“That woman is a noblewoman of France.” Aurélie’s father’s cold authority checked Dreier slightly, but the sight of gold and diamonds sufficiently overcame any scruples.
Dreier snatched the talisman from Aurélie, shoving it into his inner pocket before the soldiers could see it. “That woman is a prisoner. Take her to the major! Him, too,” he said as an afterthought, pointing at Aurélie’s father. “They’ve both been . . . engaging in crimes against the state.”
With Dreier’s pistol in her back, her arms wrenched behind her, Aurélie couldn’t even look at her father. To have come so close for this . . .
“Courage, my child,” she thought she heard someone say, as they were marched past the effigy of the old countess, but she knew she must have imagined it, for the voice she heard was a woman’s voice.
Dreier and his underlings marched them out of the chapel, past the keep, across the courtyard to the new wing. Dreier kept up a gloating monologue the whole way, although Aurélie couldn’t be sure if it was for her benefit or his own or just that he was so excited he couldn’t keep the words inside. “. . . knew you’d lead us to it sooner or later . . . watching for months . . . a promotion for me . . .”
“What is it? What is this?” It was Max, his voice sharp with concern. “What are you doing?”
“None of your concern.” Dreier shoved Aurélie through one of the side doors that led into the new wing. Her shoulder was beginning to ache abominably; Dreier was shorter than she, and he had her arm pulled at an acute angle. “We’re taking her to the major.”
“Then I’m coming, too,” said Max, in a voice that brooked no disagreement.
“Suit yourself,” said Dreier, and kicked at the door of her father’s study in lieu of knocking.
An irritated-looking Hoffmeister flung open the door. “What is it?”
“Wait until you see! You, you may go about your business,” Dreier told his men. He shoved Aurélie through the door, waving Max to follow him with Aurélie’s father. “Shut that door! Shut that door and bolt it! Oh. Is he here?”
“Am I here what?” demanded Lieutenant Kraus, who stood by Aurélie’s father’s desk.
A map of the region had been stretched out, marked with pins, her father’s precious eighteenth-century bronzes of Mars and Venus serving as paperweights.
Dreier looked at him with annoyance, and then said, “Oh, never mind. If he’s here, he’s here. Wait until you see!”
“Sir,” Max cut in, in his most Prussian tones. “I must protest. This is most irregular. If I may—”
“You may not.” The lenses of Hoffmeister’s spectacles glittered in the firelight. The people of Courcelles had spent the winter freezing, but Hoffmeister, who did not like the cold, had ordered a fire lit to warm the June morning. The selfishness made Aurélie sick with hatred. “Dreier? See what?”
“This!” Dreier looked down at his hand, which was occupied by the pistol. He dropped Aurélie’s arm and reached into his coat pocket. “I mean, this!”
He yanked the talisman from his pocket and for a moment they all stared transfixed at the sheer glory of it, the rubies and diamonds scintillating in the firelight, the wolf and the cross standing out boldly against the gold, the pride of Courcelles.
Kraus’s mouth hung open. Hoffmeister’s eyes were beady with greed. Dreier, preening with pride, let the pistol dangle.
And Aurélie, without stopping to think, barreled into Dreier with all her might, snatching at the talisman with her left hand. The gun tumbled to the floor as Dreier stumbled into a small footstool, and, with an almost comical look of surprise, fell backward, hitting the fire screen and crashing through it.
There was a moment when the world seemed to go still and then the screaming began, horrible, high-pitched screaming, as Dreier fell onto the fire, the arm of his uniform catching flame. Aurélie’s father dove for the pistol, and Kraus for Aurélie’s father, grabbing the count’s legs. And Dreier, like a human brand, rose to his feet, his back and arm flaming, stumbling this way and that, bumping into the hangings on the wall, mad with pain, screaming, screaming, screaming.
“Put him out! For the Lord’s sake, put him out!” Aurélie cried, and Max sprang forward, pushing Dreier to the ground, trying to smother the flames on the Aubusson carpet.
“Water, I need water!” Max called.
Aurélie went for the bucket that she knew was kept by the fire, but she was arrested by a hand spinning her around. A palm slapped her hard across the face, making her head ring. Through her blurred vision and a growing haze of smoke, she saw Hoffmeister, his spectacles too close to her face, as his hand started rooting in her bodice, groping for the talisman.
“Off me!” Aurélie gasped, but her throat betrayed her. The words were lost in a fit of coughing. The smoke was thicker now, the flames consuming the tapestry of Venus watching over Mars’s rest that had been specially woven for Aurélie’s great-great-grandfather; crackling along the gilded frame of the portrait of her father; smoldering in the silk upholstery of a Louis Quinze settee. “Off—”
“Stop!” There was a horrible crack and Hoffmeister’s hands abruptly loosed their grip. Aurélie’s eyes stung, half blinded by smoke. Blinking, she saw Hoffmeister sprawled on the floor by the desk, a red pulp where his head had been, and Max, standing horrified, the bronze of Mars clutched in his hands like a club.
“You saved me,” croaked Aurélie. He had killed his superior. He had killed his superior to save her.
“Not if you die by fire,” rasped Max. His fair skin was smeared with soot, his cap lost, his hair tousled. He hustled Aurélie forward, his arm around her shoulders. “Quick!”
Using the bronze, he smashed the glass of one of the French windows, clearing the remainder with his elbow before jumping down into the shrubbery below, holding up his arms for Aurélie. Aurélie put her arms around his neck and let him swing her out, out into the relatively fresh air of the garden. They clung together, her face buried in his neck, his face in her hair, both shivering and shaking, their lungs aching, holding on to each other.
Somewhere, somewhere beyond them, there were cries of fire and the sound of booted feet running, but Aurélie was oblivious to all that. She could only see Dreier turned to living flame, Hoffmeister on the ground, dead by Max’s hand.
“You saved me,” she said again. “You saved me.”
“I love you,” he said simply. “But you must go. The train—if you’re found here—”
Hoffmeister dead. Drier dead. Kraus—
Aurélie clutched at Max’s arm. “My father. Max. My father. He’s still in there.”
Through the smoke, she could see her father and Kraus, locked in a wrestlers’ embrace, rolling on the floor, each struggling for control of the pistol.
“Go,” Max said. “Go now. I’ll get him.”
Aurélie clutched the talisman through her bodice. “But what if—”
Max kissed her hard. “I’ll see you in Paris.”
And then he was gone, scrambling up through the broken window, into the flames.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Daisy
Le Mouton Noir
Paris, France
November 1942
Inside the grate, the flames licked over the few black coals, but the battle was lost before it had begun. Madeleine and Kit sat at the table, playing chess, while Olivier—who had grown weary of games and overturned the chessboard a moment ago—wandered around the tiny room, pulling books from shelves. Daisy replaced them, wearily, one by one. She’d given up trying to make Olivier put them back himself; he was too cross from being cooped up for the past two days.
Kit looked up in sympathy and pulled the pipe from his mouth. “We can trade places, if you like. Olivier, my little soldier, would you like to . . . er, learn a few new maneuvers, perhaps?”
Olivier cast Kit a withering look. “We’ve already done that.”
“Then come back here and help your sister decide her next move.”
“Hate chess!”
“Shh,” said Daisy. “Remember, we have to be very quiet, like mice.”
Olivier went rigid. His cheeks turned red, his eyes closed. Daisy lunged for him and tried to put her hand over his mouth, but it was too late. The scream was rising, she felt it gathering in his chest, unstoppable—
The door slid open.
Everybody whipped around.
“Uncle Max!” called out Olivier, and he ran all five steps across the room and flung himself into the arms of Lieutenant Colonel von Sternburg, who had already knelt to receive him.
For two days they had been living inside the few paltry square meters of Kit’s quarters, and their only glimpse of the world beyond came twice a day in the form of Max von Sternburg, who brought food and news and sweets and trinkets for the children. He always wore his civilian suit, so as not to attract attention and because it was well-known among his fellow officers—Max explained all this to Kit and Daisy, blushing a little—that he kept a mistress, a pretty married woman of whom he was deeply enamored, and they met for their assignations at the Ritz. And since a German officer wasn’t supposed to wear his uniform on the rue Cambon side, nobody questioned why he should change into his suit of navy blue and set off from the Hôtel Meurice in the direction of the Ritz, bearing gifts. It was, in short, the perfect cover.
To the children, of course, he was like Father Christmas, and they greeted him with ecstatic enthusiasm. One by one he pulled the parcels from his pockets and his satchel—coffee, ham, bread, cheese, a bottle of wine, some toy soldiers, a hair ribbon, an enamel box. While the children examined these treasures, he turned to Daisy and Kit. His face was weary.
“Is there any news of Pierre?” Daisy asked. She couldn’t help feeling a perverse sense of guilt that her husband had been arrested for a crime—if you could call it that—that she herself had committed. Maybe it was justice, but Daisy would have preferred the right kind of justice, an accounting for the deeds Pierre alone was responsible for.
“He’s being held for questioning at avenue Foch,” said Max. “The Gestapo headquarters. Thus far, he has said nothing to implicate you.”
Daisy shrugged. “I doubt it would even occur to him.”
“Or perhaps he still harbors some little love for you,” Max said gently. “Either way, it keeps us safe, for the moment.”
“And my grandmother?”
“There’s no word yet.”
“So we keep waiting,” said Kit.
“Not much longer, I expect.” Max was staring at the children, who sat at the table to divide the loot. Olivier, ever ravenous, had already torn off a piece of bread, and Daisy didn’t reprimand him. Let him have it. She couldn’t keep anything down at the moment, anyway, and the less notice drawn to that fact, the better.
Kit checked his watch. “Look, I’ve got to step out for a moment, if you don’t mind. Daisy? You’ll be all right?”
“Yes, of course,” said Daisy. Neither she nor Max inquired as to the nature of Kit’s errand. For one thing, it was always better not to know, unless absolutely necessary. For another thing, there was the question of Max’s loyalty, and where it came from, and how far it went. Kit accepted Grandmère’s word that Von Sternburg could be trusted where Daisy was concerned, but he wasn’t pleased about it, and Max himself seemed to recognize the delicacy of the situation.
Kit looked at him now, and they traded some communication between them.
“You’ll keep them safe,” Kit said, and it was not a question.
“Of course,” Max replied.
When Kit was gone, the tension eased a fraction. He had left his pipe in the dish on the table, and Daisy knocked out the ash, mostly because that released the smell of the tobacco into the air, which made it seem as if Kit were still in the room. Max sat down in the empty chair and held up the hair ribbon. He told Madeleine that he had picked it out just for her, because it matched the color of her eyes.
“Why?” Daisy said suddenly.
Max looked up. “I beg your pardon?”
She thought, You’re risking your life for us, for a woman and two children you scarcely know. Why us?
But she couldn’t say it, not while the children sat there, all ears. Instead she walked to the other side of the room and took the poker to the few coals. A moment later, Von Sternburg came up next to her, smelling of cold November air, of damp wool and longing.
“It’s because of your mother,” he said softly.
“What about my mother?” Daisy’s voice came out a little high.
“We knew each other only a short time, during the last war,” he said. “But she was an extraordinary woman, and I have never forgotten her. Even behind German lines, we heard the legend of the Demoiselle de Courcelles, and what she had done for France. Of course, the popular story was not quite as I remembered it.”
Daisy let this sink in for a moment. She felt him breathe quietly next to her, while she breathed, too, trying to gain some control over herself and her racing thoughts. Finally she turned to him.
“You were in love with her, weren’t you?” she said, and her voice, almost to her own surprise, was full of pity. “That’s what this is all about.”
Von Sternburg gazed back with a look that shattered her.
“There was a time when I hated her because I thought she had betrayed me,” he said. “And then a time, just as the war was ending, before I even had the chance to find her again, when I learned from a newspaper that she was dead of influenza, and I grieved for her and what we had lost. And then I came to understand, and to forgive.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Haven’t I?” He smiled. “The answer is yes. We were very much in love. And I have never forgiven myself for losing her.”
When the children were asleep at last, tucked into their pallets downstairs, Daisy climbed the hatchway stairs to Kit’s bedroom, which was now their bedroom, as if they were a family together in a very small home.
He was awake. “Everything quiet?” he said, opening the blanket for her.
“Yes, they’re both asleep.” She climbed in and yawned. The bed was made for only one person, and they had to lie almost on top of each other to fit inside it, which neither Kit nor Daisy minded. Especially now, when any moment might be their last. Already Kit’s hands were reaching under her camisole to find her breasts. She stretched her arms up and closed her eyes. The camisole slipped over her head. Kit was kissing her neck, her breasts, her stomach, and her skin came alive, as it always did, warming them both as he raised himself above her and joined them together in the cold, silent night. As they rocked against each other, he kissed her cheek and asked her why she was crying.
“It’s nothing,” she sobbed.
Kit went still and studied her. “It’s not nothing. Tell me.”
How could she tell him? If he knew about the child growing inside her, it would only make him frantic with worry. Her darling Kit, her second self, who loved her so deeply. So Daisy swallowed back her grief and wrapped her legs around him and urged him on. She knew how to drive him out of his mind; she knew how to make him forget whatever he was thinking and lose himself in her, in Daisy. They finished in a reckless burst and lay panting together, afraid they had made too much noise, afraid they had gone too fast, afraid they hadn’t gone fast enough. Kit was worried because she had left her diaphragm at the apartment. Daisy just snuggled deeper in the curve of his body and said not to worry so much.
“But if you have a child—”
“Don’t think about it, all right?”
“I can’t help thinking about it.” He took her hand and trapped it against his chest. “I can’t help thinking about what you said, the other day.”
“Oh, I say a lot of things. Don’t pay any attention to them.”
They lay silent. Daisy closed her eyes and felt the beat of her heart, the beat of his heart. The third heart beating in the bed with them, too tiny to be felt, known only to Daisy an
d God and Grandmère. Kit lifted his other hand and wriggled it. Daisy felt a smooth metal shape pass over her knuckle. She lifted her head.
“What’s this?”
“My ring. Now it’s yours. Our engagement ring.”
“Kit, don’t be foolish. It’s your family ring.”
“Exactly. If you can’t find me, you can go to my family. They’ll recognize it, they’ll help you with . . . well, with whatever you need. And after the war—”
“Kit, please. How can we speak of this? A thousand things could happen. It’s bad luck to—”
“Listen to me. A thousand things could happen, yes, but they won’t change this. This bond between us, how much I love you, that won’t change. After the war, as long as I’m alive, I’ll come for you. I’ll find you, wherever you are—”
“The Ritz,” she said. “We’ll meet at the Ritz. If we’re both still alive.”
“What if there is no Ritz?”
“There will always be a Ritz,” she said stoutly.
“Well, then. We shall meet at the Ritz, you and I, and never part again. We’ll marry and grow old together, surrounded by a dozen children and a pair of cantankerous swans. And this ring, Daisy, is my promise to you. That I’ll love you and go on loving you, whatever happens in the months to come. The years, if it comes to that. There’s no other woman in the world for me. There never could be, after you.”
Daisy just buried her face in his shoulder. She wished she could weep again, but her eyes just ached and ached and refused to shed any more tears. She thought, He’s here now. In this instant, we are together in this bed, and that’s all that matters, that’s enough for anyone.
Kit laid his hand along the curve of her head; with his other hand, he traced the lines and dents of the ring on her finger. He smelled of pipe tobacco, of brandy, of lovemaking, of Kit. He whispered something into her hair.
All the Ways We Said Goodbye Page 37