He’d never been much interested in my friends before; to the contrary, he tended to be jealous of my relationship with any person of truly interesting character, male or female. So this was a campaign, I realized. The chateau, the sobriety, the bonhomie. Willie was trying to win me back the way he’d once won a seat in Congress: by sheer force of will.
And I was willing to let him try.
* * *
—
Emily was out of her head with joy to see me in Paris. She embraced me so tightly that I felt her baby kick, and I scolded her distended belly, “Is that any way to greet your aunt Beatrice?”
Inside Emily’s well-furnished flat, Marie-Louise LeVerrier was pouring tea, and Clara Simon lit a cigarette with a sigh of exhaustion. She didn’t look well; none of them did. Especially not Emily, who ought to have been glowing with the fullness of motherhood, but while I’d been fishing in Bar Harbor, she’d been up to her elbows in blood nursing soldiers, and worrying about her husband’s fantastically dangerous night flying missions. I felt keenly guilty for not being here with her.
“The war has taken a toll,” Marie-Louise said, explaining they’d already used the proceeds from my toy store. “Widows and spinsters and lost children all are in desperate straits. We do our best for one, then ten more appear.”
I hadn’t done enough in New York. Maybe I never could do enough . . . still, I was determined to try.
Emily said, “I made up the guest room. Please promise you’ll stay with me until the baby is born. I hope my child has good sense enough to wait on his father. The baron is trying to get leave for the holidays. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he could be home for the birth of his son? At least I hope it will be a boy.”
Clara rolled her eyes. “There are reasons to be happy for a girl too . . .”
I agreed, but I wouldn’t have said so while blowing a contemptuous ring of smoke. Yet that was Clara’s way. With a disagreeable harrumph, Emily stirred her tea. “I should hate to be so American that I disregard my husband’s desire for a boy to inherit his title.” The baron seemed modern enough to welcome a healthy child, whatever its sex, but one never knew when it came to the French. “Besides, Clara, aren’t you always saying French wives will do anything to please their men?”
Clara smirked. “I never said it was a good thing!”
Marie-Louise asked about my plans to buy Lafayette’s birthplace, which I explained in great detail, holding them in my thrall. “The current marquis de Lafayette—or at least, the man who styles himself so—descends from the female line. He’s heard of the Lafayette Fund and is interested in selling the castle, but doesn’t want to sell over the objections of the rest of the family—most especially the Chambruns, one of whom is serving now at the front as a commandant in the artillery.”
“I know him,” said Clara.
“Well, I need to convince him. I don’t suppose you could help?”
Clara shook her head, then reminded me, “But you know someone else who can . . .”
Which is why, despite all my better judgment, I sent a cable to the front lines, for the eyes of Maxime Furlaud.
THIRTY-SIX
MARTHE
Chavaniac-Lafayette
September 7, 1942
The baroness is frowning. I’ve caught her on rounds at the preventorium. She’s inspecting the dormitory, where boys perform their daily calisthenic drills in the yard just outside, while on the veranda, the more fragile boys sleep fitfully on a long row of beds—some coughing, others wheezing. She probably expects me to update her on my progress with the sculpture I’m supposed to be making, but I shove the photograph I found in Madame Beatrice’s old hatbox under her nose.
“Where did you get this?” she demands to know. I don’t have to ask if she recognizes the man. I can see from the way her mouth turns down at the corners that she does. I can’t very well tell her that I found the picture while trying to hide my forged stamp. And I can’t tell her that I’ve since snooped in all Madame Beatrice’s things, reading a stash of love letters from Maxime Furlaud, and that some of these letters mention a girl named Marthe. Instead, I tell the baroness, “I was looking for paper in the desk upstairs and found this instead. Do you know this man?”
“Yes,” the baroness says, ostentatiously returning her attention to her clipboard. “Monsieur Furlaud was Beatrice’s friend—a banker, as I recall.”
My breath catches. “But when I showed you my birth record you said you didn’t recognize that name!”