In a daze, Aurélie went down the familiar stairs. Or was she meant to be using the back stairs now, as befitted her new station? Would Hoffmeister outfit her in an apron and cap and have her serve at table? Or was she to sleep in rags at the hearth like Cinderella in the old tale?
None of it mattered, she knew that. Clothes were merely coverings for the body; a bed was a bed was a bed.
But she was shaking all the same.
Her belongings were scattered all over the courtyard. A pair of camiknickers was hanging, like a schoolboy’s prank, off the arm of the cherub that adorned the Italianate fountain. Aurélie made her way around the courtyard, gathering her belongings one by one, like a peasant foraging for firewood. A chemise here, a shirtwaist there, all so sad and crumpled, such pitiful little pieces of a life, useless embroidery on her underthings, beading on her evening frocks. What good did any of that do her now? She would do better to dress in wool as the country people did.
Her favorite dress, the one with the large flower embroidered on the bodice, had landed square in a mud puddle, the delicate fabric dark with dirt.
Aurélie knelt and lifted it from the mud. No amount of washing would bleach the stain of the clay of Picardy out of that silk. She shouldn’t care. She shouldn’t. What use had she for evening dresses now? But she caught herself clutching the crumpled silk to her chest, hunching over it as the sobs caught in the back of her throat.
“Mademoiselle?” Someone cleared his throat. “Mademoiselle de Courcelles?”
Aurélie turned her face away, a blind instinct born of shame. She couldn’t let him see her this way. She couldn’t let anyone see her this way. But particularly not Lieutenant von Sternburg. Not he.
His shadow fell across the clothes; she saw the tips of his uniform boots as he crouched down beside her. Their polish seemed like an affront. “What happened here?”
“Why? Do you want to catalog it? Write the items down in a ledger? So many soiled skirts? One ruined evening gown?” It might have sounded more impressive if her voice hadn’t cracked.
“I had thought,” he said gently, “to render assistance.”
She couldn’t bear his pity. “To whom? Would you like to dance what’s left into the dirt?” She wasn’t being politic. Aurélie rubbed the back of her hand against her eyes. It was, she belatedly realized, streaked with mud. Which was probably all over her face. Turning away, Aurélie said woodenly, “Forgive me. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
She made to rise to her feet, catching one heel in her hem. Von Sternburg was immediately there with a hand on her elbow to help her. “Who did this? Did Lieutenant Kraus . . .”
Mutely, Aurélie shook her head. “I’ve been required to change my chamber. It appears my circumstances have been reduced. Your commanding officer was kind enough to help me move my things.”
“This is insupportable.”
Insupportable because the Demoiselle de Courcelles might have to live in a room without ormolu cabinets and eighteenth-century boiseries? Something inside Aurélie cracked. Wrenching her elbow away, she demanded, “Is it? Is it any more insupportable than confiscating Madame Lely’s only mattress? More insupportable than taking all of Monsieur Dubois’s chickens when he has a sick mother to feed? More insupportable than melting down the brasses from the church to make shell casings?”
His throat moved beneath his stiff military collar with its imperial insignia. “Those were for the war effort. This—”
“Were all the coffee grinders in the village required for the war effort?” Aurélie shook her ruined dress in his face. “Is that your plan, Lieutenant von Sternburg? To starve your prisoners to death? Because that’s what’s happening. There are children—children who haven’t had a proper meal in weeks! While you dine on foie gras and the best wine from our cellars.”
“I haven’t been. Dining on foie gras.” Von Sternburg winced, as though he realized the irrelevancy of that. “I wouldn’t . . . I haven’t . . . oh bother. You’re right, you know. That is exactly what some people think we ought to do. Starve the occupied population into submission. Make you so weak, you can’t resist.”
His voice was as she’d never heard it before. Clipped. Expressionless.
“And the old men?” she asked, her voice hoarse with fear. “The ones whose wits have gone with genièvre?”
Von Sternburg’s blue eyes met hers. She was tall, but he was taller. One seldom noticed it, because he had such an unassuming air, but now he stood straight, unsmiling.