Sisters of the Resistance

by Christine Wells

  She stared at him. “But the war is over.”

  “And a new one has begun.”

  That made no sense. True, Yvette had been in New York, but she would have heard if fighting had broken out again in Europe. “What are you talking about?”

  “It is a silent war, but no less deadly.” He leaned closer, his hand on the table beside her plate. “Do you think the Russians were ever truly our allies? The day the war was won, they became the new threat.”

  Even as he spoke these frightening words to her, she was so acutely aware of him it became painful to breathe. His clean, masculine scent stirred her body and softened her brain. How she wanted to believe every word he said to her. But she had fallen into that trap before.

  This intimacy could not continue. She made herself sit back, and it was like pulling two magnets apart. “I think it comical you talk of all this ‘our’ and ‘we.’ You will only ever be ‘them’ and ‘they’ to me.”

  He sighed. “How many times must I say it?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You are Austrian. Yes, yes, I know.” She waved her spoon, then dug it into the sugary mess in front of her. “But you were a Nazi just the same.”

  “Clearly whatever I say on that subject, you won’t believe me,” he said. “But believe this. What I’m doing now means I must keep what I did in the war a secret. I cannot be a witness in a trial that is attracting enormous media coverage. It is Louise Dulac, after all.”

  Her name on his lips was like a stab in the gut. “I am not likely to forget.”

  He stared into Yvette’s eyes, giving her that warm, sincere look that used to sweep away all her fears. “What she did to you was not kind. But she did it in service of a higher cause. In the cause you nearly gave your life for. Can’t you understand? She was a complicated woman, living with unimaginable stress for months on end.”

  To hear him defend Louise was to feel claws raking her chest cavity. “She did not have to throw me to the wolves. I had a plan that would have saved me. She agreed to it, and then she did not come.”

  Vidar took her hand in a warm clasp. “Did it never occur to you that she might have believed you capable of saving yourself?”

  Yvette narrowed her eyes. It was a strange thing that even the cleverest of men did not understand relationships between women. Particularly not between the women who were rivals for that man’s affections. “Louise Dulac meant to degrade me. And she refused to help Catherine Dior.” She would never, ever forgive her for that.

  “There was nothing she could have done for Catherine,” said Vidar. “Don’t you know Gruber was part of the plot against Hitler? The one that failed? He managed to escape retribution by the skin of his teeth, but after that, he was finished, powerless to stick his neck out for anyone.”

  She wanted to shut out Vidar’s reasonable arguments, to put her hands over her ears like a child. She realized, with a hollow laugh at her stupidity, that she had hoped this evening would go a certain way. A candlelit dinner. Back to his place, and then . . . But he was defending the woman who had treated her like garbage and begging Yvette to save her.

  She twisted in her seat so she could face him fully. “Tell me, once and for all, Vidar, what is Louise Dulac to you?”

  He clenched his jaw so tightly, a small muscle seemed to pulse there. She saw at once the steel in him, the utter exasperation of a man who is urging a woman to do a thing that to him is wholly logical and necessary, something in which emotion should play no part.

  And she agreed that what lay between Louise and her should have no bearing on her decision whether or not to testify on her behalf. But Louise had used her as if she were nothing, a scrap of dirty rag to sop up a mess. And on top of that, she had taunted Yvette with the truth about Vidar.

  Yvette sat back. “I suppose it is your gentlemanly code that keeps you silent.”

  At first, he didn’t reply. In a gesture that he often used to buy himself time, he took out a cigarette and lit it. Then he blew out smoke. “Louise and I were not involved romantically at any stage, either before or after you and I met.”

  Yvette raised her eyebrows. She didn’t believe him.

  He returned his cigarette case to the inside pocket of his coat. “Do you think either of us would have risked it? If Gruber had caught her with another man, he’d have had her killed.”

  Again this appeal to logic, when all Yvette wanted was for him to reject Louise and choose her. “And yet,” she said, “in time of war, the risk might have been worth it. We were all going to die sometime.” She retrieved her purse from the banquette beside her and stood. “Will you excuse me? I must powder my nose.”

  Their eyes met, and in his, she read a challenge. He knew she was not going to use the facilities, that she would find another exit, circle back to the front door to retrieve her hat and coat.

  The question: Would he be there, waiting for her when she left? Or would he let her go and find another way to save Louise?

  GABBY

  Gabby liked Audrey immediately, but as much as she enjoyed her company, she couldn’t help wishing for Yvette. She squinted down at the little bird pinned to her lapel, its diamonds winking in the weak sunlight as they zipped along in Audrey’s Aston Martin, and thought of the note that had accompanied it. All my love.

  The bitter cold seemed to intensify as they drove deeper into the countryside. A dusting of snow frosted the tree branches and lay in patches over the ground.

  “You speak English so well, Gabby,” said Audrey, shifting gears with great proficiency and turning down a narrow country lane. “I was afraid you might not.”

  Gabby gripped the edge of her seat, which was the only thing she could hold on to in the tiny automobile. The retractable roof was tattered here and there, and icy blasts of air assaulted them from several directions. “That is kind of you to say. I lived here one summer with some cousins and learned it then. I practiced on your brother whenever I could.” She hesitated. “But I suppose he did not mention it.”

  “No.” Audrey fell silent for a few moments, lips pursed, as if deciding how to phrase her next sentence. “Jack has not spoken of you at all, I’m afraid.”

  The news was a punch to the stomach. Gabby held very still, as if tensing every muscle would keep the pain at bay. She ought to have expected it. Had Jack cared, he would have come with Audrey to Paris.

  “How did you know I would be at the ceremony, then?” she managed.

  Audrey, who seemed unfazed by anything, flushed. “Please don’t be angry with me. I detest sneaks! But I happened to read some of my brother’s correspondence.” Audrey glanced at Gabby. “It was Jack who recommended you for the medal, you know.”

  Warmth flooded Gabby’s chest. He hadn’t forgotten her. He was simply reticent, like many men. Particularly English ones. “And yet . . . he did not attend the ceremony,” she ventured.

  “No. Well, he didn’t know I was going, either,” admitted Audrey. “He won’t be happy with me for—” She broke off, but the message was clear.

  Gabby’s hands flexed in her lap. “He is not expecting me,” she said. “And if he were, he would not wish to see me.” The words were jagged in her throat. “Why?”

  “Oh, please, please don’t take offense,” begged Audrey. “He is the stupidest man. Well, aren’t they all—even the best of them?”

  “Then you should not have brought me,” said Gabby.

  Audrey seemed about to say something, then bit her lip. She glanced at Gabby, her eyes worried and apologetic. “Just promise me you will see him. You’ve come all this way.”

  And she had, too, assuming she would be welcome. As Audrey drove too fast down these narrow country lanes for Gabby’s comfort, she had the sensation of hurtling inexorably toward her doom.

  She shifted her weight on the hard, low seat and closed her eyes as they whizzed around a bend. When had she stopped listening to her innate caution? Before the war, she would no more have agreed to come on this journey without assurance tha
t Jack would welcome her than she would jump off a cliff.

  Audrey’s hand lifted briefly from the gear stick and pressed hers. “Please don’t worry. His bark is worse than his bite.”

  All of a sudden, Gabby wondered if they were talking of the same man. Her gentle, amusing Englishman now sounded like the beast in the fairy tale.

  Bad enough that she’d felt tentative about throwing herself at him after all this time, even if his sister had invited her to stay. Now it sounded as if he might actually be hostile toward her.

  They turned off the road onto a gravel drive. The little car shot through the trees and they drove for some distance along a winding avenue, until, with another turn, Gabby saw it. Jack’s house.

  “Bon Dieu,” she muttered, trying to take in the massive building that loomed before them. In France, they would have called it a château. He owned all of this? No wonder Jack had little interest in seeing her again.

  “Shocking old pile, isn’t it?” said Audrey, cheerfully oblivious of Gabby’s awe. “Place is falling down around our ears.”

  To Gabby, it looked magnificent. A sprawling mansion made of cream stone, bare-branched trees, rolling hills blanketed with snow.

  They swept around an enormous fountain with a central figure of mermaids and gods. The fountain lay dormant, like the countryside around it. There was a feeling of hibernation about this house that had nothing to do with the season—or was that her overactive imagination?

  Gabby wanted to order Jack’s sister to turn back, to take her to the nearest train station. If only she could click her fingers and be back home again. If only she had Yvette.

  They puttered to a stop at the front steps and a servant came to take their bags. Feeling untethered and exposed, Gabby followed Audrey inside. While Audrey paused to exchange a few words with the servant, Gabby stared around her.

  The entrance hall was wide and cavernous, running almost the full breadth of the house, with a gallery above. It was glacial inside, even colder than it was outdoors.

  “Through here,” said Audrey, taking her deeper into the house, where a grand oak staircase took them up to the second floor. “I’ve had the pink room prepared for you. I hope you like pink. Only, it’s the closest to the bathroom in this wing, which I thought you might appreciate. Here we are.”

  She nudged open a door and Gabby followed her in.

  The bedroom was bigger than the loge at rue Royale. An enormous four-poster bed dominated the room, its pink canopy swagged with dusty silk roses. There was a pretty Queen Anne dressing table with a stool covered in worn pink velvet, a burl walnut desk at one window and a cushioned window seat in the other. A group of Louis XVI chairs surrounded the fireplace. The furnishings were tattered and shabby, it was true, but altogether too grand for her.

  “Ah, c’est magnifique!” Gabby set down her suitcase and went to the window.

  “It’s cold in here, but there’ll be a fire laid for the evening,” said Audrey. “Or perhaps you’d prefer the radiator?”

  Gabby was scarcely listening. “Whatever you think best,” she murmured, stopping short before one window. Her view was of the lake. She saw sheep on a distant hill. As she stepped closer to the window and looked down, she caught sight of a man crossing the terrace below, a pair of dogs ambling alongside.

  Jack. Her heart did a slow, hard flip.

  “Gabby?”

  Gabby flushed, turning away from the window. “I’m sorry, I was not attending. The view is so . . .”

  “I was just saying you must be hungry,” repeated Audrey with an understanding smile. “Tea in half an hour, shall we say?”

  After giving Gabby directions to the parlor, Audrey left her to freshen up. There was a dry washstand in the corner of the room with a pitcher of water and a china bowl, and a silk screen painted with trees and birds of paradise.

  The mirror showed Gabby a windblown mess of a woman, and her mood plummeted further. She washed, then tidied her hair and brushed lint from her jacket. She reapplied her lipstick and touched up her rouge and tried to feel better. But the grandeur of the house was starting to oppress her, as if its walls were closing in. Ironic, since it was so large and spacious.

  Jack had talked often of his home in the country, but she had pictured a house near the northern town of Burnley, which she’d carefully located on a map. Not that Jack’s “Burnley” was the name of an enormous estate near Cambridge. What if he had not returned to her because he thought she wasn’t good enough for him? She wasn’t good enough for him. One glance at this place made that clear.

  Oh, dear God, what was she doing here?

  Gabby glanced at the mantel clock. How had the time passed so quickly? She had to go down. She looked her reflection in the eye and said, “You are here as the woman who took him in and kept him safe during the war. As a . . . a friend. That’s all.”

  There was a squall of nerves in her stomach as she went downstairs and tried to find the way to the parlor. She had begun this trip to England with such hope and delight. For once in her life, the part of her that always doubted her worth and her welcome had not held her back. She ought to have known better.

  So when she first met Jack again after more than two years apart, she would not let herself laugh and run to him and throw her arms around him as she so longed to do. She would be friendly but distant, as his failure to contact her all this time warranted. She would stop making excuses for him and face the hard reality. Facing hard realities had always been her specialty, after all.

  He did not care about her. Perhaps he never had. He did not want her here. And he certainly did not want her in his life.

  She straightened her spine and straightened her skirt and marched across the hall.

  The house was laid out with cheerful illogicality. Having not caught half the instructions Audrey had given her on how to get to the parlor, of which there seemed to be many, she soon got lost. Finally, after several wrong turns, she heard a murmur of voices and realized she’d found the spot. Hovering on the threshold, Gabby surveyed the cozy scene.

  It was the quintessential English parlor, complete with a roaring fire and hunting dogs on the hearthrug. Brother and sister both had their backs to her. They were seated in chintz-covered chairs at a small round table by a large picture window with a view of the lake. The table was set with white linen, china, and silver. Audrey’s hand rested on her brother’s arm and she was speaking to him in a low voice, bending her fair head close to his. Gabby couldn’t hear what she said and didn’t want to. She cleared her throat.

  “There you are!” Audrey jumped up and came to clutch her hands and draw her toward the table. “Did you get horribly lost? I ought to have come up to fetch you.”

  “It is nothing, madame,” Gabby murmured, her gaze straying to the man who had risen and turned to look at her. The movement was slow; Gabby would have called it reluctant, but she saw at once a blaze in his eyes as they caught hers. The corner of his mouth lifted, as if in defiance of the stern set to his jaw.

  She wanted to run to him, to throw her arms around him, but she made herself simply nod in his direction. “Good afternoon.” She enunciated each word as if she had never spoken English before.

  “Bonjour, Gabby,” he said quietly. “Bienvenue chez moi.”

  “Oh, in English, please, brother, or you will be in danger of losing me.” Audrey flopped down in the chair opposite his and rang a little silver bell. “Gabby’s English is parfait! Much, much better than my French. Do sit down, my dear.”

  Wrenching her gaze from Jack, Gabby sat where Audrey indicated, in the chair opposite the window. The view beyond a low stone balustrade was of an ornamental lake, woods and fields patched in snow. It all looked like a postcard, as if it weren’t real. She didn’t feel real, sitting here with him like this, like a stranger.

  One of the dogs, a glossy chocolate hound with a plumed tail, scrambled up and trotted over to her, sniffed, then put his head firmly in her lap as if it belonged there. He l
ooked up at Gabby with a longing in his eyes, eyebrows twitching as he searched her face.

  She laughed and scratched him behind the ear. “Ah, t’es un bon chien, n’est-ce pas?” she murmured to the dog, immensely comforted. The animal had accepted her even if his owner was unlikely to do so.

  “Jupiter. Off!” said Jack with a gruff note of command to his voice.

  The dog snapped to attention and sat back on his haunches, his gaze shifting from her to his master and back again.

  “But no, leave him be,” said Gabby, laughing down at Jupiter and reaching out to rub his chest. “I love dogs.” She lifted her gaze to Jack’s face. What she saw there made her smile falter. He was annoyed at something. Angry, even. Surely not that she had made friends with his dog?

  Determined to persevere, she said, “What breed is he?”

  “Pointer.”

  Gabby waited, but apparently he was not going to elaborate. She sat at right angles to Jack, almost beside him, yet he seemed as distant as the church spire that peeked above the woods.

  “Is that the village over there?” she asked, forcing the conversation in spite of the disappointment that lodged like a block of wood in her chest. He had told her often of his childhood adventures, and the village had featured heavily in them. In fact, despite her surprise at the magnificence of his home, she began to recognize many of the places he’d described. How stupid of her not to guess.

  Jack remained silent. With a frowning glance at her brother, Audrey filled the breach. “Yes, that’s right. I’ll show you the village tomorrow if you like. The church is very old.”

  “That is kind,” murmured Gabby with a glance at Jack. Audrey didn’t seem inclined to include him in the outing. She went on to talk about the local parish and some of its quirky inhabitants. Jack did not utter a word.

  As the conversation limped along, with Jack contributing nothing except the curtest reply when directly addressed, Gabby felt sick to her stomach. This was horrible. She had to leave. She would apologize to Audrey, but she couldn’t stay here like this. Not with Jack so unresponsive and cold.