The Lost Castle

by Kristy Cambron

  The stone-wall façade was covered in red Nazi flags—that she could see even through the darkness. They’d been strung up on either side of the front steps like banners, rolled down in a blanket of blood-red spanning roof to ground. She drew in a steadying breath at the sight and scanned the scene of black uniforms blending in with the night around them.

  It was impossible to count how many SS made up the swarm of guards padding the building’s front façade. The only distinction between the sea of uniforms and the night was black boots lined against latent drifts of snow and red armbands—swastikas that shone out from their left arms like floating red squares in a sea of black and white. They’d lined up against the front of the château, staunch and still, standing watch despite the cold.

  An SS guard swung a rifle over his shoulder and approached, then opened the door for her.

  “Sieg Heil!” A man of some stature, obviously a commander given the uniform, approached from behind and straightened the men to an even more rigid call to attention.

  Vi stepped out of the car, praying she appeared unaffected as the commander thrust his right arm in the Nazi salute, though inside she was screaming.

  It felt black and evil to have to respond with a “Heil Hitler” of her own, but Vi did so without hesitation, pushing away thoughts of bomb-ravaged London from torturing her in the moment.

  “Zeigen Sie mir Ihre papiere.”

  Vi unlatched her clutch, took out her travel papers, and handed them over. She held her breath and issued an emotionless stare while he inspected them.

  “Fräulein Karine Laurent.”

  A curt nod. “Ja.”

  He studied her openly. With rough eyes, he took in the mannerisms of her response. Her insides burned with resentment when his eyes landed lower, slowly taking in her figure from under even a modest navy suit and traveling coat of thick wool.

  Vi held the visceral response secret, determined to show no emotional response to his intrusion. Not fear, anger, or—may God prevent it from showing on her face—the intense loathing she felt for the man standing before her.

  He kept hold of her travel papers and turned toward the château. “Sie wollen dich innen sehen.”

  They want to see me inside? Who even knows I’m here?

  Vi nodded, gathered up her clutch, and ascended the row of steps behind him, careful to keep her heels from slipping on the ice. She wasn’t sure how many pairs of eyes followed them inside, but she was fairly certain she could feel every single one boring into her back until the front door was closed and bolted behind them.

  The commander stopped her in the entry, pointing to a spot at the bottom of a grand, winding staircase. She obeyed, waiting as he went into an adjoining room, leaving the door cracked. Another man stood before a desk. She could see him only from behind, he too dressed in the Nazi finery of a high-ranking leader.

  A fire burned in the hearth, warming the room with orange-yellow flames.

  She shuddered with the comparison her heart made to seeing the fire burn, as if she’d been pulled into an inner chamber of hell. The entry, too, was as she’d expected: closed off and cold, doors leading to who knew what, the staircase exacting with stone steps that led to more rooms on an upper floor.

  More uncertainty.

  More of the Nazi world pulling her into its clutches.

  The commander returned, barking a “diesen Weg”—this way—as he marched up the stairs. He led her to a room at the end of a stone catwalk and opened a heavy door to a library. She stepped in and, without explanation, was shut up, a bolt locking into place on the outside.

  And that, Vi would remember, was the first night fear overtook her and the last time she’d see the outdoors again for months—until the day she and three other secretaries were to be marched out to a courtyard, lined up, and shot to death.

  JUNE 5, 1944

  LES TROIS-MOUTIERS

  LOIRE VALLEY, FRANCE

  The lightbulb hadn’t blinked with a pulse of electricity, so Vi had no indication anyone was in the cellar tunnel until the bunker door creaked open behind her.

  With a swift move, she flipped the transmission connection back to receive and slid the headset down around her neck. Whether Julien had noticed her sleight of hand, she couldn’t guess. He simply walked in, greeting her with the ready smile he always did.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “It’s alright. Just on edge, you know. I’m down here alone until Pascal returns. It’s natural to jump at every sound.” She glanced up to the dark bulb in the bunker’s corner. “You didn’t come from the cellar. I’d have noticed if the door had been tripped.”

  “I came from the cottage. But I’m glad you’re watching for it. And as a matter of fact, I think we should keep a rifle or two down here. I should have thought of it before now, but I’ll bring them back through tonight.” He walked closer, leaned in to look over her shoulder as he scanned the exacting block letters of Pascal’s notes and her more elegant, looping script. “Anything new this afternoon?”

  “Transmissions coming in almost too fast to count. There’s a lot of static mixed in, but at final number, we had almost two hundred yesterday.”

  “Anything for us?”

  She shook her head. “Not specifically, no.”

  There’d been no mention of The Sleeping Beauty since Vi’s first days at the estate, and she knew that troubled him. But lately, transmissions for their castle crew had been few and far between, peppered in with static and background noise that amounted to little more than nothing.

  Julien would ask about Victoria, and each time they’d have to tell him no.

  He’d crease his brow, absorbing the concern, no doubt locking worry deep inside where only he had to endure the burden of it. He’d review Pascal’s notes, ask questions, and focus on every word taken down. Listening. Waiting for news that would tell them anything concrete—that it was true, and the Allies really were coming.

  What Vi couldn’t say was that she was troubled too.

  She’d been sending transmissions out, trying in vain to reach anyone at 64 Baker Street to let them know she was alive and relay what had happened to Clémence and the other SOE operatives who’d disappeared at Giverny. So far, she’d been unsuccessful. If a connection didn’t pan out soon, Vi would likely have to make the very difficult decision of whether to keep waiting or to leave and take her chances on foot once again.

  Julien sighed, having read nothing of consequence, and righted to standing again.

  “I came to fetch you to the castle. Le Professeur is on his way back to relieve you on the radio.”

  “Fetch me for what?”

  Julien reached out and, with care, eased the headset from around her neck. “You can’t stay buried down here all day.”

  Her hair was still too short to pull back in a tidy bun, so the wires stirred it, casting waves down over her eyes and cheek. Vi set about calming it behind her ear but paused when the sound of music filled the room. She turned, seeing Julien’s hand upon the volume knob.

  A French lady belted out a rousing rendition of “Le Chant des Partisans”—Anna Marly’s popular resistance anthem.

  “Honor me?”

  “You want to dance.” Puzzled, she glanced around. “Here?”

  “Oui. I want to dance with you.”

  The tune was a bit too jaunty for a proper waltz, and she doubted Julien’s leg could keep up with the jitterbug like the Yanks did it. And though he owned an easy smile at the moment, playful wasn’t really his way. He was a leader, young and confident, and smiled often, but he hadn’t broached the line of familiarity with her at all until that very moment.

  She bestowed a deep curtsy, fit for the king of England himself, and Julien replied with a proper bow.

  He gathered her up in his arms and they could have been guests in a grand ballroom, like the one at the castle, without a care in their war-ravaged world. Lost in turning circles around a windowless bunker, Vi could pretend he was
bedecked in a white tie, and she draped in a ball gown of spilling satin, instead of always wearing her oxfords, houndstooth trousers, and an old blouse that had seen far better days.

  “So what is it we’re celebrating?” She paused, instantly hopeful. “Victoria?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Then what?”

  “Life. That we’re here to live it.” He spun her under his arm, then gathered her back with a smile. “And the fact that we’ll feast tonight—at least on more than potatoes and leeks for a change.”

  “We have had another supply drop then, even if Victoria didn’t come with it?”

  “The team’s sorting through the lot of it now.” Julien dipped her, rousing an unconscious smile from her lips. “We’ll be full on canned meat and peaches tonight. And some of those pears you love so much.”

  Somehow he’d convinced her, carrying Vi away until she was laughing and twirling along with him, delighting in the happy circumstance of their meager provision.

  “Ah . . . French cuisine. Tell me there will be walnuts and contraband wine, and I’ll be yours forever.”

  Julien led an army; dancing should have been traded in for valor long ago. Along with teasing about tomorrows. Yet he’d gathered her up in his arms anyway, and Vi found herself staring up in the eyes she’d come to know so well. The gold spoke volumes as they studied her now, layered over with a seriousness she’d not expected, as if he’d stopped to earnestly ponder the quip she’d made in cheek.

  The music ended, once again fading into static.

  They stood, feet slowed to a stop. Arms holding fast. The good fortune of their feast suddenly forgotten.

  “But there’s no time for dancing these days, is there? Not when the music stops.”

  “No.” Vi swallowed hard. “There’s no time for dancing.” The whisper of tears bathing her eyes shocked even her.

  They’d been banished so long ago. In the thick of bombs raining on London. Again in Giverny and at the lovely haven of the castle’s hidden chapel. Vi wouldn’t allow them back. She’d vowed it with resolution. But somehow, they’d overpowered her in his presence and chose that musty underground cellar to reemerge.

  She closed her eyes, tried to look away, shamed that Julien might find weakness in her. Or worse, see the truth she’d been keeping from him. That she wasn’t who he thought. That his arms held a lie.

  He tipped up her chin until she opened her eyes again. “Why the tears?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t cry. Not anymore. I promised myself I wouldn’t because it’s the only way to keep going. To pretend death isn’t chasing us all. If I give myself no reason to care, then I don’t cry. And if I refuse to cry, then I survive. My will keeps my heart beating.”

  “What if . . . you had a reason to care?” He stopped.

  Backtracked.

  Took a long pause to brush a lock of hair back behind her ear, like he was stalling over something.

  “Julien, I do care. About all of you. I’d have died out there in the woods. Or on the road to Vercors. Or any number of other places my fate could have played out in the worst of ways. But you provided a haven here at the estate, at great risk to your own safety. You saved my life and I’ll always be grateful.”

  “I don’t want your gratitude.” He searched her face, holding fast, his face downturned until he was a breath away from hers. “I want you to stay.”

  “I said I would, as long as I’m able.”

  “No, I want you to stay when this is all over. I can’t think about life after the war. Not because of what’s coming or what we stand to lose. But because I don’t want to imagine this land without you a part of it.”

  “Julien . . .”

  “Do I have this wrong? That your eyes tell me you want to stay?” He swept a hand around the small of her back, face drifting, mouth easing a breath away from hers. “Because if you tell me to go, I will. I won’t dare look into those violet eyes and read that you want me to kiss you right now.”

  It felt right to say nothing. She couldn’t have summoned a thought to her lips anyway, not with his taking possession of them. Not with the security of his arms crushing her, and the breach of affection she hadn’t known she so desperately needed, claiming her from the ravages of war around them.

  A transmission cut in, haunting the moment of a first kiss that should have been infinitely tender, with the shock of a Frenchman’s words bleeding over the radio.

  “Les sanglots longs . . . Des violons . . .”

  Julien stopped, his lips pausing in their brush over hers.

  “De l’automne . . . Blessent mon cœur . . .”

  Vi’s heart plummeted. She nearly crumpled in his arms, shock pulling her back when she recognized the poem as Paul Verlaine’s “Chanson d’automne.”

  “Julien.” She looked up into his eyes, a tear left free to cut a path down the side of her cheek. Wanting to go back to the whisper of a kiss. A moment of sweetness that had been so welcome, and then suddenly robbed from them.

  The voice continued, “D’une langueur . . . Monotone . . .”

  “You know what this means?”

  “I think so.” Her chin quivered, and her voice nearly faltered over the few syllables.

  “It’s a call to arms. If we hear Beethoven’s Fifth, the Allied invasion will begin in twenty-four hours.” He pecked his lips to hers in a casual way. As if they belonged together and had been doing so for years. “We’ll stand here and wait. Together. Oui? I won’t let you go.”

  They stood silent, his golden eyes looking down on her with forbearance, and strength, and such hope as they waited together, seconds ticking by on the clock. Vi gripped his arms, heart blasting in her chest, listening as static continued coughing from the radio speaker. And then the lilting melody of classical music reached out and pierced her heart.

  The recognizable drumming of Beethoven’s symphony cried out, the first series of notes corresponding to the letter V in Morse code: the resistance code for Victory.

  “No more tears, Lady. Not today.” Julien perked up with a characteristic smile. “We have twenty-four hours. Tonight we dance and feast like kings. Only God knows what tomorrow will bring.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  JUNE 21, 1789

  CHAPELLE DE LA SORBONNE

  PARIS, FRANCE

  Ten pairs of gloves. Six hats. Five dainty bottles of eau de parfum—the most lavish and so-priced scent available in Rose Bertin’s shop. And reams of satin and brocade, wrapped in lavender paper and boxed up in her carriage.

  Aveline rode away from Le Grand Mogol shop in possession of it all.

  It wouldn’t take nearly as long to dispose of the lot as it had to purchase. Of that, she was certain. And in a matter of an hour’s time, she’d been relieved of the burden in trade for a chartered wagonette and an overflowing load of wheat and salt. A second wagonette followed behind, stocked with bread, cheese, and wine. And due to her father’s standing in the Second Estate, she was not required to pay a tax. The people would receive every ounce of its worth.

  It was the one and only time Aveline could applaud a lack of taxation.

  Knowing she could be spotted on sight and remembered, Aveline instructed Durand to pull the carriage only close enough to watch from the shadows. The wagonettes pulled up to the market’s edge, as she’d instructed, and stopped in front of the courtyard gates of the Sorbonne. Though the clergy would have expected they’d be called upon to distribute any donated alms to the poor, the men of the cloth were not asked to intervene.

  Not this time.

  Aveline’s heart thundered in her chest as she peeked around the carriage curtain. Children . . . men and women . . . the forgotten—they came forward.

  Cautious and questioning at first. Was this a trick? They looked around, bewildered. The king’s guards hadn’t been summoned. And the merchants, too, were unaware of the source of the goods. Was it real? A gift from God, perhaps? The hired men, paid for their silence, offer
ed the goods without debt. Then, smiles. The filling of torn aprons and weary arms—all to brimming. The men she’d hired distributed the wares: satin for salt, plumed hats for bread, and gloves traded in for the rich color of wine.

  It was a sight Aveline would never forget. For each pair of hands that opened to receive, another reparation had been selected, paid for, and freely given.

  A single violet: more color for their world.

  AUGUST 9, 1789

  LES TROIS-MOUTIERS

  LOIRE VALLEY, FRANCE

  “If the painting is not hanging in the portrait room, you should be relieved for it. Not left in fear. It means your likeness is protected.”

  Fan had stolen Robert away from the rest of the men the instant they’d realized the portrait was missing. Her argument held some comfort, though Aveline still felt a knot of worry that continued its relentless tightening in her midsection.

  She gazed around, eyes sharp to the bustle of the workers below the front steps, as they piled a great mound of splintered wood on the road to the castle. They strong-armed bed frames, settee limbs, wingback chairs, and tea tables. All the while, Aveline wondered if each was a man privy to the knowledge of who she was.

  “But if someone should learn that I’m still here . . . Anyone in possession of it may try to use it against us.” Aveline turned her face to the paved stone beneath their feet. “I have acted in haste. I should have listened to you, Robert. Should have stayed at the cottage until Philippe returned. Or fled back to Paris after my mother left.”

  “You were not well enough to do so, mademoiselle. And I would put forth that you may not even be well enough to do so now. A cross-country journey by coach holds its own dangers.”

  Aveline met Robert’s gaze, noting he’d seen fit to address her in a more formal manner, at least for the benefit of Fan’s ears.