Kit looked up in sympathy and pulled the pipe from his mouth. “We can trade places, if you like. Olivier, my little soldier, would you like to . . . er, learn a few new maneuvers, perhaps?”
Olivier cast Kit a withering look. “We’ve already done that.”
“Then come back here and help your sister decide her next move.”
“Hate chess!”
“Shh,” said Daisy. “Remember, we have to be very quiet, like mice.”
Olivier went rigid. His cheeks turned red, his eyes closed. Daisy lunged for him and tried to put her hand over his mouth, but it was too late. The scream was rising, she felt it gathering in his chest, unstoppable—
The door slid open.
Everybody whipped around.
“Uncle Max!” called out Olivier, and he ran all five steps across the room and flung himself into the arms of Lieutenant Colonel von Sternburg, who had already knelt to receive him.
For two days they had been living inside the few paltry square meters of Kit’s quarters, and their only glimpse of the world beyond came twice a day in the form of Max von Sternburg, who brought food and news and sweets and trinkets for the children. He always wore his civilian suit, so as not to attract attention and because it was well-known among his fellow officers—Max explained all this to Kit and Daisy, blushing a little—that he kept a mistress, a pretty married woman of whom he was deeply enamored, and they met for their assignations at the Ritz. And since a German officer wasn’t supposed to wear his uniform on the rue Cambon side, nobody questioned why he should change into his suit of navy blue and set off from the Hôtel Meurice in the direction of the Ritz, bearing gifts. It was, in short, the perfect cover.
To the children, of course, he was like Father Christmas, and they greeted him with ecstatic enthusiasm. One by one he pulled the parcels from his pockets and his satchel—coffee, ham, bread, cheese, a bottle of wine, some toy soldiers, a hair ribbon, an enamel box. While the children examined these treasures, he turned to Daisy and Kit. His face was weary.
“Is there any news of Pierre?” Daisy asked. She couldn’t help feeling a perverse sense of guilt that her husband had been arrested for a crime—if you could call it that—that she herself had committed. Maybe it was justice, but Daisy would have preferred the right kind of justice, an accounting for the deeds Pierre alone was responsible for.
“He’s being held for questioning at avenue Foch,” said Max. “The Gestapo headquarters. Thus far, he has said nothing to implicate you.”
Daisy shrugged. “I doubt it would even occur to him.”
“Or perhaps he still harbors some little love for you,” Max said gently. “Either way, it keeps us safe, for the moment.”
“And my grandmother?”
“There’s no word yet.”
“So we keep waiting,” said Kit.
“Not much longer, I expect.” Max was staring at the children, who sat at the table to divide the loot. Olivier, ever ravenous, had already torn off a piece of bread, and Daisy didn’t reprimand him. Let him have it. She couldn’t keep anything down at the moment, anyway, and the less notice drawn to that fact, the better.
Kit checked his watch. “Look, I’ve got to step out for a moment, if you don’t mind. Daisy? You’ll be all right?”
“Yes, of course,” said Daisy. Neither she nor Max inquired as to the nature of Kit’s errand. For one thing, it was always better not to know, unless absolutely necessary. For another thing, there was the question of Max’s loyalty, and where it came from, and how far it went. Kit accepted Grandmère’s word that Von Sternburg could be trusted where Daisy was concerned, but he wasn’t pleased about it, and Max himself seemed to recognize the delicacy of the situation.
Kit looked at him now, and they traded some communication between them.
“You’ll keep them safe,” Kit said, and it was not a question.
“Of course,” Max replied.
When Kit was gone, the tension eased a fraction. He had left his pipe in the dish on the table, and Daisy knocked out the ash, mostly because that released the smell of the tobacco into the air, which made it seem as if Kit were still in the room. Max sat down in the empty chair and held up the hair ribbon. He told Madeleine that he had picked it out just for her, because it matched the color of her eyes.
“Why?” Daisy said suddenly.
Max looked up. “I beg your pardon?”
She thought, You’re risking your life for us, for a woman and two children you scarcely know. Why us?
But she couldn’t say it, not while the children sat there, all ears. Instead she walked to the other side of the room and took the poker to the few coals. A moment later, Von Sternburg came up next to her, smelling of cold November air, of damp wool and longing.
“It’s because of your mother,” he said softly.
“What about my mother?” Daisy’s voice came out a little high.
“We knew each other only a short time, during the last war,” he said. “But she was an extraordinary woman, and I have never forgotten her. Even behind German lines, we heard the legend of the Demoiselle de Courcelles, and what she had done for France. Of course, the popular story was not quite as I remembered it.”
Daisy let this sink in for a moment. She felt him breathe quietly next to her, while she breathed, too, trying to gain some control over herself and her racing thoughts. Finally she turned to him.
“You were in love with her, weren’t you?” she said, and her voice, almost to her own surprise, was full of pity. “That’s what this is all about.”
Von Sternburg gazed back with a look that shattered her.
“There was a time when I hated her because I thought she had betrayed me,” he said. “And then a time, just as the war was ending, before I even had the chance to find her again, when I learned from a newspaper that she was dead of influenza, and I grieved for her and what we had lost. And then I came to understand, and to forgive.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Haven’t I?” He smiled. “The answer is yes. We were very much in love. And I have never forgiven myself for losing her.”
When the children were asleep at last, tucked into their pallets downstairs, Daisy climbed the hatchway stairs to Kit’s bedroom, which was now their bedroom, as if they were a family together in a very small home.
He was awake. “Everything quiet?” he said, opening the blanket for her.
“Yes, they’re both asleep.” She climbed in and yawned. The bed was made for only one person, and they had to lie almost on top of each other to fit inside it, which neither Kit nor Daisy minded. Especially now, when any moment might be their last. Already Kit’s hands were reaching under her camisole to find her breasts. She stretched her arms up and closed her eyes. The camisole slipped over her head. Kit was kissing her neck, her breasts, her stomach, and her skin came alive, as it always did, warming them both as he raised himself above her and joined them together in the cold, silent night. As they rocked against each other, he kissed her cheek and asked her why she was crying.
“It’s nothing,” she sobbed.
Kit went still and studied her. “It’s not nothing. Tell me.”