy of jeeps appeared, coming down the grande allée, and a flock of German soldiers in uniform jumped out of the jeeps and ran toward her. Two of the soldiers pointed guns at her and signalled to her to put her hands up, but she couldn’t because she was holding Phillip. She knew that Emanuelle was clearing away the breakfast things in the kitchen, and she prayed that she wouldn’t panic when she saw them.

They shouted at her to move, and she stood where they wanted her to but she tried to appear unruffled as she clung to Phillip with shaking hands, and spoke to them in English.

“What can I do to help you?” she asked quietly and with great dignity, trying to give her best imitation of William’s aristocratic and commanding demeanor.

They rattled at her in German for a little while, and then another soldier of obviously superior rank spoke to her. He had angry eyes, and a nasty little mouth, but Sarah tried to force herself not to notice.

“You are English?”

“American.” That seemed to stump him for a while, and he rattled on with the others in German, before speaking to her again.

“Who owns this house? This land? The farm?”

“I do.” She spoke firmly for all to hear, “I am the Duchess of Whitfield.”

More chattering, more German, more consultation. He waved her aside with the gun again. “We will go inside now.”

She nodded her agreement, and they went into the house, and as they did, she heard a scream from the kitchen. They had obviously startled Emanuelle, and two of the soldiers brought her out at gunpoint. She was crying as she ran toward Sarah, and Sarah put an arm around her and held her. They were both shaking as they stood, but nothing on Sarah’s face would have told them she was frightened. She was the portrait of a duchess.

A group of soldiers stood guarding them, as the others reconnoitered inside. And then they returned as a fresh line of jeeps came up the driveway. The first soldier in command came back to her then and asked her where her husband was. She told him he was away, and he showed her that he had found the gun she had concealed under her pillow. Sarah looked unimpressed and continued to watch them. And as she stood, a tall, thin officer emerged from one of the recently arrived jeeps and walked toward them. The man currency in charge spoke to him, showed him the gun, and waved at the women as he made his explanations, and then waved toward the house, obviously explaining what he had found there She also heard him say the word “Amerikaner.”

“You are American?” The new officer asked, in very clipped British tones, with only the faintest hint of German. He clearly spoke excellent English, and he looked very distinguished.

“I am. I am the Duchess of Whitfield.”

“Your husband is British?” he asked quietly, his eyes looking deep into hers. In another place, another time, she would have thought him handsome. And they probably would have met at a party. But this was not. It was war, and they both kept their distance.

“Yes, my husband is British” was all she answered.

“I see.” There was a long pause as he looked at her, and he was not indifferent to what he saw of her belly. “I regret to inform you, Your Grace,” he addressed her very politely, “that we must requisition your home. We will be bringing troops here.”

She felt a wave of shock and anger rip through her, but nothing showed as she nodded.

“I … I see …” Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t know what to say to him. They were taking her home, the house she had worked so hard on. And what if they never got it back again? If she lost it, or they destroyed it? “I…” She stumbled over the words, and he looked around him for a moment.

“Is there … a smaller house? A cottage? Somewhere where you and your family could reside, while we stay here?” She thought of the stables, but they were too large, and he would want them as barracks for his men as well, and then she thought of the caretaker’s cottage where Emanuelle lived and she had first stayed with William. It was certainly adequate for her, Emanuelle, Phillip, and the new baby.

“Yes, there is,” she said bleakly.

“May I invite you to stay there?” He bowed with Prussian dignity, and his eyes were gentle and apologetic. “I am very sorry to… to ask you to move now—” he glanced at the child that was to be born in August—“but I am afraid we are bringing a great many troops here.”

“I understand.” She tried to sound dignified, like a duchess, but suddenly she felt like a twenty-three-year-old girl, and she was very frightened.

“Do you feel that you would be able to move the necessary things by this evening?” he asked politely, and she nodded. She didn’t have that much there, mostly work clothes, and a few suits and dresses, and William didn’t have much there either. They had worked so hard, they hadn’t brought all their things over yet from England.

She couldn’t believe what she was doing as she packed their clothes, and a few other personal things as well. She didn’t have time to rescue her jewelry from under the floorboards, but she knew it was safe there. She put her clothes and William’s and the baby’s into valises, and Emanuelle helped her pack up all the kitchen things, and some food, and soap, and all their sheets and towels. It was more work than she thought, and the baby cried all day, as though he sensed that something terrible had happened. It was almost six o’clock when Emanuelle took the last load of things to the cottage, her own things were already there, and Sarah stood in her bedroom for the last time, the room where Phillip had been born, and their second child had been conceived, the room she had shared with William. It seemed a sacrilege to give it to them now, but she had no choice, and as she stood in the room, looking around hopelessly, one of the soldiers arrived, one she hadn’t seen, and urged her out of the room at gunpoint.

“Schnell!” he told her. Quickly! She went down the stairs with as much dignity as she could, but there were tears rolling down her cheeks, and at the bottom of the stairs, the soldier poked her belly with the point of his rifle, and there was a sudden roar, the voice of a man who could strike fear in a moment. The soldier jumped a mile and stepped backwards like lightning, as the commandant approached them. It was the same man who had spoken to her in excellent English that morning. And now he raged at his soldier in a voice that was so icy and so controlled that the man visibly trembled, and then he turned and bowed apologetically to Sarah before running from the building. The commandant looked at her unhappily, deeply upset by what had just happened. And in spite of her efforts to appear nonplussed, he could see that she was shaking.

“My apologies for the incredibly bad manners of my sergeant, Your Grace. It won’t happen again. May I drive you to your home?” I am in my home, she wanted to tell him, but she was grateful to him, too, for controlling the sergeant. He could easily have shot her in the stomach for the fun of it, and the thought of that made her dizzy.

“Thank you,” she said coolly. It was a long walk, and she was exhausted. The baby had been kicking all day, obviously sensing her anger and her terror. She had cried as she packed her things, and she felt completely drained as they got into the jeep, and he started the engine as a few of the men watched him. He wanted to set a tone for them that they would follow to the letter. And he had already explained that. They were not to touch the local girls, shoot anyone’s pets for fun, or venture into the town while drunk. They were to control themselves at all times, or face his fury, and possibly a trip back to Berlin to be shipped elsewhere. And the men had promised him they’d obey him.

“I am Commandant Joachim von Mannheim,” he said quietly. “And we are very grateful for the use of your home. I am very sorry for the imposition, and the unhappiness it must cause you.” They drove down the grande allée, and he glanced at her. “War is a very difficult thing.” His own family had lost a great deal in the first one. And then he surprised her by asking about the baby. “When is your child expected?” he asked quietly. He seemed oddly human, despite the uniform he wore, but she wouldn’t let herself forget who he was, or who he fought for. She reminded herself again that she was the Duchess of Whitfield and owed it to them to be polite, but nothing more.

“Not for another two months,” she answered brusquely, wondering why he had asked her. Maybe they were going to send her somewhere. That was a truly terrifying thought, and more than ever she wished she had gone to Whitfield. But who would ever have thought that France would fall, that they would give themselves to the Germans?

“We should have doctors here by then,” he reassured her. “We are going to use your home for wounded soldiers. A hospital of sorts. And your stables will do very well for my men. The food at the farm is plentiful. I’m afraid”—he smiled apologetically at her as they reached the cottage, where Emanuelle was waiting for her with Phillip in her arms—“for us, it’s an ideal situation.”

“How fortunate for you,” Sarah said tartly. It was hardly ideal for them. Losing their home to the Germans.

“It is, indeed.” He watched her get out of the car and take Phillip from Emanuelle. “Good evening, Your Grace”.

“Good evening, Commandant,” she said, but she did not thank him for the ride, and she didn’t say another word as she walked into the cottage that was her home now.

Chapter 13

HE occupation of France depressed everyone, and the occupation of the Château de la Meuze was incredibly painful for Sarah. Within days, there were German soldiers everywhere, the stables were full of them, three and four to a room, and even in the horse stalls. There were close to two hundred men there, although she and William had only planned it for forty or fifty of their own people. The conditions there were rugged for them as well. But they took over the farm, too, and housed more men there, while making the farmer’s wife sleep in a shed. She was an old woman, but she was taking it well. The farmer and their two sons were in the army.

And just as the commandant had said, the château itself became a hospital for wounded men, a kind of convalescent home, with wards in each room, and a few of the smaller rooms reserved for high-ranking officers who had been wounded. The commandant lived at the château, in one of the smaller rooms. Sarah had seen a few female nurses there, but most of the attendants seemed to be orderlies and male nurses, and she had heard that there were two doctors, but she had never seen them.

She had very little to do with any of them. She kept to herself, and stayed with Emanuelle and the baby at the cottage. She chafed to get back to her own work again, and worried at the damage they would do during their occupation. But there was nothing she could do now. She went for long walks with Emanuelle, and chatted with the farmer’s wife whenever she could get to the farm, to make sure that she was well. She seemed in good spirits, and said they had been decent to her. They took everything she grew, but they hadn’t touched her. So far, they seemed to be behaving. But it was Emanuelle who worried Sarah. She was a pretty girl, and she was young, she had just turned eighteen that spring, and it was dangerous for her to be living in such close proximity to three hundred German soldiers. More than once, Sarah had told her to go back to the hotel, but Emanuelle always insisted that she didn’t want to leave her. In some ways, they had become good friends, and yet there was always a chasm of respect between them. And Emanuelle had taken to heart her promise to William, not to leave the duchess or Lord Phillip.

Sarah was out walking one day, on her way back from the farm, a month after they had come, when she saw a cluster of soldiers shouting and hooting on an old dirt path near the stables. She wondered what was going on, but knew enough never to go near them. They were all potentially dangerous men, and in spite of her neutral American citizenship, she was the enemy to them, and they were the forces of the Occupation. She could see them laughing at something, and she was about to continue on her route home, when she saw a basket full of berries overturned by the roadside. The basket was one of hers, and the berries were the ones Emanuelle always picked for Phillip because he loved them. And then she knew. They were like cats with a small mouse, a tiny prey they were taunting and torturing in the bushes. And without thinking, she hurried to where they stood, her old faded yellow dress making her look even larger in the bright sunlight. She was wearing her hair in a long braid, and as she approached the group, she tossed it back over her shoulder, and then gasped as she saw her. Emanuelle was standing there, her blouse torn off, her breasts bare, her skirt torn and sliding down on her hips as they taunted and jeered and teased her. Two men held her arms, and another teased her nipples as he kissed her.

“Stop that!” she shouted at all of them, outraged by what he was doing. She was a child, a girl, and Sarah knew from their conversations in the past month that she was still a virgin. “Stop that immediately!” she shouted at them and they laughed at her, as she grabbed at one man’s gun and he pushed her roughly away, shouting at her in German.

Sarah walked immediately to where Emanuelle stood, her face streaked with tears, humiliated and ashamed and frightened. She picked up the shreds of Emanuelle’s blouse and tried to cover her with it, and as she did, one of the men reached out and pulled Sarah close to him, grinding himself into her buttocks. She tried to turn on him, but he held her there, fondling her breast with one hand, while holding her vast belly painfully tight with the other. She fought to free herself from him, as he ground suggestively against her, and she could feel him become aroused and wondered in horror if he would rape her. Her eyes found Emanuelle’s, and the look in Sarah’s eyes tried to reassure the younger girl, but it was obvious that the child was desperately frightened. Even more now for her employer, as one of the man held Sarah’s arms, and another put a hand between her legs as Emanuelle screamed at what she thought was about to happen, but as she did, within seconds, there was an explosion of gunshot. Emanuelle jumped, and Sarah used the moment to pull free of the men, tearing herself away from them, as one of them held to her old yellow dress and tore it. Her long shapely legs were visible, and her enormous pregnant stomach. But she went quickly to Emanuelle, and walked her away from them, and it was only then that she realized the commandant was standing there, his eyes blazing, his shouted orders an avalanche of fury in German. He still held the gun aloft in his hand and shot it off again so that they knew he meant it. He then lowered it at each of them, took aim, and said something more in German, before he lowered his hand, put the gun back in its holster and dismissed them. He ordered each of them to be put in the jail they had fashioned in the back of the stables for the next week. As soon as they left, he moved quickly toward Emanuelle and Sarah. His eyes were filled with pain, and he spoke in hurried German to an orderly standing near, who reappeared instantly with two blankets. Sarah covered Emanuelle first, and then wrapped the other blanket around her middle. She saw that it was one of hers, one of the few she had forgotten when they moved to the cottage.

“I promise you, this will never happen again. These men are pigs. They have grown up in barnyards, most of them, and they have absolutely no idea how to behave. The next time I see one of them do something like that, I will shoot him.” He was white with rage as he spoke, and Emanuelle was still shaking. Sarah felt nothing except fury for what had happened, and she turned to him with her eyes blazing just before they reached the cottage, where Henri was in the garden, playing with the baby. They had warned him to stay away for fear that the soldiers might go after him, but he had come anyway, to see his sister, and she had asked him to stay with the baby, while she went to pick berries.

“Do you realize what they could have done?” Sarah waved Emanuelle away, back to the house. She faced the commandant alone and addressed him. “They could have killed my unborn child,” she screamed at him, and his eyes didn’t waver.

“I realize very well, and I sincerely beg your pardon.” He looked as though he meant it, but his good manners did nothing to mollify her. As far as Sarah was concerned they should never have been there.

“And she’s a young girl! How dare they do a thing like that to her!” She was suddenly shaking from head to foot and she wanted to beat him with her fists, but she had the good sense not to.

The commandant felt bad about Emanuelle, but he was most upset by what they had almost done to Sarah. “I apologize, Your Grace, from the bottom of my heart. I realize only too well what could have happened.” She was right. They might very well have killed her baby. “We will keep a tighter watch on the men. I give you my word as an officer and a gentleman. I assure you, it won’t happen again.”

“Then see that it doesn’t.” She stormed at him, and then marched into the cottage, somehow managing to look both beautiful and regal in her blanket as he watched her. She was an extraordinary woman, and he had wondered more than once how she had come to be the Duchess of Whitfield. He had found photographs of her in William’s study, which was his room now, and of both of them, and they looked remarkably handsome and happy. He envied them. He had been divorced since before the war, and he scarcely ever saw his children. They were two boys, seven and twelve, and his wife had remarried and moved to the Rhineland. He knew her husband had been killed in Poznan in the first days of the war, but he hadn’t seen her again, and the truth was that he didn’t really want to. The divorce had been extremely painful. They had married when they were very young, and they had always been very different. It had taken him two years to recover from the blow, and then the war had come, and now he had his hands full. He had been pleased with the assignment to France. He had always liked it there. He had studied for a year at the Sorbonne, and he had finished his studies at Oxford. And through all of it, in all of his travels, in all his forty years, he had never met anyone like Sarah. She was so beautiful, so strong, so decent. He wished they had met in other circumstances, at another time. Perhaps then things might have been different.

The administration of his convalescent hospital kept him busy enough, but in the evenings, he liked to go for long walks. He had come to know the property well, even the far reaches of it, and he was coming back one evening at dusk from a little river he had found in the forest, when he saw her. She was walking slowly, by herself, awkwardly now, and she seemed very pensive. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he thought he should say something to her, lest his unexpected presence surprise her. She turned her face toward him then, as though she sensed someone near her. She stopped walking and looked at him, not sure if his presence was a threat, but he was quick to reassure her.

“May I assist you, Your Grace?” She was climbing bravely over logs, and little stone walls, and she could easily have fallen, but she knew the terrain well. She and William had come here often.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly, every inch the duchess. And yet she looked so young and so lovely. She seemed less angry than she usually was when she saw him. She was still upset over what had happened to Emanuelle the week before, but she had heard that the men were truly jailed to punish them for it, and she was impressed by his sense of justice.

“Are you well?” he asked, walking along with her. She looked pretty, in a white embroidered dress made by the locals.

“I’m all right,” she said, looking at him as though for the first time. He was a handsome man, tall, fair, and his face was lined, she could see that he was a little older than William. She wished he weren’t there, but she had to admit, he had always been extremely polite to her, and twice now, very helpful.

“You must get easily tired now,” he said gently, and she shrugged, looking sad for a moment, thinking of William.

“Sometimes.” Then she glaced back at Joachim. Her news of the war was limited these days, and she had had no word of William since the Occupation. There was no way his letters could reach her. And she knew he must be frantic for news of her and Phillip.

“Your husband’s name is William, isn’t it?” he asked, and she looked at him, wondering why he asked. But she only nodded.

“He’s younger than I. But I think I might have met him once when I was at Oxford. I believe he went to Cambridge.”

“That’s right,” she said hesitantly, “he did.” It was odd to think that the two men had met. Life did strange things sometimes. “Why did you go to Oxford?”

“I always wanted to. I was very fond of all things English then.” He wanted to tell her that he still was, but he couldn’t. “It was a wonderful opportunity, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

She smiled wistfully. “I think that’s the way William felt about Cambridge.”

“He was on the soccer team, and I played against him once.” He smiled. “He beat me.” She wanted to cheer, but she only smiled, suddenly wondering about this man. In any other context, she knew she would have liked him.

“I wish you weren’t here,” she said honestly, sounding very young, and he laughed.

“So do I, Your Grace. So do I. But better here than in battle somewhere. I think they knew in Berlin that I am better suited to repairing men than destroying them. It was a great gift to be sent here.” He had a point there, but she wished that none of them had come. And then he looked at her with curiosity.

“Where is your husband?” But she wasn’t sure if she should tell him. If she told him that William was in Intelligence, it might put all of them in greater danger.

“He’s attached to the RAF.”

“Does he fly?” The commandant seemed surprised.

“Not really,” Sarah said vaguely, and he nodded.

“Most of the pilots are younger than we are.” He was right of course, but she only nodded. “It’s a terrible thing, war. No one wins. Everyone loses.”

“Your Führer doesn’t seem to think that.”

Joachim was silent for a long moment, and then answered her, but there was something in his voice that caught her attention, something that told her he hated this war as much as she did. “You’re right. Perhaps in time,” he said bravely, “he will come to his senses, before too much is lost, and too many are killed.” And then he touched her by what he said next, “I hope that your husband stays safe, Your Grace.”

“So do I,” she whispered as they reached the cottage. “So do I.” He bowed, and saluted her then, and she left him and went back to the cottage, musing at what an interesting contradiction he was. A German who hated the war, and yet, he was the commandant of the German Forces in the Loire Valley region. But when she walked back into the cottage that night, thinking of her husband, she forgot all about Joachim.

She ran into him again a few days later, in die same place, and then again, and eventually it was as though they expected to meet there. She liked to go and sit in the forest at the end of the day, by the riverbank, and think, with her feet dangling in the cool water. Her ankles got swollen sometimes, and it was so peaceful here. All she could hear were the birds and the sounds of the forest.

“Hello,” he said quietly, one afternoon, after he had followed her there. She didn’t know that he had guessed her routine, and watched for her now, from his window, as she left the cottage. “It’s hot today, isn’t it?” He wished he could give her a cool drink, or feel the long silky hair, or even touch her cheek. She was beginning to fill his dreams at night, and his thoughts in the daytime. He even kept one of William’s photographs of her locked in his desk, where he could see it whenever he wanted. “How are you feeling?”

She smiled at him; they were not yet friends, but at least they were neutral. It was something. And he was someone to talk to, other than Emanuelle and Henri and Phillip. She missed her long, intelligent conversations with William. She missed other things about him as well. She missed everything. But at least this man, with his worldly views and his gentle eyes, was someone to talk to. She never forgot who he was, or why he was there. She was the duchess, and he was the commandant. But it was a relief of sorts, talking to him, even for a few moments.

“I’m feeling fat,” she admitted to him with a small smile. “Enormous.” And then she turned to him with curiosity. She knew nothing about him. “Do you have children?”

He nodded, sitting on a large rock, just near her, and ran a hand through the cool water. “Two sons. Hans and Andi—Andreas.” But he looked sad as he said it.

“How old are they?”

“Seven and twelve. They live with their mother. We’re divorced.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she meant it. Children were a separate thing from war. And whatever nationality they were, she couldn’t bring herself to hate them.

“Divorce is a terrible thing,” he said, and she nodded.

“I know.”

“Do you?” He raised an eyebrow, wanting to ask her how, but he didn’t. It was obvious that she couldn’t know. She was clearly happy with her husband. “I scarcely saw my sons once she left. She remarried … and then the war came…. It’s all very difficult at best.”

“You’ll see them again when the war ends.”

He nodded, wondering when that would be, when the Führer would let them go home, and if his ex-wife would really let him see them, or if she would say it had been too long, and they no longer wanted to see him anyway. She had played a lot of games with him, and he was still very hurt and very angry. “And your baby?” He changed the subject again. “You said it would be here in August. That’s very soon.” He wondered how shocked everyone would be if he let her have it at the château, with their doctors’ help, or if that would cause too much talk. It might just be easier to send one of the doctors down to the cottage. “Was it easy with your son?”

It was odd to be discussing this with him, and yet here they were in the woods, alone, captor and prisoner, and what difference did it make what she told him? Who would ever know? Who would even know if they became friends, as long as no one was hurt, and nothing was damaged? “No, it wasn’t easy,” she admitted to him. “Phillip weighed ten pounds. It was very hard. My husband saved us both.”

“There was no doctor?” He looked shocked. Surely the duchess had had her baby in a private clinic in Paris, but she surprised him.

“I wanted to have him here. He was born on the day war was declared. The doctor had gone to Warsaw, and there was no one else. Just William… my husband. I think it frightened him even more than it did me. I didn’t really know what was happening after a certain point. It took a long time, and …” She spared him the details, but she smiled shyly at him. “It doesn’t matter. He’s a lovely boy.” He was touched by her, by her innocence and her honesty, and her beauty.

“You’re not afraid this time?”

She hesitated, for some reason wanting to be honest with him, though she didn’t know why. But she knew she liked him, in spite of who he was, and where he lived, and how they had met. He had only been kind to her, and decent. And he had intervened to protect her twice now.

“A little,” she admitted. “But not very.” She hoped it would be quicker and that this baby would be smaller.

“Women always seem so brave to me. My wife had both of our boys at home. It was beautiful, but for her it was very easy.”

“She’s lucky.” Sarah smiled.

“Perhaps we can help you this time with some German expertise.” He laughed gently and she looked serious.

“They wanted to do a cesarean last time, but I didn’t want one.”

“Why not?”

“I wanted to have more children.”

“Admirable of you. And brave … just as I said, women are so much more courageous. If men had to have babies, there would be no more children.” She laughed, and they talked about England then, and he asked her about Whitfield. She was intentionally vague with him. She didn’t want to give away any secrets, but it was the spirit of it that interested him, the stories, the traditions. He really did seem to love all things English.

“I should have gone back,” she said wistfully. “William wanted me to, but I thought we’d be safe here. I never thought France would surrender to the Germans.”

“No one did. I think it even surprised us how quickly it went,” he confessed to her, and then he told her something he knew he shouldn’t. But he trusted her, and there was no way she could betray him. “I think you did the right thing staying here. You, and your children, will be safer.”

“Than at Whitfield?” She looked surprised and it seemed an odd thing to say to her, as she looked at him with a puzzled frown, wondering what he meant.

“Not necessarily Whitfield, but England. Sooner or later, the Luftwaffe will turn its full force on Britain. It will be better for you to be here then.” She wondered if he was right, and as they walked back to the cottage afterwards she wondered if he had told her anything he shouldn’t. She assumed that the British knew all about the Luftwaffe’s plans, and maybe he was right, maybe it was safer here. But whether or not it was, she had no choice now. She was his prisoner.

She didn’t see him again for a few days, and at the very end of July, she ran into him again in the forest. He seemed distracted and tired, but he cheered up when she thanked him for the food that had begun appearing outside the cottage. First, berries for the child, and then a basket of fruit for all of them, loaves of fresh bread that their bakers were making at the château, and carefully wrapped in newspaper and well hidden from prying eyes, a kilo of real coffee.

“Thank you,” she said cautiously. “You don’t have to do that.” He didn’t owe them anything. They were the forces of the Occupation.

“I’m not going to eat, while you starve.” His cook had made a wonderful Sacher torte for him the night before, and he was planning to take the rest of it to her himself that night, but he didn’t mention it as they walked slowly back to the cottage. She seemed to be slowing down, and he noticed that in the past week, she had gotten considerably larger. “Is there anything else you need, Your Grace?”

She smiled at him. He always addressed her by her title. “You know, I suppose you really could call me Sarah.” He already knew that was her name. He had seen it when he had taken her passport. And he knew that she was about to turn twenty-four years old in a few more weeks. He knew her parents’ names, and their addresses in New York, and how she felt about some things, but he knew very little else about her. And his curiosity about her knew no bounds. He thought about her more than he would have admitted. But she sensed none of that, as she walked with him. She sensed only that he was a caring man, and as best he could, given his position here, he wanted to help her.

“Very well then, Sarah,” he said it carefully, like a great honor, as he smiled at her, and she noticed for the first time that he was actually very handsome. Usually, he looked so serious that one didn’t notice. But as they came out into a sunny part of the woods, for just a moment, he had looked years younger. “You shall be Sarah and I shall be Joachim, but only when we are alone.” They both understood why and she nodded. And then he turned to her again. “Is there anything you need from me?” He was sincere, but she shook her head anyway. She would never have taken anything from him, except the extra food he left her for Phillip. But she was touched that he had asked, and she smiled.

“You could give me a ticket home,” she teased. “How about that? Straight to New York, or maybe to England.” It was the first time she had joked with anyone since they’d arrived, and he laughed.

“I wish I could.” His eyes grew serious then. “I imagine your parents must be very worried about you,” he said sympathetically, wishing that he could help her. “And your husband.” He would have been frantic if Sarah had been his wife, and she was behind enemy lines, but she seemed to take it very coolly. She shrugged philosophically, as he longed to reach out and touch her, but he knew that he couldn’t do that either.

“You’ll stay safe, if I have anything to do with it,” he reassured her.

“Thank you.” She smiled up at him, and then suddenly stumbled on a tree root that crossed her path. She almost fell, but Joachim quickly reached out and caught her. He held her in his powerful hands, and then she steadied herself and thanked him. But for just that instant he had felt how warm she was, how smooth the ivory skin on her arms, and the dark hair had brushed his face like silk. She smelled of soap, and the perfume her husband loved. Everything about her made Joachim feel as though he would melt when he was near her, and it was an increasing agony not to let her know that.

He walked her back to the cottage then, and left her near the gate, and went back to work at his desk for the rest of the evening.

She did not see him after that for a full week. He had to go to Paris to see the ambassador, Otto Abetz, to arrange for shipments of medical supplies, and when he came back, he was so busy he had no time for walks or air, or pleasant things. And four days after his return there was a terrible explosion at a supply depot in Blois. They brought more than a hundred wounded in, and even the staff they had was inadequate to help them. There were wounded men everywhere, and their two doctors were running from one critical case to another. They had mounted a small operating theater in the dining room, but some of the men were so badly burned that no one could help them. Limbs had been blown off, faces torn away. It was a hideous scene of carnage, as Joachim and his staff surveyed the crowded rooms and one of the doctors came to demand more help. He wanted them to bring in the locals to help him.

“There must be some people with medical skills here,” he insisted, but the local hospital was closed, the doctors were gone, and the nurses had gone to military hospitals months before, or fled just before the Occupation. There were only the people from the farms, most of whom were too ignorant to help them. “What about the châtelaine? Would she come?” He was referring, of course, to Sarah, and Joachim thought she might, if he asked her. She was very human, but she was also very pregnant, this would hardly be good for her, and Joachim felt very protective of her.

“I’m not sure. She’s expecting a baby at any moment.”

“Tell her to come. We need her anyway. Does she have a maid?”

“There’s a local girl with her.”

“Get them both,” the doctor ordered him curtly, although Joachim outranked him. And a few moments later, Joachim sent a handful of his men out to the countryside to speak to the women at the farms, to see if anyone would come to help them, or order them to if they had to. And then he got in a jeep himself, and drove down to the cottage. He knocked firmly on the door, the lights went on, and a few minutes later, Sarah appeared, looking very stern at the door in her nightgown. She had heard the ambulance and the trucks coming all night long, and didn’t know why, and now she was afraid that the soldiers had come to taunt them. But when she saw Joachim, she opened the door a fraction wider, and her face eased a little.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he apologized. He was wearing his shirt, and had taken off his tie, his hair looked rumpled and his face looked worn, and he had left his jacket in his office. “We need your help, Sarah, if you’ll come. There’s been an explosion at a munitions depot, and we have an incredible number of wounded. We can’t manage. Can you help us?” She hesitated for an instant, looking into his eyes, and then she nodded. He asked her if she would bring Emanuelle, too, but when she went upstairs to ask her, the girl insisted that she wanted to stay at the cottage with the baby. And Sarah met Joachim downstairs alone, five minutes later.

“Where’s the girl?”

“She’s not well.” Sarah covered for her. “And I need her to stay here with my son.” He didn’t question her, and she followed him to the jeep in an old, faded blue dress and flat shoes, with her hair neatly braided. She had scrubbed her hands and face and arms, and had covered her hair with a clean white scarf, which made her look even younger.

“Thank you for coming,” he said as they drove back, and he glanced at her with a look of gratitude in his eyes, and new respect. “You know, you didn’t have to.”

“I know that. But dying boys are just that, whether they’re English or German.” It was how she seemed to feel about the war. She hated the Germans for what they’d done, yet she couldn’t hate the ones who’d been hurt, or even Joachim, who was always so decent to her. It didn’t make her sympathetic to his cause, only to those whose need was greater than her own, and she nodded as he helped her from the car, and hurried inside to help the boys she’d been called for.

She worked for hours in the operating room that night, holding bowls filled with blood, and towels soaked with anesthetic. She held instruments, and assisted both of the doctors. She worked tirelessly until dawn, and then they asked her if she would go upstairs with them, and for the first time, as she entered her own bedroom, filled with wounded men, she was suddenly aware of where she was, and how odd it was to be here. There were cots and mattresses on the floor, at least forty wounded men were lying there beside each other, shoulder to shoulder, and the orderlies were barely able to step over them to get to the next one.

She did whatever she could, applying bandages, cleaning wounds, and it was bright daylight again by the time she made her way back downstairs to what had once been her kitchen. There were half a dozen orderlies eating there, some soldiers and two women who looked at her as she walked in, and said something to each other in German. Her dress and hands, and even her face, were covered in young men’s blood, her hair hung in wisps around her face, but she seemed not to notice. And then one of the orderlies said something to her. She couldn’t understand what they said, but it was impossible to mistake the tone of respect, as he seemed to thank her. She nodded, and smiled at them as they handed her a cup of coffee. One of the women pointed to the baby then, and seemed to ask if she was all right, and she nodded and sat down gratefully with the steaming coffee. It was only then that she began to feel her own exhaustion. She hadn’t thought of herself in hours, or her baby.

Joachim came in a moment after that, and asked her to come into his office. She followed him down the hall, and as she walked in, she felt strange here too. Even the desk and the curtains were the same. This was William’s favorite room, and the only thing that had changed was the man who lived there.

Joachim invited her to sit down in the chair she knew so well, and she had to resist the urge to curl up, as she always had when she and hers husband had long, cozy conversations. Instead, she sat politely on the edge of the chair, and sipped at her coffee, reminding herself that in this room, she was now a stranger.

“Thank you for all you did last night. I was afraid it might have been too much for you.” He looked at her with worried eyes. He had passed her frequently in the night, working doggedly to save someone’s life, or just closing some boy’s eyes they had lost, with tears in her own eyes. “You must be exhausted.”

“I’m tired.” She smiled honestly, her eyes still sad. They had lost so many boys. And for what? She had cradled one like a child, and he had held her just as Phillip did, but this boy had died in her arms, from a wound in his stomach. She could do nothing to save him.

“Thank you, Sarah. I’ll take you home now. I think the worst is over.”

“Is it?” she said with a look of surprise, in a tone that startled him with its sharp edge. “Is the war over?”

“I meant for now,” he said quietly. His views were no different than her own, although he couldn’t allow himself to express them.

“What difference does it make?” she asked, setting down her coffee cup on William’s desk. She noticed that they were also using her china. “It’ll all just happen again somewhere else today, or tomorrow, or next week. Won’t it?” There were tears in her eyes. She couldn’t forget the boys who had died, even if they were Germans.

“Yes, it will,” he said sadly, “until all this is over.”

“It’s so senseless,” she said, walking to the window and looking out at the familiar scene. Everything seemed so deceptively peaceful. And Joachim walked up slowly behind her until he stood very near her.

“It is senseless … and stupid … and wrong … but right now, there is nothing you and I can do to change it. You are bringing life into the world. We are bringing death and destruction. It’s a terrible contradiction, Sarah, but I am helpless to change it.” She didn’t know why then, but she felt sorry for him. He was a man who didn’t believe in what he was doing. At least William had the comfort of knowing that he was doing the right thing, but Joachim didn’t. She wanted to reach out and touch him as she turned to face him, and tell him that it would be all right, that one day he would be forgiven.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, and walked past him toward the door. “It was a long night. I shouldn’t have said what I did. It’s not your fault.” She stood and looked at him for a long moment, as he longed to be near her again. But he was touched by what she had said.

“That’s not much comfort sometimes,” he said softly, still looking at her. She looked so tired now, and she needed rest, or the baby might come early. He still felt guilty for asking her to come and help, but she had done a splendid job and the doctors were very grateful to her.

He took her home after that, and Emanuelle had just come downstairs with Phillip. She looked at Sarah as Joachim left, and saw how tired she was and she felt guilty for not going to help her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to her, as Sarah sat down heavily in an old chair. “I just couldn’t … they’re Germans.”

“I understand,” Sarah said, wondering why it hadn’t made more difference to her, but it hadn’t. They were boys, and a few men … just people…. But she understood more when Henri came to the cottage a little while later. He looked at his sister, and something Sarah didn’t understand passed between them. He nodded, and then she saw his hand, wrapped in bandages, and she wondered.

“Henri, what happened to your hand?” she asked calmly.

“Nothing Madame, I hurt myself helping my father saw wood.”

“Why were you sawing wood?” she asked wisely. It was far too warm for anyone to need a fire, but the boy knew that.

“Oh, we were just building a house for our dog,” he said, but Sarah also knew they didn’t have one, and then she understood all too clearly. The explosion at the munitions dump had been no accident, and somehow, for some reason she didn’t even want to know, Henri had been there.

That night as they were getting ready to go to bed, she looked at Emanuelle as the two women stood in the kitchen. “You don’t have to say anything … but I just want to tell you to tell Henri to be very careful. He’s only a child. But if they catch him, they’ll kill him.”

“I know, Madame,” Emanuelle said, with terror in her eyes for her little brother. “I told him that. My parents don’t know anything. There is a group in Romorantin—” But Sarah stopped her.

“Don’t tell me, Emanuelle. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to accidentally put anyone in danger. Just tell him to be careful.”

Emanuelle nodded, and they both went to their rooms, to bed, but Sarah lay awake for a long time that night, thinking of the boy and the carnage he’d done … all those boys with lost limbs, and faces, and lives that ended so quickly. And little Henri with his burned hand. She wondered if he understood what he and his friends had done, or if he would be proud of it. Officially, what he’d done was considered patriotic, but Sarah knew better. Whatever side you were on, in her eyes, it was still murder. But as she lay there, she only hoped that the Germans didn’t catch Henri, or hurt him.

Joachim was right. It was an ugly war. An ugly time. As she thought of it, her hand drifted across her belly, and the baby kicked her. It reminded her that there was still hope in the world, and life, and something decent to look forward to… and somewhere, out there, there was William.

Chapter 14

ARAH saw Joachim almost every day after that, not by any prearranged plan. He just knew her walking schedule now, and seemingly by accident, he always joined her. They walked a little more slowly each day now, and sometimes they went to the river, and sometimes to the farm. And little by little, he was getting to know her. He tried to get to know Phillip, too, but the boy was reticent and shy, as his own son had been at the same age. But Joachim was incredibly kind to him, much to Emanuelle’s displeasure. She didn’t approve of anyone or anything German.

But Sarah knew he was a decent man. She was more sophisticated than Emanuelle, although she was no more fond of the Germans. But there were times when he made her laugh, and times when she was quiet, and he knew she was thinking of her husband.

He knew it was a difficult time for her. Her birthday came and went. She had no word from William or her parents. She was cut off from everyone she loved, her parents, her sister, her husband. All she had was her son, and the baby about to be born that William had left her.

But on her birthday Joachim brought her a book that had meant a great deal to him when he was at Oxford, and was one of the few personal things he had brought with him.

It was a dog-eared copy of a book of poems by Rupert Brooke, and she loved it. But it wasn’t a happy birthday for her. Her heart was full of the news of the war, and the heartache of the bombing of Britain. On the fifteenth of August, the blitz on London had begun, and it tore at her heart to think of the people she knew there, their friends, William’s relatives… the children…. Joachim had warned her this would come, but she hadn’t expected it so soon, or fully understood how destructive it would be when it happened. London was being ravaged.

“I told you,” he said quietly, “you are safer here. Especially now, Sarah.” His voice was kand as he said it, and he gently helped her over a rough spot on the road, and after a while they sat down on a large rock. He knew it was better not to talk about the war, but about other things that wouldn’t upset her.

He told her about his childhood trips to Switzerland, and his brother’s pranks when they were children. Oddly enough, it had struck him early on how much his brother had looked like her baby. Phillip was just walking now, with golden curls and big blue eyes, and when he was with his mother or Emanuelle, he was full of mischief.

“Why haven’t you married again?” Sarah asked him one afternoon, as they sat and rested. The baby was so low she could barely move, but she liked her walks with him and she didn’t want to stop them. It was a relief to talk to him, and without realizing it, she had come to count on his presence.

“I never fell in love with anyone,” he said honestly, smiling at her, wanting to say, “Until now.” But he didn’t. “It’s an awful thing to say, but I’m not even sure I was in love with my first wife. We were young, and we had been together since we were children. I think it was just … expected of us,” he explained, and Sarah smiled. She felt so comfortable with him, she felt no need to keep her secrets.

“I didn’t love my first husband either,” she admitted to him, and he looked surprised. There were things about her that always amazed him, like the constant realization of how strong she was, how fair, how just, and how devoted to her husband.

“You were married before?” He looked genuinely surprised.

“For a year. To someone I’d known all my life, just like you and your wife. It was awful. We should never have gotten married When we got divorced, I was so ashamed I went into hiding for a year. My parents took me to Europe after that, and that’s where I met William.” It all sounded so simple now, she thought, but it hadn’t been then. It had all been so painful. “It was pretty grim for a while. But with William”—her eyes lit up as she said his name—“but with William, everything is so different. …”

“He must be a wonderful man,” Joachim said sadly.

“He is. I’m a very lucky woman.”

“And he’s a lucky man.” He helped her up again, and they continued to the farm and then back. But the next day, she couldn’t make it, and he sat quietly in the park with her. She seemed quieter than usual, more nostalgic, and more pensive. But the day after, she seemed more herself again, and she insisted on going all the way to the river.

“You know, you worry me sometimes,” he said as they walked along. There was more of a spring in her step today, and she seemed to have regained her sense of humor.

“Why?” She looked intrigued, it was odd to think of the head of the German Occupation Forces in the area worrying about her, and yet she sensed that they were friends now. He was serious, intense, and he was clearly a kind, decent man, and she liked him.

“You do too much. You take too much on your shoulders.” He had learned by then how much of the château she had restored herself, and it still amazed him. She had given him a tour of some of the rooms herself one day, and he couldn’t believe the precision and the thoroughness of some of the work she’d done, and then she had shown him all that she had done in the stables.

“I don’t think I’d have let you do it if you were my wife,” he said firmly and she laughed.

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I married William.”

He smiled at her, envious of William again, but nonetheless grateful to know her. They lingered at her gate that day for a long time. It was as though she didn’t want to let him go this afternoon, and for the first time, as she left him, she reached out and touched his hand and thanked him.

The gesture startled him, and warmed him to the core, but he pretended not to notice. “What for?”

“Taking the time to walk with me … and talk to me.” It had come to mean a lot to her, having him to talk to.

“I look forward to seeing you … perhaps more than you know,” he said softly, and she looked away, not sure what to answer. “Perhaps we are each fortunate that the other is here,” he said gently. “A kind of kismet … a higher destiny. This war would be even worse for me, if you weren’t here with me, Sarah.” In truth, he hadn’t been this happy in years, and the only thing that frightened him was that he knew he loved her, and he would have to leave one day, and she would go back to William, never knowing what he had felt, or all that she had meant to him. “Thank you,” he said, wishing he could reach out and touch her face, her hair, her arms … but he was not as brave or as foolish as his soldiers.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” she said softly.

But the next afternoon he watched for her, and worried when she didn’t come. He wondered if she wasn’t well, and he waited until nightfall before strolling toward the cottage. All the lights were burning there, and he could see Emanuelle in the kitchen windows. He knocked on one of them and she came to the door with a frown, with Phillip in her arms and he looked fretful.

“Is Her Grace ill” he asked her in French, and she shook her head. She hesitated, and then decided to tell him. She knew that no matter what she thought of him and his kind, Sarah liked him. She didn’t like him too much. Emanuelle never questioned that. But there was an odd mutual respect between them.

“She’s having the baby.” But there was something more in her eyes, a faint line of fear that he sensed more than saw, and he remembered what she had said of her previous delivery.

“Is it going well?” he asked, searching the girl’s eyes. Emanuelle hesitated and then nodded and he was relieved, because all of their nurses and both doctors were gone to a conference in Paris. As they had no terribly ill soldiers in residence at the time, there were only orderlies in attendance. “You’re sure she’s all right?” he pressed her.

“Yes, I am,” she snapped. “I was there the last time.” He told her to give Sarah his best, and left a moment later, thinking of her, and her pain, and the baby that would come, wishing it were his and not someone else’s.

He went back to William’s study then, and sat there for a long time. He took out the photograph of her he’d found. She was laughing at something someone had said, and she was standing beside William at Whitfield. They made a handsome pair, and he put the photograph away again and poured himself a shot of brandy. He had just tossed it down, when one of the men on duty came to get him.

“There’s someone here to see you, sir.” It was eleven o’clock and he was ready to go up to bed, but he came out and was surprised to see Emanuelle standing in the hallway.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, instantly worried about Sarah, and Emanuelle started wringing her hands and speaking quickly.

“It’s not going well again. The baby just won’t come. Last time … Monsieur le Duc did everything … he shouted at her … it took hours … I pushed on her … and finally he had to turn it….” Why hadn’t he kept the doctors there, he berated himself. He knew she had had a difficult birth the last time, and he had never thought of it when they left for Paris. He grabbed his jacket and followed Emanuelle outside. He had never delivered a baby, but there was absolutely no one else to help them. And he knew there were no doctors left in town. There hadn’t been in months. There was no one he could send to help her.

When they reached the cottage, all the lights were still lit, and as he ran up the stairs two at a time, he saw that little Phillip was sound asleep in his bed in the room next to hers. When Joachim saw her, he saw instantly what Emanuelle meant. She was thrashing terribly and in dreadful pain, and the little French girl said she had been in labor since that morning. It had been sixteen hours since it started.

“Sarah,” he said gently as he sat down next to her in the room’s only chair, “it’s Joachim. I’m sorry to be the one to come, but there’s no one else,” he apologized politely, and she nodded, aware that he was there, and she didn’t seem to mind it. She reached out and clung to his hand, and as the pain began again and continued endlessly, she started crying.

“Terrible … worse than last time … I can’t … William …”

“Yes, you can. I’m here to help you.” He sounded remarkably calm, and Emanuelle left the room to bring more towels. “Has the baby started to come at all?” he asked her as he watched her.

“I don’t think so … I …” She clutched at both of his hands then. “Oh, God … oh, I’m … sorry… Joachim! Don’t leave me!” It was the first time she had said his name, although he had often said hers, and he wanted to take her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her.

“Sarah, please … you have to help me … it’s going to be all right.” He told Emanuelle how to brace her legs, and held her shoulders for her as the pains came, so she could push the baby out more easily. She fought him terribly at first, but his voice was quiet and strong, and he seemed to know what he was doing. After an hour or so, the baby’s head started to come, and she wasn’t bleeding nearly as badly as she had the last time. It was just obviously another large child, and it was going to take a long time to push it out, but Joachim was determined to stay there and help her for as long as he had to. It was almost morning when she finally pushed the head out, and a small wrinkled face poked out, but unlike Phillip, this baby didn’t take a breath, and the room was filled with silence. Emanuelle looked at him worriedly, wondering what it meant, as he watched the child, and then quickly turned to Sarah.

“Sarah, you have to push the baby out!” he said urgently, looking again and again at the blue-tinged face of the baby. “Come now…. Now, Sarah, push!” he commanded, sounding more like a soldier than a doctor, or even a husband. He was commanding her to do it, and this time he did what Emanuelle had once done, pressing down hard on her stomach to help her. And little by little the baby came out, until it lay lifelessly between her’legs on the bed, and she looked down and cried in sorrow.

“It’s dead! My God, the baby’s dead!” she cried, and he took it in his hands, still attached to its mother. It was a little girl, but there was no life in her as he held her and massaged her back, and patted her. He slapped the soles of her feet, and then he shook her, holding her upside down, and suddenly as he did, a huge plug of mucus flew out of her mouth, and she gave a gasp and then a cry, and wailed louder than any child he had ever heard as he held her. He was covered with blood, and he was crying as hard as Sarah and Emanuelle, with relief, and the beauty of life. And then he cut the cord and handed her to Sarah, with a tender smile. He couldn’t have loved Sarah more if he’d been the child’s father.

“Your daughter,” he said, as he laid her gently beside Sarah, wrapped in a clean blanket. And then he went to wash his hands, and do what he could to repair his shirt, and he returned a moment later to Sarah’s bedside. She held out a hand to him, and she was still crying as she took his hand in her own and kissed it.

“Joachim, you saved her.” Their eyes met and held for a long time, and he felt the power of having shared the gift of life with her in these last hours.

“No, I didn’t,” he denied what he had done. “I did what I could. But God made the decision. He always does.” And then he looked down at the peaceful child, so pink and round and perfect. She was a beautiful little girl, and except for her blond fluff of hair, she looked just like Sarah “She’s beautiful.”

“She is, isn’t she?”

“What are you going to call her?”

“Elizabeth Annabelle Whitfield.” She and William had decided that long before, and she thought it suited the peacefully sleeping baby.

He left her after that, and came back again late that afternoon to see how they were doing. Phillip was watching the baby in fascination, but snuggling close to his mother.

Joachim brought flowers, and a big piece of chocolate cake, a pound of sugar, and another precious kilo of coffee. And she was sitting up in bed, looking surprisingly well considering all she’d been through. But this time had been easier than the first, and the baby weighed “only” nine pounds, Emanuelle announced as they all laughed. The near tragedy had ended well, thanks to Joachim. Even Emanuelle treated him kindly. And as Sarah looked at him, after Emanuelle left the room again, she knew that no matter what happened in their lives, she would always be grateful to him, and she would never forget that he had saved her baby.

“I’ll never forget what you did,” she whispered to Joachim as he held her hand. That morning, an undeniable bond had formed between them.

“I told you. It was God’s hand that touched her.”

“But you were there. … I was so frightened….” Tears filled her eyes as she remembered. She couldn’t have borne it if the baby had died. But he had saved her.

“I was frightened too,” he confessed to her. “We were very lucky” He smiled at her then. “Funnily enough, she looks a little like my sister.”

“Mine too,” Sarah laughed softly. They each had a cup of tea, and he had smuggled over a bottle of champagne, and he toasted her and the long life of Lady Elizabeth Annabelle Whitfield.

Eventually, he stood up to leave. “You should sleep now.” Without saying a word he stooped to kiss the top of her head. His lips brushed her hair, and he closed his eyes just for an instant. “Sleep, my darling,” he whispered, as she drifted off to sleep before he even left the room. She had heard what he said in the distance, but she was already dreaming of William.

Chapter 15

Y the summer of the following year, London had almost been destroyed by the constant bombing, but not the British spirit. She had had only two letters from William by then, smuggled in to her through circuitous routes in the Resistance. He insisted that he was well, and reproached himself repeatedly for not getting her out of France when he should have. And in the second letter, he rejoiced over the arrival of Elizabeth, after he had gotten Sarah’s letter. But he hated knowing that they were in France, and that there was no way for him to reach them. He didn’t tell her that he had explored numerous possibilities of being smuggled into France, at least for a visit, but the War Office had objected. And there was no way of getting Sarah out of France, either, for the moment. They just had to sit tight, he said, and he assured her that the war would soon be over. But it was a third letter from him in die fall that brought Sarah the news which almost killed her. But he hadn’t dared not to tell her, lest she heard the news some other way. Her sister Jane had written to him, since she knew she could not contact Sarah. Their parents had been killed in a boating accident off Southampton. They had been on a friend’s yacht when a huge storm had come up. The yacht had sunk, and all of the passengers on board had drowned before the Coast Guard could reach them.

Sarah was consumed with grief when she heard the news, and for an entire week she didn’t speak to Joachim. By then he had learned that his sister had been killed in the bombing of Mannheim. Their losses were not small, for any of them. But the loss of her parents came as a crushing blow to Sarah.

The news only seemed to go from bad to worse after that. The entire world was stunned when they learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“My God, Joachim, what does that mean?” It was he who had come to tell her. They were close friends by then, regardless of their nationalities, and the fact that he had saved Elizabeth’s life weighed heavily with her. He continued to bring them food and small things, and he seemed always to be there for them when she needed him. He had gotten some medicine for her when Phillip got another bout of bronchitis. But now, this news seemed to change everything. Not for them. But for the entire world. By the end of the day, America had declared war on the Japanese, and hence the Germans. Directly, it changed nothing for her. She was already his prisoner, technically. But it was a frightening thought to realize that America had been attacked. What if New York was next? She thought of Peter and Jane and their children. It was so terrible not to be with them, so they could grieve for their parents together.

“This could change many things,” he said to her quietly, as he sat in her kitchen. Some of his men knew that he came to see her sometimes, but no one seemed to think much of it. She was a pretty woman, but she behaved with dignity as the châtelaine of the château, but to Joachim she was far more than that. She was someone he cherished. “I imagine it will have serious implications for us very shortly,” he said somberly. And he was right, of course. Every possible aspect of the war stepped up, and the bombing of London continued.

It wasn’t until two months later that Sarah learned that her brother-in-law was in the Pacific, and Jane was staying at the house on Long Island with the children. It was odd to think that the house belonged to them now, that it was hers and Jane’s, as well as the house in New York. And that Jane was there with her children. She felt so far away from all of them, and so sad to realize her children would never know her parents.

But she was in no way prepared for the news that reached her in the spring. Phillip was eighteen months old by then, and Elizabeth, their miracle baby, as Joachim called her, was seven months old, had four teeth, and was constantly happy. All she did was coo and laugh and sing, and every time she saw Sarah she squealed with delight, and threw her arms around her neck and squeezed her. And Phillip loved her too. He always kissed her and tried to hold her, and called her “his” baby.

Sarah was holding her on her lap when Emanuelle came in with a letter for her, from the hotel, with a postmark from the Caribbean.

“How did you get this?” Sarah asked and then stopped herself. She had realized long since that there was a lot about Emanuelle and Henri’s lives that she didn’t want to know, and possibly even those of their parents. She had heard echoes about people being hidden at the hotel, and she had even let them use an old shed near the farm once, to hide someone for a week. But she’d tried not to know enough to harm them. Henri had had minor injuries more than once. Even more worrisome was the realization that Emanuelle had become romantically involved with the mayor’s son, who was intimately involved with the Germans. And Sarah sensed correctly that her involvement with him was more political than romantic. It was a sad way to begin one’s love life. She had tried to talk to Emanuelle about it once, but the girl was very closed and very firm. She didn’t want to involve Sarah in anything she did, with or for the Resistance, unless she had to. But she brought her the letter now, and Sarah saw from the crest on the back of it that it was from the Duke of Windsor. She couldn’t imagine why they were writing to her. They never had before, although she had heard, on the radio Emanuelle’s parents kept hidden at the hotel, that he was now the governor of the Bahamas. The government was afraid he might become a pawn for the Germans if he was captured, so they were keeping him well out of harm’s way. And before he left, his German sympathies had been no particular secret in England.

The letter began with a warm greeting to her, in which he assured her Wallis joined him, and then went on to tell her that he had the greatest regret in being the one to inform her that William was missing in action. There was a distinct possibility that he had been taken prisoner, but it was not a certainty, he was sad to tell her. In fact, the letter told her as she read it with glazed eyes, the only thing certain was that William was missing. He described in detail how it had occurred, and assured her that he had every conviction that his cousin had acted with wisdom and courage. He might well have been killed going down, or he might have survived. But he had been parachuted into Germany on an intelligence mission that William himself had volunteered for, despite the objections of everyone at the War Office, for precisely these reasons.

“He was a very stubborn young man, and it has cost us all dearly, I’m afraid….” He went on, “You most of all, my dear. You must be very brave, as he would want you to be, and have every faith that if God wants it thus, he will indeed be safe, or he may well be already in the hands of our Maker. I trust that you are well, and we send our deepest condolences and our deepest love to you and the children.” She stared at the letter in her hand, and read it again, as sobs welled up in her throat and began to choke her. Emanuelle had been watching her face and could see it was not good news. She had sensed that when she brought it to her from the hotel, and she took Elizabeth from her quickly and left the room, not knowing what to say. She came back a few moments later, and found Sarah sobbing at the kitchen table.

“Oh, Madame …” She put the baby on the floor and put her arms around her bereft employer. “Is it Monsieur le Duc?” she asked in a strangled voice, and Sarah slowly nodded, and then lifted tear-filled eyes to hers.

“He’s missing … and they think he might have been taken prisoner … or he might be dead… they don’t know…. The letter was from his cousin.”

“Oh, pauvre Madame . he cannot be dead…. Don’t believe that!”

She nodded, unsure of what she believed. She only knew that she couldn’t survive a world without William. And yet he would want her to, for their children, for him, but she just couldn’t bear it. She cried where she sat for a long time, and then she left the house and went for a long walk alone in the forest. Joachim didn’t see her this time. She knew that it was late for him, and he would already be at dinner. She wanted to be alone anyway. She needed to be. And finally, she sat on a log in the darkness and cried, wiping her tears on the arms of her sweater. How could she bear living without him? How could life be so cruel? And why had they let him do a dangerous mission that involved dropping him into Germany? They had sent David to the Bahamas. Why couldn’t they have sent William somewhere safe too? She just couldn’t bear the thought of what might have happened. She sat in the forest in the dark for hours, trying to hear her own thoughts, and pray, and feel some messages from William. But she felt nothing. She felt numb until late that night, when she lay in the bed they had shared when they first came to the château and she was first pregnant with Phillip. And suddenly as she lay there she felt certain that he was alive. She didn’t know how or where or when she would see him again, but she knew she would, one day. It felt almost like a sign from God, it was so powerful that she couldn’t deny it, and it reassured her. She fell asleep after that, and in the morning, she woke refreshed, and more certain than ever that William was alive, and had not been killed by the Germans.

She told Joachim about it later that day, and he listened quietly, but he was not totally swayed by her religious belief.

“I’m serious, Joachim. … I felt this power … this absolute certainty that he’s alive somewhere. I know it.” She spoke with the conviction of the deeply religious, and he didn’t want to tell her how skeptical he was, or how few of those captured actually survived it.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said quietly, “but you must also prepare yourself for the possibility that you could be wrong, Sarah.” He tried to say it as gently as he could. She had to accept the fact that he was missing, and perhaps dead. There was more than just a vague possibility that at that very moment she was already a widow. He didn’t want to force her to face that feet yet, but eventually, no matter what she had felt that night, or what she wanted to feel or believe, she would have to.

As time went on, with no reassuring news of him, and no reports of his capture or survival, it was obvious to Joachim that he was dead, but not to Sarah. Sarah always acted now as though she’d seen him the previous afternoon, as though she’d heard from him in a dream. She was more at peace and more determined and more sure than at the beginning of the war, when she still got occasional letters. Now there was nothing, there was silence. He was gone. Presumably forever. And sooner or later, she would have to face it. Joachim was waiting for that time, but he knew that until she accepted William’s death, the time was wrong for them, and he didn’t want to press her. But he was there for her, when she needed him, when she wanted to talk, when she was sad, or lonely, or afraid. It was difficult to believe sometimes that they were on opposite sides of the war. To him, all they were were a man and a woman who had been together for two years now, and he loved her with all his heart, all his soul, everything he had to give her. He didn’t know how they would sort it out after the war or where they would live or what they would do. But none of it was important to him. The only thing that mattered to him was Sarah. He lived and breathed and existed for her, but she still didn’t know it. She knew how devoted he was to her, and sensed that he was very fond of her and the children, and especially close to Elizabeth, after he saved her life when she was born, but Sarah never truly understood how much he loved her.

That year, on her birthday, he tried to give her a magnificent pair of diamond earrings that he had bought for her in Paris, but she absolutely refused to take them.

“Joachim, I can’t. They’re incredible. But it’s impossible. I’m married.” He didn’t argue the point with her, although he no longer believed that. He felt certain that she was a widow now, and with all due respect to William, he had been gone for six months, and she was free now. “And I’m your prisoner, for heaven’s sake,” she laughed. “What would people think if I accepted a pair of diamond earrings?”

“I’m not entirely sure we have to explain that to them.” He was disappointed, but he understood. He settled for giving her a new watch, which she did accept, and a very pretty sweater, which he knew she desperately needed. They were very modest gifts, and it was very much like her not to accept anything more expensive. He respected that about her too. In fact, in two years, he had never discovered anything about her that he didn’t like, except for the fact that she continued to insist she was still married to William. But he even liked that about her too. She was loyal to the end, kind and loving, and devoted. He used to envy William for all that, but he no longer envied him, he pitied him. The poor man was gone. And sooner or later, Sarah would have to face that.

But by the following year, even Sarah’s staunch hopes were starting to dim, although she didn’t admit it to anyone, not even Joachim. But William had been gone for so long by then, over a year, and none of the intelligence sources had turned up anything about him. Even Joachim had tried to make discreet inquiries without causing any trouble for either of them. But the general consensus on both sides of the channel seemed to be that William had been killed in March of 1942, when he was parachuted into the Rhineland. She still couldn’t believe it, and yet when she thought of him now, sometimes even their most precious memories seemed dim, and it frightened her to feel that. She hadn’t seen him in almost four years. It was a terribly long time, even for a love so great as theirs, to hold up in the face of so little hope and so much anguish.

She spent Christmas quietly with Joachim that year. He was incredibly sweet and loving to them. It was particularly nice for Phillip, who was growing up without a father, and had no memories whatsoever of William, because he hadn’t been old enough to remember. In his mind, Joachim was a special friend, and in a pure, simple way, he really liked him, just as Sarah liked him. She still hated everything the Germans represented to her, and yet she never hated him. He was such a decent man, and he worked hard with the wounded men who came to the château to recover. Some of them had no hope, no limbs, no future, and no home to return to. And somehow he managed to spend time with everyone, to talk to them for hours on end, to give them hope, to make them want to continue, just as sometimes, he did with Sarah.

“You’re an amazing man,” she said to him quietly, as they sat in her cottage kitchen. Emanuelle was with her family and Henri had been away for the past few weeks, in the Ardennes somewhere, Emanuelle said, and Sarah had learned not to ask any questions. He was sixteen by then, and he led a life filled with passion and danger. Emanuelle’s own life had grown increasingly difficult. The mayor’s son had grown suspicious of her, and eventually there’d been a huge row when she left him. Now she was involved with one of the German officers, and Sarah never said anything, but she suspected that she was getting information from him, too, and feeding it to the Resistance. But Sarah stayed clear of all of it. She did what she could to continue to restore the château in small ways, helped with medical emergencies when she was either demanded or desperately needed, and the rest of the time she took care of her children. Phillip was four and a half, and Elizabeth was a year younger. And they were lovely children. Phillip was turning out to be as hugely tall as he had started out to be, and Elizabeth had surprised her by being delicate, and much more small featured than her mother. She was frail in some ways, just as she was when she was born, and yet she was always full of spunk and mischief. And it was obvious to everyone who saw him with them that Joachim adored them. He had brought beautifully made German toys for them the night before on Christmas Eve, and helped them to decorate a tree, and he had somehow managed to find a doll for Lizzie, who had immediately pounced on her, clutched her in her arms and cradled her “baby.”

But it was Phillip who climbed onto Joachim’s lap and put his arms around his neck, as he snuggled close to him, and Sarah pretended not to see it.

“You won’t leave us, like my papa did, will you?” he asked worriedly, and Sarah felt tears sting her eyes as she heard him. But Joachim was quick to answer.

“Your papa didn’t want to leave you, you know. If he could, I’m sure he’d be right here with you.”

“Then why did he go?”

“He had to. He’s a soldier.”

“But you didn’t go,” the child said logically, not realizing that Joachim had had to leave his own children, his own home, to come here. And then he threw his arms around Joachim’s neck again, and stayed there until Joachim took him up to bed, as Sarah carried the baby. Phillip still had an absolute passion for her, which always delighted Sarah.

“Do you suppose it’ll all finally end this year?” Sarah asked sadly as they each sipped some brandy after the children were in bed. He had brought her the finest Courvoisier, and it was powerful, but pleasant.

“I hope so.” The war seemed as if it would never end. “It seems endless sometimes. When I see those boys they send to us, day after day, week after week, year after year, I wonder if anyone realizes how senseless it is, and that it’s simply not worth it.”

“I think that’s why you’re here and not at the front.” Sarah smiled at him. He hated the war almost as much as she did.

“I’m glad I’ve been here,” he said gently. He hoped he had made it easier for her, and he had in many ways. He reached across the table and touched her hand cautiously then. He had known her for three and a half years, and in some ways it seemed a lifetime. “You’re very important to me,” he said quietly, and then, with the brandy and the sentiments of the day, he could no longer hide his emotions. “Sarah”—his voice was husky and at the same time gentle—“I want you to know how much I love you.” She looked away from him, trying to hide her own feelings from him, and from herself. She knew that no matter what she felt for this man, out of respect for William, she couldn’t

“Joachim, don’t … please….” She looked up at him imploringly and he took her hand in his own and held it.

“Tell me that you don’t love me, that you never could, and I will never say those words again … but I do love you, Sarah, and I think you love me too. What are we doing? Why are we hiding? Why are we merely friends, when we could be so much more?” He wanted more from her now. He had waited for years, and he wanted her so badly.

“I do love you,” she whispered across the table at him, terrified by what she was saying, almost as much as by what she was feeling. But she had felt it for a long time, and she had resisted it … for William “But we can’t do this.”

“Why not? We’re grown people. The world is coming to an end. Aren’t we allowed some happiness? Some joy? Some sunshine … before it’s over?” They had both seen so much death, so much pain, and they were both so tired.

She smiled at what he said. She loved him too, loved the man he was, loved what he did for her children, and for her. “We have each other’s friendship … and our love… we don’t have a right to more, as long as William is alive.”

“And if he isn’t?” He forced her to face the possibility, and she turned away as she always did. It was still too painful.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d feel then. But I know that right now I’m still his wife, and I probably will be for a long time. Maybe forever.”

“And I?” he said, demanding something from her for the first time. “And I, Sarah? What am I to do now?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at him unhappily and he stood up and walked slowly toward her. He sat down next to her, and looked into her eyes at the sorrow and longing he saw there, and then he gently touched her face with his fingers.

“I will always be here for you. I want you to know that. And when you accept the fact that William is gone, I will still be here. We have time, Sarah… we have a lifetime.” He kissed her gently then, on the lips, with everything he had wanted to tell her for so long, and she didn’t stop him. She couldn’t stop him. She wanted this just as badly as he did. It had been more than four years since she’d seen her husband, and she had lived three and a half years with this man, side by side, day by day, growing to love and respect him. And yet she knew they had no right to what they both thought they wanted. To her, there was more to life than that. There was avow that she had made, and a man that she had loved more than any other.

“I love you,” Joachim whispered to her, as they kissed again.

“I love you too,” she said. But she still loved William, too, and they both knew it.

He left her a little while after that, and went back to the château, respectful of who she was and what she wanted of him. The next day he came back and played with the children and their life continued as before, as if their conversation never took place.

And in the spring, things were not going well with the war for the Germans, and he would come and talk to Sarah about what he thought and what he feared might happen. By April he was sure that they would be pulled back closer to Germany, and he feared he might have to leave Sarah and the children. He promised to come back once the war was won or lost, and he almost didn’t care, as long as they both survived it. He had remained careful with her, and although they kissed now and then, neither of them had allowed it to go any further. It was better that way, and he knew they would have no regrets, and that she needed to move slowly. She still wanted to believe that William was alive, and might return. But he knew that even if he did, it would be painful for her now to give up Joachim. She had come to rely on him, and to need him as much as she respected him. They were more than friends now, no matter how much she still loved William.

But while he was concerned with the news from Berlin, for once Sarah was paying no attention. She was busy with Lizzie, who had had a ferocious cough since March, and was still weak and ill at Easter.

“I don’t know what it is,” Sarah complained to him, one night in her kitchen.

“Some kind of influenza. They had it in the village all winter.” She had taken her up to the doctor at the château, who assured her it wasn’t pneumonia, but the medicine he’d given her had done nothing for her either.

“Do you think it’s tuberculosis?” she asked Joachim worriedly, but he didn’t think so. He had asked the doctor to get more medicine for her, but they hadn’t been able to get anything lately. All their supplies had been cut off, and one of their doctors had already left for the front, the other was leaving in May. But long before that, Lizzie lay in bed again, with a blazing fever. She had lost weight and her eyes were glazed, and she had that terrible look that children get when they’re being beaten by a fever. And little Phillip sat at the foot of her bed day after day, singing to her, and telling her stories.

Emanuelle kept Phillip busy during the day, but he was frantic now about Lizzie. She was still “his” baby and it frightened him to see her so ill, and his mother so worried. He kept asking if she’d be all right, and Sarah promised she would be. Joachim came to sit with them every night. He bathed Lizzie’s head, and tried to make her drink, and when she coughed too hard he rubbed her back, just as he had when she was born to help her breathe and bring her to life. But this time he couldn’t seem to help her. She grew worse day by day, and on the first of May, she lay blazing with fever. Both of their doctors had left, and all of their medical supplies had been sorely depleted. He had no medicine to bring, no suggestions to make, all he could do was sit with the two of them day after day, praying that she would get better.

He thought of taking her to Paris to the doctors there, but she was too sick to make the trip, and things weren’t going well there either. The Americans were advancing on France, and the Germans were beginning to panic. Paris was being stripped, and most of the military personnel were either being sent to the front, or back to Berlin. It was a dismal time for the Reich, but Joachim was far more upset about Lizzie.

In early May, he came back to the cottage one afternoon, and found Sarah sitting beside her, as she had for weeks, holding her hand, and bathing her head, but this time Lizzie wasn’t moving. He sat with her for several hours, but eventually he had to go back to his office. There was too much going on there now for him to be absent without explanation. But he came back again late that night, and Sarah was lying on the child’s bed, holding her in her arms, as she dozed there. He looked down at them, and as he did, Sarah looked up at him, and he saw real agony there, as he sat down gently beside her.

“Any change?” he whispered, and Sarah shook her head. She hadn’t woken up since that morning. But as he stood watching them, Lizzie stirred, and for the first time in days, she opened her eyes, and smiled up at her mother. She looked like a little angel, with curls of blond hair and huge, green eyes like Sarah’s. She was three and a half years old, but now that she was so sick, she looked older, as though the weight of the world had been on her shoulders.

“I love you, Mommy,” she whispered, and closed her eyes as Sarah held her, and suddenly Sarah knew. It was as though she could feel her begin to slip away. She wanted to hold her or pull her back. She wanted to do something desperately, but there was nothing she could do. They had no doctor, no medicine, no nurse, no hospital to give her … only love, and prayers, and then, as Sarah watched her, she sighed again, and Sarah touched the fine curls and whispered to her baby that she loved so desperately.

“I love you, sweet baby. … I love you so much…. Mommy loves you … and God loves you too… You’re safe now….” she whispered over and over as she and Joachim cried, and with a sweet smile, Lizzie looked up at them for the last time, and then drifted away, her little spirit lifted up to heaven.

Sarah felt it when she’d gone, and it took Joachim a moment to understand. He sat down on the bed next to them and sobbed, holding them both in his arms as he rocked them. He remembered how he had brought her to life, and now she was gone… taken so swiftly and so sweetly. Sarah looked up at him with broken eyes, and she held little Lizzie for a long time, and finally, she set her gently down, and Joachim led her downstairs, and went back up to the château with her, to speak to someone about making arrangements for the funeral.

But in the end, Joachim did it all himself. He drove into town to get a tiny coffin for her, and together, crying softly, they put her in it. Sarah had combed her hair, and put on her prettiest dress, and put her favorite doll in with her. It was the most terrible thing that had ever happened to her, and it almost killed her when they lowered her into the ground. All she could do was cling to Joachim and cry, as poor Phillip stood by, clinging to her hand, unable to believe what had happened.

Phillip looked angry and afraid, and as they began shovelling earth into her grave, he leapt forward and tried to stop them. And as Joachim gently held him, he cried, looking furiously at his mother.

“You lied to me! You lied,” he screamed, trembling and sobbing. “You let her die … my baby … my baby….” He was inconsolable as he clung to Joachim and suddenly wouldn’t let Sarah near him. He had loved Lizzie so much, and now he couldn’t bear to lose her.

“Phillip, please …” Sarah could barely gasp the words, as she caught the flailing arms in her own, and held him as he hit her. She took him from Joachim then and carried him gently home, as they both cried. And she held him long into the night as he sobbed agonizingly for “his baby”

It was unbelievable for all of them, Phillip, Emanuelle, Joachim… Sarah…. One moment she had been there… and the next gone. Sarah felt as though she were in a trance for days, as did Phillip. They just kept ambling around, waiting for her to come home, to go upstairs and see her there, to find out that it had been a cruel joke and she was up to some mischief. Sarah was so blind with pain that Joachim didn’t even dare tell her what was going on, and it was four weeks later when he had to tell her that they were leaving.

“What?” She sat staring at him, still wearing the same old black dress she had worn for weeks now. She felt a hundred years old and the dress hung on her like a scarecrow. “You’re what?” She seemed truly not to understand him.

“We’re leaving,” he said gently. “We got our orders this morning. We’re pulling out tomorrow.”

“So soon?” She looked sick when he told her. It was one more loss, one more sorrow.

“It’s been four years.” He smiled sadly at her. “That’s rather a long time to have houseguests, don’t you think?”

She smiled sadly at him too. She couldn’t believe that he was leaving. “What does this mean, Joachim?”

“The Americans are in Saint-L⊚. They’ll be here soon, and then they’ll move on to Paris. You’ll be safe with them. They’ll take good care of you.” At least that relieved him.

“And you?” she asked with a worried frown. “Will you be in danger?”

“I’m being recalled to Berlin, and then we’re moving the hospital to Bonn. Apparently someone is pleased with what I’ve been doing.” What they didn’t know was how little his heart was in it. “I think they’ll keep me there till it’s over. God knows how long that will be. But I’ll come back as soon as I can afterwards.” It was amazing to think that after four years he was leaving, and she knew how much she would truly miss him. He had meant so much to her, and she knew that he always would, but she also knew that she could not promise him the future he wanted. In her heart, her life still belonged to William. Perhaps even more now after Lizzie’s death, it was like losing a part of him, and more than ever, it made her long for William. They had buried her at the back of the property, near the forest where she had always walked with Joachim, and she knew that nothing that ever happened in her life would be as terrible or as painful as losing Lizzie. “I won’t be able to write to you,” he explained, and she nodded her understanding.

“I should be used to that by now. I’ve had five letters in the last four years.” One from Jane, two from William, one from the Duke of Windsor, and another from William’s mother, and none of them had ever brought good news. “I’ll listen for the news.”

“I’ll contact you as soon as I can.” He came closer to her then and held her close to him. “Good God, how I’m going to miss you.” As he said it, she realized how much she would miss him, too, how much lonelier she would be than she was even now. And she looked up at him sadly.

“I will miss you too,” she said truthfully. She let him kiss her then, as Phillip stood watching them from the distance with a strange look of anger.

“Will you let me take a photograph of you before I go?” he asked, and she groaned

“Like this? Good Lord, Joachim, I look awful.” He was going to take the other one with him anyway. The one of her with her husband at Whitfield, when they were all carefree and young, and life hadn’t taken such a toll on them. She was not quite twenty-eight now, but at the moment, she looked somewhat older.

He gave her a small photograph of himself, too, and they spent all of that night talking. He would have liked to spend the night in bed with her, but he never asked, and he knew she wouldn’t. She was that rare breed, a woman of integrity, a human being of extraordinary merit, and a great lady.

She and Phillip stood watching them leave the next day. Phillip clung to him as though to a life raft, but Joachim explained to him that he had to leave them. And Sarah kept wondering if Phillip felt he was losing another link to Lizzie. It was difficult for all of them, and painful and confusing. Only Emanuelle looked pleased as he prepared to leave. The soldiers went first, the trucks half full of their few remaining medical supplies, the supplies that hadn’t been plentiful enough to save Lizzie. And then the ambulances with the patients.

Joachim had gone to her grave with Sarah before he left He had knelt for a moment, and left a small bunch of yellow flowers, and they had both cried, and he had held Sarah for the last time, far from the eyes of his men, who knew anyway. They knew how much he loved her, but they knew, too, as soldiers do in close quarters, that nothing had ever happened between them. And they respected her for it too. She was the spirit of hope and love, and decency, to them. She was always polite and kind, no matter what she thought of their war, or what side they fought on. And they hoped, in their heart of hearts, that their own wives were being as strong as she was. Most of the men who had come to know her would have died to protect her, as would Joachim.

He stood looking down at her, as the last jeep waited for him, and his driver turned the other way discreetly. Joachim pulled Sarah close to him. “I have loved you more than anyone or anything in my life,” he said, lest by the hand of Fate he never saw her again, he wanted her to know that, “more even than my children.” He kissed her gently then, and she clung to him for an instant, wanting to tell him everything she had felt for him, but it was too late now. She couldn’t do it.

She looked into his eyes, and he saw it all there anyway. “Godspeed …” she whispered. “Take care … I do love you ….” She choked on the words, and then he stooped to Phillip, still holding tightly to Sarah’s hand, wanting to say something to him. They all had been through so much together.

“Good-bye, little man.” Joachim choked on the words. “Take good care of your mother.” He kissed the top of his head, and then ruffled his hair, as Phillip held him and then finally let go. And Joachim stood up and looked at Sarah for a long moment. Then he let go of her hand, and got into the jeep, and he stood and waved until they reached the front gate. She saw him as he left in a swirl of dust on the road, and then he was gone, as she stood there sobbing.

“Why did you let him go?” Phillip looked up at her angrily as she cried

“We had no choice, Phillip.” The politics of the situation were far too complicated to explain to a child his age. “He’s a fine man, even if he is a German, and he has to go home now.”

“Do you love him?”

She hesitated, but only for a moment. “Yes, I do. He’s been a good friend to us, Phillip.”

“Do you love him better than my daddy?”

This time she did not hesitate, even for an instant. “Of course not.”

“I do.”

“No, you do not,” she said firmly. “You don’t remember your daddy anymore, but he’s a wonderful man.” Her voice drifted off then as she thought of William.

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t think he is,” she said carefully, not wanting to mislead him, but wanting to share her own faith with him that one day they might find William. “If we’re very lucky, he’ll come home to us one day.”

“Will Joachim?” he asked sadly.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly, as they walked back to the house, hand in hand, in silence.

Chapter 16

HEN the Americans arrived on August seventeenth, Sarah and Phillip and Emanuelle were watching when they came. They had heard news of their coming for weeks, and Sarah was eager to see them. They drove up the road to the château in a convoy of jeeps, just as the Germans had four years before. It was a crazy sense of déjà vu, but they didn’t point guns at her, and she understood everything they said, and they gave a cheer when they discovered she was American. She still thought of Joachim every day, but she could only assume that he had reached Berlin safely. And Phillip still talked about him constantly. Only Emanuelle never mentioned the Germans.

The commanding officer of the American troops was Colonel Foxworth, from Texas, and he was very pleasant, and apologized profusely for putting his men in her stables. But the rest of them pitched tents, and used the caretaker’s cottage she had so recently vacated, and even the local hotel. They didn’t put her out of her house again, so soon after she’d moved back into it with Emanuelle and Phillip.

“We’re used to it by now.” She smiled about the men in their stables. And he assured her that they would do as little damage as possible. He had good control of his men, and they were friendly, but they kept their distance. They flirted a little with Emanuelle, but she had no great interest in them, and they always brought candy to Phillip.

They all heard the church bells toll when the Americans liberated Paris in August. It was August twenty-fifth, and France was free at last. The Germans had been driven out of France, and her day of shame had ended.

“Is it all over now?” Sarah asked Colonel Foxworth incredulously.

“Almost. As soon as we get to Berlin, it will be. But it’s over here at least. You can go back to England now if you want to.” She wasn’t sure what to do, but she thought she should at least go to Whitfield and see William’s mother. Sarah hadn’t left France since war had been declared five years before. It was amazing.

The day before Phillip’s birthday, Sarah and Phillip left for England, leaving Emanuelle at the château to watch over it. She was a responsible girl and she had paid her price for the war too. Her brother Henri had been killed in the Ardennes the previous winter. But he had been a hero in the Resistance.

Colonel Foxworth and his counterpart in Paris had made arrangements for Sarah and Phillip on a military flight going to London, and there had been a great deal of hush-hush talk, telling the air force to expect the Duchess of Whitfield and her son, Lord Phillip.

The Americans provided a jeep to Paris for her, and they circumvented the town as they headed for the airport. They arrived with only moments to spare, and she swept Phillip into her arms, running for the plane, carrying their one small suitcase with the other. And as she reached the plane, a soldier stepped forward and stopped her.

“I’m sorry, madam. You can’t get on this plane. This is a military flight … militaire …” he said in French, thinking she didn’t understand him. “Non … non … ” He wagged a finger at her and she shouted at him above the din from the engines.

“They’re expecting me! We are expected!”

“This flight is only for military personnel,” he shouted back, “And some old—” And then he realized who she was, and blushed to the roots of his hair, as he reached out to take Phillip from her. “I thought … I’m really sorry, ma’am … Your, er … Majesty …” It had dawned on him too late that she was the promised duchess.

“Never mind.” She smiled, and stepped into the plane behind him. He had been expecting some old crone, and it had never dawned on him that the Duchess of Whitfield would be a young woman with a little boy. He was still apologizing when he left them.

The flight to London didn’t take very long, it took them less than an hour to cross the channel. And on the way over, several soldiers spoke to her admiringly for having weathered the Occupation. It seemed odd to Sarah as she listened to them, and remembered how relatively peaceful her life had been, during her four years in the cottage, protected by Joachim. When they arrived in London, an enormous Rolls-Royce was waiting for them. She was to go directly to the Air Ministry for a meeting with Sir Arthur Harris, the commander in chief of Bomber Command, and the King’s private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, who was there by order of the King, and also to represent the secret intelligence service. They had flags and little insignia to give to Phillip, and all the secretaries kept calling him Your Lordship. It was a good deal more ceremony and respect than he was used to, but Sarah noticed with a smile that Phillip definitely seemed to like it.

“Why don’t people at home call me that?” he whispered to his mother.

“Like whom?” She was amused by the question.

“Oh … Emanuelle … the soldiers …”

“I’ll be sure to remind them,” she teased, but he didn’t hear the humor in her voice and he was pleased that she agreed with him.

Several of the secretaries and two aides kept Phillip busy for her. When she went into the meeting, she found herself with Sir Arthur and Sir Alan. They were extremely kind to her, and what they wanted to tell her was what she already knew, that for two and a half years there had been no word of William.

She hesitated, trying to compose herself, and to get up the courage to ask a question. She took a deep breath and then looked at them. “Do you think it’s possible he’s still alive?” she asked softly.

“Possible,” Sir Arthur said deliberately. “But not likely,” he added sadly. “By now we would have heard something from someone. Someone would have seen him in one of the prisoner-of-war camps. And if they know who he is at all, they’d be parading him all over. I think it’s most unlikely they don’t know who he is if they have him.”

“I see,” she said quietly. They talked to her for a little while longer, and then finally they all stood up, congratulating her again on her courage in France, and the fact that she and her son had come through it. “We lost a little girl,” she said in a small voice, “in May of this year…. William had never seen her.”

“We’re terribly sorry, Your Grace. We didn’t know….”

They ushered her back outside eventually, and restored Phillip to her, and then drove her ceremoniously to Whitfield. The dowager duchess was waiting for them there, and Sarah was amazed by how well she looked. She was thinner and very frail, but she was eighty-nine now. She was really quite remarkable, and she had even done whatever she could for the war effort around Whitfield.

“It’s so good to see you,” she said as she embraced Sarah, and then stood back a step, leaning on her cane to look at Phillip. She was wearing a bright-blue dress, the color of her eyes, and Sarah felt a wave of emotion wash over her, thinking of William. “What a beautiful young man. He looks a great deal like my husband.” She smiled. It was exactly what William had said when Phillip was born, that he looked so much like his father.

She took them both inside then, and fed Phillip a cup of tea and homemade shortbread cookies. He watched her in awe, but he seemed surprisingly at home with her. And afterwards, one of the servants took him outside to show him the horses and the stables while the dowager duchess chatted with Sarah. She knew she’d been to the Air Ministry that day and she was anxious to know what they’d said to her, but she wasn’t surprised that the news was disappointing. In fact, she was a great deal more philosophical about it than Sarah was, which surprised her.

“I don’t think we’ll really know what happened to him until after Germany falls, and I hope it does soon. I think there must be someone who knows, but for whatever reason they’re not talking.” On the other hand, he could have died hanging from a tree when he parachuted in, or been shot by a soldier who never knew who he was, and left him there to be buried by a farmer. There were a lot of ways he could have been killed, and fewer explanations for him being alive, Sarah realized now. She was beginning to realize that it was less than likely that her husband was still alive, and still she clung to some small shred of hope, particularly now that she was back in England. And much to her chagrin, she had just learned, when she called Jane, that Peter, her brother-in-law, had been killed at Kiska, in the Aleutians, and Jane sounded as devastated as Sarah was without William.

At Whitfield, William seemed so much a part of her life. Everything here reminded her of him. It touched her particularly the next day when her mother-in-law gave Phillip a pony for his birthday. He was so excited, and so happy. Sarah hadn’t really seen him smile like that since Lizzie died, and Joachim left. And here, Phillip was so much a part of his father’s world, and the life he had been born to. The child thrived just being there. And he told her adamantly that he wanted to stay, when she finally announced that they were going back to France in October.

“Can I take my pony back to France with us, Mama?” he asked, and Sarah shook her head. They were going back to France on another military flight, and there was no way she could transport a horse with them. And some of the Americans were still at the château, there was too much turmoil in their lives even to think about taking back a pony. And behind the turmoil, Sarah was beginning to feel real grief now over the loss of William. Coming back to Whitfield had made his absence more real, and she missed him more than ever.

“We’ll be back soon, sweetheart, and Grandmother will keep the pony for you here.” He was sad not to be bringing it back to France. It was amazing, though, to realize that all of this was going to be his one day. But it cut her to the quick when the servants began calling him Your Grace by the end of the trip. In their minds, William was gone, and Phillip was the duke now.

“I still believe we may hear something from him,” William’s mother said the night before Sarah left. “Don’t completely give up all hope of him,” she urged. “I shan’t.” And Sarah promised that she wouldn’t either, but in her heart of hearts, she was beginning to mourn now.

They went back to France the next day, and the War Office had arranged for transportation for her once she got there. Things seemed more orderly than when they’d left six weeks before, and everything was in order when they got back to the château. Emanuelle was in residence, and the colonel had kept his men in good control, and most of them had left now. Some of the men who used to work for her returned to do some gardening, and after their return, she began working on some of the boiseries again, and making repairs after years of neglect by the Germans. But thanks to Joachim’s vigilance they had actually done surprisingly little damage.

She thought of him frequently, but she had no way of knowing where or how he was. She worried about him at times. And she always prayed for him and William.

By Christmas that year, things were quiet at the château, and very lonely for Sarah. Everything was seemingly back to normal, but what wasn’t normal, of course, was the fact that the world was still at war. But the Allied forces were winning, and people thought now that it was almost over.

In the spring, the Allies marched on Berlin, and in May, at last, the fight in Europe was over Hitler had committed suicide, many of his officers had fled. Chaos reigned in Germany, terrible tales were coming out about atrocities committed in concentration camps, and still Sarah had no news of William or Joachim. She had no idea what had happened to either of them, or if they were still alive. She just went on living day by day, at the château, until the War Office called her.

“We have news for you, Your Grace,” the voice crackled across the line, and she found herself crying before they even told her what it was. Phillip stood in the château kitchen watching her, wondering why his mother was crying. “We believe we may have found our man … or … er … rather, your man. We liberated one of the prisoner-of-war camps only yesterday, and there were four unidentified soldiers in … er … rather poor condition…. I’m afraid he’s one of them, if it’s him … but he had no identification on him. But the officer in charge attended Sandhurst with him, and swears it’s him. We’re not sure yet, but we’re flying him back tonight. We’d like to fly you to London, if you can come.” If she could come? After no word of him for three years? Were they joking?

“I’ll be there. Can you arrange transport for me? I’ll come at once.”

“I don’t think we can get you out till tomorrow, Your Grace,” he said politely. “Things are a bit chaotic everywhere, what with the frightful mess in Berlin, and the Italians, and all that.” All of Europe was in chaos at the moment, but she was ready to swim the English Channel if she had to.

The War Office contacted the Americans in France again, and this time a jeep from the Allied Forces office in Paris came for her at the château, and she and Phillip were impatiently waiting. She hadn’t told him why they were going to London yet, she didn’t want to disappoint him if William wasn’t the man they’d found, but he was enchanted to be going to visit his grandmother anyway, and to see his horses. She was going to send him directly down to Whitfield to stay with her, and the War Office had a car and driver to take her to the hospital where the men they flew out of Germany would be staying. They had told her that all four men were desperately ill and some of them were severely wounded, but they hadn’t told her in what way, or what was wrong with William. She didn’t really care as long as he was alive, and he could be saved. And if he was alive at all, she vowed that she would do anything she could to save him.

The flight to the London airport went very smoothly, and the car to take Phillip to Whitfield was there waiting for them when they arrived, and they saluted Phillip decorously with full military honors and he loved it. And then they whisked Sarah off to Chelsea Royal Hospital, to see the men they had just flown in from Germany the night before, at midnight. She prayed that one of them was indeed William.

There was only one man who was even a remote possibility. He was approximately William’s height, but they said he had weighed approximately one hundred and thirty or forty pounds, his hair was white, and he seemed a great deal older than the Duke of Whitfield. Sarah said nothing as they described it all to her on the way to the hospital, and she was frighteningly silent as they took her upstairs, past wards of critically ill men, and busy doctors and nurses. With what had just happened in Germany, they had their hands full. Men were being flown in as fast as they could bring them in, and doctors were being called in from all over England.

They had put the man they thought was William in a small room by himself. And an orderly was standing in the room with him, to monitor his breathing. There was a tube going up his nose, and a respirator, and there was a multitude of machines and devices hovering over him, including an oxygen tent, which concealed him.

The orderly pulled back the flap a little bit so she could see him better to identify him, and the men from the War Office stood back at a discreet distance. The hospital was still waiting for dental charts from Bomber Command so that they could make a positive identification. But Sarah didn’t need dental charts to identify this man. He was barely recognizable, he was so thin, and he looked like his own father, but as she stepped closer to the bed, she reached out and touched his cheek. He had returned to her from the dead, and he didn’t stir now, but there was not a shred of doubt in her mind. It was William. She turned and looked at them then, and the look on her face told them everything, as the tears poured down her cheeks and theirs too.

“Thank God …” Sir Alan whispered, echoing Sarah’s feelings. She stood rooted to the spot, unable to take her eyes from him as she touched his face, and his hands, and lifted his fingers to her lips and kissed them. His hands had a waxy look to them, as did his face, and she could see that he was hovering near death, but she knew that they would do everything to save him. The orderly dropped the flap on the oxygen tent again, and a moment later two doctors and three sisters came in, and began doing assorted things, and then the doctors asked her to leave the room, which she did, with a last look at him. It was a miracle. She had lost Lizzie … but now they had found William. Perhaps God wasn’t as unkind as she had feared for a while. And she asked the men from the War Office before they left if they would arrange for her to call William’s mother at Whitfield. They organized it at once from the office of the head of the hospital, and the dowager duchess gave a gasp of relief at the other end of the phone, and then gave in to tears, as did Sarah.

“Thank God … the poor boy … how is he?”

“Not very well, Mother, I’m afraid. But he’ll be better soon” She hoped she wasn’t lying to her, because she wanted to believe it. But he hadn’t survived this long in order to die now. She just simply wouldn’t let him.

The men from the War Office left then, and the head of the hospital came to speak to her about William’s condition. He didn’t waste any words and went straight to the point with a serious expression.

“We don’t know if your husband will live, Your Grace. He has gangrene in both legs, extensive internal wounds, and he’s been ill for a long time. Years possibly. He had compound fractures of both legs that never healed. He’s probably had infections in both legs since he fell. We can’t save his legs, and we may not be able to save his life. You have to know that.” She knew it, but she refused to accept it. Now that he was back, she absolutely refused to lose him.

“You have to save his legs. He didn’t come this far in order for you to lose them.”

“We have no choice, or very little in any case. His legs will be of no use to him now anyway, the muscles and nerves are far too damaged, he’ll have to be in a wheelchair.”

“Fine, but let him have his legs in that wheelchair.”

“Your Grace, I’m not sure you understand … it’s a delicate balance … the gangrene …” She assured him that she understood perfectly, but begged him to at least try to save William’s legs, and looking exasperated, he promised her that they would do what they could, but she had to be realistic.

There were four operations in the next two weeks, and William barely survived each of them, but he did, although he had never regained consciousness once since he was flown to London. The first two operations were on his legs, the third to his spine, and the last one to make internal repairs to injuries that eventually might have killed him. And none of the specialists who worked on him could understand how he had made it. He was wracked with infection and disease, malnourished in the extreme, bones had been broken and never healed, and there were visible signs of torture. He had suffered everything and he had lived … but barely.

By the third week they had done all they could, and now all they could do was wait, to see if he regained consciousness, or remained in a coma, or simply died. No one could say now, and Sarah sat with him day after day, holding his hand, talking to him, willing him back to life, until she almost looked worse than he did. She was desperately thin and pale, and her eyes were almost glazed as she sat beside him and nursed him. One of the sisters came in and saw her one day, and shook her head quietly, and then said to her, “He can’t hear you, Your Grace. Don’t exhaust yourself.” She had brought Sarah a cup of tea, and Sarah had accepted it gratefully, but she still insisted that William could hear her.

They tried one last surgery on his spleen at the end of July, and then once again they waited, and Sarah nursed and talked and encouraged and kissed his fingers, and watched him, never leaving his bedside for a moment. They had put a cot in his room for her, and she had borrowed some of the sisters’ uniforms, and she sat there day after day, without giving up hope for an instant. The only time she ever left William’s side at all was when the dowager duchess brought Phillip to the hospital, to see his mother in the waiting room. He wasn’t allowed to go upstairs to see William, and in truth he would have been afraid to. He had been told how very ill he was, and the fact was that to Phillip, William was a stranger. In the years he might have remembered him, the child had never seen him. But Sarah was happy to see the child, she missed him terribly, and he missed her, but she didn’t feel she could leave William.

It was the first of August when the head surgeon told her that she needed to get away, that they had become convinced that His Grace was never going to wake from his coma. He simply wasn’t going to wake up again. He might exist that way for years, or days, but if he had been going to wake, by then he would have, and she had to face it.

“How do you know he won’t suddenly come to, this afternoon?” she asked, sounding faintly hysterical to him. But all she knew was that they had managed to save his legs for him, and now they were going to give up and throw him away like so much garbage. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in five weeks, and she was not giving up on him now, no matter what they said, but the doctor insisted that they knew better.

“I’ve been a surgeon for nearly forty years,” he told her firmly, “and sometimes you have to know when to fight and when to give up. We fought … and we lost … you have to let him give up now.”

“He was a prisoner of war for three and a half years, is that what you call giving up?” she screamed. But she didn’t care who heard her. “He didn’t give up then, and I won’t give up now. Do you hear me?”

“Of course, Your Grace. I understand completely.” He left the room quietly and asked the matron if she might suggest a mild sedative to the Duchess of Whitfield, but she only rolled her eyes at him. The woman was possessed. She was obsessed with the idea of saving her husband.

“The poor man is almost gone. She ought to let him go in peace,” she said to the sister working beside her, and the other woman shook her head, too, but she had seen stranger things. They had had a man on one of the wards who’d revived recently, after nearly six months in a coma from a head wound he’d gotten in an air raid.

“You never know,” she said, and went back to check on Sarah and William. Sarah was sitting in the chair, speaking softly to him about Phillip, and his mother, and Whitfield, and the château, and she even vaguely mentioned Lizzie. She would have said anything if she’d thought it would work, but so far nothing had, and although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, she was nearing the end of her rope. The sister put a gentle hand on her shoulder as she watched them, and then for an instant she thought she saw him stir, but she didn’t say anything. But Sarah had seen it, too, she sat very still, and then began talking to him again, asking if he would open his eyes to look at her just once … just one teeny tiny time … just to see if he liked the way her hair looked. She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror in over a month, and she could just imagine what she looked like, but she went on and on, kissing his hands and talking to him as the sister watched in fascination, and then slowly, his eyes fluttered open and he looked at her and smiled, and then closed them again as he nodded and she began to sob silently. They had done it … he had opened his eyes…. The sister was crying too, and she squeezed Sarah’s hand as she spoke to her patient.

“It’s very nice to see you awake, Your Grace, it’s about time too.” But he didn’t stir again for a little while, and then ever so slowly, he turned his head and looked straight at Sarah.

“It looks very nice,” he whispered hoarsely.

“What does?” She had no idea what he was talking about, but she had never been so happy in her life. She wanted to scream with relief and joy as she bent to kiss him.

“Your hair … wasn’t that what you asked me?” The nurse and Sarah laughed at him, and by the next day they had him sitting up and sipping soup and weak tea, and by the end of the week he was talking to all of them and slowly regaining his strength, although he looked like a ghost of his former self. But he was back. He was alive. That was all Sarah cared about. It was all she had lived for.

The War Office and the Home Office came to see him eventually, too, and when he was strong enough, he told them what had happened to him. It took several visits, and it defied belief. It made them all sick to hear what the Germans had done, and William wouldn’t let Sarah stay in the room when he told them. They had broken his legs again and again, left him in filth till they festered, tortured him with hot irons and electric prods. They had done everything short of killing him. But they had never figured out who he was, and he had never told them. He had been carrying a false passport, and false military papers when they dropped him in, and that was all they ever knew till the end. And he had never revealed his aborted mission.

He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his heroism, but it was small consolation for losing the use of his legs. It depressed him at first to realize that he would never walk again, but Sarah had been right to fight for them, he was glad he still had them. He would have hated it if they’d amputated his legs.

They had both lost so much, and one afternoon, before he left the hospital, she told him about Lizzie, and they had both cried copiously as he listened.

“Oh, my darling … and I wasn’t there with you….”

“There was nothing you could have done. We didn’t have the medicines or the doctors…. We had nothing by then. The Americans were on their way, and the Germans were getting ready to leave, they had nothing left by then, and she wasn’t strong enough to survive. The commandant at the château was very good to us, he gave us everything he had … but she didn’t have the stamina….” She sobbed, and then looked up at her husband. “She was so sweet … she was such a lovely little girl….” Sarah could hardly speak as he held her. “I wish you could have known her….”

“I will one day,” he said through his own tears. “When we are all together again, in another place.” And in some ways, for both of them, it made Phillip doubly precious. But she still missed Lizzie terribly sometimes, especially when she saw a little girl who looked anything like her. She knew that there were other mothers who had lost their children during the war, but it was a pain that almost couldn’t be borne. She was grateful that now William was there to share it.

She thought about Joachim sometimes now, too, but he was part of the distant past. In the loneliness, and the pain, and the terror, and loss of the war, he had been her only friend, except for Emanuelle. But the memories of him were slowly fading.

Sarah turned twenty-nine years of age while William was still in the hospital. The war in Japan had ended days before, and the whole world was rejoicing. William went home to Whitfield the day the Japanese officially surrendered on the battleship Missouri, on the eve of Phillip’s sixth birthday. It was the first time William saw his son since he was only a few months old, and the meeting was emotional for him, and a little strange for Phillip. Phillip stood and stared at him for a long time before finally approaching him, and putting his arms around his father, at his mother’s urging. Even in his wheelchair William was such a big man that Phillip was in awe of him. And more than ever, his father regretted the years he’d lost in getting to know him.

The time they spent at Whitfield was good for all of them. William learned to get around more easily in his wheelchair, and Sarah got a much-needed rest for the first time in a long time. Phillip adored being there, and it gave him the time he needed to get to know his father.

He talked to him about Lizzie once, and it was obvious that talking about her at all was painful to him.

“She was very beautiful,” he said softly, looking into the distance. “And when she got sick, Mommy couldn’t get any medicine for her, so she died.” There was the merest hint of reproach in his voice, which William noticed, but didn’t understand. Was it possible that he blamed her for the child’s death? But that seemed so unlikely that he didn’t dare broach the subject to him. Surely he knew that his mother would have done everything she could for her… or did he know that? William wondered.

Phillip talked about Joachim sometimes too. He didn’t say much, but it was easy to sense that the child had liked him. And whatever his nationality, William was grateful for the man’s kindness to his children. Sarah never spoke of him, but when William asked her, she said. He was a kind man and a decent person. They celebrated William’s mother’s ninetieth birthday that year. She was remarkable, and especially now, with William back, she was better than ever.

They were all better than they had been. But there was no denying, they had suffered enormous losses … of time … of hope … of people they loved … sweet Lizzie lost to all of them. William gone for so long and almost lost forever…. Joachim come and gone from their lives…. The losses and the sorrows had taken their toll, and they were recovering now. But at times, Sarah wondered if the hardest hit of all had been Phillip. He had lost a father he’d never known for the first six years of his life, and now he had to get to know him and build a relationship with him, which wasn’t easy for him. He had lost a friend in Joachim when he left … and a sister he would never forget, and still mourned for.

“You miss her, don’t you?” she asked him softly when they were walking in the woods, and he nodded, lifting his eyes to hers painfully as he always did when they talked about his sister. “I do, too, sweetheart.” She held tightly to his hand as they walked on, and Phillip looked away from her and said nothing. But his eyes said something William had already understood, and Sarah hadn’t. He blamed his mother for his sister’s death. It was her fault Lizzie had died for lack of medicine … just as it was her fault Joachim had gone. … He wasn’t quite sure what she’d done to make these calamities fall into his life, but he knew she’d done something … or at least she hadn’t stopped them. But he was happy at Whitfield anyway. He rode, he walked in the woods, he enjoyed his grandmother, and little by little, he began to know William.

Chapter 17

HEY didn’t go back to France until the spring, and by then William was in full control of their lives again. He seemed to have made his peace with losing the use of his legs by then, and he was back to his normal weight. Only the white hair he suddenly had made him look different. He was only forty-two, but his experience in the prisoner-of-war camp had aged him by years. Even Sarah looked more serious than she had been before the war. They had all paid a high price for what had happened, including Phillip. He was a serious little boy and he was very unhappy when they left Whitfield. He said he wanted to stay there, with his grandmother and his pony, but, of course, his parents overruled him.

William cried when they got back to the château. It looked so exactly the way he’d remembered it, the way he dreamed it would be if he ever came home again, that all he could do was hold Sarah and sob like a child. Everything looked beautiful when they arrived. Emanuelle and her mother had everything ready. Sarah had left Emanuelle in charge for almost a year, and she had run the place to perfection. There were no longer signs of armies of any kind, not in the château, or on the grounds, or even in the stables. Emanuelle had employed scores of men to clean everything up and get it ready for the Whitfields.

“It looks beautiful,” Sarah complimented her when they returned, and Emanuelle was pleased. She was very mature for a girl of her years. She was only twenty-three, but she ran things well, and she had an eye for detail and precision.

Sarah took William to Lizzie’s grave the afternoon they arrived, and he cried when he saw the small grave, they both did. And on their way back to the house, he asked Sarah again about the Germans.

“They were here for an awfully long time,” he said casually. “It’s amazing they didn’t do more damage.”

“The commandant was very good. He was a nice man, and he kept his men under control. He didn’t like the war any better than we did.” William raised an eyebrow as she said it.

“Did he ever say that to you?”

“Several times,” she answered quietly, not sure why he was asking these questions, but there was something in his voice that told her he was worried.

“Were you good friends with him?” he asked offhandedly, knowing how often Phillip had mentioned him. There were times when he worried that his son preferred the German officer to his own father. It was a blow to him, of course, but he understood it. And as Sarah looked at him now, she understood his questions. She turned so that she could see William in his wheelchair.

“We were only friends, William. Nothing more. He lived here for a long time, and a lot of things happened to us…. Elizabeth was born.” She decided to be honest with him, she had to be, she always had been. “He delivered her, he saved her life, she would have died at birth if he hadn’t saved her.” But she had died anyway, so maybe it no longer mattered. “We survived for four years here through all that. It’s hard to ignore that. But if you’re asking me what I think you are … no, nothing ever happened.”

He startled her then with his next words, and a little shiver of shock ran through her.

“Phillip says you kissed him when he left.” It was wrong of him to tell his father, or in just that way, but maybe he didn’t understand what he was doing, or perhaps he did. Sometimes she wasn’t sure she understood him. He had been so angry at her ever since Lizzie died … and Joachim left … and William came home … and now he often seemed withdrawn. He had a lot to absorb and understand. They all did.

“He’s right. I did,” Sarah said quietly. She had nothing to hide from William, and she wanted him to know that. “He became my friend. Joachim hated what Hitler was doing as much as we did. And he helped keep us safe. When Joachim left, I knew I’d never see him again. I don’t know if he lived or died after that, but I wish him well. I kissed him good-bye, but I did not betray you.” There were tears rolling slowly down her cheeks as she said it. And what she said was true, she had been faithful to him, and it had been wrong of Phillip to make him jealous. She had known at the time that he was angry at her for kissing Joachim, and also for letting him go. He was angry about a lot of things, but she had never expected him to do anything about it. She was only glad now that she could tell William honestly, she hadn’t betrayed him. It was the only thing that made all those lonely nights worth it.

“I’m sorry I asked,” he said guiltfly, but she knelt next to him and took his face in her hands.

“Don’t be. There’s nothing you can’t ask me. I love you. I always did. I never gave up on you. Never. I never stopped loving you. And I always believed you’d come home.” It was true, and he could see it in her eyes—that, and how much she loved him.

He sighed then, relieved by what she had said, and he believed her. He had been terrified when Phillip told him. But he also knew that in his own way Phillip was also punishing him for having left them “I never thought I’d come back. I kept telling myself I would, just so I could survive another hour, another night, another day … but I never thought I’d make it. So many didn’t.” He had seen so many men die, tortured to death by the Germans.

“They’re a nation of monsters,” he told her as they went back to the house, but she didn’t dare tell him again that Joachim was different. As he had said, war was an ugly thing. But thank God, it was over.

They had been back at the château for a mere three weeks when Emanuelle and Sarah were making bread in the kitchen. They talked about many things and then Emanuelle began to ask questions.

“You must be very glad to have Monsieur le Duc back,” she began, which was certainly obvious to anyone who saw them. Sarah hadn’t been this happy in years, and they were slowly making new discoveries about their sex life. Some of the alterations were unfortunate, but very little seemed to have changed, much to William’s delight now that he had a chance to try it.

“It’s wonderful.” Sarah smiled happily, kneading the bread as Emanuelle watched her.

“Has he brought a great deal of money back from England with him?” It was an odd question, and Sarah looked up, astonished.

“Why, no. Of course not. Why would he?”

“I just wondered.” She looked embarrassed, but not very, and she seemed to have something on her mind, but Sarah couldn’t figure out what She had never asked anything like it before.

“Why would you ask something like that, Emanuelle?” She knew she had had strange involvements before, with the Resistance through her brother, during the war, and with the black market afterwards, but now she had no idea what she was up to.

“There are people … sometimes … who are in need of money. I wondered if you and Monsieur le Duc would lend it to them?”

“You mean, just give them money? Just like that?” Sarah looked a little surprised, and Emanuelle looked pensive.

“Perhaps not. What if they had something to sell?”

“You mean food?” Sarah still didn’t understand what she was after. She finished making the bread and wiped her hands, looking long and hard at the young woman, wondering more than ever what she was up to. She had never been suspicious of her before, but she was now. And Sarah didn’t like the feeling. “Are you talking about food or farm equipment, Emanuelle?”

She shook her head and lowered her voice again when she spoke. “No … I mean like jewels. … There are people … dans les alentours… in the region, who need money to rebuild their homes, their lives…. They have hidden things … sometimes gold … or silver … or jewelry … and now they need to sell it.” Emanuelle had been thinking for some time of how to make some serious money for herself now that the war was over. She didn’t want to clean houses forever, even for them, although she loved them. And she’d come up with this idea. She knew several people who were anxious to sell important things, jewels, silver, Fabergé cigarette cases, expensive objects they’d been hiding. She particularly knew of a woman in Chambord who had a fantastic string of pearls she was desperate to sell for any amount. The Germans had destroyed her house and she needed the money to rebuild it.

It was a kind of matchmaking of sorts, and Emanuelle knew people with beautiful objects and acute needs, and the Whitfields had the money to help them. She had wanted to approach them for a while, but she wasn’t sure how. But more and more people were contacting her, knowing how close to them she was, and begging her to help them. The woman with the pearls had already come to see her twice, and so had many others.

There were Jews coming out of hiding too. And women who had accepted expensive gifts from Nazis and were afraid to keep them. There were jewels that had been traded for lives or information in the Resistance. And Emanuelle wanted to help people sell them. She would make a profit, too, but a small one. She didn’t want to take advantage of them. She wanted to help them, but herself too. But Sarah was still looking at her in confusion.

“But what would I do with jewelry?” Only that morning they had taken hers out from under the floorboards of Phillip’s bedroom.

“Wear it.” She smiled. She would have liked to herself, but she couldn’t afford to buy anything yet. Perhaps one day. “You could sell it again. There are many possibilities, Madame.”

“One day”—Sarah smiled at her—“you will be a great woman.” They were only six years apart, but Emanuelle had an incredible sense of enterprise and survival, in clever ways that Sarah knew that she didn’t. What she had was inner strength and endurance, which was different from what Emanuelle had. Emanuelle Bourgois had cunning.

“Will you ask Monsieur le Duc,” She begged as Sarah left the kitchen with his lunch tray. There was something very anxious in Emanuelle’s voice, which Sarah heard.

“I will,” she promised, “but I guarantee you, he’ll think I’m crazy.”

The funny thing was that he didn’t think she was crazy at all, when she told him. He was amused. “What an intriguing idea. That girl is quite extraordinary, isn’t she? It’s actually a very nice, clean way of helping people, and lending them money. I really rather like it. I’d been thinking recently about what we could do to help the locals. I wasn’t thinking of anything quite so exotic.” He grinned. “But it’s possible. Why don’t you just tell Emanuelle that I will entertain the possibility, and see what happens.”

What happened was that three days later, the bell on the front door of the château rang at nine o’clock in the morning. And when Sarah went downstairs, she found a woman standing there, in a shiny black dress that looked as though it might have been expensive, and worn shoes, and an Hermès bag Sarah recognized at once. But she did not recognize the woman.

“Oui …? Yes …? May I help you?”

“En effet … je m’excuse … I …” She looked frightened, and she kept looking over her shoulder as though she expected someone to grab her. And as Sarah looked at her more closely, she suspected she might be Jewish. “I must apologize … a friend of mine suggested … I have a terrible problem, Your Grace, my family …” Her eyes filled with tears as she started to explain, and Sarah gently invited her into the kitchen, and gave her a cup of tea. She explained that her family had all been deported to concentration camps during the war. To the best of her knowledge, she was the only one left. She had been hidden for four years in a cellar by her neighbors. Her husband had been a doctor, the head of an important hospital in Paris. But he had been deported by the Nazis, as had her parents, her two sisters, even her son…. She began to cry again as Sarah fought back tears of her own as she listened to the story. The woman said that she needed money to find them. She wanted to go to Germany and Poland, to the camps there, to see if she could find any record of them among the survivors.

“I think the Red Cross would help you, Madame. There are organizations to do this for people all over Europe.” She knew William had already donated quite a lot of money to them in England.

“I want to go myself. And some of the private organizations are very costly. And after I find them, or …” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “I want to go to Palestine.” She said it as though it were truly the promised land, and Sarah’s heart went out to her, as the woman drew two large boxes from her handbag. “I have something to sell … Emanuelle said you might … she said that you are very kind.” And that her husband was very rich, but Mrs. Wertheim was polite enough not to say that. What she brought out of her purse were two boxes from Van Cleef, one with an enormous emerald-and-diamond necklace, the other with the matching bracelet. The pieces looked like lace. They were beautifully articulated, quite astonishing, and most impressive.

“I … good Lord … ! They’re really beautiful! I don’t know what to say. …” She couldn’t imagine wearing anything even remotely like them. They were both important pieces, and certainly worth whatever she wanted, but how did one begin to put a price on something like that? And yet, looking at them, for reasons she couldn’t explain, Sarah had to admit she found the idea of buying them exciting. She had never owned anything like them. And the poor woman was shaking in her shoes, praying they would buy them. “May I show them to my husband? I’ll only be a moment.” She ran up the stairs then with both boxes in her hands, and burst into their bedroom. “You’ll never believe this.” She was breathless as she told him. “There’s a woman downstairs….” She opened the boxes and tossed the contents into his lap. “And she wants to sell us these …” She shook the magnificent emeralds at him and he whistled.

“Very pretty, darling. They’d look lovely on you in the garden. Go wonderfully with green …”

“Be serious.” She told him the woman’s story then, and he felt sorry for her too.

“Can’t we just give her a check? I feel like a scoundrel taking these away from her. Even though I must say they’d look very pretty on you.”

“Thank you, my love. But what are we going to do about her?”

“I’ll come down and talk to her myself.” He had already shaved, and was wearing trousers and his shirt and his dressing gown. He was getting very good at dressing himself in spite of his limitations. He followed Sarah out of the room, and worked his way downstairs on the ramp they had had made for him.

Mrs. Werthéim was still waiting nervously for them in the kitchen. She was so frightened, she was almost tempted to flee without her jewels, for fear they would do something terrible to her, but Emanuelle had insisted they were nice people. Emanuelle knew the people who had hidden Mrs. Wertheim in the cellar, she had met them in the Resistance.

“Good morning.” William greeted her with a smile, and she tried to look relaxed as she waited to hear about her emeralds. “I’m afraid we’ve never done anything like this before, and it’s a bit of a novel idea to us.” He decided to put the woman out of her misery and go right to the point. He had already decided he wanted to help her. “How much do you want?”

“I don’t know. Ten? Fifteen?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

She quaked, and spoke in a whisper. “I’m sorry, Your Grace … five?” She would have sold them for next to nothing, she was so desperate for money.

“I was thinking more like thirty. Does that seem reasonable? That is, thirty thousand dollars.”

“I … oh, my God …” She started to cry, unable to control herself any longer. “God bless you … God bless you, Your Grace.” She dabbed at her eyes with an old lace hankie, and kissed them both when she left with his check in her handbag. Even Sarah had tears in her eyes when she left.

“The poor woman.”

“I know.” He looked somber for a moment, and then put the necklace and bracelet on Sarah. “Enjoy them, my darling.” But they both felt good about the charitable deed they had done.

And before the end of the week, they had the chance to do another.

Sarah was helping Emanuelle clean up after dinner, and William was in his study, which still vaguely reminded Sarah of Joachim, when a woman appeared at the kitchen door. She was young and looked even more frightened than Mrs. Wertheim. She wore her hair short, but not as short as she had just after the Occupation. Sarah thought she had seen her with one of the German officers who had lived in the château and worked with Joachim. She was a beautiful girl, and before the war she had been a model for Jean Patou in Paris.

Emanuelle almost growled when she saw her, but she had told her to come. This time though, she promised herself, she would take a bigger commission. From Mrs. Wertheim she had taken almost nothing at all, but the old woman had insisted on at least something.

The girl glanced nervously at Emanuelle and then at Sarah. And it began again. “May I speak to you, Your Grace?” She had a diamond bracelet to sell. It was from Boucheron and it was very pretty. It was a gift, she told Sarah But the German who had given it to her gave her more than that. He had left her with a baby. “He’s sick all the time … I can’t buy him food … or medicine. I’m afraid he’ll get TB….” The words went straight to Sarah’s heart as she thought of Lizzie. She glanced at Emanuelle and asked her if it was true, and she nodded.

“She has a German bastard … he’s two years old, and always sickly.”

“Will you promise to buy him food and medicine and warm clothes if we give you some money?” Sarah asked her sternly, and the girl swore she would.

And with that, Sarah went to see William, and he returned to look at the girl and the bracelet. He was impressed by both, and after talking to her for a while, he decided she was honest. He didn’t want to find himself buying stolen jewels, but there seemed to be no question of that here.

They bought the bracelet from her for a fair price, probably what the German had paid for it, and she left them, thanking them profusely. And then Sarah looked at Emanuelle and laughed, as she sat down in her kitchen.

“Just exactly what are we doing?”

Emanuelle grinned broadly. “Maybe I’m going to get rich and you’re going to get a lot of very nice jewelry.” Sarah couldn’t help smiling at her. It was all a little mad, but fun and touching at the same time. And the next day they bought the extraordinary pearls from the woman in Chambord so she could rebuild her house. The pearls were fabulous, and William insisted that she wear them.

By the end of the summer, Sarah had ten emerald bracelets, three necklaces to match, four ruby suites, a cascade of beautiful sapphires, and several diamond rings, not to mention a very lovely turquoise tiara. They had all come to them from people who had lost fortunes or houses or children, and needed money to find lost relatives, or rebuild their lives, or simply put food on their table. It was philanthropy neither could have described to their friends without feeling foolish, and yet it helped the people they bought from, and Emanuelle was indeed growing rich from her commissions. She had begun to look very sleek. She was getting her hair done in town, and buying her clothes in Paris, which was more than Sarah had done since before the war. And next to Emanuelle, she was beginning to feel positively dowdy.

“William, what are we going to do with all this stuff?” she asked one day, as she upset the balance of half a dozen Van Cleef and Cartier boxes in her closet, and all of them fell on her head, and he only laughed at her.

“I have absolutely no idea. Maybe we ought to hold an auction.”

“I’m serious.”

“Why don’t we open a store?” William asked good-naturedly, but Sarah thought the idea absurd. But within a year, they seemed to have more inventory than Garrard’s.

“Maybe we really ought to sell it,” Sarah suggested this time, but now William wasn’t as sure. He was involved in planting extensive vineyards around the château, and didn’t have time to worry about the jewelry. Yet it kept coming to them They were too well known now for their generosity and kindness. In the fall of 1947, William and Sarah decided to go to Paris to be alone and leave Phillip with Emanuelle for a few days. They’d been home from England for a year and a half and hadn’t left the château, they’d been so busy.

Paris was even more wonderful than Sarah had expected. They stayed at the Ritz and spent almost as much time in bed as they had on their honeymoon. But they found lots of time for shopping, too, and they went to dinner at the Windsors’ on the Boulevard Sachet, in yet another lovely house decorated by Boudin. Sarah wore a very chic new black dress she got at Dior, her spectacular pearls, and a fabulous diamond bracelet they’d bought months before from a woman who’d lost everything at the hands of the Germans.

And everyone at dinner wanted to know where she got the bracelet. But Wallis was wise enough to spot the pearls, and told Sarah kindly she’d never, ever seen any like them. She was intrigued by the bracelet, too, and when she asked where it was from, the Whitfields said “Cartier,” without further explanation. It even made Wallis’s jewels look a little pallid by comparison.

And much to her surprise, for most of their trip to Paris, Sarah found herself fascinated by the jewelers. They had some lovely things, but so did they at the château; in fact, they had a lot more, and some of what she had was even better. In fact, most of it was.

“You know, maybe we really ought to do something with it sometime,” she said vaguely as they drove home, in the special Bentley that had been built for him after they left England.

But it was another six months before they thought of it. She was busy with Phillip, and wanted to enjoy him before he left for Eton the following year. Sarah really wanted to keep him in France with her, but in spite of having been born there, and having lived at the château all his life, he had a passion for all things English, and he was absolutely begging to go to Eton.

William was too busy with his wine and his vineyards to think much about the jewelry. It was the summer of 1948 before Sarah absolutely insisted they do something with the mountain of jewelry they’d collected. It was no longer even a good investment. It just sat there, except for the few pieces she wore, and they were lovely, but not many.

“After Phillip leaves, we’ll go up to Paris and sell it all off I promise,” William said, distractedly.

“They’ll think we robbed a bank in Monte Carlo.”

“It does look a bit like that.” He grinned. “Doesn’t it?” But when they went back to Paris in the fall, they suddenly realized that there was clearly too much to take with them. They took a few pieces, but they left the rest at the château. Sarah was feeling bored, and a little lonely, with Phillip recently gone. And once they’d been in Paris for two days, William looked at her and announced that he’d found a solution.

“To what?” She was looking at some new suits at Chanel with him when he told her.

“The jewelry dilemma. We’ll start a shop of our own, and sell it.”

“Are you crazy?” She stared at him, still looking very handsome in his wheelchair. “What would we do with a shop? The château is two hours from Paris.”

“We’ll let Emanuelle run it. She has nothing to do now with Phillip gone away, and she’s gotten a little fancy to do housework.” She’d been buying her clothes at Jean Patou and Madame Grès, and she was looking very elegant.

“Are you serious?” She had never even thought of it, and she wasn’t sure if she liked the idea. But in some ways it might be fun, and they both liked jewelry. And then she began to worry. “You don’t think your mother will think it’s vulgar?”

“To own a shop? It is vulgar.” He laughed. “But such fun. Why not? And she’s such a good sport, I daresay she’ll love it.” At over ninety, she seemed to get more and more open-minded with the years, rather than less so. And she was enchanted with the prospect of having Phillip stay with her for holidays and weekends. “Who knows, one day we can call ourselves Jewelers to the Crown. We’ll have to sell something to the Queen to do that. And I daresay Wallis will go mad, and want a discount.” It was a totally insane idea, but they talked about it all the way back to the château, and Sarah had to admit that she loved it.

“What’ll we call it?” she asked excitedly, as they lay in bed and talked about it the night they went back to the château.

“‘Whitfield’s,’ of course.” He looked at her proudly. “What else would you call it, my dear?”

“Sorry.” She rolled over in bed and kissed him. “I should have thought of that.”

“You certainly should have.” It was almost like having a new baby. It was a wonderful new project.

They wrote down all their ideas, inventoried the jewelry they had, and got it appraised by Van Cleef, who were staggered by what they’d collected. They spoke to attorneys, and went back to Paris before Christmas and rented a small but extremely elegant shop on the Faubourg-St. Honoré, and set architects and workmen to work, and even found Emanuelle an apartment. She was beside herself with excitement.

“Are we totally mad?” Sarah asked him, as they lay in bed at the Ritz on New Year’s Eve. Now and then she still got a little worried.

“No, my darling, we’re not. We’ve done an awful lot of people an awful lot of good with the things we bought from them, and now we’re having a little fun with it. There’s no harm in that. And who knows, it might turn out to be a very successful business.”

They had explained it all to Phillip, and William’s mother, when they’d flown over to England to spend Christmas at Whitfield with them. William’s mother thought it was a fine idea and promised to buy their first piece of jewelry, if they’d let her. And Phillip announced that one day he’d open a branch in London.

“Wouldn’t you want to run the one in Paris?” Sarah asked, surprised at his reaction. For a child who had grown up abroad, and was only half English anyway, he was amazingly British.

“I don’t want to live in France ever again,” he announced, “except for vacations. I want to live at Whitfield.”

“My, my,” William said, more amused than distressed. “I’m glad someone does.” He could never imagine living there again. And like his cousin, the Duke of Windsor, he was happier in France, and so was Sarah.

“You’ll have to tell me all about the opening.” The dowager duchess had made them promise when they left. “When is it?”

“In June,” Sarah said tremulously, looking at William with excitement. It was like having a new baby, and since that had never happened to them again, Sarah threw herself into it with all her energy for the next six months, and the night before the opening, everything looked smashing.

Chapter 18

HE opening of the shop was a huge success. The interior had been exquisitely done by Elsie de Wolfe, an American who conveniently was living in Paris. The entire shop was done in pale-gray velvet. It looked like the interior of a jeweler’s box, and all the chairs were Louis XVI. William had brought a few small Degases and some Renoir sketches from Whitfield. There was a lovely Mary Cassatt that Sarah loved, but it wasn’t the art one looked at as one sat there. The jewelry was absolutely staggering. They had weeded out some of the less exciting pieces, but they themselves were amazed by how remarkable most of it really was. Each piece stood out on its own merits, fabulous diamond collars, and enormous pearls, remarkable diamond drop earrings, and a ruby choker that had belonged to the czarina. The jeweler’s marks were clearly discernible on everything they sold, even those of Van Cleef on the turquoise tiara. They had pieces of Boucheron, Mauboussin, Chaumet, Van Cleef, Cartier, and Tiffany in New York, Fabergé, and Asprey. Their inventory was truly staggering, and so was their reception by the Parisians. There had been a little discreet press that the Duchess of Whitfield was opening a shop called “Whitfield’s” on the Faubourg-St. Honoré, offering remarkable jewels to extraordinary women.

The Duchess of Windsor came to the opening, as did most of her friends, and suddenly le tout Paris was there, all of Paris society, and even a few curious acquaintances from London.

They sold four pieces the night of the party they gave, a lovely pearl-and-diamond bracelet by Fabergé with little blue-enamel birds, and a pearl necklace that was one of the first things Emanuelle had brought them. They sold Mrs. Wertheim’s emerald set, too, and it brought a handsome price, as did a huge cabochon ruby ring made by Van Cleef for a maharaja.

Sarah stood looking in wonder at all of it, unable to believe what had happened, as William looked on, with obvious pleasure. He was so proud of her, and so amused by what they’d done. They had bought all of it with kind hearts and the hope that they’d helped someone. And suddenly it had turned into this most extraordinary business.

“You’ve done a beautiful job, my love,” he praised her warmly as waiters poured more champagne. There had been cases of Cristal for the opening, and endless tins of caviar.

“I just can’t believe it! Can you?” She looked like a girl again, she was having such fun, and Emanuelle looked like a grande dame as she made her way among the elite, looking very beautiful in a black Schiaparelli.

“Of course I can believe it. You have exquisite taste, and these are beautiful things,” he said calmly, taking a sip of his champagne.

“We’re a hit, aren’t we?” She giggled.

“No, my darling, you are. You’re the dearest thing in life to me,” he whispered. His years as a prisoner had taught him more than ever what he held dear, his wife, and his children, and his freedom. His health hadn’t been as strong as it had once been, since he’d been home again. But Sarah took good care of him and he was getting stronger. At times he seemed as vital as he once had been, at others he looked tired and worn and she knew that his legs pained him. The wounds had finally healed, but the damage to his system never would. But at least he was alive and well and they were together. And now they had this remarkable business. It really was fun for her, and she thoroughly enjoyed it.

“Do you believe this?” she whispered to Emanuelle a few minutes later. Emanuelle had been looking very cool showing a handsome man a very expensive sapphire necklace.

“I think”—Emanuelle smiled mysteriously at her patronne—“we are going to have a great deal of pleasure here.” Sarah could see that she was, and she was doing a great deal of very subtle flirting with some very important men, and it seemed to mean nothing at all to her if they were married.

In the end, David bought Wallis a very pretty little diamond ring with a Carrier leopard on it, to match those she was already wearing, and that made their fifth sale of the evening. And at last, everyone went home, and they locked their doors at midnight.

“Oh, darling, it was wonderful!” Sarah clapped her hands again, and William pulled her down on his lap in the wheelchair, as the guards locked up, and Emanuelle told the waiters where to leave the remaining caviar. She was going to take it home and share it with some friends the next day. Sarah had said she could. She was having a little cocktail party the next day in her apartment on the rue de la Faisanderie, to celebrate her new position as manager of Whitfield’s. It was a long way from La Marolle for her, from her days in the Resistance, and sleeping with German soldiers to get information about what munitions depot to blow up, and selling eggs and cream and cigarettes on the black market. It had been a long road for all of them, a long war, but it was a good time now, in Paris.

William took Sarah back to their suite at the Ritz shortly after that. They had been talking about finding a small apartment, where they could stay when they were in Paris. It was only two hours and a little bit to the château, but it was still a long way to drive all the time. And she wasn’t going to be at the shop constantly, as Emanuelle and the other girl were. But she wanted to look for new pieces whenever she could, now that people weren’t coming to them anymore for help, and she wanted to design some new things. They were going to Paris a lot more than they used to. But for the moment the Ritz was convenient, and Sarah yawned as she walked in behind William’s wheelchair. And she was in bed beside him a few minutes later.

As she slipped into bed, he turned over, and pulled a box out of die drawer in the nightstand. “How silly of me.” He sounded vague, but she knew him well enough to know he was up to some mischief. “I forgot this….” He handed her a big, square, flat box. “Just a little trinket to celebrate the opening of Whitfield’s,” he said with a smile, as she grinned, wondering what was inside it.

“William, you are so naughty!” She always felt like a child with him. He spoiled her so much, and he was so good to her in all the ways that were more important. “What is it?” She rattled it once she had the paper off. She could see it was a jeweler’s box by then, and the box bore an Italian name. Buccellati.

She opened it carefully, with a gleam of excitement in her eye, and then gasped when she saw it. It was an exquisite, beautifully made, and very important diamond necklace.

“Oh, my God!” She closed her eyes and instantly snapped the box shut. He had given her some lovely things, but this was incredible, and she had never seen anything like it. It looked like a lace collar, all intricately woven in platinum, hung with huge drops of diamonds that seemed just to lie on the skin like enormous dewdrops. “Oh, William …” She opened her eyes again, and threw her arms around him. “I don’t deserve this!”

“Of course you do,” he scolded her, “don’t say things like that. Besides, as the owner of Whitfield’s, people are going to be watching to see what you wear now. We’ll have to buy you some really interesting jewelry, some really fabulous things,” he said with a grin, amused by the prospect. He loved spoiling her, and as his father had before him, he had always liked buying jewelry.

She put the necklace on, and lay back in bed with it, as he admired it, and her, and they both laughed. It had been a perfect evening.

“Darling, you should always wear diamonds to bed,” he said as he kissed her on the lips, and then let his mouth wander to the necklace and then past it.

“Do you suppose it’ll be a big success?” she murmured softly as she put her arms around him.

“It already is.” he said huskily and then they both forgot the shop until the morning.

The next day, the papers were full of it, stories about the people who’d been there, about the jewels, about how beautiful they were, and how elegant Sarah and William had been, the fact that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor had been there. It was perfect.

“We’re a hit!” She grinned at him over breakfast, wearing nothing but her diamond necklace. She was almost thirty-three years old, and her figure was better than it had ever been, as she sat back in her chair, with her legs crossed and her hair piled high on her head, as the diamonds sparkled in the morning sun. William smiled with pleasure as he watched her.

“You know, you’re more beautiful than that bit of flashy stuff around your neck, my dear.”

“Thank you, my love.” She leaned toward him and they kissed, and eventually they finished their breakfast.

They went back to the shop that afternoon, and things seemed to be going well. Emanuelle said they had sold six more things, and some of them were quite expensive. The curious came to ogle, too, to see the people who were there, the jewels, and the excitement. Two very notable men had come shopping, too, one for his mistress, and one for his wife. And Emanuelle had a dinner date with the last one. He was a government official, well known for his affairs, incredibly handsome, and Emanuelle thought it might be amusing to go out with him at least once. There would be no harm done. He was a grown man, and she was certainly not a virgin.

William and Sarah stayed for a little while to see what was happening, and that evening they drove back to the château, still excited about the success of the opening of Whitfield’s. And that night, Sarah sat in bed, and made sketches of things she wanted to have made. They couldn’t always count on finding fabulous existing pieces. She wanted to go to some of the auctions in New York, and at Christie’s in London. And she knew Italy was a marvelous place to have jewelry made. Suddenly she had a thousand things to do. And she always asked William’s advice. He had such good taste and excellent judgment.

By fall, their efforts had come to fruition. The shop was doing extremely well, some of her designs had been made up, and Emanuelle said people were crazy about them. She had a great eye, and William knew stones. They bought carefully, and she insisted on the finest workmanship. The things flew out of the store, and in October she was designing more, hoping to have them in time for Christmas.

Emanuelle was deeply involved with Jean-Charles de Martin, her government friend, by then, but the press hadn’t discovered them yet. They had been extremely discreet, because of his involvement in the government. They always met at her apartment.

Sarah couldn’t believe how busy she was. They were coming to Paris all the time, still staying at the Ritz, she hadn’t had a minute to look for an apartment. And by Christmas she was absolutely exhausted. They had made an absolute fortune at the store, and William had given her the most fabulous ruby ring that had belonged to Mary Pickford. They’d gone to Whitfield for Christmas again and they wanted to bring Phillip back to Paris with them, but he disappointed them no end when he begged to stay at Whitfield.

“What are we going to do with him?” Sarah asked sadly as they flew home again. “It’s incredible to think he was born in France and grew up here, and all he wants to do is stay in England.” He was her only child now, and it pained her unbearably to lose him. No matter how busy she was here, she always had time for him, but he seemed to have very little interest in them. And the only thing France meant to him were memories of the Germans, and the lonely years without his father.

“Whitfield must be in his bones,” William tried to comfort her. “He’ll grow out of it. He’s ten years old, he wants to be with his friends. In a few years, he’ll be happy back here. He can go to the Sorbonne and live in Paris.” But he was already talking about going to Cambridge, like his father, and in some ways Sarah felt as though they had already lost him. She was still depressed about it over the New Year when they went back to the château, and she caught a dreadful cold. She’d had another one the month before, and she was incredibly tired and rundown after all the dashing about they’d done just before Christmas.

“You look terrible,” William said to her cheerfully, as she came downstairs on New Year’s morning. He was already in the kitchen, making coffee.

“Thank you,” she said gloomily, and then asked him if he thought Phillip would be happier there if they bought more horses.

“Stop worrying about him, Sarah. Children have their own lives to lead, independent of their parents.”

“He’s only a little boy,” she said, as tears filled her eyes unexpectedly. “And he’s the only little boy I have.” She started to really cry then, thinking of the little girl she had lost during the war, the sweet baby girl she had loved so much, and this boy who no longer seemed to need her. She felt as though her heart would break sometimes when she thought about it. It seemed so awful to have him so far away, and not have any more children, but she had never gotten pregnant again since William had come back from Germany. The doctors said it was possible, but it just hadn’t happened.

“My poor darling,” William soothed as he held her. “He’s a naughty boy for being so independent.” He himself had never gotten close to him, although he’d tried. But it had been awfully difficult coming back from the war, meeting a six-year-old child, and striking up a relationship with him at that point. In some ways, William knew that they would never be close now. And he also sensed that Phillip would never forgive him. It was as though he blamed William for going off to war and not being there for him, just as he blamed Sarah for the death of his sister. He never said exactly those words after his outburst at the funeral, but William always sensed that those were his feelings, and he never mentioned it to Sarah.

William made her go back to bed with some hot soup and hot tea that day, and she stayed in bed and cried over Phillip, and made drawings, and eventually dozed, while he came upstairs to check on her. He knew what was wrong with her, she was absolutely exhausted. But when the cold went to her chest, he telephoned the doctor to come and see her. He was always worried about her. He couldn’t bear it when she was ill, it was as though he was always afraid to lose her.

“That’s ridiculous I’m fine.” She argued with him, coughing horribly, once he told her he had called the doctor.

“I want him to give you something for that cough, before you wind up with pneumonia,” William said sternly.

“You know I hate medicine,” she said querulously. But the doctor came anyway, a sweet old man from another village. He had retired there after the war, and he was very nice, but she was still annoyed that he had come, and she repeated to him that she didn’t need a doctor.

“Bien sur, Madame … but Monsieur le Duc … it is not good for him to worry,” he told her diplomatically, and she relented as William left the room to get another cup of tea for her, and when he came back Sarah looked very subdued, and a little startled.

“Well, will she live?” William asked the doctor jovially, and the old man smiled and patted Sarah’s knee as he stood up to leave them.

“Most definitely, and for a very long time, I hope.” He smiled down at her and pretended to grow stern. “You will stay in bed, though, until you feel better, n’est-ce pas?”

“Yes, sir,” she said obediently, and William wondered what he had done to make her so docile. All the fight had suddenly gone out of her and she looked very calm and very quiet.

The doctor hadn’t given her any medicine, for all the reasons he’d explained to her while William was out of the room, but he urged her to drink hot soup, and hot tea, and continue just what she was doing. And after he left, William wondered if he was too old and didn’t know his business. There were a lot of medications one could take these days so one didn’t wind up with pneumonia, or TB, and he wasn’t sure soup was enough. It almost made him wonder if he should take her to Paris.

She was lying in bed, looking out the window pensively as he came back upstairs, and he moved his wheelchair close to her, and touched her cheek. But the fever was gone, all she had was that ghastly cough, and he was still worried.

“I want to take you to Paris tomorrow if you’re not better by then,” he said quietly. She was too important to him, to ever risk losing her.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly, an odd look in her eyes as she smiled at him. “I’m perfectly fine … only very stupid.” She hadn’t figured it out herself. For the past month she had been so busy, all she could think of was Christmas and Whitfield’s. And jewels, and nothing else. And now …

“What does that mean?” He frowned as he looked at her, and she rolled over on her back with a grin.

She sat up in bed and leaned close to him, kissing him gently in spite of the cold, but she had never loved him as much as at this moment. “I’m pregnant.”

Nothing registered on his face for an instant, and then he stared at her in amazement. “You’re what? Now?”

“Yup.” She beamed at him, and then lay back against her pillows again. “I think it’s about two months, I’ve been so completely absorbed by the shop that I forgot everything.”

“Good Lord.” He slumped back into his wheelchair with a grin, and took her fingers in his own, and then leaned forward again to kiss them. “You are amazing!”