“Oh my. Could it really be so late? Drew promised me he’d take me bicycling in the Bois de Boulogne, didn’t you?” I stared pointedly at him.
His slow nod became suddenly earnest. “Yes. Absolutely. We don’t want to be late,” he said enthusiastically as he excused himself and stood, then pulled back my chair. “Ladies, it’s been great and a pleasure meeting you both. Enjoy your afternoon.”
Prunella stopped talking for a moment, looking nonplussed. “But I’m only up to the first day of our Lusitania voyage.”
I stood and picked up the book so I wouldn’t forget it again. “You know, Mrs. Schulyer, you really should write this all down in a memoir. There must be dozens of people who’d love to hear your story.”
Her thick eyebrows shot up. “Do you really think so? I am quite a good writer, so it would make perfect sense.” She raised her hand and called for the waiter. “Gar?on!” she called, butchering the word so that the waiter had no idea he was being summoned. “Gar?on!” she yelled, louder this time and he turned, most likely to find out what the commotion was all about. “Get me a typewriter. Immediately before I lose my muse!”
Drew took my elbow and began to gently pull me away from the table. Precious waved. “You two kids have fun.” She actually winked and I blushed, quite sure that her definition of fun didn’t involve riding boots and a gelding. Or perhaps it did.
I began heading toward the lift, but Drew called me back. “Where are you going? I thought we had a date.”
“Oh, I just said that—” I stopped. “You don’t have to take me anywhere.”
“Maybe I’d like to.”
“Really?” I said, feeling like a giddy schoolgirl. “I’m sure you have other things to do.”
“Actually no. So if you’re free, let’s go.”
I felt a little surge of something in my chest as I followed him outside. We headed out the door and he began walking while I clutched Kit’s book and wondered what I was supposed to do with it while riding a bicycle. “Wait,” I said, stopping. “You’re headed in the wrong direction. The park is that way, on the western edge of the sixteenth arrondissement,” I said, pointing in the opposite direction.
“True. But Le Mouton Noir is this way. If we want to find La Fleur, I think that’s the best place to start, don’t you?”
“Of course,” I said, feeling oddly disappointed and not a little foolish as I ran to catch up with him. “That’s why we’re here. To find La Fleur.”
I forced a smile as we walked together, retracing my footsteps to the bookstore from the previous day, and fervently wishing I’d never heard of La Fleur.
Chapter Eleven
Aurélie
The Chateau de Courcelles
Picardy, France
September 1914
There were flowers at Aurélie’s place at the table when she came down for breakfast the next morning, a bouquet of daisies tied with a grosgrain bow.
“You have an admirer, I see,” said her father. “One with simple tastes.”
“It must have been one of the mayors,” said Aurélie, slipping into her seat beneath a painting of a decidedly overdressed shepherdess. “When they came out this morning for their instructions.”
“It was the quiet German left them for you.” Suzanne slapped the coffeepot down so hard that Aurélie was amazed the porcelain pot didn’t shatter. It was surprisingly sturdy stuff, Limoges. “Came right in, all please and thank you and apologies, wanting to know which was your place. I wouldn’t have told him, but . . .”
But when a German asked, one obeyed.
“Of course, you couldn’t do otherwise.” The flowers that had been sweet a moment ago now seemed sinister. A floral tribute wasn’t much of a tribute when one hadn’t the right to refuse it.
Would you commandeer my good will? she had asked Lieutenant von Sternburg the night before. It seemed he intended to do just that.
“They’re only flowers,” she said, to no one in particular.
“He has a softness for you.” Aurélie didn’t miss the way her father glanced over his shoulder as he said it, watching for listeners.
Aurélie shrugged and helped herself to a miniscule portion of jam. On second thought, she recklessly slathered the bread. Better to take what they could before the Germans commandeered it. “He doesn’t like unpleasantness, that’s all. He’s trying to pretend this is a social call.”